At the beginning of Deadpool 2, the title character posits the whole thing as a feature-length response to the emotionally charged ending of Logan. The movie opens with an action figure of Wolverine impaled on a spike with ‘Pool’s opening line being: “F**k Wolverine.”

Kevin Feige has said that the post-credits scene that inspired him to put one at the end of every movie in the MCU was the one in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Matthew Broderick’s title character walks out in his bathrobe and says to the camera, “You’re still here? It’s over. Go home.” So, it was a perfect gag when, following the end credits of Deadpool’s first solo outing, he did exactly the same thing. He emerged from the same bedroom into the same hallway and wore the same bathrobe over his superhero costume and uttered the same words to the audience. And he still found time for a Deadpool 2 tease, as he promised an appearance by Cable in the sequel.

Josh Brolin’s star-making turn as a teen actor was playing the big brother Brand in the ‘80s Amblin adventure comedy The Goonies. So, it was a delight for film fans when that classic got a shout-out in Deadpool 2. At one point in the movie, ‘Pool says to Cable (also played by Brolin), “Give me your best shot, One-Eyed Willy.” One-Eyed Willy is the legendary pirate whose treasure the titular group of kids is searching for in that movie. This means that the reference works two ways: he’s making fun of Cable’s only working eye, and he’s making fun of the career of the actor who plays him.

For as much as Ryan Reynolds makes fun of other celebrities and movies in the Deadpool films, he makes fun of himself and his own movies above all else. Fans went into 2016’s Deadpool with Reynolds’ disastrous 2011 Green Lantern movie still relatively fresh in their minds. The incoherent plot, the entirely CGI costume, the clichéd character development – everything about Green Lantern sucked and Reynolds knew it. So, the actor relished the opportunity to take a jab at his past failings as Wade Wilson was being wheeled off for mutant testing, pleading with his captors not to make the super-suit green or computer-generated.

With the release of Dark Phoenix bringing Fox’s faltering X-Men franchise grinding to a halt as the rights to the characters revert back to Marvel Studios in the Disney merger, fans will no longer have to keep up with the confusing timelines creating by the original series, prequel series, and time travel storylines all running concurrently. But back in 2016, when Deadpool was first released, keeping these timelines straight was still a great struggle. ‘Pool himself pointed this out when Colossus referred to Professor X and he wasn’t sure which Professor X he was referring to, the James McAvoy version of the Patrick Stewart version.