10 Obscure MCU Movie Secrets That Took Years To Discover
Taika Waititi's secret cameo in Thor: Ragnarok went undiscovered for years.
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00:00 Oh, the ever-expanding MCU. There's so much to offer and so much to unpack.
00:05 This is true to the extent that sometimes we notice little loopholes or secrets that we
00:10 need an answer or an explanation to that we don't end up getting for a long time.
00:14 You can theorise all you want, you can scour through Reddit looking for answers,
00:18 but until it's canon, I'm afraid it doesn't count.
00:21 And my god is it good to get official answers to these things.
00:25 So I'm Amy from WhatCulture and here are 10 obscure MCU movie secrets that took years to discover.
00:32 10. Tony Stark's Illuminati phone app - Iron Man 2
00:36 Back in 2017, Redditor BaoJay discovered a devilishly well-hidden easter egg in Iron Man 2,
00:43 so cleverly concealed that it actually took someone almost eight years to find it.
00:48 When Tony Stark is attending a Senate hearing and starts tinkering around on his phone,
00:52 if you look closely, and I mean very closely, alongside apps for SHIELD and his various
00:57 prototypes, you might notice an app labelled Illuminati. The app's logo even matches that
01:03 of the secret superhero organisation's logo from the comics. And whilst back when this was made,
01:07 this was probably just a wink and a nod to the comic book fans, it is an interesting discovery
01:12 in light of the Illuminati's first proper MCU appearance in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse
01:17 of Madness. Given that Tony's phone screen is shown for mere fractions of a second and the
01:21 text is extremely hard to read, it's not terribly surprising that it took someone so many years to
01:27 find it. 9. David Tennant influenced
01:31 Scott Lang's choice of literature - Ant-Man and the Wasp
01:34 Now, this is a super, super niche reference, and so fans can't really be blamed for failing to pick
01:40 up on it until over two years after the fact. In Ant-Man and the Wasp, you'll probably recall
01:46 that we briefly see Scott Lang sobbing whilst reading the beloved weepy novel The Fault in
01:51 Our Stars. Whilst the joke simply seems to be that Scott is unexpectedly enjoying this book
01:55 that's definitely targeted primarily at teenage girls, it actually goes a whole level deeper.
02:01 Turns out this whole gag is a reference to a 2016 Marvel interview with actor David Tennant,
02:06 who played villain Kilgrave in the Jessica Jones series. In the interview, he was asked which
02:10 Avenger he thought would cry the most whilst reading The Fault in Our Stars, and at this
02:15 point, you can guess the answer. Tennant duly replied that it would surely be Ant-Man, and so,
02:20 Ant-Man director Peyton Reed decided to pay hilarious low-flying tribute to this in Ant-Man's
02:26 next cinematic adventure. It's such an off-piste nod that a fan likely only spotted it by pure
02:31 chance after watching the Tennant interview, and in the few seconds it took to connect the dots,
02:36 I bet the whole world rushed before their eyes.
02:38 8. The Hidden Avengers Logo - Thor
02:42 Kenneth Branagh's Thor may not be one of the MCU's most beloved movies, but it perhaps
02:47 doesn't get enough credit for its unique visual identity, with Branagh proving the
02:51 perfect director to milk the story's Shakespearean majesty for every epic drop.
02:56 Branagh has always had a keen eye for composition, and anyone who's seen any of his movies knows
03:01 this. Yet, one of Thor's most impressive visual flourishes went unnoticed for almost an entire
03:06 decade. In 2020, nearly nine years after Thor first hit the cinemas,
03:11 Redditor KieferXJ pointed out that the mid-film overhead shot of Mjolnir being surrounded by
03:16 SHIELD scientists actually contains a hidden Avengers logo. Between the patch of lighter,
03:21 circular dirt surrounding Thor's hammer, and the A-shaped scorch mark beneath the hammer itself,
03:27 the logo can actually be faintly made out. This is clearly no happy accident, but instead an
03:32 astoundingly subtle nod towards the future of Thor, and indeed, the whole of the MCU.
