From '80s movies to obscure comics to meta jokes about the actors themselves, Deadpool 2 is full of the gags, references, and winks you've no doubt come to expect from the Merc With a Mouth. In that spirit, we've gathered up a list of the best and most clever Easter Eggs and callbacks from the movie that you may or may not have missed.
Of course, maybe you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want to find out the best jokes Deadpool 2 has to offer before you can see it on the big screen. You know the drill: everything beyond this point is full of potential spoilers, so please tread carefully!
1. The Not-So-Empty X-Mansion
Much like the first Deadpool, Deadpool 2 has an extremely limited selection of active X-Men between Colossus, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and the new Yukio. Wade's made a few cracks about this before, pointing out that it's probably because they couldn't get the rights--which is most likely the real reason--but this time around, we got an actual in-universe reason.
There are other X-Men in the mansion, they're just straight up avoiding poor DP. In a brief shot as Wade walks through the mansion, we see a room full of familiar faces--Beast, Professor X, Quicksilver, Cyclops, and more--trying to slyly close the door to the room they're hiding in without Wade noticing. Rude.
2. Marrow in Prison
A split-second glimpse around the Mutant prison known as the Ice Box gives us a look at some of the other mutants that might exist in this universe. One, in particular, seems to have giant bone spikes growing out of their back, a clear nod to the X-Man named Marrow who, strangely, was also referenced back in the first Deadpool during the experimentation scenes of Wade's origin story. So, she either survived that whole ordeal and wound up in prison or there are just two different mutants with the same incredibly unfortunate mutation running around.
3. Interview with the Vampire
Wade's trusty cab driver, Dopinder, has a running obsession with the 1994 film, Interview with the Vampire, starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and a young Kirsten Dunst. The references and ongoing gags come full circle when Pitt makes a surprise cameo as the invisible hero "Vanisher" just seconds before he dies.
4. Yentl vs. Cable
Wade's depressive episode leaves him watching the 1983 Barbra Streisand movie Yentl and fixating on the song "Papa Can You Hear Me?" As if his being a fan weren't enough of a gag already, Wade's love of Streisand has a specific meta-joke built in--she just so happens to be Cable actor Josh Brolin's stepmom. Furthermore, he's not wrong about how similar the song and Frozen's "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" is.
5. Colossus vs. Juggernaut
In the climactic final showdown, Colossus winds up facing off against the unstoppable Juggernaut in a knock-down-drag-out fist fight. If you think those are two characters who are pretty much destined to go head-to-head, you'd be correct--over in the comics, the two have a long, long history of getting into brawls. They're so in each other's orbit that Colossus even became the new Juggernaut for a while.
6. Hope Summers
We only get the briefest glimpse of Cable's family during the flash-forwards to the future, but he confirms his daughters name as "Hope" as he speaks about her. This is an obvious nod to Hope Summers, a mutant of some distinction over in the comics universe. Hope was the first mutant born after the House of M event where Scarlet Witch famously altered reality so that there were "no more mutants."
7. Shatterstar's Green Blood
Lewis Tan's Shatterstar was not long for this world and, potentially, totally crazy as he attempted to explain his superpowers ("being better than you") and his origin, ("from Mojoworld") to an extremely unimpressed Deadpool. However, as he met his tragic end the blood splatter we saw was actually neon green rather than red meaning he actually (probably) wasn't delusional. He wasn't from this planet after all.
8. A Cure for Blindness
In a call back to the first movie, Wade pulls up some of the floorboards of Blind Al's apartment, finding a ton of cocaine and bags labeled "cure for blindness." He joked about both the drugs and the "cure" (which, honestly, is probably just more cocaine) in Deadpool 1 before he went off to face Ajax for the final time, implying if he didn't make it back safe Al would never find it. Apparently, he was telling at least part of the truth.
9. May As Well Be Hawkeye
After being strapped with a power damping collar, Wade makes a crack about how now that he's powerless and riddled with cancer, if you gave him a bow and arrow he "may as well be Hawkeye." A cheap shot, sure, but considering the outcry over Hawkeye's absence in both in Infinity War's promotional material and the movie itself, it's certainly a topical one.
