Logan

Anchor beings. Deadpool & Wolverine (film, 2024) introduces the idea that some individuals are so central to their reality that when they die, the universe unravels around them. Logan was the anchor being of the Fox universe.

Introduces Wolverine (Logan) — regenerative healing, adamantium-laced skeleton, retractable claws, no memory of his past; Rogue, who absorbs life force through skin contact; Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, and Magneto's Brotherhood including Mystique and Toad.

Logan (2017) — 2029. Mutants are nearly extinct. Xavier has a degenerative brain condition that causes lethal psychic seizures. Logan is dying of adamantium poisoning. He escorts a young clone, Laura / X-23, to safety and dies doing it.

The TVA determines that the Fox universe (Earth-10005) is dying because its anchor being — Logan — died in Logan. The universe is scheduled for erasure. The villain is Cassandra Nova, Xavier's twin sister, exiled to the Void — the junkyard reality at the end of time where the TVA dumps pruned timelines. There they find survivors of discarded franchises: Elektra, Blade, Gambit, X-23, and the Human Torch from the 2000s Fantastic Four films.

And he already knew of Wolverine — in Deadpool 2 he mimics his poses and references Logan's ending directly. The joke is that Wade is a fan.

How is Wolverine alive if he died? He isn't the same one. The Logan of Logan stays dead — the film literally opens by digging up his grave and using his skeleton as a weapon. The Wolverine Wade recruits is a variant from another universe: one who arrived too late and let his own X-Men be slaughtered, and has been drinking about it since. Wade specifically goes looking for a Wolverine who's already broken.

How is the timeline saved? The TVA bureaucrat Paradox was using the TimeRipper to accelerate Earth-10005's destruction so he could get a promotion and build his own timeline. Wade and Logan destroy the device by grabbing its two opposing poles — matter and antimatter — absorbing enough voltage to kill anything, and surviving only because one regenerates and the other can't die.

But the actual save is quieter than the explosion. Hunter B-15 arrives afterwards to report that Earth-10005 has stopped decaying — the new Wolverine has taken over as its anchor being, replacing the one who died in Logan. Paradox had insisted an anchor being couldn't be replaced by a variant. He was wrong, and nobody at the TVA understands why it worked.

Tier 3 — the X-Men homework — all FILMS X-Men (2000) · X2 · The Last Stand · Days of Future Past · Logan · Deadpool 1 & 2