The first X-Men movie was considered to be something of a risk at the box office, despite the fact that it was an adaptation of one of the most successful comic book franchises in the world. This was due to the fact that the overwhelmingly negative reception to Batman & Robin was believed to have ruined the superhero movie genre for good. The X-Men movies turned out to be a huge success and led ⭕to the creation of several prominent spinoff 🐻movies that starred Wolverine and Deadpool.
One of the issues that fans have with the X-Men movies is that they often promised stuff via hints and foreshadowing that they never followed up on. There were numerous subtle cameos and references to other characters from the comic bo⛄oks that would never make an appearance.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a well-oiled machine that plans events out years in advance, which means that references are usually intentional. The X-Men franchise has lacked that same level of planning, with the movies being made without much thought going into what will come next. The X-Men films contain nu🅷merous hidden easter eggs and references for the sharp-eyed fans to find. There are also some secrets buried within the behind-the-scenes information and the lore of the films that offer insight into what might have been.
We are here today to look at the secrets of the X-Men movies, from the computer that was loaded with🌳 cameos, to the lost love between Storm and Wolveri൲ne.
Here are Twenty Secrets About The X-Men Movies Even Fans Completely Missed!
20 Stry𒊎ker's Cameo Computer 🌃
William Stryker is one of the most dedicated anti-mutant advocates in the X-Men franchise. He is a thorn in the side of the X-Men in se☂veral movies, despite the fact that he lacks any kind of superpower.
In X2: X-Men United, Mystique uses her shapeshifting power to perform a covert ops mission that gave her access to Willaim Stryker's computer. She did this in order to find t♛he hidden location of Magneto, who ha💛d been imprisoned after the events of the first movie.
William Stryker's computer lists numerous different characters from the X-Men comic books, many of which have yet to actually appear in the films. These include the likes of Amara Aquila (Magma), Black Tom Cassidy, Lila Cheney, Pౠaige Guthrie (Husk), Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch), Kevin McTaggart (Proteus), Everett Thomas (Synch), Calvin Rankin (Mimic), Angelo Espinosa (Skin), Dr. Karl Lykos (Sauron), and Franklin Richards, who is the soღn of Reed & Sue Richards from the Fantastic Four.
There are also references to different superhero ꧙teams and organizations that have yet to appear, such as Alpha Flight, Beta Flight, Gamma Flight, and D🥀epartment H. These are references to several Canadian groups that have been closely associated with the X-Men over the years. Alpha Flight, in particular, is meant to be Canada's equivalent to the Avengers.
19 🍸 The Darth Maul Refe🍎rence
The villains of the first X-Men movie were intended to be the Brotherhood of Mutants. This is also the name of Magneto's team of villains in the X-Men comic books, though his team was referred to 🍌as the Brotherhood of Eꦑvil Mutants.
The only member of the Brotherhood of Mutants who was also an original member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was Toad. This was an odd choice, considering that Toad's powers weren't that impressive in the comic books, as he was just a guy with vaguely froglike abilities. The version of Toad that appeared in the first X-Men movie was portrayed as far more powerful than he is in the comics an൩d was given some more combat focused abilities.
This version of the character was so popular that it replaced the original cowardly one in the comic books.
Toad was played by Ray Park, who is an incredible martial artist and stunt actor. Ray Park is best-known for playing Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. There is a scene in the first X-Men movie that♚ gives a shoutout to Park's portrayal of Darth Maul, as he꧒ wields during his fight with Storm and spins it around in a manner that is almost identical to one of Darth Maul's moves.
18 ꧒ Directing The Security Guards
Bryan Singer is the director of several of the X-Men movies. He directed X-Men, X2: X-Men, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and X-Men: Apocalypse. Singer also🥃 acted as an executive producer on all of those projects.
Bryan Singer has made cameos in several of the movies that he has directed. He has also managed to cameo in movies that he is not associated with, such as when he played a Starfleet Officer in Star Trek: Nemesis, a gig he likely got due to his friend🌺shi✱p with Patrick Stewart.
Bryan Singer has had several cameos in the X-Men movies that he directed. These have included playing one of the security guards of Magneto's plastic prison cell and was one of the members of the security team who was sent to deal with Wolverine in X-Men: Apocalypse, which led to Wolverine cutting him down with his claws. Singer has joked that he now adds t💮he fact that he was carved up by Wolverine .
There was even a brief Bryan Cameo in X-Men: Days of Future Past where he didn't play a security guard for ♍once. He played a cameraman who was filming when the😼 first public display of mutant powers was happening.
17 Ov🐬ershadowed By🅘 Stan Lee
Stan Lee has made cameos in almost every Marvel movie ever made. This makes sense, considering he co-created many of the characters that have appeared in the films. There have been a few instances where other creators have also had cameos in the Marvel movies, such as when Rob Liefeld appeared in Deadpool as a mercenary.
Chris Claremont might be the most important X-Men writer of all time, save for maybe Stan Lee himself (who created the team) as Claremont's iteration of the X-Men was helped propel the team to stardom. It was under Claremont's watch that the X-Men comic books became the biggest Marvel property.
This was something that went unchallenged until the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Chris Claremont was only given in the X-Men movies to date. He appeared during the intro of X-Men: The Last Stand as one of the neighbors o🍎f Jean Grey. Claremont pla🅺ys the man who watches as his lawnmower flies away due to the power of Jean Grey's telekinesis. Stan Lee also has a cameo in this scene as a man who watches as his garden hose moves on its own.
16 He's A꧑ Bad Internet Reference
X-Men: The Last Stand is one of the most hated movies based on a Marvel property. It seemed hellbent on ruining all of the goodwill that had been earned by the previous two movies and went about offing main characters with the same zeal as Frieza from Dragon Ball Z.
