18 Years Later, Marvel Just Turned the X-Men’s Most Underrated Antihero Into a ‘Hardcore Villain’

Pyro is back. In the most self-aware Marvel movie ever, one X-Men The character that defined a generation of angsty mutants has undergone a major transformation. Eighteen years after his last appearance as John “Pyro” Allerdyce in X-Men: The Last Stand, Aaron Stanford returns to the X-Men universe — and also joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe — in Deadpool and Wolverine. But for Stanford, this return wasn’t really a homecoming. It was something new.

“This is a different, very different version of Pyro than the old one. X-Men movies,” Stanford says Reverse.

“He’s a formidable villain in this movie.”

In the bloody aftermath of Deadpool and Wolverine, We caught up with the super talented and prolific Stanford to discuss Pyro’s fate in the film, why he’s a different character on some level than the one we first met in X2: X-Men Unitedand what the new film’s ending means for the future of its iconic mutant.

Warning: Huge spoilers ahead for Deadpool and Wolverine.

One thing Stanford wants X-Men fans to remember Deadpool and Wolverine is that it’s a multiverse movie, meaning we see one version of Pyro but maybe not the version we remember X2 And The last Stand.

“dead Pool “It’s very over the top,” Stanford says. “It’s satire. It’s parody. So it’s another side of Pyro, for sure. Pyro is really like bad. “He’s a hardcore bad guy in this movie.”

Stanford says he’s not far from thinking of Pyro as a “’70s James Bond villain,” and he contrasts that with a more troubled and conflicted character he played in X2.

“I just wonder how the fans – the really hardcore Pyro fans of X2 — “I’m going to feel it,” he muses. “These fans responded to him on a deep level. I think a lot of people identified with Pyro as this outsider among outsiders.”

“He is essentially a product of the prison dimension in which he lives.”

Stanford’s analysis of Pyro at the time is very different from how he sees Pyro today. X2 version was somehow seduced by Magneto as a “father figure”, the Pyro in Deadpool and Wolverine is broken in a way that is somewhat like Magneto himself – nihilistic and willing to sacrifice anyone who gets in his way.

“Pryo can never be as traumatized “Like Magneto was,” Stanford explains. “We know Magneto’s story. But he’s physically broken. He’s essentially a product of this prison dimension that he lives in.”

Big spoiler, but at the end of Deadpool and WolverinePyro doesn’t make it out alive. However, Stanford doesn’t think that means some version of Pyro couldn’t return in a future MCU project. After all, Stanford 12 monkeys Contributor Terry Matalas Creates New Marvel Series on Vision. Could a Pyro variant appear there or in another future movie?

“It’s all possible,” Stanford enthuses. “And there are so many different versions of Pyro in the comics. You can pick and choose which story you want to follow out of the countless scenarios. So who knows?”

“Pyro’s speech was supposed to be about what he experienced.”

A big question fans probably have about Pyro in Deadpool and Wolverine is connected to something that we doesn’t see and hear. At one point, Pryo is about to give an epic speech about the villain, which is very short. But did the full speech exist? Is there a deleted scene?

“No,” Stanford replies. “The plan was always to take down Pyro as quickly as possible. I had a long speech in mind about the villain, of course. But no, that wasn’t the plan.”

That said, Stanford reveals that he dreamed of what he would be I would have said that if I had the chance.

“Pyro’s speech was supposed to be about what he’d been through,” Stanford says. “He’d been in a horrible, nightmarish place, and Cassandra is kind of a cross between the warden of the prison and the toughest inmate on the cell block. It would just be an opportunity for him to unleash all this pent-up resentment.”

So somewhere in the multiverse there is another version of Deadpool and Wolverine Stanford could have added its own hardware. But in this reality, there may never have been any other choice.

“It’s the story of my life,” he says. “For every role I’ve played, I have pages and pages of fan fiction in my head that I’ve layered on top of that, and that doesn’t necessarily make it to the screen.”

Deadpool and Wolverine is currently in theaters.