Original artwork, not a still
Do you know what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else.
— X-Men · 2000
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
A bad-movie punchline that has outlived the good ones: Storm's cold, serious delivery of a joke meant to be tossed off. It became the go-to example of a superhero line that lands with a thud, quoted whenever someone wants to mock stiff comic-book dialogue, and it is the rare case where fans know the culprit by name, since the writer was Joss Whedon.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for X-MenShow the scene
In the climax of X-Men (2000), the Brotherhood's machine is set up on Liberty Island and the X-Men climb the Statue of Liberty to stop it. Storm, played by Halle Berry, fights the acrobatic Toad up there and finishes him with a bolt of lightning, delivering the line as she does. The wording is not from the comics: Joss Whedon, brought in to rewrite the third act, said in a 2001 interview that he wrote it, and that it was meant as a throwaway remark. Most of his work was cut, but this line survived.
Sources (2)
- Looper: The Worst Line In An X-Men Movie Was Written By... Joss Whedon?whole articleReference checked
- Wikipedia: X-Men (film)Writing; PlotReference checked
Context reviewed
