Who Is Julian Dennison Playing in "Deadpool 2"?

The full official trailer for "Deadpool 2" landed today.

Looks good. In particular, I think Zazie Beetz seems like a great fit for Domino.

But I'm not just here to be excited. There's one other aspect of this trailer that piqued my interest quite a bit. Specifically, the reveal that Cable has apparently traveled back in time to hunt down (and probably kill or something) the character played by young Julian Dennison.

As of now, it has not been revealed who Julian is playing. The only hints we have are a few glimpses from this and other trailers where he appears to have fire powers (AKA pyrokinesis).

This, along with Dennison's heritage as a Māori (indigenous Polynesian/New Zealander) has led to the common speculation that Julian Dennison will be playing St. John Allerdyce, also known as Pyro.

This makes some sense. In the comics, St. John Allerdyce is Australian, which isn't QUITE New Zealand, but it's a lot closer than pretty much any other mutant pyrokinetic in the comics. Plus, Pyro is probably the most well-known pyrokinetic mutant character in the comics, so it would make sense that he would be chosen.

There is a pretty huge problem with this theory, though. Specifically, the X-Men film franchise already HAS an interpretation of Pyro that appeared in "X2" and "X-Men: The Last Stand". Granted, he wasn't Australian, but his name was John Allerdyce, and this version of Pyro was probably one of the best aspects of "X2", so ret-conning him would be a little... well, risky.

There are other problems with this theory, too. Why would Cable need to kill Pyro? He's not that powerful. Also, why would the marketing team keep his identity secret? It's not a huge spoiler or anything, at least not as far as I can guess.

So even though this theory is probably correct, as a big fan of Deadpool and comics in general, and as a weirdo who occasionally likes to indulge in overwrought, pointless speculation, let's consider less obvious possibilities for who Julian Dennison is playing.

The Other Pyro

Since there's already a John Allerdyce in the X-Men film universe, they COULD go with the newer incarnation of Pyro, Simon Lasker. He's less well-known, but a Pyro's a Pyro, and I doubt anyone would care if Simon's heritage was changed. If John could go from Australian to American, then why couldn't Simon go from American to Māori? Still, this doesn't really change the problems with the character being Pyro (why would Cable care and why keep it a secret?), so I doubt this is likely.

Literally Any Other Pyrokinetic Mutant

While we're at it, let's just knock out a bunch of other random pyrokinetic mutants that Fox would have had the rights to before the whole Disney acquisition thing. None of these are really any more or less likely than Pyro, but let's just get them out of the way:

- Ben Hammil/"Match"

- Germaine Caruso/"Hothead"

- Neal Shaara/"Thunderbird"

- Vincent Stewart/"Redneck"/"Skybolt"

Those aren't ALL the pyrokinetic mutants, but they're the ones that came up in my quick research that could be altered to fit the role. Keep in mind, Negasonic Teenage Warhead was not a major comics character when they made her a prominent character in "Deadpool". It's possible they'll be once again be picking an obscure character and building a mostly new character on top of the foundation. Again, not really all that different from just using Pyro, but it would at least keep people like me guessing if they just want to create mystery for mystery's sake.

"Bobby Wright"

Now let's get into more interesting possibilities. If the character is introduced as Bobby Wright, there's a good chance most people in the audience won't know who that is, even among X-Men or Deadpool fans. And in truth, "Bobby Wright" isn't actually a real person at all.

See, there's this Skrull emperor named Kl'rt. He's also known as the Super Skrull. His history is... long and complicated, but essentially, he's known for being able to replicate other heroes' superpowers, most commonly the powers of the Fantastic Four.

Which would include the Human Torch.

But the other thing Skrulls are known for is shapeshifting. They're very good at infiltration and can go deep undercover for months, even years without detection, usually through implanting false or copied memories of the person they're masquerading as.

At one point in Kl'rt's character history, he pretends to be a young boy named Bobby Wright, who just so happens to get super powers and becomes "Captain Hero" for a short time.

