Remembering Len Wein’s ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ Cameo

The comics industry lost a legend on Sunday when Len Wein, the co-creator of Wolverine and many other X-Men characters, passed away at the age of 69. Wein will live on through his work and the characters he created, and he’ll also be immortalized through a cameo role in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Wein appeared, alongside his X-Men collaborator Chris Claremont, in X-Men: Days of Future Past as a United States congressman during a hearing in which Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) pitches his mutant-hunting Sentinel project.

Wein even has a speaking line, reminding his fellow congressmen about “what happened in Cuba,” referring to the events of X-Men: First Class.

You can watch Wein’s scenes above (via Bleeding Cool).

The comic book industry continues to mourn the loss of Wein, without whom the X-Men comic book and film series may not exist today. X-Men film star Hugh Jackman, who played Wolverine through nine X-Men movies, owes Wein a particular debt and paid tribute to the creator in his own social media post.

In addition to co-creating Wolverine in The Incredible Hulk #180 and #181 in 1974, Wein then brought the character into the X-Men in Giant-Size X-Men #1 in 1975, where he also co-created Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Thunderbird and helped set the X-Men on the path to becoming Marvel’s most popular heroes. It’s no wonder then that he was chosen for a cameo role in one of the X-Men films.

ComicBook.com’s Russ Burlingame had a chance to speak with Wein in 2016. During the interview, Wein took stock of his decades-long career in comics.

“I’m still that same kid who wrote those early House of Mystery stories, who started on Phantom Stranger, who was writing Swamp Thing — hey, wait a second, I’m still writing Swamp Thing!” Wein said. “I’m that guy. My body may have gone on and on but I think the heart of me as a writer and as a comic book fan has never aged. I think one of the reasons I’m still working when others of my age and guys even younger have gone on to other things is, this is my heart. I love this.”

You can listen to the full interview here.