X2: X-Men United Breakdown: Hidden Deadpool, Gambit and Omega Red Nods, Plus a Theory Linking Its Opening to the MCU

X2: X-Men United came out in 2003, but it is loaded with hidden references to fan favourite mutants like Deadpool, Gambit and Omega Red. I also believe its cosmic opening sequence could offer a huge possible look at how Kevin Feige plans to introduce mutants into the MCU, and I will get to that theory at the end of this piece.

X2 released in London on April 24th 2003 and in the United States a few days later on May 2nd 2003. It pulled in a more than satisfactory haul at the global box office, roughly three times its budget of around 110 to 125 million dollars. After the first X-Men movie made 20th Century Fox 296.3 million dollars, the studio invested 50 million dollars more than it had the first time around to make sure audiences really dug the sequel, and that investment paid off.

X2's star brain opening may hint at how Kevin Feige brings mutants into the MCU

The movie opens with Patrick Stewart's Professor Charles Xavier delivering a monologue about humanity's fearful response to the rise of mutants as we fly through outer space. The stars and clouds form the figure of a bald man with a star in the middle of his head, and we zoom into that star and travel inside the neural connections of a human brain. As we move down its spiking neural pathways, the animation cleverly transitions into the wiring and inner workings of Cerebro.

Yes, this opening was clear foreshadowing of Cerebro being the main threat of mass destruction this time around. But the whole sequence is extremely important to the theme of the X-Men in general. The zoom towards the star brain of a spaceman symbolises how the X-Men are children of the atom: the inheritors of thousands upon thousands of years of mutation through atomic nuclear radiation that came directly from the Earth's sun.

How could a 2003 movie connect to today's MCU? Remember that Iron Man was not Kevin Feige's first superhero movie. After serving as an associate producer on the first X-Men film, Feige returned with heavy involvement in this one too, and the seeds he may have planted with this opening may have recently begun to flourish in his more recent MCU films.

X2 is based on God Loves, Man Kills, and its first scene features a former Jubilee

X2 is actually based on X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills from Marvel Graphic Novel number five in 1982. In that comic, William Stryker does exactly what the live action Stryker does: he straps a kidnapped Charles Xavier into a recreated Cerebro to use Xavier's amplified brain waves to wipe mutants off the planet, forcing the X-Men to team up with their archenemy Magneto to save Xavier and mutantkind. So starting with this cerebral imagery was more than appropriate.

The movie then moves to the White House, where a tour guide quotes Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address: we are not enemies but friends, and though passion may have strained it, it must not break our bonds of affection. I think that was a fantastic way to open an X-Men movie centred on enemies turned allies against a common threat. Even cooler, that tour guide is an X-Man herself, as actress Chiara Zanni had previously voiced Jubilee in the X-Men: Evolution cartoon from 2000. She is not the only alum either, as David Kaye, who voiced Professor X in that show, makes a quick cameo as a TV announcer later on.

Nightcrawler's White House attack is full of symbolism, and he never kills a guard

A brainwashed Nightcrawler makes his first appearance with his head down, just like the portrait of JFK right next to him, a clear allusion to the presidential assassination he was about to attempt for Stryker. He is spotted by security as he walks in front of a painting of the 1898 armistice between the United States and Spain that ended the Spanish American War, before Mozart's Dies Irae plays as he fights his way to the Oval Office. Fun coincidence: Nightcrawler actor Alan Cumming has the exact same birthday as Mozart.

In another universe, Nightcrawler might have been played by Neil Patrick Harris, who auditioned alongside Cumming. Ethan Embry was also reportedly considered, but Cumming already being a German speaking man made him hard to beat.

Notice that this mind controlled mutant doesn't kill any Secret Service members. I'm sure the production didn't want to introduce an eventual hero as a mass murderer, but it might also hint that these mind controlled mutants have a little more control over their actions than they thought, since Nightcrawler never actually wants to kill anyone. So either that restraint comes from his latent will, or Stryker specifically ordered him to kill only President McKenna to minimise casualties. Either way, he is shot, the shock breaks his mind control, and he drops his "Mutant Freedom Now" knife on the president's desk before teleporting away.

Wolverine finds only a wolf at Alkali Lake, and Arty Maddox looks nothing like his comic self

Wolverine then strolls to the Alkali Lake industrial complex, where Xavier told him at the end of the last movie he would find answers about his forgotten past. All he finds is a white wolf, an obvious metaphor for him being a lone wolf, after travelling all the way to Alberta, Canada. Little does Logan know that Stryker's secret laboratory was hiding underground the entire time.

