10 Obscure MCU Movie Secrets That Took Years To Discover

Since the MCU's relatively early days, the number 12 has appeared prominently in a number of situations, from Tony Stark telling Pepper Potts, "Give yourself 12% of the credit" in The Avengers, to Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) professing to having "12% of a plan" in Guardians of the Galaxy, and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) telling Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) that he's 12 minutes older than her.

In fact, there are more than a dozen prominent uses of the number 12 from Iron Man to Captain America: Civil War alone, and while this emerging pattern went unexplained for many years, James Gunn took to Twitter in 2016 to demystify it.

Gunn noted that the number 12 is often used in comedy writing because it's the highest number with just one syllable, allowing it to be easily plugged into any funny one-liner while being of a higher quantity than 1-10.

Sadly if you thought there was any wider comic book-y significance to the ubiquity of the number 12 in the MCU you're out of luck, but Gunn's explanation is arguably way more fascinating.