The MCU Secretly Teased Mutants Back In 2010

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Thanks to its multiverse, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has now been able to make past Marvel movies part of this connected universe, including Fox’s X-Men, but the MCU secretly teased the mutants’ presence back in 2010. The MCU’s Phase 4 began the exploration of the multiverse in the TV series Loki, but it wasn’t until Spider-Man: No Way Home that Marvel confirmed that other movies and characters outside the MCU are part of its multiverse, in this case, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man movies, as well as Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock/Daredevil from Netflix’s Marvel TV shows.
Since then, Marvel has continued to add more characters from past movies to the MCU’s multiverse, such as Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool, and thanks to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it also confirmed the presence of Fox’s X-Men through Patrick Stewart’s Professor X. The TV series Ms. Marvel further confirmed that mutants exist in the MCU, but Marvel actually secretly teased the mutants’ presence in 2010, thanks to Iron Man 2.
Iron Man 2 Deleted Scene Hinted At The Presence Of Captain Marvel, Hank Pym, & Mutants

Iron Man 2 is set six months after the events of the first movie, and sees Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) dealing with health issues as the palladium core in the arc reactor that keeps him alive and powers his Iron Man armor is poisoning him. Accepting that his end is near, Tony grows reckless, but when Nick Fury gives him some of his father’s old material, he finds out that Howard left the diagram of the atomic structure of a new element hidden in a diorama. After rediscovering this new element, in an Iron Man 2 deleted scene Tony asks JARVIS to search the Oracle Grid for projects Pegasus, Exodus, and Golitah, which are connected to Captain Marvel, mutants, and Hank Pym, respectively.
Project Pegasus was a joint venture between SHIELD, NASA, and the United States Air Force, with the purpose of studying and harnessing the Tesseract’s energy after Howard Stark discovered the Tesseract while trying to locate Captain America. In the 1980s, Mar-Vell, disguised as Dr. Wendy Lawson, joined the project with the intention of harnessing the Tesseract’s energy to create a Light-Speed Engine, but when Carol Danvers volunteered to fly the prototype craft, she was exposed to the Tesseract’s energy, which granted her powers, allowing her to become Captain Marvel years later. Project Goliath was also a SHIELD project, this time led by Hank Pym and Bill Foster, and in which they experimented with Pym Particles, and Project Exodus is research on human mutants, who by the time Iron Man 2 was released, hadn’t been introduced yet due to Fox owning the rights to them.
Why Tony Stark Needed Pegasus, Exodus, & Goliath In Iron Man 2

The biggest question about Iron Man 2’s tease of Captain Marvel, Hank Pym, and mutants is why Tony Stark needed information on these projects for his new element. Project Pegasus could have given Tony some insight as he was dealing with a new material, just like his father and company did when they found the Tesseract, and Project GOLIATH could have guided Tony into integrating the new element into his suit, just like Pym did with Pym Particles and the Ant-Man suit. As for Project Exodus, even after over 20 movies, it’s unclear how it could have helped Tony Stark, as the mutants’ place in the MCU still isn’t completely clear.
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