A brand new trailer for Deadpool 2 has arrived, but a mystery remains about the identity of Julian Dennison's character, who is being hunted down by time-travelling cyborg Cable (Josh Brolin). Dennison didn't get much screen time in the first trailer, but we did learn that he and Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) are imprisoned together in a facility for containing mutants, and that Cable breaks into the place and then later attacks a prison transport. Now, we have a solid theory about who Dennison could be playing: Kid Apocalypse.
In this latest trailer, Cable declares, "I'm here for the kid" while fighting Deadpool in the prison, and we later see Dennison's character standing amid wreckage, surrounded by cops, with heat emanating from his hands. Cable's determination to kill the kid is reminiscent of an Uncanny X-Force storyline in which the X-Force - including Deadpool, Archangel, Wolverine, Fantomex and Psylocke - were faced with the moral quandary of whether or not to kill an innocent child, who just so happened to be a resurrected version of the immensely powerful and destructive mutant Apocalypse. Psylocke was determined to protect the young Apocalypse, while Archangel was determined to kill him, but ultimately it was Fantomex who pulled the trigger (literally).
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However, Fantomex used blood gathered from the murdered Apocalypse's body to create a new version of Apocalypse, this one raised in a micro-universe to be a good kid and, eventually, a hero. Called Evan Sabahnur (a version of Apocalypse's alter-ego name, En Sabah Nur) and also known as Genesis, Kid Apocalypse was eventually released from the simulated world in which he'd been contained, and brought to the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning (a later name for Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters). One of the X-Men's most dangerous foes was reinvented as a young hero. He is not as powerful as the adult Apocalypse, but he has a number of abilities including superhuman strength and durability, the ability to shapeshift, and the ability to fire energy blasts - though his list of potential powers is virtually unlimited.
Considering that X-Force is confirmed to appear in Deadpool 2, if Dennison is indeed playing a version of Kid Apocalypse, it would make a lot of sense given the character's connections to the team (who will be introduced in Deadpool 2), and would also explain why Cable is trying to get his hands on him. Perhaps Cable comes from a future where this young Apocalypse has grown into an adult and caused massive destruction, and his mission is to prevent that from ever happening. Of course, Deadpool's movies are theoretically set in the same timeline where Apocalypse attacked and was defeated in the 1980s in X-Men: Apocalypse, but putting aside the X-Men universe's myriad continuity issues (which Deadpool 2 could potentially fix), it's not out of the question that Apocalypse could have returned to cause even greater devastation.
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Cable also has close ties to Apocalypse in the comics, as it was Apocalypse who infected young Nathan Summers with a killer virus that could only be cured with future technology. Cable's father, Cyclops, agreed to let his son be taken into the future in order to save his life. Presumably Deadpool 2 will offer some kind of explanation of Cable's origins, so it's possible that the time-traveller is actually trying to prevent Apocalypse from ever infecting him in the first place. Then again, of course, we could be wrong about all this and Dennison could be playing a different character altogether.
In any case, it's also suggested in the trailer that Deadpool might take "the kid" under his wing (after all, he's young enough to lead his own 10-12 year franchise), in which case Deadpool may be responsible for ensuring that the young mutant grows up to be a good, wholesome, upstanding member of society.
Oh dear.
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