O is for the Oval Office, the site of several key scenes in ''X2.'' And no, none of them involve Martin Sheen.
P is for Pyro, the bad-boy, fire-wielding character played by ''Tadpole'''s Aaron Stanford. Needless to say, he doesn't get along too well with Iceman. And as some podunk police find out, Pyro's got a fiery temper.
Q is for Alfonso and Rene Quijada, twin actors with a tiny but unforgettable role in ''X2.'' They play a janitor whose identity is stolen by Mystique -- and he's shocked to walk by himself in the hall (let's assume it's a homage to, and not a rip-off of, a near-identical scene in ''Terminator 2.'')
R is for Rogue, who finally gets over her first-movie crush on Wolverine. But she still has that white stripe in her hair (courtesy of absorbing some of silver-tressed Magneto's powers in the first film), and doesn't take kindly to being teased about it.
S is for Stryker, the all-too-human villain played by a Southern-accented Brian Cox. Stryker, a government employee whose fondness for mutants is roughly that of Ahab's for whales, doesn't pay much attention to constitutional niceties in his quest to destroy what Magneto calls Homo Superior.
T is for Toad, an underwhelming first-film villain (his powers center on a long, agile tongue) who is, thankfully, absent from ''X2.''
U is for ''The Uncanny X-Men'', the long-running comic book (it debuted in 1963 as ''The X-Men'' ) that forms the basis for much of the movie's plot and nearly all of its characters. Marvel Comics also publishes numerous spin-offs, including ''Ultimate X-Men,'' ''New X-Men,'' and, yes, ''X-Treme X-Men.''
V is for Vancouver, the site of ''X2'''s shoot. Even the White House was re-created in a Canadian studio. Hey -- at least it wasn't France.
W is for Hugh Jackman's indestructible loner Wolverine, who finally discovers his unsettling origins this time. Plus, fans who pined for more claw-wielding action won't have anything to complain about; in one scene, Wolvie takes on a full Special Forces battalion. (Guess who wins?)
X is for Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who spends much of ''X2'' inside the power-enhancing machine Cerebro. Stewart has a novel way of fighting boredom when stuck on set: He plays ''Tetris'' on his GameBoy, which he tucks away in Xavier's wheelchair. Really.
Y is for Yuriko Oyama (''Scorpion King'''s Kelly Hu), Stryker's personal assistant. But as her constant knuckle-cracking suggests, she's also Lady Deathstrike, the female counterpart to Wolverine, able to project metal claws out of her nails. Unfortunately, there's no manicure scene.
Z is for Zak Penn (''Last Action Hero''), one of five writers credited for ''X2'''s labyrinthine story and character-packed screenplay. Director Bryan Singer also did some uncredited rewrites, sometimes in the middle of shooting -- flexing a few superpowers of his own.
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