Not long ago, former X-Men ’97 showrunner Beau DeMayo indicated on social media that Deadpool was an “off-limits” character for them to use on the series. Now, it seems that rule might not be a forever rule, and future seasons might include Wade Wilson in all his glory. While talking to Screen Rant, Marvel Animation’s Brad Winderbaum clarified the Deadpool situation regarding X-Men ’97, and hinted that we just might see him pop up in future seasons. Here’s what he had to say about everyone’s favorite Merc with the Mouth:
I don’t know that it was like a hard and fast rule that we couldn’t use Deadpool. We would have had to have an insanely compelling reason to bring Deadpool in. Because we’re also developing the feature simultaneously. So, unless it was something that really was an undeniable creative idea, it seemed like, ‘Why would we do it?’ But also, I’ll say, the season is so chock-full of big, giant, amazing fulfilling ideas that throwing Deadpool in there almost feels like arbitrary at a certain point. Is there a potential for Deadpool to come in? Absolutely, he was in the original series, briefly as we all know, and certainly we’re all fans, so we’ll see what happens.
Several years back, Marvel announced a Deadpool animated series for FX with Donald Glover in charge. However, they canceled it before airing a single episode. Maybe Ryan Reynolds didn’t want anyone else playing him on the regular. A guest appearance on an X-Men show may not be as hard to pull off though. If and when Deadpool shows up, it will likely have something to do with Wolverine’s Weapon X days. With Logan no longer having his adamantium skeleton, he might need help to get it back. Who better to enlist than another survivor of the same program like Wade?
We imagine any version of Deadpool on X-Men ’97 would be significantly more toned down than the big-screen iteration. After all, X-Men ’97 isn’t really a show where one drops f-bombs left and right. A “safe for kids” version appeared in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon back in 2013 on Disney XD. So there is precedent for this to happen.
Having said that, we wouldn’t be surprised if Ryan Reynolds played the role in X-Men ’97 when the time comes. This is not something we expect to see in the near future. In the meantime, we’ll have to be content with the live-action X-Men meeting Wade in Deadpool & Wolverine.