8. All The Shout Outs To The Cartoons (X-Men, X-2)
Whilst it was the Civil Rights parallels that finally got Bryan Singer on board with directing the first X-Men film, he didn't get there by the producers simply explaining their existence to him. He eventually broke and dove into the vast history of the X-Men himself, in two ways. First, he read the comics, with the iconic God Loves, Man Kills playing a key role, eventually adapted into X-2. The second was he watched the fantastic (if somewhat dated) animated series from the mid-nineties, which turned on a whole new generation of young fans to the characters. Obviously owing a debt to the cartoon, Singer paid it back by giving multiple actors from it cameos in his live-action films. The trucker who picks up Rogue in the first film? That's George Buza, the voice of Beast. Meanwhile two stars from later series X-Men Evolution turn up in X-2: David Kaye (Professor Xavier) appears as a TV announcer, and Chiara Zanni (Jubilee) is a White House tour guide.