Even though Guardians of the Galaxy came out in 2014, there are still Easter eggs to be found. Part of the superhero film viewing experience is closely examining every detail to find a new callback to something within the film’s larger universe, and that’s especially the case with Guardians. On Monday, Director James Gunn confirmed a new Easter egg one Twitter user spotted involving Stan Lee’s cameo in the 2014 film. But it’s not the fabled Easter egg the director claims is still in there.
Stan Lee appears in Guardians, as he does in pretty much all Marvel films, in a cameo role on the planet Xandar. During a scene when Rocket Raccoon analyzes the people around him using the screen of a piece of tech, Rocket spies Lee hitting on a girl through the interface of his device. The new Easter egg, which was found by Twitter user @danactual is what the words next to Lee say when translated from the fictional Skrull language. It says “Excelsior.”
Comic book fans will no doubt know that “Excelsior” is Lee’s catchphrase. The popular motto is also the New York state motto, which of course is where Lee himself is from.
On Twitter, Gunn confirmed that @danactual had indeed spotted an Easter egg. But, it is not “THE Easter egg,” as he wrote. For years now, Gunn has said that there is one Easter egg in Guardians that nobody has found yet, and he once (jokingly) offered up a $100,000 reward for whoever spotted it. Many eagle-eyed fans have tried, and failed, to identify the hidden Easter egg, but at least @danactual found something.
The search for the much-ballyhooed Easter egg continues, but Gunn’s tweet seems to confirm that there is at least one more missing Easter egg in the movie. There could be more, if you look hard enough.
For now, though, the mystery of the yet-to-be-found Easter egg lives on. The question is, will we still be looking for it by the time Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 comes out?
