19 Deleted Scenes That Will Blow Superhero Fans Away

Your average megabudget superhero production shoots way more footage than we will ever see, and most of the unused footage ends up on the cutting room floor for a reason. Often, though, scenes are cut which may have added something to the movie in terms of plot; other scenes reveal things we didn't know about a character or are just plain funny. Here are 20 deleted scenes that any fan of the superhero genre will appreciate.

Many critics point to Logan as the high point of the X-Men franchise. Stephen Merchant's portrayal of the albino mutant hunter Caliban was several notches above Tomas Lemarquis' take on the character in X-Men: Apocalypse. While he got an honorable death—sacrificing himself to aid Logan in the fight against X-24—some fans felt that it lacked emotional impact since it occurred largely off screen.

This deleted scene would have remedied that. Logan turns to find that Caliban's grenade-inflicted injuries didn't do him in immediately. Aside from confirming what everybody in the audience already knew (that Caliban had died), the scene added little, and it was likely dropped for reasons related to pacing.

Many of Iron Man's early scenes serve the function of introducing us to Tony Stark's approach to life, such as when he hilariously coerces best pal James "Rhodey" Rhodes into getting drunk on sake while en route to a fateful weapons demonstration on his private plane. As shot, the scene was originally much longer—and perhaps told us a little more than we needed to know.

As a drunken conversation drags on between Stark and Rhodey, the latter suddenly becomes aware that the flight attendants have essentially transformed into strippers, and it's heavily implied that they're there for more than just dancing. Also, once the plane lands, we get a very odd—yet expertly shot—sequence of a military unit demonstrating marching maneuvers. The first sequence is amusing, the second simply atmospheric,  yet still interesting. Nevertheless, they would have absolutely killed the pacing of the movie had they remained.

The scene in The Dark Knight where the Joker—wearing nothing but his garish makeup and a nurse's uniform—blows up a hospital (after a brief and hilarious struggle with the detonator) is one that contributed mightily to the iconic status of Heath Ledger's interpretation of the character. Interestingly, a different version of the scene was conceived and shot in which the explosion occurs as the Joker is making his getaway on a bus, with the destruction visible only through the vehicle's windows.

While it sounds amazing, the shot didn't pan out exactly how director Christopher Nolan had envisioned. The visibility through the windows is poor, making the destruction seem muted, robbing the explosion of its dramatic impact. This is definitely an instance in which the correct version of the scene made it into the final cut. If only those windows had been a little bigger.

There's a scene midway through The Avengers where Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) confesses that he attempted suicide in an effort to rid the world of the Hulk—"I put a bullet in my mouth," he says, "and the other guy spit it out." We never got to see this—but we almost did. 

Before the decision was made to present 2008's The Incredible Hulk as a "requel," i.e., a combination reboot/loose sequel to Ang Lee's 2003 film Hulk, nearly 70 minutes of footage was cut from the film, most of it rehashing the origin story that Lee's movie had already told. Included in this footage was an alternate opening in which Banner travels to the Arctic to kill himself in the exact fashion which he would later describe to his fellow Avengers. 

Ruffalo's Bruce Banner would go on to score several of the most awesome and/or hilarious moments in Marvel Studios' first crossover event. His discovery by a security guard (the legendary character actor Harry Dean Stanton) after being ejected from the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier by Loki is comedy gold, but an extended version of the scene shows Banner grappling with whether or not to rejoin his teammates and face the alien threat. 

Unfortunately, the scene adds nothing to the film other than to give Stanton a few more lines, and it would have made the lull in action before the climactic Battle of New York even more noticeable. However, it's nice to know that, as the Avengers were gearing up for the conflict, Banner was receiving a calm, reassuring pep talk from an old guy who just wants to know whether he's "a big guy who gets all little, or a little guy that sometimes blows up large." 

Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor was, to put it politely, the least-loved part of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Eisenberg's twitchy, idiosyncratic interpretation of the character was puzzling to fans, and he was given little motivation beyond hating Superman for reasons that aren't quite clear. There is, however, a deleted scene that just may have helped explain his destructive nature.

In the scene, titled "Communion" on the DVD and Blu-Ray extras, a military unit comes upon Luthor in the presence of a giant, demonic creature which appears to be creating or otherwise manipulating "Mother Boxes"—familiar to fans as devices which can access the Source, the single underlying energy of all that exists. Luthor appears deeply affected by the encounter with the being, whom fans speculated may be Steppenwolf—which appeared to be confirmed when the character showed up as the villain of Justice League with a very similar appearance. 

