The X-Men won’t be joining the MCU for a while still, and Spider-Man’s time with the Avengers was but brief and beautiful. But a newly exhumed deleted scene from the original Iron Man reveals Marvel’s film division was optimistic from the get-go: An extended version of Nick Fury’s big speech at the tail end of the mega-franchise’s first official movie includes thinly-veiled references to Spider-Man and the X-Men.
As per Entertainment Weekly, the clip was dropped at the Saturn Awards on Saturday. MCU honcho Kevin Feige was being awarded the first ever Stan Lee World Builder Award, and he used the occasion to drop something dug out from the Marvel vaults.
“I’m about to show you a deleted scene that has never been seen by anyone before right now,” Feige told the crowd. Sure enough, they got to see Samuel L. Jackson’s maiden stint as Fury, yapping at Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark for longer than he did in the original cut. Rather than merely welcome him to the team, he alludes to a much larger, more ambitious group of characters, one not beholden to pesky corporate borders. He speaks of “gamma accidents, radioactive bug bites and assorted mutants,” and even complains about how Stark will have to “deal with a spoiled brat who doesn’t play well with others and wants to keep all his toys to himself.”
In its wink-wink way it lays out a more optimistic, utopian future than the one the MCU received. That said, a world where the Avengers bro down with the X-Men and Spidey could theoretically still happen; the Peter Parker-Marvel divorce could always be undone, making Fury’s original prophecy a reality. Of course, don’t hold your breath.
(Via EW)
