The Marvel Cinematic Universe has become so self-reflexive, so closed-off to the dealings of the real world, that its movie world has overwritten or ignored much of recent world history in advance – the movies are now taking place in the late 2020s, having diverged from anything resembling a normal timeline a long time ago. That’s never more true than in the MCU’s most recent megahit Deadpool & Wolverine, where even alternate worlds are just more comic-book lore; no COVID, no Presidents Obama or Trump or Biden, not much of anything that worries citizens of our world on a day-to-day basis. Just Disney Marvel, Fox Marvel, and all the various parallel unused Marvels in between. Even a mischief-maker like Deadpool, who frequently refers to extratextual elements like Kevin Feige or Disney, tends to stay within the bounds of comic-book stuff. (His version of branching out involves joking about DC movies, too.)

Now, though, it appears that one of Deadpool’s trademark inside jokes might have allowed a little bit more of the real world to poke into the MCU unexpectedly. (Of course, it’s a version of the “real world” that still mostly involves Hollywood sniping, but, hey, take what you can get.) A lawyer for Justin Baldoni, director and co-star of this summer’s hit It Ends with Us, is claiming that Nicepool, an irritatingly deferential and maybe sorta passive-aggressive variant of Deadpool (played, in both incarnations, by Ryan Reynolds), is a knock at his client. Reynolds, of course, is married to It Ends with Us star Blake Lively. Over the summer, there was word of Lively and Reynolds supposedly throwing their weight around on Baldoni’s set, rewriting scenes and generally bulldozing the filmmaker. Lively eventually unveiled a lawsuit, claiming Baldoni oversaw a toxic work environment, including sexual harassment and other abuses of power. Now Baldoni’s team is countersuing and claiming that Lively (and, by reporting on her suit, the New York Times) is smearing the director.

Looking back at Nicepool’s introduction, it does seem entirely possible that Reynolds is taking a crack at his wife’s professional nemesis. Nicepool’s long-mane, man-bun hairstyle looks a bit like Baldoni’s, and the character, under the guise of paying a compliment, notes that Ladypool (voiced in the movie by Blake Lively!) “just had a baby and you can’t even tell.” When Deadpool points out that you’re not really supposed to say things like that, Nicepool brushes it off: “That’s okay, I identify as a feminist.”

Baldoni was, indeed, accused of commenting on Lively’s post-baby weight and has, indeed, tried to present himself as a serious-minded feminist in the press. (Over the summer, the narrative was that Lively was trivializing their film’s domestic violence story with movie-star glamor, and that Baldoni was the one willing to address the topic head-on. Obviously, those designations seem a lot murkier now.) It does seem pretty likely that Nicepool was a way for Reynolds to take a little poke at someone he and Lively grew to dislike.

Frankly, this is impressive for Reynolds, whose Deadpool jokes, even the R-rated or controversial-sounding ones, tend to feel workshopped into oblivion, conscious that Marvel movies don’t actually want to alienate anyone. The Nicepool moment, minor as it is in the scheme of things, sees the movie switch from insult-comic chumminess to maybe something resembling actual bile. (It’s worth mentioning that Lively’s Ladypool repeatedly blasts Baldonipool with a sub-machine gun until his head explodes, Scanners-style.)

Baldoni’s attorney, meanwhile, is weirdly trying to claim that the supposedly personal nature of the barb precludes Lively’s claim of harassment, his point being that no one who was truly harassed by someone would ever subsequently joke about that person. (I’m not sure if I agree with you 100% on your policework there, Justin Baldoni’s Attorney. Ask any comedian if they shy away from joking about things that have legitimately traumatized them.)

To take a cue from the MCU, though, let’s examine the petty matter of how this will affect a bunch of comic book nonsense. Reynolds has mentioned that he’s not sure if Deadpool will star in more movies, and might be more fun as a character who pops up here and there. Will he now come armed with a Reynolds/Lively enemies list, popping into Spider-Man 4 to do a tight five on Leighton Meester?

More broadly, is Deadpool, of all characters, the MCU’s last refuge for a connection to our world? Obviously superhero movies are going to take place in their own universe; to do a contemporary-set story about the president becoming the Red Hulk, as seems to be case in the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World, you can’t use the actual president as a character (or you can, but it’s going to come across like a cheapo Daily Wire production). But part of the fun of early Marvel movies was the idea of a secret, underground history of real-world events like World War II; now, Marvel history has taken over, and idea of going back to a more grounded Captain America fantasy seems a little abstract. Until the universe settles back into recognizable human feelings, barbs from Deadpool may have to continue standing in for the messiness of humanity.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.