‘Deadpool 2’ Features An Alpha Flight Easter Egg

As pointed out by Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld, Deadpool 2 features an Easter egg that name-drops another Marvel Comics superhero team.

In the film, Dopinder's taxi cab has an advertisement on its roof for "Alpha Flight," which offers affordable flights to Canada.

Alpha Flight was a Canadian superhero team, populated by mutants -- although there has been some confusion on the part of fans in the past as to whether it would be a Marvel/Disney or Fox property, since Marvel's Agents of SHIELD dropped an apparent Alpha Flight Easter egg at one point.

Created by John Byrne, Alpha Flight is a Canadian superhero team in the Marvel Universe formed by a government organization called Department H. Wolverine was a member of Alpha Flight until Professor X sought him out and invited him to join the new X-Men.

The concept for Alpha Flight in the Marvel Universe begins with James Hudson, a scientist who was working for a petrochemical company in Canada. Hudson developed a high-tech helmet and body suit that was supposed to be used for underground exploration, then discovered that his company was planning to sell the technology to the United States government for military use. Hudson took the technology to the Canadian government and was placed with Department H, an organization dedicated to defending Canada from supervillain threats.

Hudson and his wife, Heather McNeil, recruited the amnesiac Logan into Department H. Reading about the Fantastic Four inspired Hudson to create his own superhero team. The team was initially called The Flight and the roster included Wolverine. The Flight did not perform well. Wolverine left to join the X-Men, and the Canadian government ordered Hudson to wear his own bodysuit and helmet as Weapon Alpha to hunt Logan down. The Flight was restructured into multiple teams, with Alpha Flight being the premiere team.

Like the West Coast Avengers and Justice League International, Alpha Flight was a briefly-popular expansion of an existing franchise, but eventually turned into something of a punching bag for fans who view such properties as ancillary to the "main" team.

Josh Brolin's Cable and Zazie Beetz' Domino joins the rest of Deadpool's X-Force in Deadpool 2, which also includes Terry Crews. Beloved characters from the original like Colossus (Stefan Kapicic), Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), Dopinder (Karan Soni), Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), and T.J. Miller (Weasel) will also be making a return alongside Deadpool, played by Ryan Reynolds.

Deadpool 2 cruises into theaters on May 18, while X-Men: Dark Phoenix lands in theaters in February 2019. The New Mutants is slated to hit theaters August 2019.