Wade Wilson returns in Deadpool 2 for some wicked jabs at Wolverine, Marvel and much
more in a sequel that's chock full of easter eggs, jokes and meta-moments.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, it's Jan here and today I'm breaking down the very best
easter eggs and references you might have missed in Deadpool 2.
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Obviously, spoilers ahead for the movie, so take care if you haven't seen it yet.
Although Domino survives thanks to her power of good luck, it's a bit of a shocking moment
when Deadpool's new X-Force team barely lasts a few minutes before getting dispatched in
various gruesome ways.
But the X-Force has already faced this kind of bloodbath in the comics where in X-Force
#116 almost all the members of a new X-Force team were killed off in what was known as
the Boyz 'R Us massacre.
Part of the movie's X-Force team was the Vanisher played by Brad Pitt who we only actually see
in the film when his character's electrocuted on power lines during a parachute jump.
In the comics, the Vanisher's a teleporting criminal though at one point he was forced
to join the X-Force team.
When Deadpool gets covered in ash during the final fight, turning his red suit grey, that's
a nod to his grey-coloured X-Force suit.
Deadpool 2 reintroduces Juggernaut into the X-Men movie world, with the villain having
previously appeared in X-Men: The Last Stand after which some of his lines were parodied
becoming internet memes.
Given that X-Men 3 was retconned away after Days of Future Past created a new timeline,
this is presumably a new and better Juggernaut than Vinnie Jones's version.
This time, Juggernaut is all CGI and his voice is provided by Ryan Reynolds himself.
In the movie, Deadpool is a huge fan of Juggernaut and when he meets him, he rattles off some
of his favourite comic book issues featuring the unstoppable being.
There's Uncanny X-Men #183, where Juggernaut, aka Cain Marko, starts a bar brawl with Colossus.
Then there's Thor 411 where Juggernaut is taken to New York by Loki and ends up in a
fight with the God of Thunder.
And there's X-Men Unlimited 12 where Cain Marko was trapped inside the Crimson Gem of
Cyttorak.
And although Juggernaut appears to be defeated at the end of the film, having been electrocuted
then shoved into a pool, if you watch the final scene very carefully you'll notice Juggernaut
is still alive moving around in the pool, so it seems he shares his comic-book counterpart's
power of near invulnerability.
In Deadpool 2, Juggernaut also reveals that he wears a helmet because his brother, who
is in a wheelchair, tries to read his mind.
This is a reference to Juggernaut's family history in the comics where he's actually
the step-brother of Professor X who, of course, uses a wheelchair.
Wade actually spends some time wheeling around in that famous wheelchair at the X-Mansion.
And there's a funny moment with Wade ranting about the studio not giving Deadpool any top-tier
X-Men characters for his movie.
What Wade doesn't realise though is that just behind him there's a room full of X-Men including
Quicksilver, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Professor X and Beast who quietly closes the door on
the Marvel motor-mouth.
During his X-Men rant, Deadpool mentions the one with "giant pigeon wings", likely a reference
to Angel who worked for Apocalypse in the previous X-Men movie.
Later on, there's also an amusing scene of Wade wearing Cerebro and pretending to know
what Colossus is thinking.
Deadpool jokes that it smells like Patrick Stewart and also breaks Cerebro as he takes
it off.
Deadpool's rivalry with Wolverine and Hugh Jackman continues in the sequel.
The film begins with a musical figure of an impaled Wolverine in a throwback to how he
died at the end of Logan.
Wade also complains about Logan copying Deadpool's R-rating.
The musical theme "Don't Be What They Made You" from the Logan soundtrack that played
when Logan died also plays in Deadpool 2 as Deadpool tries to talk Firefist down from
killing the Headmaster.
And when Deadpool signs a packet of cornflakes for a young kid that has Hugh Jackman's Wolverine
on the packet, it could be a nod to Laura, aka X-23, in the Logan movie.
By the way, the child actor who plays the kid with the cereal box in Deadpool 2 also
appears in the TV show Legion as a young mutant David Haller, whose father in the comics is
Professor X.
There's also another Hugh Jackman nod via Deadpool's hand-drawn plan which features
a picture of Wolverine in the DMC Prison with the number 24601 above it.
That was the same prisoner number that Jackman's character Jean Valjean had in Les Miserables.
Deadpool 2 doesn't really tackle Cable's mutant origins, but there is a nice easter egg to
his mother Madelyne Pryor via the Pryor's Treats ice-cream van which pops up near the
billboard where Deadpool lands with his parachute.
Madelyne Pryor was a clone of Jean Grey and was created by Mr Sinister with the aim of
her having a child with Scott Summers aka Cyclops so that Sinister could use their offspring
as a weapon.
Deadpool makes a joke about Cable's height in the movie and how he's only 5 foot 11 – much
shorter than in the comics where his height is typically around 6 foot eight.
"Sheriff Deadpool."
"You know, you're a lot..."
