The scene with Callisto and Leech is quickly covered up by a passing issue of the Daily Bugle blowing across the screen, and it’s jam-packed with details. The biggest is the cover story highlighting a mutant fashion show—including a few intriguing mutants from the comics: Dust, introduced in the early aughts during New X-Men; Stacy X; Maggot; and Banshee. In a small pop-out bubble, two more young mutants are included in the form of Nature Girl and Loa, suggesting X-Men ‘97 is going to pull from a lot of comics material even beyond its late-‘90s setting.
Then of course, the other big Easter egg on the cover is twofold: this fashion show is not only called the “Hellfire Gala,” in reference to the event in the recent X-Men comics, an annual (and frequently dramatic and/or disastrous) diplomatic outreach party held by mutantkind in its sovereign nation on the living island of Krakoa, the cover story is from two very famous Bugle journalists, Eddie Brock and Peter Parker. Of course, the ‘90s Spider-Man cartoon did cross over with X-Men, so this might just be a cheeky nod, but perhaps we might see more beyond just a byline here?
If all that wasn’t enough, there’s a missing poster just out of focus in the foreground too that certainly looks a lot like Marrow, so there’s a lot going on in this set of shots!