03:37 7. Excelsior in Scroll Language - Guardians of the Galaxy
03:42 Though fans are still anxiously trying to find the one remaining Easter egg in Guardians of the
03:47 Galaxy - one which director James Gunn says they have uncovered about 60% of - another secret was
03:53 discovered in 2018, almost four years after the movie's release. A fan took to Twitter to note
03:58 that Stan Lee's memorable cameo scene, where he plays a Xandarian ladies' man speaking to an
04:03 attractive woman, contains some text in the Scroll Language which conceals a hidden message.
04:09 The text translates to Lee's iconic catchphrase, "Excelsior," which Gunn himself confirmed on
04:14 Twitter - making sure to add, of course, that that wasn't the final Easter egg,
04:18 and sending fans back out there to keep looking. Considering that only the most die-hard MCU fans
04:23 would even consider translating some random alien text they find on screen, it's hardly
04:28 shocking that this one flew under the radar. 6. Thor's Fake ID Photo Was Taken By Darcy
04:35 Thor. Another secret from Thor now, and one that went undetected for eight years until Redditor
04:41 TheManWithoutFearTR brought it to everyone's attention, is the amusing story behind Thor's
04:46 fake ID in the movie. We briefly see a fake ID created for Thor by Dr. Selvig, where he's listed
04:52 by his comic book alter-ego Dr. Daniel Blake, but the real Easter egg here is realizing where that
04:57 photo of Thor came from. If you recall the diner scene from earlier on in the film, Darcy Lewis
05:02 takes a picture of Thor cracking a goofy smile on her phone, which in fact turns out to be the very
05:07 same picture Selvig used for the ID. It makes total sense, of course, but it's easily missed
05:12 if you're not paying total and complete attention, hence why nobody bought it up until 2019.
05:17 5. Dr. Erskine's Alter-Ego - The Incredible Hulk
05:22 In the case of 2008's The Incredible Hulk, it's been easy for secrets to sneak through the cracks
05:27 due to the simple fact that so many fans forget it's part of the MCU at all. And in fairness,
05:32 it's probably nobody's favorite MCU movie anyway. However, there is a neat little surprise hidden in
05:38 plain sight. When Emil Blonsky is injected with a variant of the Super Soldier serum,
05:42 note that the Stark Industry label bears the name of the developer Dr. Rheinstein. This might seem
05:47 totally throwaway, except that Dr. Joseph Rheinstein is actually the comic book alter-ego
05:52 of Dr. Abraham Erskine, who made his first MCU appearance a few years later in 2011's prequel
05:57 film Captain America The First Avenger, as played by Stanley Tucci. Redditor throwawayj8203 brought
06:04 attention to the sneaky reference in 2018, almost an entire decade after The Incredible Hulk's
06:10 release, and in fact close to seven years after the first Captain America.
06:14 4. X-Men Easter Egg on Selvig's Chalkboard - Thor The Dark World
06:19 Considering that Thor The Dark World is arguably the worst MCU movie, you can't really blame fans
06:24 for failing to pick up on its hidden secrets. Because really, beyond die-hard Marvel fans,
06:30 who has ever desired to re-watch this movie? To that end, this deep-cut reference laid
06:34 dormant for well over six years before it went viral in 2020, when a fan noticed that Dr. Selvig's
06:40 chalkboard in the mental institution where he's incarcerated contains a distinct X-Men reference.
06:45 Among Selvig's various multiversal scrawlings, the chalkboard contains the phrase "The Fault"
06:51 on the right-hand side. No, Selvig's not talking about the Fault lines, but rather referring to
06:56 a concept from Marvel Comics - a rift in the space-time continuum which subjected Earth to
07:01 alternate universes. The Fault has played an important role in X-Men comics over the years,
07:06 more recently serving as a breeding ground for the parasitic insectoid alien race known as the Brood.
