With the X-Men known to be coming to the MCU prior to Avengers: Endgame releasing, many Marvel fans were expecting to have some tease – a post-credits scene, perhaps – announcing their arrival in the franchise. Of course, it was far too soon for something like that, but there was a very easily-missed easter egg hidden in the movie that’s loaded with X-Men connections.
When Tony and Cap travel back to Camp Lehigh in the 1970s to get more Pym Particles, Steve can’t help but catch a glimpse of his lost love Peggy Carter by sneaking into her office at the base. By this time, Peggy is the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., so Steve silently watches her in the middle of a meeting. Her words aren’t the important part of this scene, so they’re hard to make out, but if you stick the captions on you discover that her dialogue features a bunch of X-Men teases.
Redditor u/cbfw86 found this out and shared screenshots of the relevant moments on the r/MarvelStudiosSpoilers subreddit. As you can see in the gallery below, an unknown underling reports to Peggy: “They’re trying, ma’am, but Braddock’s unit has been stopped by lightning strikes.” Peggy then says, “I’ll look at the weather projections,” before adding: “It’s not lightning strikes we’re looking at.”
So, on the surface, a S.H.I.E.L.D. unit has come up against some unnatural lightning. But this could actually be our first confirmation of two major X-characters in the MCU.
Braddock has to be Brian Braddock AKA Captain Britain. Though not a mutant himself, Braddock is closely connected to the X-Men in various ways – his sister, Betsy Braddock, is Psylocke, for one. Secondly, unnatural lightning brings to mind one famous Marvel heroine – Storm.
But does this tell us that Marvel’s X-Men movies will be set in the 1970s? Well, probably not. The dialogue is left vague enough that it’s hard to say conclusively whether this is Captain Britain and Storm being referenced here. However, these hard-to-spot Avengers: Endgame lines could end up gaining extra meaning if and when these characters are brought into the MCU in a few years’ time.
