Deadpool & Wolverine Trailer Teases The Return Of More Forgotten Marvel Mutants
The latest trailer for "Deadpool & Wolverine" suggests the movie might be even more of a cameo-fest than we'd previously predicted.
Hugh Jackman is back as Logan, of course, and he's bringing leftover characters from the erstwhile 20th Century Fox's Marvel Universe. We already knew Elektra (Jennifer Garner), Pyro (Aaron Stanford), and Toad would be back. So will Wolverine's archenemy Sabretooth (though whether played by Tyler Mane, Liev Schreiber, or a new actor remains to be seen), perhaps finally giving Logan a chance at closure.
Around the 1:50 minute mark of the new trailer, you were probably focused on the decapitated head of a Giant Man variant (his rotting skull concealed within his ant-styled helmet). I'm much more curious about the characters standing beneath this makeshift base, who look to be familiar (mutant) faces from previous "X-Men" films: Yuriko Oyama/Lady Deathstrike from "X2" and Azazel from "X-Men: First Class."
Both are seen at too far a distance to determine if their previous actors — Kelly Hu and Jason Flemyng — are back (though Hu told Joblo in 2022 she'd be interested in returning, provided she actually gets to speak this time). Still, Deathstrike's unfurled adamantium claws and Azazel's red skin are giveaways. If I can offer a conjecture, both mutants (plus Sabretooth, Pyro, and Toad) look like they're going to be cannon fodder in the villainous Cassandra Nova's multiverse-spanning army.
Lady Deathstrike
Deathstrike, like Sabretooth, is more a foe of Wolverine than the X-Men as a whole. She's the daughter of Professor Kenji Oyama, "Lord Dark Wind," the man who invented the adamantium-skeletal bonding process eventually used on Wolverine. The Oyamas debuted in "Daredevil" issues #196-199 (written by Dennis O'Neil, drawn primarily by Klaus Janson and William Johnson, with a few pages filled in by Larry Hama) after Dark Wind replaced the assassin Bullseye's shattered spine with an adamantium one.
Writer Bill Mantlo and artist Sal Buscema cannily repurposed Yuriko as an adversary of Wolverine in the series "Alpha Flight." Believing Wolverine's body holds the adamantium stolen from her father, Lady Deathstrike seeks to kill Logan to avenge perceived dishonor to her family.
In "Uncanny X-Men" issue #205, (written by Chris Claremont, drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith — the latter of whom later depicted Wolverine's own tortuous origin in the mini-series "Weapon X"), Deathstrike goes a step further. Alongside mercenaries with grudges against Wolverine, she remakes herself into a cyborg, forming the "Reaver" gang.
Her upgrade includes claws, but ones that stretch all 10 of her fingers into unbreakable blades (rather than a pair of three claws extending from the knuckles on both hands like Logan). Compare Deathstrike's powers to Lust from "Fullmetal Alchemist" or the internet's goth waifu, Lady Dimitrescu from "Resident Evil: Village" (both voiced by Kikuko Inoue — I smell a homage)!
Lady Deathstrike on film
Deathstrike as she appeared in "X-Men" #205 is the model for future depictions. When Deathstrike appeared in the 1992 "X-Men" cartoon, the series gave her grudge more grounding. Here, her father was a Weapon X professor who directly experimented on Wolverine, and Logan killed him when he escaped. In a past life, Logan and Yuriko were lovers too, making the grudge extra bitter.
"X2" ditches any backstory. Deathstrike is just William Stryker's (Brian Cox) silent and brainwashed assassin; it's implied she's a mutant with the same gift for healing as Wolverine, and so someone who could also survive Weapon X's adamantium-skeleton experiments. Her claws also look more like long (and metal) fingernails than the comics, while she wears not a custom samurai outfit, but the same black leather "Matrix"-inspired catsuit as all the X-Men. Her death (Wolverine injects her with liquid adamantium that seeps through her body and pours out of her eyes) was pretty gnarly though.
For future Lady Deathstrike reading, a 2021 arc ("X-Men: Legends" issues #7-9) written by the aforementioned Mr. Hama shows Wolverine and Jubilee fighting Deathstrike in Japan. She also shows up in the 2009 short "Hulk vs Wolverine" (also featuring Deadpool), if you want a comic-accurate Deathstrike onscreen.
Azazel
On Deathstrike's right is Azazel, another "X-Men" villain but a less beloved one. Introduced during Chuck Austen's, shall we say, unpopular run on "Uncanny X-Men," Azazel is (or was, since it has since been retconned) the father of Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler. Like his son, Azazel is a teleporting mutant with a prehensile tail. While Kurt has blue skin, Azazel has red — for good reason, because he's also a millennia-old demon lord with a heart as black as his appearance suggests.
1960s-set prequel film "X-Men: First Class" ditched the mystical side of Azazel. There, he's just a mutant involved in the Hellfire Club, a mutant supremacist organization trying to turn the Cold War hot so the Children of the Atom can rule the ashes. He's not explicitly connected to Nightcrawler either, but the movie being a prequel and their powers being depicted with the same special effects does imply a connection. Azazel in "First Class" is Russian, here, turning his appearance into a funny enough joke about red (as in Soviet) devils and showing how for the mutants, their identity trumps human ideology.
Jason Flemyng often works with "First Class" director Matthew Vaughn (he hasn't shown up in "Kingsman" yet, but he did appear in "Layer Cake" and "Kick-Ass"). So it's not surprising that when Vaughn left "X-Men," so did Flemyng; Azazel is killed offscreen in the gap between "First Class" and sequel "Days of Future Past." Will "Deadpool & Wolverine" bother luring the actor back for what's sure to be a small role? Stay tuned.
"Deadpool & Wolverine" is scheduled to release in theaters on July 26, 2024.