07:12 It's easy to infer from this that the Dark World's convergent event threatened to create just such a
07:17 space-time rift in the MCU's prime universe, though the fact that Selvig is himself aware
07:22 of the term is very interesting. 3. The Significance of the Number 12
07:27 Since the MCU's relatively early days, the Number 12 has appeared prominently in a number of
07:32 situations - from Tony Stark telling Pepper Potts to give yourself 12% of the credit in The Avengers,
07:38 or to Peter Quill professing to have 12% of a plan in Guardians of the Galaxy,
07:43 even Quicksilver telling Scarlet Witch that he's 12 minutes older than her. In fact, there are more
07:47 than a dozen prominent uses of the Number 12, from Iron Man to Captain America Civil War alone,
07:53 and whilst this emerging pattern went unexplained for many years, James Gunn took to Twitter in 2016
07:59 to demystify it. Gunn noted that the Number 12 is often used in comedy writing because it's the
08:04 highest number with just one syllable, allowing it to be plugged easily into any fun one-liner.
08:09 Sadly, if you thought there was any wider, comic-booky significance to the ubiquity of
08:14 the Number 12, then you're out of luck, but Gunn's explanation is arguably a bit more interesting.
08:19 2. Taika Waititi's Fourth Cameo - Thor Ragnarok
08:24 It's definitely not a secret that Thor Ragnarok director Taika Waititi plays the role of quirky
08:29 Cronen Gladiator Korg, and you may also know that Waititi carried out additional duties,
08:34 providing performance capture for villains Surtur and the Hulk, and you may also know that Waititi
08:39 carried out additional duties including doing motion capture for some other animated bits.
08:44 However, Waititi actually had a secret fourth role in the superhero threequel,
08:48 appearing for a few fleeting moments as one of the three heads on the three-headed alien Hajo
08:53 who's briefly seen on Sakaar. Though Waititi did admittedly whisper about this role shortly after
08:59 Ragnarok's release, it largely went over people's heads... until three years later in 2020 when
09:04 Redditor ShadyAria25 noticed Waititi's distinctive face and their post went social media viral.
09:10 With Waititi currently hard at work wrapping up post-production on Thor Love and Thunder,
09:15 be sure to keep your eyes peeled for his face in basically every single scene.
09:18 1. Stane's Musical Giveaway
09:22 And here we conclude our list on perhaps the finest secret of the lot,
09:26 quite aptly hidden within the movie that started it all, 2008's original Iron Man.
09:32 You may remember a scene in which the villain, Obadiah Stane, who hadn't yet outed himself as
09:36 the card-carrying villain, plays the piano in the presence of Tony Stark and Pepper.
09:41 You couldn't be blamed for thinking nothing of it, but for anyone acquainted with classical music,
09:46 it was a dead giveaway to Stane's true intentions. The piece of music that Stane is playing is
09:51 Antonio Salieri's "La Ghetto" from his piano concerto in C, and in pop culture Salieri is
09:57 commonly depicted as the rival of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and potentially even his killer,
10:02 as was immortalised in the classic 1984 film Amadeus.
10:06 That Stane is playing Salieri on the piano is all too fitting, considering that,
10:11 allegedly like Salieri, he grew envious of the younger talent who surpassed him and
10:16 consequently went on to plan their demise. Whilst historians generally consider the
10:20 popular characterisation of Salieri to be false, the saboteur/murderer label has nevertheless stuck,
10:26 and is clearly what this music choice is referencing. Even with this right in front
10:31 of our eyes, it wasn't until Redditor Capt Enterprise took note of the reference in 2017,
10:36 over nine years after the film's release, that this brilliantly sly flourish was picked up by
10:41 the wider fanbase. And on that note, we've reached the end of this list of 10 obscure MCU movie
10:46 secrets that took years to discover. If you can think of any more, then let us know in the comments
10:51 down below, and remember to check out WhatCulture.com for more lists and articles like this
10:55 every single day. As always, I've been Amy from WhatCulture, and I'll catch you next time.