It’s weird to think that, until Deadpool and Logan came along, the world of superheroes was pretty sanitary in terms of language. There was the occasional “shit” in an X-Men film, and Wolverine dropped an F-bomb in one of them, but aside from that it was all the kinds of words you’d happily use in front of your mum.
Like, imagine being Batman. When you saw the Joker, dressed as a nurse, covered in smeared greasepaint, looking terrifying, wouldn’t you turn the air at least a little bit blue? Asking us to believe he can conceal his identity as Gotham City’s most eligible bachelor is one thing, expecting us to buy the idea that he never sees baddies heading towards him and lets an “Ah fuck” slip out borders on offensive.
But in a post-Deadpool world, all bets are off.
The upcoming X-Force, set up in Deadpool 2 and featuring many of its cast members (certainly the trio of Deadpool, Cable and Domino), will push the envelope at least as far as that film, according to its writers. Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese told CBR they thought they could outdo themselves, with Reese saying:
“I think the fun part of X-Force is they’re much more morally flexible than the X-Men. They can get their hands dirty a little bit. There’s more grey area. It’ll be raunchier, it’ll be rated R, I’m sure. We’ll get to see an ensemble movie that’s pushed, hopefully, as far as the Deadpool individual movie was pushed.”
X-Force came into the comics in the ‘90s, where everything was antiheroes and xxxxxxtremeness and belts with loads of pouches on and guns the size of fridges, so it makes sense that if anything could out-DeadpoolDeadpool, it’d be X-Force. Plus with the enormous box-office success of both Deadpools, who’s going to stop them really going for it?
(For the record, the first Deadpool had 84 F-bombs in it, while the record is held by the Canadian comedy Swearnet: The Movie, with 935).
(Image: 20th Century Fox)
