10 Best MCU Deleted Scenes EVER

3. "Radioactive Bug Bites And Assorted Mutants" - Iron Man

The closing credits of 2008's Iron Man famously had Nick Fury conversing with Tony Stark. There, Samuel L. Jackson's Fury makes mention of the Avengers Initiative to RDJ's Stark.

In an earlier cut of this scene - a cut that obviously didn't make it into the movie - part of Fury's berating of Iron Man sees him mention "gamma accidents, radioactive bug bites and assorted mutants".

While the use of gamma accidents was a clear indicator of the next film in the burgeoning MCU - that being The Incredible Hulk - the radioactive bug bites and assorted mutants terms are nods to Spider-Man and the X-Men, respectively.

At this point in time, Sony Pictures had the exclusive rights to anything cinematically related to Spidey, whilst the movie rights for Professor X and his merry band of mutants were housed over at 20th Century Fox. As such, any mention of these characters in Iron Man or the MCU back then would have been references to characters that were out of reach.

Since then, Sony and Disney have come to a working agreement where Spider-Man can be involved in the MCU. As for the X-Men, they're now fully under the House of Mouse banner after Disney outright bought 21st Century Fox - and subsequently properties such as X-Men, Alien, and Avatar - in March 2019.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.