1. Edward Norton takes over as scientist Bruce Banner, a choice that plays up the Jekyll and Hyde theme, and which capitalizes on the actor‘s track record as dual personalities in films such as "Primal Fear" and "Fight Club." (Norton reportedly had a hand in the script too, though the prolific Zak Penn has sole credit on screen.) First seen hiding out in Brazil, Banner is keeping a low profile after running off following experiments conducted for the U.S. military.

2. But it spills no secrets to note that she‘s insistently alive in "X3" in the form of her alter ego, the voraciously destructive Phoenix, a woman even more dangerous in her out–of–control telekinetic (and, as the good doctor Freud would point out, sexual) powers than Jean was before. (In anticipation of Phoenix‘s rise from the ashes, writers Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn offer a charming flashback to an earlier time when the Class 5 mutant was a frightened suburban girl, and Xavier and Magneto were dapper, well–moisturized friends.) An even bigger headline for the differently abled community, though, is the discovery of an antibody that can ‘‘cure‘‘ mutants and restore them to ‘‘normalcy.‘‘ But what is normal? ‘‘You can‘t cure being a mutant –– there‘s nothing to cure,‘‘ insists Storm, making the allegorical connections to homosexuality about as vivid as a fictional character with the power to control the weather can, short of taping a PSA.