Loki director addresses episode 2's X-Men Easter eggs

Rafael Casal as Brad Wolfe in Loki season 2 — (Image credit: Marvel Studios)

This article contains mild spoilers for Loki season 2, episode 2. If you've yet to tune in, and don't want to know anything that happens, turn back now!

Marvel fans were delighted, recently, when the first two episodes of Loki season 2 seemed to nod to the X-Men universe using fun, blink-and-you'll-miss-them Easter eggs.

From a familiarly designed door in the premiere to an "All M are brothers" graffiti tag – which you can see above – in the latest installment, viewers assumed the show was teasing the imminent arrival of the mutants. Well, not quite, it turns out, according to director Dan DeLeeuw.

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"That's the art department, Kasra [Farahani, who also helmed episode 3], our production designer, is a genius with all the sets," the filmmaker, who has previously worked on several Marvel projects as a visual effects supervisor, told Screen Rant. "You can see with the posters in the TVA, if you let the art department run with something, they will just come up with amazing ideas that have a story behind them.

"But it's something you never would have anticipated showing up on set. It wasn't really planned."

DeLeeuw went on to remember how his humanities tutor at university would often tell the class, 'Well, if it's there, it's there', if she had an idea about a book the author didn't necessarily agree with, or if she interpreted something in a different way to others. "It's like, 'Okay, I don't think that was the intention, but, if they wanted it to be there, sure,'" he joked, presumably suggesting that if audiences want to read more into the X-Men references, he can't stop them.

While they might not show up in Loki, the X-Men have technically been introduced into the MCU before, thanks to Patrick Stewart's somewhat brief cameo as an alternate version of Professor X/Charlies Xavier in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. Deadpool 3, which'll also feature Hugh Jackman's Wolverine is expected in cinemas on 3 May, 2024 – though that looks to be subject to change. What's more, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has previously confirmed an X-Men movie is on the way, too.