Few would argue that 2016's Deadpool is one of the funniest superhero films of all time, and the film's many deleted scenes lean heavily toward comedy (such as the legendary alternate takes of Weasel's description of Wade's face after his "treatment"). One deleted clip in particular, had it remained in the movie, would have been one of its more effective sight gags.

During the sequence where the newly-disfigured Wade is forlornly tailing love interest Vanessa in a face-obscuring hoodie, he temporarily loses track of his surroundings, to hilarious effect. This is followed by a brief shot illustrating the consequences of wandering around in traffic while being a regenerative mutant.

Spider-Man: Homecoming gave fans of the web-slinger plenty to be excited about, and many were utterly beside themselves when the character of Aaron Davis—who, in the comics, is the uncle of Miles Morales, a character who takes up the Spider-Man mantle after Peter Parker's death in an alternate universe—makes casual mention of a nephew who lives in the area. This implies heavily that the Miles Morales Spider-Man could indeed exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

After getting his hand webbed to his car in a parking garage by Spidey, Davis tries to cajole a passerby into helping him out, then regretfully calls his nephew to cancel their plans—calling the youngster by his first name. It's easy to see how the short sequence doesn't quite fit anywhere in the film, but it would have been a gigantic thrill for fans of Miles.

During the climax of The Dark Knight Rises, Gotham Deputy Police Commissioner Foley (Matthew Modine) leads the Gotham P.D. in a full-on assault against the forces of Bane and Talia Al-Ghul. It's implied that he meets his demise when he's run over by Al-Ghul in her "tumbler," an event which isn't explicitly shown. The scene was shot—although the deleted footage has never been made available to the public, this amateur video gives us a look at the stunt.

Many fans feel Batman Forever to be a somewhat underrated entry in the original film series, with Val Kilmer making a perfectly serviceable Bruce Wayne. The first of two Joel Schumacher-directed entries (preceding the universally reviled Batman and Robin), Forever saw a distinct shift in tone, possessing a more comedic tone than Tim Burton's previous two films—which this cut scene illustrates nicely.

On his way to investigate a crime scene, the Dark Knight stumbles into a garishly colored barbershop (in Schumacher's Gotham, everything is garishly colored). A perfectly-timed (and ridiculous) one-liner from one of the stylists prompts mocking laughter from all of the staff and patrons, all of whom must be aware that this is a man who regularly beats the crap out of vicious criminals with his bare hands.

The current film incarnation of Spider-Man managed to make the character fresh by returning Peter Parker to high school, which is true to the character's comic book origins. For most of Sam Raimi's original film trilogy, Peter was in college—which the filmmakers must have temporarily forgot while shooting this deleted scene from 2004's Spider-Man 2.

In it, Peter is bored in class, scribbling in his notebook. We get a look at his doodles, and they look like nothing more than the cheesy, lovesick scribblings of a high school sophomore. Tobey Maguire's Peter was never exactly a paragon of emotional maturity, but this scene would have made it tough to take the character seriously at all. 

X-Men: First Class revitalized the X-franchise by telling a story set in the early days of Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, the future Magneto, allowing for the recasting of several key characters and the introduction of ones we hadn't previously seen. In one memorable sequence, Xavier and Lehnsherr are scouring the globe in search of other mutants to counter the growing forces of the villainous Sebastian Shaw. During the scene in the strip club, where the pair are attempting to recruit Angel Salvadore (Zoe Kravitz), there are a few brief shots showing Xavier demonstrating his abilities for Angel in a manner that's hilarious for everybody but Lehnsherr. 

While most of the films of the DC Extended Universe have drawn mixed reactions from fans and critics alike, Wonder Woman was widely (and rightly) praised. The film told a standalone origin story with few connections to the other films of the series, except for a brief prologue—and, in this deleted scene—an equally brief epilogue.

In it, Etta Candy catches up with Diana and Steve's old crew to inform them of their next mission: the delivery of a "very old, very powerful" object to America, one which had recently been unearthed from a battlefield—one of the aforementioned Mother Boxes. Despite providing an obvious connection to Justice League, the next film in the series, the sequence was oddly (or maybe prophetically) deemed unnecessary.