To make sure we got that metaphor, Logan's face fades into the growling face of a fake white wolf at a museum, where Halle Berry's Storm teaches her class how mankind evolved from Neanderthals. One mutant boy flicks his forked tongue at someone eating ice cream. His name is Arty Maddox, and he looks drastically different from his comic version. Comic Arty, who first appeared in 1985's X-Factor number two, got a big purple head when he mutated at age 11. A completely mute mutant, he could project thoughts as visual images for everyone to see, his own or other people's, even on a massive scale. This time, the movie left the mind projection to its main threat, Jason Stryker, whom his father William calls mutant 143.

Sabretooth and Toad are missing, but X2 had plans for both

Right after this, another student stares into the mouth of a saber toothed cat skeleton, which to me feels like a clear nod to Sabretooth. He is completely absent from the sequel, mostly because the production felt the movie already had too many mutant characters to juggle. There were originally plans to make Sabretooth Stryker's bodyguard before they went with Lady Deathstrike instead.

Toad is also nowhere to be seen, mostly because actor Ray Park was too busy to reprise the role. The production had plans for Toad and Nightcrawler to fight one on one before realising Park would not be available, which is a huge bummer because Toad really was one of the best parts of the first X-Men movie.

Jean Grey's glitching powers make the Phoenix Force feel like a star

We then catch up with Jean Grey and Scott Summers, with Jean hiding that something is wrong as the Phoenix Force within her causes her to accidentally read everyone's minds and makes nearby museum televisions glitch. I really enjoyed that detail, because it makes the Phoenix Force feel as hot and powerful as a star, capable of technology disrupting solar flares much like our own sun. That feels super appropriate considering the Phoenix Force is responsible for the creation of all the stars and all the life in the universe.

During her overload, Jean also taps into events far away and in the near future. You can hear a man yell "to the shelter", something one of the president's bodyguards says during Nightcrawler's attack, followed by Wolverine yelling no and Rogue saying they're going to kill him, both of which wouldn't be said until Stryker's attack on the mansion. Scott tells Jean that ever since Magneto activated his machine at the Statue of Liberty, her powers have been acting strangely, unaware they were being increased by the Phoenix Force.

Pyro's shark lighter, a crowd of mimes and a reused mansion shot

Iceman, Rogue and Pyro are then accosted by some hoodlums trying to smoke inside the museum, despite a sign a few feet away saying smoking is not permitted. Refusing to share his shark lighter's fire is John Allerdyce himself, with Aaron Stanford replacing the first film's Pyro, Alexander Burton. Stanford would continue the role in X-Men: The Last Stand, and of course make a cameo inside the Void in Marvel Studios' Deadpool and Wolverine. Pyro's lighter was shark themed because the director was a big fan of Jaws.

When Xavier freezes all the human museum goers in their tracks, a good chunk of those background actors were professional mimes who had mastered holding perfectly still, which I thought was a pretty genius decision. After learning of the White House attack, the X-Men head back to the school, with the exterior shot of the X-Mansion reused from the first movie because the budget did not allow new exterior shots in time.

Jean's seat at the chess table foreshadows her turn to Magneto

As the team discusses who is behind the attack, Cyclops immediately blames Magneto, while Jean and Xavier disagree because he is stuck in his plastic prison. Notice that Jean and Xavier are sitting at a chess table, with Jean on the side of the black pieces and Xavier on the white. Chess was Magneto and Xavier's favourite game, especially whenever Xavier visited Magneto in prison, and Jean sitting on the darker side feels like foreshadowing of her turn to Magneto's side in the third X-Men movie as Erik's most prized queen piece.

We then see Stryker meeting President McKenna and Mystique in the Oval Office, with Mystique still disguised as Senator Kelly, as the end of the first film teased. She has been fighting the Mutant Registration Act in Congress by reversing the dead senator's position on it. When Stryker examines the hole in the desk, I love how he is framed to tower over McKenna, which I found symbolic since Stryker ordered Nightcrawler to assassinate McKenna in the first place.

After Stryker convinces the president to invade the school, the disguised Mystique asks if he is trying to start a war. Stryker's comeback paints Kelly as a baby at Woodstock while Stryker was serving in Vietnam, which is actually super funny because Brian Cox is only 27 days older than Bruce Davison. Kelly's eyes then glow yellow, and this time the production computer generated Mystique's eyes. In the first movie, Rebecca Romijn had to wear incredibly irritating contact lenses that removed 90 percent of her vision, meaning she could only wear them for about an hour before taking a break.

Colossus, Logan's new home and Magneto's favourite book

Rogue and Bobby flirt while Colossus draws Bobby getting fried by Rogue for the kid he appears to be tutoring. X2 might be the first film where Colossus plays a more prominent role, but he can be seen sketching in the school courtyard in the first movie, played by Donald MacKinnon. For this film, The Last Stand and Days of Future Past, Daniel Cudmore took the role. When Wolverine returns, Bobby looks a little jealous of how excited Rogue is. Logan also jokingly asks Cyclops if he is going to welcome him back home, which I thought was pretty significant, because I think it was the first time Logan referred to the Institute as his proper home.