10. Cerebro
Though the brief Professor X cameo we get in the X-Mansion seemed to be the James McAvoy version, there's plenty of love for the original to be found. Deadpool is shown playing with Cerebro (much to Colossus's dismay) and, when forced to finally stop messing around, says "it smells like Patrick Stewart in here."
11. Echoes of Mister Sinister
The nefarious mutant-hating organization responsible for both Firefist and Domino is known as the "Essex House," a sort of mutant orphanage that acts as a front for a zealous torturer experimenting on kids. The name Essex seems to be a nod to Nathaniel Essex, aka Mister Sinister, a longtime X-Men foe.
12. Deadpool vs. Deadpool
During the post-credits scene, Wade gleefully hops over continuity boundaries to make a trip into X-Men Origins: Wolverine where he, technically, made his live-action debut. The version in Origins, also played by Reynolds, was so unrecognizable as Deadpool that it's become a running gag for fans and one that the current Deadpool was all too happy to finally be rid of.
13. Erasing Green Lantern
The final moment of the post-credits scene involves Wade traveling back in time to the home of none other than Ryan Reynolds just as he gets the script for the infamously bad Green Lantern live-action movie. Reynolds has never lived starring as the CGI-suited Hal Jordan down and, despite Deadpool literally putting a bullet between the eyes of the ongoing joke, it's unlikely that it will ever stop haunting him.
14. Four or Five Moments
While trying to decide what he's going to do with the abusers at the Essex House, Wade begins talking about how being a hero only takes "four or five" moments, small decisions that make big impacts in your life. His speech is lifted almost line for line (with a few extremely Deadpool adjustments) from Colossus's final monologue in Deadpool 1. It seems like Wade was paying enough attention that first time around to remember exactly what Colossus had said but whether or not he actually internalized the message is still pretty up for debate.
15. Meet Black Tom
One of the only named side characters in the Ice Box prison is a mutant named Black Tom Cassidy who becomes the punchline of a running joke about Cable's imagined racism. Black Tom is actually a long-time enemy of Deadpool in the comics and partner of the Juggernaut. Black Tom doesn't seem to have a connection to Cain in this universe, but the name check alone was some pretty great foreshadowing.
16. Can't Draw Feet
Wade, becoming increasingly frustrated with Domino's hard to explain "luck" superpowers, comments that she must have been created by a "freakshow artist" who "probably can't draw feet." This, of course, is a nod to/jab at artist Rob Liefeld who co-created Cable, Domino, and Deadpool and who is also infamously bad at human anatomy.
17. Sword Swinging Deadpool
While facing off on the prison transport, Cable does his level best to shoot Wade with a handgun as Wade "deflects" the bullets with his two katanas. Or, well, he tries to deflect the bullets and winds up riddled with holes. This scene is a play off of a moment in X-Men Origins: Wolverine in which Ryan Reynolds' first incarnation of Deadpool pulled off a similar stunt to much greater effect.
18. Say Anything
As Wade finally decides to ask the X-Men for help, he tries to summon them outside of the mansion by holding a boombox over his head while standing on their law. Well, okay, not a boombox exactly, a boombox app on his phone, but it's the thought that counts. Who even has a real boombox anymore?
Anyway, this was a clear nod to the iconic 1989 movie Say Anything with Wade doing his best John Cusack impression.
19. The Sun's Getting Real Low, Big Guy
Wade is left to make a few desperate Hail Mary plays as he tries and fails miserably to fight the Juggernaut for the first time. One such plan is to pull a page out of Black Widow's (and Thor's) playbook from the Marvel Cinematic Universe for calming down the Hulk by reciting a mantra that goes "the sun's gettin' real low, big guy."
Surprising no one, it doesn't work--but between this moment and Thor: Ragnarok, this just might be the first in-universe superhero meme.
20. Black and White Deadpool
After the final fight leaves him scorched and covered in ash, Deadpool's red-and-black costume takes on a distinctly black-and-white look. This was a clever way to wink at the comics version of Wade's X-Force costume, which he wore when he first officially joined the team back in 2012.
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