The cast of The Gifted says even more nods to previous X-Men media and characters are on their way as the show continues. With the shadow of Legion‘s success hanging over it and the failure of Inhumans, The Gifted could have gone either way when it premiered last week. Luckily, the show is off to a strong start, with fans and critics agreeing that it’s a fun show with potential. It’s also proven to have plenty of ties to the source material—even if it doesn’t connect to the movies—and that likely won’t be changing.
The first episode of The Gifted featured a number of Easter eggs and references to the comics, movies, and X-Men cartoons. Since then, even more nods have come to light. For one, a character we met was a mutant from the comics that we didn’t even know about. Then there were characters like Polaris, Blink, Thunderbird, and Shatter who were all torn right from the page. And of course, Stan Lee made an appearance. As the show moves forward, it looks like these connections will continue.
The cast of The Gifted opened up at New York Comic Con this weekend about the show’s future use of Easter eggs. In response to a question about Stan Lee’s cameo, actor Sean Teale (Eclipse) had this to say:
“Yeah, I mean, this show’s going to adhere to it a lot. You’ve already got the Texas Lounge and we have a lot of fun little bits – there was a wolverine in the background. That’s what this show is about is those little gimmicks and those fun little nods to other things. That – not appeases the fans, but we want to know that we’re thinking about them.”
The wolverine picture behind Eclipse’s head in the bar is one of many nods to the character seeded throughout. Like the recurrence of the letter ‘x’ in the pilot, there are plenty of nods that hint the show may take place in the same timeline as Logan. After all, something terrible has happened to the X-Men and mutant-kind. Coby Bell, who plays Agent Turner in the series, also noted that showrunner Matt Nix is including all of these nods thanks to his love of the source material.
“And Matt [Nix] has such respect for the mythology and he’s done some serious life-long research and he’s bringing it all to the show now.”
With Polaris said to be flying and learning she’s Magneto’s daughter as the season continues, it’s clear that Nix and the minds behind the show aren’t afraid to pull heavily from the comics. And if they’re that comfortable with the traits of the main characters, it’s not hard to imagine more little nods and Easter eggs popping up in each new episode.
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The Gifted continues tonight on FOX.
