Ever since Marvel starting making its own movies with Iron Man in 2008, there’s been a prevalence of Easter Eggs. Be it Captain America’s shield sitting dormant in Tony’s garage or the Infinity Gauntlet being glimpsed in Odin’s vault, there are a number of references and in-jokes that fans can spot throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which adds a layer of fun to the comic book adaptations.

However, in Phase Two, Marvel stumbled upon an Easter Egg of a different sort; one that’s an homage to one of the biggest franchises of all time: Star Wars. It’s a bit of a spoiler for both Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man seeing as how they’re yet-to-be-released Phase Two films, so if you’re especially spoiler-averse, I’d advise you to turn back now.

captain-america-the-winter-soldier-sebastian-stan
Image via Marvel

If you’re a Star Wars fan, you’re aware that there’s a habit of people getting their arms cut off throughout the saga. Speaking with Cinemablend, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige revealed that in each and every Marvel Phase Two film, someone similarly loses an arm:

“So is this a spoiler for Ant-Man… not really. I’m obsessed with Star Wars. Who’s not? I’m 40 years old. I’m in the movie business. I went to USC. So I’m obsessed with Star Wars - and it didn’t start out as intentional, but it became intentional, including that beat that you referenced. It sort of happens in every Star Wars movie, but I was sort of looking at it, ‘Okay, is Phase Two our Empire Strikes Back?’ Not really, but tonally things are a little different. Somebody gets their arm cut off in every Phase Two movie. Every single one.”

iron-man-3-robert-downey-jr
Image via Marvel

I’m kind of amazed no one picked up on this until now, but indeed if you think back, someone loses an arm in each Phase Two Marvel movie:

  • Iron Man 3Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian gets his arm cut off by Tony when he’s “heating up” Iron Man’s suit at the end of the film.
  • Thor: The Dark World – Thor gets his arm cut off by Loki, only it turns out it was simply a trick of Loki’s devised to distract Malekith.
  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier – In a flashback, we see that Bucky had his arm cut off when he fell from the train in The First Avenger.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy – During the fight/chase in the city at the beginning of the film, Gamora chops Groot’s arm off.

As I’ve not seen Age of Ultron I don’t know what the circumstance is there, but I guess we can expect to see a maiming during the course of Joss Whedon’s Marvel sequel and also in the Paul Rudd-fronted Ant-Man. Pretty neat, huh?


star-wars-the-empire-strikes-back-luke-skywalker
Image via Lucasfilm