Magneto is then seen reading T.H. White's 1958 book The Once and Future King, also the favourite of Charles Xavier, who teaches a lesson on it at the end of this movie. It subtly shows what the two used to bond over. Stryker and security guard Mitchell Laurio then beat Magneto and drop Stryker's liquid on the back of his neck to make him reveal everything about Cerebro, since Magneto helped Xavier build it.

Cerebro's red lights and the Capitol eclipsing the sun

Inside the real Cerebro, humans appear as white lights on the world map and mutants as red, likely tied to the fact that mutation happens within red human blood. Xavier tracks Nightcrawler to Boston, Massachusetts, and sends Storm and Jean to pick him up.

Back in Washington, we get a shot of the Capitol building eclipsing the sun, which in my opinion is incredible symbolism. If atomic radiation from the sun is linked to human mutation, the Capitol eclipsing it feels symbolic of the American government attempting to eclipse mutantkind. That fits the scene, in which Mystique disguises herself as Stryker's assistant Yuriko Oyama, better known in the comics as Lady Deathstrike, to uncover his plan to destroy the mutant race.

Stryker's computer files hide Wade Wilson, Remy LeBeau and Omega Red

On Stryker's computer we see the logo for his Department of Domestic Security and Defense, then an absolute motherload of Easter eggs. As I put it, "this dude literally had tabs on literally every mutant Under the Sun". Names include John Allerdyce, Allison Blair, Elizabeth Braddock, Victor Creed, Roberto da Costa, Bobby Drake, Fred Dukes, Remy LeBeau, Erik Lehnsherr, Arty Maddox, Jamie Madrox, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, Kevin MacTaggert, Danielle Moonstar and Ororo Monroe. The prison guard employee files include executive producer Tom DeSanto, producer Lauren Shuler Donner, screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, and the director.

Stryker's folders reference Omega Red, Project Wideawake, Muir Island, Franklin Richards, Wade Wilson, Kurt Wagner, Raven Darkholme, Scott Summers, Kitty Pryde, Dr Nathaniel Essex aka Mr Sinister, Dr Henry McCoy, the Danger Room, Forge, Department H, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Weapon X, Alpha Flight, the Morlocks, Legacy, Salem Center and Zero Tolerance, a reference to Operation: Zero Tolerance.

After finding Stryker's Cerebro 2, aka Dark Cerebro, and printing schematics of his secret base, Mystique turns into a janitor and slips away, but not before the real Yuriko asks the janitor what he is doing in the room. That moment matters for actress Kelly Hu, because it is literally the only line Yuriko says in the entire movie, which is kind of wild.

Nightcrawler's Boston church and Jason Stryker's tragic backstory

Nightcrawler hides in an abandoned church in Boston, where graffiti outside reads "nature laughs last", a thematic nod to the X-Men universe's theme of natural evolution winning out in the end. After Storm and Jean subdue him, we see a poster from his days performing at a Berlin circus as the Amazing Nightcrawler. Later, when Scott and Xavier visit Magneto, Xavier is wheeled in by the director himself before being passed to Laurio.

Magneto brings up Xavier's history with Stryker's son Jason, whom William wanted Xavier to cure. When Stryker realised Xavier was pro mutant, he pulled Jason from the school, and Jason lashed out by torturing his parents with illusions, so much so that his mother drilled into her own skull to make them stop. From that day, Stryker refused to acknowledge Jason as his son, calling him mutant 143 and milking his spinal fluid to make his mind control serum. Real messed up family man.

The mansion raid, the Sentinels that never were and a real wall of ice

Stryker knocks out Xavier and Scott while launching his attack on the school at the same time, with his men tranquilising a kid named Jones first, which is hilarious since Jones told Wolverine earlier that he never sleeps. The soldiers run into Kitty Pryde, played by Katie Stuart this time in place of the first film's Sumela Kay, and the young mutant Siren, played by Shauna Kain, screeches at them. Disappointingly, there were plans to introduce the Sentinels as part of Stryker's forces, but the idea didn't get past concept art, which I have to say looks pretty sick.

When Wolverine finally comes face to face with Stryker, Iceman creates a wall of ice between them, and it was a real wall of ice weighing 1.75 tons. The group escape in Cyclops's blue 2004 Mazda RX8 and head to Boston while Stryker takes Cerebro.

