Here's one to consider - The Martian is set in 2035, so by this point the Marvel Cinematic Universe (assuming it's still going strong) has been around for almost three decades and Iron Man is a movie with as much of a cultural stamp as Star Wars has now. Not just a once little-known comic character made cool by Robert Downey, Jr., Shellhead will be an icon in his own right. This is quite an important piece of context to getting the full extent of when, in the final stages of the escape, Mark suggests cutting his own suit to fly to the Hermes so he can "be like Iron Man"; he's not just jumping on the MCU bandwagon, but alluding to a character who's now of the same notoriety of Superman. Interestingly, when Mark first sets himself going, he struggles with the offbeat method of propulsion just as Tony Stark does in the first movie, a nice, more involved reference to the Marvel flick. What other easter eggs are there hidden in The Martian? Shout out any more we missed down in the comments.
