Here's a look at even more of the Dark Phoenix Easter eggs you may have missed on your first
watch.
And if you haven't seen the movie, here's your warning: Spoilers are ahead.
Did you spot Selene?
Considering that the X-Men: First Class film already used the Hellfire Club as antagonists,
the filmmakers didn't have a whole lot of options when it came to adapting the Dark
Phoenix storyline just as it appeared in the comics especially since the barely-coded sexual
undertones of the Club in the comics wouldn't exactly make the group a good fit for a PG-13
film.
Despite that, they still managed to sneak in a quick reference to the original Chris
Claremont and John Byrne comics with one of Magneto's lieutenants.
One is a guy who throws his hair braids around as whips and, shockingly, doesn't seem to
be any one of the hundreds of X-Men characters featured in the comics.
The other is a telepathic mutant named Selene although she's only called that the moment
she's knocked out of the train at the end of the film.
In the comics, Selene has been a frequent antagonist to the X-Men and has occasionally
been the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club.
Comics Selene is also an immortal psychic vampire who might be the world's very first
mutant, predating Namor, Apocalypse, and Wolverine.
Movie Selene doesn't have much in common with her comics counterpart, but it's a nice nod
to the canon.
The Last Class
While Dark Phoenix is ostensibly an adaptation of the X-Men story of the same name, it's
also a conclusion to the new X-Men timeline that started in X-Men: First Class.
As the surviving members of that film, Beast, Mystique, Professor X, and Magneto all get
endings to their unique arcs.
There's a reason for that: as Beast tells Mystique during the Dazzler party, "We're
the last of the First Class."
With Darwin killed in the first movie, Angel and Banshee killed offscreen in Days of Future
Past, and Havok killed in Age of Apocalypse, only Beast, Mystique, Charles, and Erik are
around to remember the swinging sixties.
That's also why audiences see Beast in charge of the Jean Grey school at the end of the
film; he's the most senior X-Man around who's not busy playing chess in Parisian cafes.
Magneto seems to have let go of his anger, and Charles has removed himself from his school
in order to not let his ego continue to do damage.
Mystique dies trying to help Jean, which is less a conclusion to her arc than it is to
actress Jennifer Lawrence's ongoing attempts to extricate herself from the X-franchise.
"Here's the X-Men clip, watch, don't watch, I don't care."
Magneto's newspaper clipping
While Michael Fassbender's Magneto has come a long way from 2011's X-Men: First Class,
he hasn't forgotten the past.
He might be leading the island nation of Genosha and acting as a father figure to a sanctuary
of mutants, but Magneto's got his own lockbox of secrets, just like Jean.
In Erik's case, that lockbox contains his telepathy-proof helmet and a newspaper clipping
that references his standoff against the X-Men on the White House lawn in X-Men: Days of
Future Past.
Both objects aren't exactly points of pride for the former mutant terrorist.
The helmet was previously worn by the nazi scientist who killed Erik's mother, and the
clipping references the time Magneto was almost killed by his ex-lover Mystique.
That's some heavy baggage to keep around the house.
With Dark Phoenix looking to be the end of the X-Men franchise as we know it, there are
plenty of glances back to the past before we head off into that wild unknown future.
"And by the way, the women are always saving the men around here.
You might want to think about changing the name to X-Women."
Chris Claremont's cameo
While Stan Lee and Jack Kirby might have created the original X-Men, the larger X-franchise
owes a huge debt to Chris Claremont.
Claremont is the co-creator of pretty much all of your favorite X-Men, and he spearheaded
the direction of the X-universe for over 20 years.
From The Dark Phoenix Saga to God Loves, Man Kills, it's no exaggeration to say that the
X-Men's popularity as we know it is largely a product of Claremont's collaborations with
artists like Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, and Jim Lee.
In terms of the X-Men, Claremont's shadow looms nearly as large as Stan Lee's own.
Fittingly, the filmmakers behind Dark Phoenix saw fit to give Claremont a cameo in the film.
During the scene in which Charles Xavier is accepting the accolades for the X-Men's successful
rescue of the Endeavor space ship, Claremont can be briefly seen in the crowd.
Keep it close to the chess
While the X-Men movie universe has gone through two timeline shifts and multiple actor recastings,
some things, like Erik and Charles' never-ending chess game, never change.
By the end of Dark Phoenix, everyone has moved on; Beast is running the school, Jean Grey's
become an immortal flame bird creature in the sky, and Charles is hanging out in Paris.
Erik arrives and badgers him into playing a game of chess as the movie ends.
It's a fitting end to a long and twisting franchise; while the films had many endings,
Charles and Erik's ongoing chess game remained a major motif.
It's a nice way to nod to the fact that although the franchise will be ending as the X-Men
gets absorbed into Disney and the MCU, some things will continue on.
"I feel a great swell of pity for any poor fool who comes to that school looking for
trouble.”
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