"Shut up you little..."
And when Cable tells Deadpool, 'You're not a hero, you're just an annoying clown dressed
up as a sex toy', it's a hat-tip to Deadpool's hatred of clowns in the comics, which was
also referenced in the first movie during his visit to the oncologist.
Another Mr Sinister connection comes via the Essex School for the Young, the institution
where both Firefist and Domino were raised.
Mr Sinister's real name is Nathanial Essex and the supervillain was last teased in the
X-Men: Apocalypse post-credits scene where men working for Essex Corp entered the Weapon-X
facility to collect vials of mutant blood which likely also contained samples of Wolverine's
blood.
It'll be interesting to see whether Mr Sinister is slowly being set up as a big bad for the
whole of Fox's X-Men franchise.
And the Essex School with its cult-like propaganda and anti-mutant agenda feels reminiscent of
the Purifiers in the comics.
The Purifiers were set up by the fanatical X-Men hater William Stryker and became a quasi-religious
organisation that carried out terrorist attacks on the mutant population.
Amongst the propaganda at the school are banners which say "M-Day is here".
M-Day which was also known as the Decimation is the Marvel Comics event in which Scarlet
Witch depowered masses of mutants.
And anti-mutant leaders like William Stryker saw M-Day as a kind of divine signal to take
further steps against the remaining mutant population.
Deadpool 2 also features tons of call-backs to moments from the first Deadpool movie,
but one especially interesting one is how the sequel pays off a line Wade said to Blind
Al in the 2016 film.
"There's about 116 kilos of cocaine buried somewhere in the apartment..."
"Right next to the cure for blindness."
"Good luck."
And just as he promised, we see a package labelled "Cure For Blindness" nestled among
Wade's stash of coke in Deadpool 2.
By the way, according to an EW interview with Deadpool back in 2016, Codswallop, the last
thing Deadpool says in the sequel just before he dies, is his favourite word.
Not only does Deadpool use the post-credits scenes to go back and "fix the timeline" by
shooting himself in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but he also pokes fun at another crazy scene
in that movie.
In Deadpool 2, during his fight with Cable on board the convoy, Deadpool rapidly moves
his katanas in an almost futile attempt to block the bullets from Cable's guns, though
he does manage to split one bullet in two, as also happened in Origins: Wolverine.
Of course, in the new film Wade ends up full of bullet holes, unlike his alter-ego in Origins
where the Merc with a Mouth miraculously deflected a hail of incoming bullets as Team X entered
the HQ of a diamond-smuggling operation.
Also in the post-credits, Deadpool calls Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Eleven, referencing El from
Stranger Things whose extraordinary psychokinetic abilities have been likened to Jean Grey,
with Stranger Things itself having also made numerous X-Men references on the show.
After he's fitted with a power-suppressing collar at the mutant prison, Deadpool pokes
fun at the non-superpowered archer Clint Barton, saying, "give me a bow and arrow and I'm basically
Hawkeye".
Deadpool also tries to calm down the enormous Juggernaut using the same words that Black
Widow used to talk the Hulk back down to being Bruce Banner in the MCU
"Hey big guy.
Sun's getting real low."
Of course, Deadpool's not the first to make fun of that line from Age of Ultron; director
Taika Waititi got there first in Thor: Ragnarok.
Josh Brolin who plays Cable also plays Thanos in the MCU and the Mad Titan gets a shout-out
when Deadpool tells Cable, "Zip it, Thanos!"
Deadpool also calls Cable an old grump with a Winter Soldier arm, comparing him to the
Marvel character Bucky, who also has a cybernetic limb.
And when the motor-mouthed merc finds out that Cable's from the future, he asks the
time-traveller: 'at what point do audiences say, enough with the robotic arms?!'
Just before his Basic Instinct parody, Deadpool calls Domino "Black Black Widow" and towards
the end of the movie, he calls Dopinder "Brown Panther".
Whether he's selling hot dogs on a beach, listening to music in a library, or delivering
packages to Tony Stank, Stan Lee's cameos have become a highlight of many Marvel movies.
In the first Deadpool film, Lee popped up as a DJ at a strip club.
At the time, Lee said that was his favourite cameo, however, you won't see Stan the Man
in person in Deadpool 2.
Instead, this time his cameo is more akin to his appearances in Netflix's various Marvel
shows.
So, look out for a big mural of Lee as Domino parachutes into the city to intercept the
convoy transporting Firefist.
Also according to the screenwriters the statue that Deadpool knocks over in the X-Mansion
is a bust of Stan Lee as well.
Captain Marvel's getting her debut solo movie in the MCU next year and Deadpool 2 includes
a sneaky nod to the "Alpha Flight" superhero team which Carol Danvers recently led in Marvel
Comics.
The Alpha Flight easter egg appears on the top of Dopinder's taxi as an ad for a Canadian
airline offering cheap flights and travel deals.