Beast and Sebastian Shaw appear on a bar TV

Before Mystique injects iron into the security guard, two iconic X-Men characters debate on the bar's TV. One is Dr Hank McCoy, aka Beast, played here by Steve Bacic before Kelsey Grammer took over in The Last Stand, Days of Future Past and The Marvels, and Nicholas Hoult in the First Class timeline. The other, who can't really be seen, is Sebastian Shaw, a character we wouldn't see in live action until X-Men: First Class, as revealed in the X2 novelization.

The novelization also reveals we were supposed to see Beast's blue fur transformation, triggered by Dark Cerebro's activation. In it, Hank's headache makes him freak out on TV and transform into his blue form, but that was cut from the movie, which is kind of a bummer.

The Drake family home, a cat and a Phoenix shirt

Bobby brings the gang to his intolerant family's home in Boston. In his bedroom, a poster of a famous snowboarder shows Iceman was a snowboarding fan even before his mutation. When Wolverine pops his claws at the Drake family cat, the production got the cat to lick them by putting a little frozen tea on the tips.

Bobby's traitorous little brother wears a shirt with a Phoenix looking bird on it, a possible nod to the Phoenix influence in this movie and the next. He calls the police on Bobby out of jealousy of his brother's girlfriend and superpowers. After Pyro goes all junior supervillain on the police, Storm and Jean pick everyone up in the jet, which is nearly shot down until Magneto saves it.

An uneasy alliance with Magneto, and Lady Deathstrike's changes

After Magneto shares the plans Mystique found, the X-Men form an uneasy alliance with him, like they do in the comics. That night Mystique makes a move on Wolverine, and we see the scar he left on her during their fight at the Statue of Liberty in the first film. Another callback comes when Magneto tells Rogue he likes what she's done with her hair, when he caused her white streak by strapping her into his machine. Later, when Stryker's men capture Mystique disguised as Wolverine, her habit of smirking lets Stryker see straight through her disguise.

Inside the facility, Wolverine goes toe to toe with Lady Deathstrike, another Weapon X mutant with adamantium claws. In the comics she is a cybernetic being with an adamantium skeleton, but here she appears to be a mutant extremely similar to Wolverine, with a healing factor and retractable claws. Kelly Hu had to grow her fingernails super long so the production could glue the claws onto her fingertips.

Magneto's betrayal, Jason's fate and Jean's sacrifice

Instead of simply rescuing Xavier as he does in the comics, Magneto reverses Cerebro and has Mystique trick Jason into making Xavier kill every human on the planet, a plan that feels extremely similar to Deacon Frost's in the first Blade movie, when he tried to use La Magra to get rid of all the humans. Magneto and Mystique then chain up Stryker, steal a helicopter and recruit Pyro to the Brotherhood. Meanwhile, Nightcrawler teleports Storm into Dark Cerebro so she can make Jason cold enough to free Xavier.

As Jason loses control, his inner child worries about disappointing his father, showing he never really mentally aged out of being a traumatised child. That is super sad, especially when none of the X-Men really try to save him as the facility crumbles from Cyclops's blast during his fight with Jean, though I understand, since he almost killed everybody.

Wolverine uses his recalled memories to lead everyone out the same exit he used escaping Weapon X in his visions, then throws his old dog tags in front of a chained Stryker as the dam cracks. Jean sacrifices herself, using her Phoenix powers to lift the Blackbird and split the water like Moses parting the Red Sea. At the end, before Colossus, Jones, Arty Maddox and Jubilee attend Xavier's class, Wolverine's hair looks a bit higher than usual because Hugh Jackman was also shooting the 2004 movie Van Helsing. The final pan over Alkali Lake shows a Phoenix glowing beneath, a nod to Jean being left at the bottom of Jamaica Bay when she became the Phoenix in the comics.

My theory: Eternals links solar energy and evolution, echoing X2

I really do feel Kevin Feige may have started referencing the evolving power of stars in Eternals from 2021, which opens with the Eternals waking in front of Earth's sun after being infused with its yellow solar energy. I believe that energy is the same yellow energy associated with the Mind Stone, and much like the Mind Stone forced Wanda Maximoff's powers to manifest, the sun's energy appears to promote superpower evolution in organic beings like humans and Deviants.

The best example is when the Deviant Kro absorbs that energy from Ajak and Gilgamesh, and each time we see his body evolve before our eyes. That energy also lets the Eternals form the Uni Mind and communicate with the Celestial Tiamut, "so there definitely seems to be a solid link between solar energy and the power of the mind in my opinion".

X2's opening, using a star as the mind of a cosmic mutant man, makes me feel Feige took major inspiration from the seed he planted there to prepare for mutants in his MCU, because nuclear solar power seems to be the key to evolution, and humanity has been mutating under this sun for thousands of years. At the time of writing, I had a strong feeling the sun would play a major role in how mutants begin to form in the MCU.

Do you think Kevin Feige really planted a seed for MCU mutants in X2's cosmic opening?