With the third installment of the Avengers: Infinity War sucking up any and all superhero media coverage, the fact that Deadpool 2 introduces more than a handful of new mutants has been lost in the scramble for any tidbit about Infinity War. So we were excited that in identifying the actors who are playing the new X-Force members reveals that there are two Asian actors. Yes, the roles of X-Force’s Shatterstar and Surge will be helmed by Asian actors.

Shatterstar and Surge

Lewis Tan plays the popular comic book character Shatterstar. Shatterstar wields swords and has superhuman capabilities and a healing factor a la Deadpool and Wolverine. In the comics, Shatterstar isn’t Asian – he is actually a blond hair mutant able to create shockwaves through his swords and is related to the X-Man Longshot. We’re happy that a superhero has been re-imagined as Asian. More of this, please!

The other character didn’t need re-imagining. Japanese actress Shioli Kutsuna plays Japanese mutant superhero Surge, the mutant with purple (blue) hair and the ability to control electricity. In the comic books, Surge is Noriko Ashida, a mutant from Japan that ran away to America as a teenage refugee escaping her abusive mutant-hating father.

The key numbers here are 2 and 1 meaning that there’s TWO Asian actors in the roles of supporting superheros on ONE movie. We get excited for Marvel and Marvel-related movies because we are fanboys for Marvel comics, but we also love that Marvel Studio is purposely using their platform and resources to not add more racial diversity to their casts, but in their crews. With Deadpool 2’s casting of Asian actors Tan and Kutsana as well as Black actors in the roles of Domino and Hammer (Domino is one of the main characters in Deadpool and was re-imagined as Black for the film), seems like Fox has an eye on diversity, too.

With Tan and Kutsana, that’s a total of 15 Asian actors and actresses that have been cast in Marvel and Marvel-related movies.