Deadpool & Wolverine’s smallest cameo points out what the movie is missing
The emotional heart of Deadpool & Wolverine is nestled in a Polaroid picture the Merc with a Mouth (Ryan Reynolds) carries with him.
That photo contains his “entire world”: his surrogate family and friends, consisting of nine people. They include his estranged wife Vanessa (Morena Baccarin); his best friend Peter (Rob Delaney); his roommate Blind Al (Leslie Uggams); his taxi driver and mentee Dopinder (Karan Soni); recurring extra Buck (Randal Reeder); and mutants Colossus (Stefan Kapičić), Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), and Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna).
The ninth member of this assemblage is… Well, that’s a small spoiler for one small, unexplained gag in Deadpool & Wolverine, but for those who don’t want to know about any of the cameos going in, you’ve been warned.
[Ed. note: Small Deadpool & Wolverine cameo spoiler ahead.]
The ninth person making up Wade Wilson’s entire world is Shatterstar (Lewis Tan), the cult X-Men character created by writer Fabian Nicieza and artist Rob Liefeld. Including him among Wade’s nearest and dearest is strange for a number of reasons: Shatterstar wasn’t particularly close to Deadpool in either of the prior films. His presence draws attention to the more significant characters who are absent from the gathering. Also, he died as a punchline in the middle of Deadpool 2, after only a few minutes of screentime.
Like so many minor heroes in the MCU, Shatterstar has an insanely convoluted backstory: He’s a mutant raised in an alternate universe who arrived on Earth as an alien. Even his powers are unnecessarily complicated. But the character summed them up well in his first live-action appearance in Deadpool 2: “I’m basically better than you — at everything.”
In that film, Shatterstar was introduced as a member of Deadpool’s short-lived X-Force team, alongside Peter, Domino (Zazie Beetz), Bedlam (Terry Crews), Zeitgeist (Bill Skarsgård) and the Vanisher (Brad Pitt). Deadpool assembled the team to protect the young mutant
Read more on polygon.com
