Deadpool and Wolverine brings back one of the best pre-MCU stars for one final stab a fan-favorite role
Jul. 25, 2024Gotta love a little early ’00s nostalgia, right?
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Deadpool and Wolverineisn’t afraid to lean into fan-service. In fact, a great many of the bestDeadpool and Wolverine cameosare love letters to the days before the MCU ruled the world, harkening back to the first era of Marvel movies and the Fox glory days. While these appearances are ultimately intended to delight an audience that understands the history behind the various references, they also give the stars of forgotten or maligned movies a chance to take another bow, as was the case with one of the big cameos.
Attention readers: This story spoils a cameo and some plot details from Deadpool and Wolverine, so maybe don’t read it if you haven’t seen the movie and care about those kinds of things.
Deadpool and Wolverine has the two title characters (played by Ryan Reynolds and a returning Hugh Jackman) trying to stop the TVA, an organization that debuted in the Disney+ Loki series dedicated to “pruning” timelines, from destroying Deadpool’s universe. In the process, they find themselves banished to the Void, a hodge-podge reality where anyone and everything that’s been pruned ends up.
They meet characters from old Fox movies like X-Men villains Sabretooth (Tyler Mane) and Pyro (Aaron Stanford), plusChris Evans making an unexpected reprisal as his Fantastic Four character the Human Torch rather than Captain America. Following a fight, Deadpool and Wolverine find themselves in a hideout that some pruned heroes call home – the first of which is none other than Elektra, played for the first time in nearly 20 years by Jennifer Garner.
Who Does Jennifer Garner Play in Deadpool and Wolverine?
Elektra Natchios made her comics debut in 1981’s Daredevil #168. A love interest to the blind crimefighter who has been a villain, antihero, and straightforward hero herself, Elektra is a highly trained Greek assassin. Her weapons of choice? A pair of sais.
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The early- and mid-’00s were an interesting time for superhero movies, as while there were classics like the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films and the early X-Men movies, there were also a lot of movies that aren’t remembered fondly — in part because the were overshadowed by the launch of the MCU and Christopher Nolan’s Batman films a few years later.
Daredevil and Elektra aren’t especially beloved superhero movies. The first film did pretty well at the box office, but Elektra was a critical and commercial flop – though it’s notable for being one of the first female-led superhero movies. Garner’s performance as Elektra was generally well-regarded, though if it weren’t for Deadpool and Wolverine, odds were that she’d never don a superhero costume again.
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James is an entertainment writer and editor with more than a decade of journalism experience. He has edited for Vulture, Inverse, and SYFY WIRE, and he’s written for TIME, Polygon, SPIN, Fatherly, GQ, and more. He is based in Los Angeles. He is really good at that one level of Mario Kart: Double Dash where you go down a volcano.
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