A newly revealed deleted scene from 2008’s Iron Man, the first Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 1 movie, has been revealed–and it seems to contain references to X-Men and Spider-Man.
At the Saturn Awards this weekend, Marvel boss Kevin Feige shared a never-before-seen post-credits scene from the original Iron Man that he said he never intended to show to anyone outside of Marvel.
“I’m about to show you a deleted scene that has never been seen by anyone before right now,” Feige said. The scene shows Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) speaking to Tony Stark about the Avenger Initiative and how he’s dealing with “gamma accidents, radioactive bug bites, and assorted mutants.” No doubt these are references to Spider-Man and X-Men.
At the Saturn Awards, Kevin Feige revealed an alternate version of the post-credits scene from ‘IRON MAN’ with Nick Fury mentioning “mutants” and “radioactive bug bites”. It will be included in the upcoming INFINITY SAGA boxset. (Source: @BRMarvelNews) pic.twitter.com/AqzTokEc67
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) September 14, 2019
The implication here is that Marvel was interested in having Spider-Man and X-Men become part of the MCU, all the way back at the beginning. That didn’t come to fruition completely. Tom Holland’s Spider-Man appeared in multiple MCU movies, but he’s out of the MCU now because Marvel, which is owned by Disney, and Spider-Man movie rights owner Sony couldn’t come to terms.
As for X-Men, Disney acquired the franchise when it purchased the majority of Fox’s entertainment assets. However, there are no plans as of yet for the X-Men to join the MCU, though Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds has teased that Deadpool may join the MCU.
The actual post-credits scene from Iron Man cuts off when Fury talks says, “I’m here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative.”