One of the worst parts of X-Men: The Last Stand was turning Juggernaut into a cockney football player, who barely looked like the character from the comics. Juggernaut was turned from an unstoppable engine of destruction whose powers were fuelled by ancient magic, to just another mutant with super strꦿength.
The most infamous scene in X-Men: The Last Stand involves t🥃he J꧒uggernaut being merged into the ground by Kitty Pryde. He then tells her that he is the Juggernaut.
This scene was actually a reference to an , where a group of guys created their own dub of the X-Men animated series from the '90s. They created a comedy dub of the episode where Black Tom Cassidy and Juggernaut try to steal Lilandra. The fact that the writers decided to reference this painfully unfunny video shows just how much they cared about the X-Men movies.
15 ไ Mystique Makes Chicken
Mystique's role in the story of the X-Men movies was greatly expanded after the release of X-Men: First Class. This was due to the fact that she was played by Jennifer Lawrence, who was propelled to stardom and became an A-list celebrity after First Class was released. Lawrence was contractually obliged to appear in several more X-Men movies, so the producers decided to makꦗe the most out of their newly minted star.
It helped that the next movie after First Class was Days of Future Past, as it was based on the comic book storyline that introduced Mystique. The comic version of Days of Future Past shows a world where Mystique ended Senator Ro☂bert Kelly, which led to sweeping anti-mutant reforms and the eventual takeover of America by the༒ Sentinels.
Mystique was given a big role in X-Men: Days of Future Past, as the bleak future timeline was created when Mystique ended Boliver Trask.
Mystique first learns of Boliver Trask when she is saving some mutant soldiers who are serving in the Vietnam War. She was impersonating a soldie꧂r named Sanders, who is revealed by his insignia to be a Colonel. This is a reference to Colonel Sanders, who is the foꦆunder of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
14 Cyclops Never Ages 🍎🔯
Wolverine was sent back in time in X-Men: Days of Future Past in order to prevent Mystique from ending Boliver Trask. This led to the creation of a new timeline, which the later movies followed. The idea of multiple timelines is about as X-Men as you can get and it helped to undo a lot of the less popular things from the franchise, such as X-Men Origins: Wolverine aꦯnd also brought Cyclops & Jean Grey back to life.
The new timeline gave a chance for the filmmakers to show younger versions of the original members of the X-Men from the first movie. This was an idea that finally came to fruition in X-Men: Apocalypse.
It seems that the creators of X-Men: First Class had wanted to bring Cyclops in at an earlier point, as he is when Professor Xavier uses Cerebro during the film. The problem with this cameo is that Cyclops would later appear as a teenager in Apocalypse, even though the version that appeared in First Class also appeared to be in his early teens. There is a twenty-year gap between First Class and Apocalypse, so this cameo doesn't make sense.
13 Magneto & Professor X𒆙 Never Stop Aging 🧸
X-Men: First Class gave us a glimpse into the original iterations of the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants, both of which consisted of almost entirely different memberships than the groups we saw in the first X-Men movie.
X-Men: First Class showed us the first meeting between Charles Xavier, Magneto, and Mystique, with the friendship and eventual falling out between the three fo🍃rming the backbone of the film. It is through the🌱se divisions that the Brotherhood of Mutants and the X-Men were first formed.
The circumstances under which Charles Xavier first met Magneto were vastly different from how they were described in the first X-Men. According toജ Charles ꦆXavier, he first met Magneto when he was seventeen.
The events of X-Men: First Class contradict this statement, as Charles Xavier was thirty-years-old when he first met Magneto.
To further confuse matters, the two of them appear to be much older when they first met Jean Grey in X-Men: The Last Stand, despite the two of them looking much healthier in Apocalypse, which happened after the intro sequence of The Last Stand. There is also no explanation🔯 give♌n as to why the two of them are friendly after they had parted on such bad terms years earlier.
12 Dazzler's Record Deal 😼
One of the most prominent members of the X-Men to still remain absent from the films is Dazzler. She has been an on and off member of the team since the '80s and has been associated with several other prominent superhero groups, such as A-Force, which was a female only spinoff of The Avengers.
Dazzler's real name is Alison Bl✅aire. She possesses the mutant ability to turn sound into a physical construct, which includes lights and energy beams. This was due to the fact that she was intended to be a disco-themed superhero and was originally conceived as part of a cross-promotion with a singer who would portray the character in real-life. This plan fell through, which meant that Marvel was lumped with a disco-themed superhero for the rest of its days.
Dazzler will be appearing in the flesh in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, but she has already had a brief cameo in X-Men: Apocalypse. Cyclops shows one of Dazzler's to Jean Grey when they are out shopping, which means that Dazzler is already a celebrity in the X-Men world🎐, though this is something that may be ignored in the next film.
11 ꦰ Storm's Accent Shift ♓
Storm's backstory in the X-Men comics has remained pretty much consistent since her creation. She was the da🅠ughter of a Kenyan tribal princess and an American photographer. Her ❀family moved to Cairo and her parents later perished during the Suez Crisis. After living as a pickpocket for years, she decided to travel the world, which led to her becoming worshiped as a goddess when her ability to control the weather first developed.
It seems that Storm was originally intended to share the background of her comic book counterpart in the X-Men movies, as Halle Berry attempted to affect an African accent in the first movie. A lot of f🥀ans might not realize that she is doing this, as ꦅthe accent is terrible and she doesn't have that many lines in the first film.
Halle Berry decided to drop the accent for the later X-Men movies and decided to just use her regular speaking voice instead. This was probably for the best, as Halle Berry fought for a bigger role in the later movies, as she became the leader of the X-Men when Cyclops and Charles Xavier perished during the events of X-Men: The Last Stand.