The airport brawl from Captain America: Civil War is one of the most impressive action sequences in the entire superhero genre, and its fifteen-plus minutes seem to be over in five thanks to incredibly brisk pacing and whip-crack editing. Among the shots dropped from the final cut, this is one that definitely had to go—as cool as it is, audiences might have had an issue with Rhodey (as War Machine) who seems to actually be trying to kill Captain America.

Cap avoids almost-certain death thanks to a little help from Bucky (of course). In the final cut, Rhodey becomes the only casualty of the brawl, rendered paralyzed after accidentally being shot down by the Vision; it's safe to say his fate would have carried a little less emotional impact if we'd just seen him try to murder one of the the most beloved characters in the MCU, and the title character of the film we're watching.

Drunk Drax gets a bit more screen time in this excised scene from Guardians of the Galaxy. Since the scene never made it far in post-production, Rocket and Groot are represented  by crude animatics—but surprisingly, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel's voice performances are here.

Drax breaks down for Rocket the meaning of the markings on his body, which have to do with his history, and, by default, his dead family. This leads to an insensitively phrased question from Rocket, which prompts Drax to fly off the handle—which leads to the barroom brawl that Quill interrupts in the final cut. 

In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it's revealed that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been infiltrated by Hydra, which has orchestrated a series of events that result in Steve Rogers becoming a wanted fugitive. Before Hydra is revealed, however, one of its highest-ranking men on the inside—the traitorous Jasper Sitwell—has a message for Maria Hill, one of Cap's closest allies, in this deleted clip.

The scene provided another awesome moment for Sitwell (Maximiliano Hernandez), one of few characters to appear in multiple MCU films, two DVD film shorts ("The Consultant" and "Item 47"), and several episodes of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Unfortunately, this instance of treacherous badassery didn't make the final cut.

Thor: The Dark World is probably the least-loved of any MCU film, but it did a fair amount of heavy lifting in continuing to develop the character of Loki. In this deleted scene, we see just how deep his desire to be King runs: Loki, imprisoned after the events of The Avengers, weaves himself an illusion that he is being crowned as the ruler of Asgard. All of his loyal subjects (including Sif, Volstagg, and Fandral) shower him with adoration, and we see that not only is he obsessed with being King but also with being worthy. 

His daydream was to be interrupted by Frigga, but actress Rene Russo was apparently unable to film her insert shots—the deleted scene features only still shots and subtitles of her dialogue—so it had to be dropped. 

Ant-Man's Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) may have continued the MCU's troubling trend of villains that are basically evil versions of the heroes, but Stoll brought a heaping dose of charisma and psychotic intensity to the role that made Cross a more memorable character than he perhaps had a right to be. This deleted scene would have given Cross more screen time in High-Powered Corporate Suit mode, but ultimately took the focus off of his single-minded obsession with the military applications for Hank Pym's shrinking tech—which is unfortunate, because it also contained a pretty cool Easter egg.

In the scene (accompanied by commentary from director Peyton Reed and star Paul Rudd), Cross shows his potential buyers shrunken landfills and shipping crates (and also, for some reason, some kind of bionic eye), demonstrating other potential applications for the technology. But of note is the tattoo on the neck of one of the buyers, which is not a '96 Olympics logo (as Rudd would have us believe), but the symbol of the terrorist organization Ten Rings—implying that Iron Man nemesis the Mandarin is actually out there and is not in fact just a bumbling British actor who is really good at accents. 

Speaking of which, Iron Man 3 may have seriously divided fans with its portrayal of the classic Iron Man villain as simply a red herring meant to draw Tony Stark into the revenge plot of disgraced scientist Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), but it also served as an awesome showcase for the talents of Ben Kingsley, who as Trevor Slattery/The Mandarin convincingly goes from brutal terrorist to drunken buffoon in a matter of minutes when he is revealed to be a stage actor merely impersonating a terrorist. In this deleted scene with alternate takes, Stark and Rhodey coerce Slattery into doing a little acting on their behalf, to convince an enemy operative (over the phone) that Stark is dead, using a spot-on Russian accent.

Rhodey then asks him what other accents he can do in several alternate takes of the scene's ending. The ever-game Kingsley does his best to comply, until the final take, when Don Cheadle as Rhodey deadpans, "Can you do British?" Even Kingsley—a Brit playing a Brit—isn't sure how to respond to that one.