This is not super likely, given that the Skrulls themselves have never been in any of the Fox films (even though they technically shared the rights) and the Captain Hero storyline is obscure and mostly connected to Iron Fist, not the Fantastic Four or X-Men. But this would at least explain why he's a serious threat and why they haven't revealed his identity in marketing yet.

Rusty Collins

Russell "Rusty" Collins was one character that just popped up in my research. I'm actually completely unfamiliar with him. Essentially, he was a member of X-Factor, he went by Firefist, he started out when he was 16 (about the same age as Dennison), and he was eventually killed by a being from the Age of Apocalypse (Earth-295) known as Holocaust, who basically sucked the life-force out of him to sustain his own.

Firefist isn't exactly a beloved character, so tweaking him won't piss anyone off. His age is about right, his power set is about right, and the Fox X-Men film universe has introduced Apocalypse. We don't know much about this version of Cable, so it's possible they've merged a lot of his history with the Age of Apocalypse stuff. In that case, Holocaust's nemesis in the Age of Apocalypse universe is apparently Nathan Grey, the Earth-295 version of Cable.

So to pull it all together, it's possible that Holocaust (or Nemesis if they want to use a name with less cultural baggage) is going to travel back in time, drain the power from Rusty, and then proceed to use Rusty's power to take over the world. In that sense, Cable could be trying to kill Rusty so that Holocaust/Nemesis' plan will fail and the future will be saved. Or, more likely, they'll just keep the same basic idea and replace Holocaust/Nemesis with Black Tom or some other Cable-related villain.

John

I know what you're thinking. "Who the Hell is John?"

Well, he's a young pyrokinetic mutant who appeared in only two comic book issues, died, and was never really heard from again.

So what's so special about that?

Well, those two issues were issues of "Deadpool".

Specifically, this was during probably the least interesting part of the first volume of "Deadpool". Frank Tieri took over for a few months, and his first arc was "Deadpool: Agent of Weapon X". During an interlude in "Deadpool #57", we're introduced to John (though we don't see him) as he accidentally sets his home on fire and accidentally kills his family and goes on an uncontrolled rampage throughout Iowa.

In "Deadpool #58", Deadpool and Kane (a former member of Cable's team Six Pack) are tasked with hunting him down. They do, but initially they're overwhelmed by John's uncontrollable inferno. After Kane fails to take him down, Wade tries to talk him down by making him laugh. This strategy works and he finds out that John is just a mutant kid who hasn't learned how to control his powers. As he starts to get to know the kid, though, Kane shoots him from behind, killing him.

This one's admittedly a long-shot. Tieri's run was short-lived and not fondly remembered. I honestly had forgotten about this character until he came up in my research for this post. But it's a character directly related to Deadpool, he's a kid, he's a mutant, he has pyrokinetic powers, and he was killed by a character closely associated with Cable. Also, calling him John would throw off people expecting Pyro.

It's hard to imagine why Cable himself would time-travel to kill this kid. Maybe he accidentally burns down something (or someone) important to the future. But in a way, that's kind of the point. Deadpool has to not be able to understand why Cable would want to hunt this kid down in order to want to defend him, and John is a canonical example of a young, pyrokinetic mutant character that Deadpool stuck his neck out for.

And yeah, that could just as easily be Pyro or any of the other pyrokinetic mutants I mentioned, but I like the idea of referencing a throwaway tragic character from a brief run nobody remembers. It would be weird, but so is Deadpool.

So those are all the possibilities. Again, it's probably just going to end up being Pyro or a completely original character, but I had fun speculating all the same.

UPDATE: Screen Rant also floated another possibility that's way more plausible than any of mine: Kid Apocalypse. I never read the "Uncanny X-Force" books and he didn't show up in Marvel's list of pyrokinetics when I did my half-assed research, but supposedly, Kid Apocalypse has the potential for any superhuman ability, so the apparent pyrokinesis on display in the trailers could just be misdirection. Given that the revised X-Men timeline involved Apocalypse and that Deadpool was a part of the Kid Apocalypse story in the comics, I'd say this theory is by far the most plausible I've heard.