X-Men Apocalypse: 36 Easter Eggs, In-Jokes & References You Need To See

For all the critical grumblings and the (frankly wrong) suggestions that X-Men: Apocalypse deserves to be considered the most disappointing comic book film of the year, Bryan Singer's sequel is an entertaining, gloriously cartoonish pleasure to watch. It's not the best in the series, it's not even close to being the worst, and it has some moments that deserve to be up there with the best in the entire franchise.

More than anything, it feels like a film made for a particular type of X-Men fan: those who primarily enjoyed Singer's less serious original vision, who grew up watching the seminal 90s animated series and who actually saw some good in Last Stand. That's probably something of a niche set of requirements, but even without all three, the film has a lot to enjoy.

And partly because of Singer's agenda to delight fans of the property, Apocalypse is stuffed with references and Easter Eggs from classic comic arcs, movies, pop culture and pre-existing X-Men movies. Spotting them as Apocalypse spins his nefarious plot is arguably one of the most rewarding parts of the experience (even for those left cold by the movie).

And by God, there's a lot of them...

36. The X-Men Fanfare

As with Days Of Future past, the first Easter Egg comes the film starts, as the 20th Century Fox ident page is given a slight X-Men make-over. It's not quite as heavy a refurbishment as Disney tend to do for their logos these days, but it still counts.

As the light fades out on the Fox page, the X remains alone, temporarily illuminated as the Fox fanfare is replaced fittingly with the familiar sound of the X-Men theme, which of course owes a lot to the excellent 90s cartoon theme.