Deadpool & Wolverine Concept Art Reveals Unused Logan Weapon X Variant

The gargantuan box office success of “Deadpool & Wolverine” is both a blessing and a curse. If you’re a Marvel Cinematic Universe fan, your beloved franchise has been saved by the Merc with the Mouth following a rocky few years that had many questioning whether the MCU was petering out. But if you’re an MCU fan that fondly recalls the early years of the franchise, when the movies had a tad more in the way of story and character development, the success of “Deadpool & Wolverine” might be slightly concerning. That is to say that if “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and Ryan Reynolds’ latest box office juggernaut are anything to go by, future Marvel Studios films — and, god forbid, blockbusters in general — might well devolve into simple montages of various cameos in an attempt to keep the money rolling in.

Regardless of how you feel about that particular nightmare future, there’s also no denying that the whole cameo thing can be a heck of a lot of fun, and must have been especially so for director Shawn Levy and writers Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Zeb Wells. The crew behind “Deadpool & Wolverine” basically gave themselves carte blanche to pack their movie with as many fun and zany Deadpool variants and cameos from Marvel stars past and present as they pleased. It wasn’t just Deadpool and the 20th Century Fox-era characters either. “Deadpool & Wolverine” is also full of numerous Logan variants, with Wade Wilson traversing the multiverse in order to find a suitable incarnation of Wolverine to help him on his mission to save his universe.

That meant the final film was about as close to an actual cameo montage as you can get without completely sacrificing narrative and character … which is why it’s impressive and slightly unnerving to learn of all the Wolverine variants (and others) who were actually left out of the final film. Now, we’ve just heard about a new version of Logan that didn’t make the cut, and this one would have been undeniably cool.

In the wake of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” we’ve already seen a ton of variants that were left out of the movie. Concept art revealed a mind-blowing Wolverine variant that would have seen the character crossed with Deadpool himself. Then, there was the hilarious Wolverine variant that would have depicted Logan as an actual wolverine. Even prior to the film’s release, we got a glimpse of a Wolverine variant that paid homage to one of the character’s weirdest comic book storylines.

Now, concept artist Phil Saunders has posted images of yet another iteration of Hugh Jackman’s character in the form of a Weapon X variant:

Based on the classic design from Barry Windsor-Smith’s celebrated 1991 comic book story arc “Weapon X,” this illustration also recalls a version of Wolverine that we’ve seen on-screen before. Indeed, Hugh Jackman previously rocked the Weapon X look during his “X-Men: Apocalypse” cameo in 2016. But it seems we would have gotten yet another glimpse at this classic design if Saunders’ concept had made the final cut of “Deadpool & Wolverine.” 

In his caption, the artist wrote that Windsor-Smith was “a huge deal” to him growing up, and that the image of Wolverine in his Weapon X form is his “most indelible memory” of the character from that period. According to Saunders, he was asked by Marvel Studios Director of Visual Development Andy Park to work on variants for “Deadpool & Wolverine” and this was one of the resulting images. He added: “I loved the subtle asymmetry of the helmet and the combination of aggression and vulnerability in BWS’s composition. Hope my homage does it the faintest bit of justice.”

It’s not clear how the Weapon X variant would have fit into “Deadpool & Wolverine,” as Phil Saunders doesn’t explain anything beyond his inspiration for creating the concept art. It’s likely that this was simply an idea that never went beyond this stage, and if it had, the Weapon X variant probably would have shown up during the montage in which Deadpool travels between various universes looking for a new Wolverine. This is the same sequence that gave us Henry Cavill’s cameo as the so-called “Cavill-rine” and the short Logan variant played by professional bodybuilder Luke Bennett.

Still, considering the widespread love for Barry Windsor-Smith’s original 1991 story arc and the undeniable cool-factor of the Weapon X suit, I can’t help but feel like this was a missed opportunity. What’s more, the Weapon X version of Wolverine has had his mind wiped by experimentation and is essentially a blank killing machine — which surely would have made for a gloriously violent face-off with Deadpool after he stumbled into whatever universe this beast of a Wolverine called home.

As previously mentioned, though, it’s not as if the movie is lacking for cameos and variants, so it makes sense that a few of the ideas — cool as they are — were scrapped. That said, this likely won’t be the only multiversal outing for Deadpool and his new compatriot, so perhaps we’ll eventually see some of these ideas, Weapon X included, pop up in future when the MCU is basically one ongoing cameo montage.