Before Captain Marvel recently headed up the team, Alpha Flight was a Canadian superhero
team introduced in Uncanny X-Men #120 and has had numerous members over the years including
Wolverine, Guardian, Northstar, Aurora, and Snowbird.
Deadpool and Spider-Man have history in the comics and the Merc with a Mouth sometimes
even gets confused with the Wall-crawler due to similarities in their outfits, so it's
not surprising to find some Spidey nods in Deadpool 2.
First up, there's what looks like a Spider symbol on one of the kitchen cabinets near
the entrance to Wade and Vanessa's apartment.
And just before Colossus goes up against Juggernaut, Deadpool says, "go get 'em, tiger".
Kirsten Dunst's MJ said those same words to Tobey Maguire's Peter at the very end of Spider-Man
2 and "Face it Tiger, you just hit the jackpot" were Mary Jane's first words to Peter Parker
in the comics.
By the way, Kirsten Dunst also gets name-checked for her role in the film Interview With A
Vampire, which gets discussed by Dopinder and Deadpool.
Towards the start of the movie, after we've watched Deadpool blast himself to smithereens
and a montage of his numerous kills, the Merc with a Mouth tells us that Deadpool 2 is actually
a family film and, just like 'all good family films', it starts with 'a vicious murder.'
To prove his point, Deadpool name-checks two animated Disney classics, Bambi and The Lion
King, both of which feature early parental deaths, and to hammer home the joke, Wade
includes Saw 7 on his list of family films as well!
You'll hear the song 'Tomorrow' from the musical Annie several times during Deadpool 2.
This particular version is from a 1999 Disney TV special of the famous musical about a young
orphan.
The song fits with Deadpool 2's idea that "kids give us a chance to be better than we
used to be", as Vanessa says, and given that the song is all about optimism, it seems especially
fitting that it plays during scenes with Cable and his daughter, whose name is Hope.
And "Tomorrow" also plays during the scene where Deadpool sacrifices himself to save
Firefist.
Interestingly , there are a couple of viral videos out there of Ryan Reynolds performing
his own version of 'Tomorrow', one on a Korean TV show and another in a birthday message
with Hugh Jackman.
Despite Vanessa's reassurances, Wade worries that when they have children he'll be a bad
father like his own dad.
And he even cites Star Wars as evidence that 'men are destined to become their father,
then have consensual sex with their sister.'
Obviously, Wade's thinking of Luke and Darth Vader's relationship, and of Luke kissing
Leia, which Vanessa reminds him was actually in The Empire Strikes Back.
When Deadpool shows his hand-drawn plan to his X-Force crew, you can see the words "pew
pew" scrawled in crayon next to Cable's gun, which is a hat-tip to the noise made by blasters
in the Star Wars movies.
Another Star Wars nod comes in the credits where the actress who plays Yukio gets a note
pointing out that "The X-Force is strong with this one", perhaps suggesting that Yukio will
be returning in the X-Force movie.
There's a running joke about Disney Animation's highest-grossing movie Frozen during Deadpool
2.
It starts off when Wade and Vanessa are watching Barbra Streisand sing 'Papa, Can You Hear
Me?' in the movie Yentl, and Wade asks, 'Does this song sound familiar to you?'
And it continues at Weasel's bar with Deadpool asking, "Is it just me or does 'Do You Wanna
Build A Snowman?'
from Frozen sound suspiciously like 'Papa, Can You Hear Me?' from Yentl?"
Deadpool seems kind of annoyed about it, but Dopinder loves Frozen.
Alan Tudyk, who voices the Duke of Weselton in the animated movie, makes a brief appearance
in Deadpool 2 as Redneck #1 whose conversation about toilet paper with another Redneck character,
played by an unrecognisable Matt Damon, is cut short when Cable arrives and takes their
truck, a scene which has vibes of Terminator 2 where Arnold Schwarzenegger also robbed
a vehicle from some rednecks.
By the way, in real life, Barbra Streisand, who co-wrote, directed and starred in Yentl,
is the stepmother of Josh Brolin, Deadpool 2's Cable!
Rob Liefeld, who co-created the comic-book character Deadpool, got several name-checks
in the first Deadpool movie.
And Deadpool 2 continues the shout-outs, for example, when Wade starts complaining about
which comic book artist came up with a character whose superpower is luck, he rants that it
was probably someone who can't draw feet.
Which is a wink at Liefeld's interesting perspective on anatomy, especially feet, in his comic-book
drawings.
And when Cable turns up at Blind Al's apartment, his utility belt draws some sarcastic remarks
from Weasel, which is a reference to Liefeld's trademark pouch-laden comic-book costumes.
At the start of the film, Deadpool very deliberately blows cigarette smoke towards the camera which
could be a little dig at Disney who've banned characters smoking in any PG-13 Disney film
including Marvel, Star Wars and Pixar.
My question to you guys now is which were your favourite easter eggs or moments in Deadpool
2?
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