Deadpool & Wolverine is bigger than just another superhero film. It’s more than just a sequel to Deadpool 2. And it might even be a vital turning point for comic book movie culture as a whole. Sounds hyperbolic, I know, but that’s the impression I’ve been left with after watching the first 35 minutes of Deadpool & Wolverine.

IGN was recently invited to watch the opening act of Deadpool & Wolverine, which was then followed by a new trailer. Those 35 minutes are as funny, crass, and violent as you’d expect of a Deadpool project, but beneath the gags is a weightier sense of purpose. Deadpool & Wolverine actively and directly recognises that there’s an ongoing conversation about the quality of the MCU right now. And while we won’t know for sure until the full cut of the movie releases on July 26, the fourth wall-breaking subtext seems to be a story that recognises there’s a lot of work to be done, and that the journey to reclaiming the MCU’s former glory starts here.

Without spoiling anything, it seems like Marvel Studios really values the unification of its beloved characters. That’s already fairly obvious – this is an MCU film featuring Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, afterall – but the film doesn’t treat their presence as a joke or simple IP transference. The opening half an hour is really dedicated to providing in-universe reasoning for how they’re able to be part of the same universe as Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor.

Thanks to the Loki TV series’ introduction of the Time Variance Authority and Matthew Matthew MacFadyen’s casting of TVA agent Paradox, you can likely already guess the very basics of the official lore behind the uniting of the different film universes. But I think the way Deadpool & Wolverine’s writing team (plus, presumably, a bunch of editorial minds from Marvel Studios HQ) have plotted out the convergence of the Fox and MCU universes is genuinely satisfying.

The presence of the TVA means Deadpool & Wolverine gets to play around with variants, and it has as much fun – if not more – with the concept than Loki did. You won’t get any clues here, but the first 35 minutes includes some great deep cuts that will have comic readers punching the air. One in particular is something fans have been waiting years… no, decades to see on screen.

But it was the way these fan service elements were wrapped around concepts and fourth wall-breaking jokes about the MCU as an entity that interested me the most. As I said earlier, Deadpool & Wolverine knows that some fans are not happy with the MCU right now. It wants to have a dialogue with them. It wants to demonstrate that things are back on track with a movie that not only provides genuinely good fan service, but also proves that Marvel Studios can still make films that make you sit up, pay attention, and get invested.

I walked into the screening of Deadpool & Wolverine’s opening act as a jaded former MCU fan who really didn’t care about this ‘gimmick’ project. I left with a smile on my face, a need to watch the entire film, and – for the first time since Endgame – genuine hope for the future of Marvel.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s Senior Features Editor.