We haven’t had to wait too long for X-Men ’97 Season 2, and thankfully that’s because Marvel Studios plans to have this show be one of their tentpoles that should be releasing annually, which means even this two-year wait will become shorter. There was an era of Marvel where it felt like there was an absence of X-Men media, but since Marvel Studios got the rights to tell stories about the team and mutants overall, they’ve slowly but surely been bringing them back into the mainstream light.
As we continue waiting for them to make their live-action appearance, Marvel Studios began by continuing the storyline of X-Men: The Animated Series with X-Men ’97, which was immediately met with critical reception amongst the critics and fans.
In Season 1, the X-Men had many ups and downs, which included the birth of Nathan Summers (Michael Johnston) and the genocide of Genosha, which involved the death of Gambit, but ultimately, they were able to come out on top as they thwarted Bastion and Mr Sinister, but while all things were seeming good, the asteroid explodes with the X-Men being presumed dead before it’s discovered that they’ve been sent across time into the future and the past.
Season 2 focuses on the X-Men as they try to survive and make it back to the 1990s without causing a time disturbance, while in the present day, the world must move on without the X-Men, and new alliances are made in their absence.
Out of this nine-episode second season, we’ve had the pleasure of viewing the first four episodes for this review, and with how these episodes play out, it instantly makes sense why they’ve decided for this to be the middle ground. There’s a lot to handle with X-Men ’97 Season 2, and seemingly we’ve got to deal with finding a way to get the X-Men back to the 1990s.
When the first season started, although it was a continuation of the previous season, it was a grand return and a brand new start which started with a bang, but the start of Season 2 was quite the opposite and was instead a slower and more sombre start with the first two episodes before going all out with the third and fourth episodes.
X-Men ’97 Season 2 already appears to be more layered and complex than its previous season as we follow these characters across three separate timelines: a war-torn desolate future where Nathan Summers is their only hope of persevering; a tyrannical ancient Egypt where a Pharaoh rules and a young En Sabah Nur (Adetokumboh M’Cormack) tries to break from this oppressive regime; and back home in 1997 where America struggles in a world without the X-Men.
Apocalypse (Ross Marquand) is the overarching villain across all three of these timelines, and while the character appeared in the original series, he has never been perceived as more of a threat outside of the comics until now. It goes without saying that X-Men ’97’s interpretation of the character might be the definitive version, and Ross Marquand’s voice performance as the character really brings life but also delivers that level of fear into the character that makes him feel like that undefeatable foe.
Forge (Gil Birmingham) and Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith) build a time-travelling device that splits them up to rescue the X-Men. We first follow Forge as he travels to the future of 3960 AD and is joined by Cyclops (Ray Chase), Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale), Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith), Wolverine (Cal Dodd), and Morph (J. P. Karliak). While this first episode is by far the weakest out of the four, what it nails about X-Men is that family bond that helps the team be as relatable as they are.
Cyclops and Jean are found with a dilemma, as they must return to their time but also don’t want to leave their son, Nathan Summers, who has the huge pressure of being the one to stop Apocalypse put on him.
Cyclops and Jean never got the opportunity to be parents to their son, and this first episode is their first true moment to spend time with him and aid him in the right direction without putting the responsibility and pressure of an adult on him. It’s handled well for the small amount of time that we get to spend with them and explains everything about the nature of Cable in the present day. We also get to reunite with Forge and Storm as they catch up on their relationship, and while Storm’s screentime is admittedly small, the range of her powers breaks their limit in this first episode as she begins to understand what she’s capable of.
In the second episode, we get Cable (Chris Potter) putting together a team to deal with Apocalypse in the present day and stop him from gaining power, for which he recruits Jubilee (Holly Chou) and Sunspot (Gui Agustini) to complete his team, which consists of himself, Psylocke (Naoko Mori) and Archangel (Christopher Barger), forming the X-Force, which gets its own shiny intro replacing the iconic X-Men intro.
This episode also moves at a slow pace but just slightly faster than the previous, and it’s an episode that gives Jubilee the explosive spotlight that she deserves as she goes against the government-formed mutant team, X-Force, who have been incarcerating mutants. She ends up having one of the coolest fight sequences in the show that feels reminiscent of The Batman’s hallway fight sequence.
The third and fourth episodes are co-written by Beau DeMayo, JB Ballaro, and Anthony Sellitti, respectively, and it goes to show that X-Men ’97 S2 really finds its strengths when DeMayo’s presence is still found within the rewritten work. While Charles Xavier (Ross Marquand) knows better not to mess with time, he can’t help but think that it’s possible to aid En Sabur Nur in the right direction and prevent him from being their undefeatable foe in the future. These are easily the best episodes out of the four, as they include the presence of several Marvel characters that continue to make the universe in this show feel wider than it already is.
Is it possible to change the destined fate of someone else? X-Men ’97 season makes an attempt to provide that answer as En Sabur Nur puts Xavier and Magneto (Matthew Waterson) to the test. There’s so much heart that’s put into these episodes as they retell Apocalypse’s origins and humanise him. What makes mutants such an interesting part of Marvel is that despite their powers, the stories that you get to tell with them feel real and relatable and remain grounded when it comes to the basics of it all.
Apocalypse’s story is heartbreaking, and just like Xavier, you’ll feel sympathy for En Sabur Nur and hope for a change in his life, but it’s only a matter of seconds when that’s all changed and you witness destruction unlike anything you’ve seen before. Episode 4 goes from having nearly no stakes to immediately having the highest stakes possible with everything and everyone on high alert. It’s an episode that genuinely brought me to tears.
What remains consistent throughout is the animation, which is stunning and just a genuine sight to behold as it replicates that 90s Saturday morning cartoon feeling while also modernising it and going bigger and bolder than they have before. The animation in the last half of episode 4 is genuinely breathtaking and took me off my feet as I was in awe of what I was watching.
X-Men ’97 Season 2 isn’t the strongest of starts compared to its predecessor, but it slowly picks up and turns into a show that I immediately want more of and don’t want to put down. If the second half of this season can match the writing, emotion, animation, and spectacle of the fourth episode, there’ll be a chance that this second season will surpass the first, but it can’t lose that motion that it has currently picked up.
This show continues to be a constant reminder of why I no longer want to see the Avengers on my screen and why the X-Men must take over, as they present complex storytelling that delivers thought-provoking character exploration. The relationship alone between Xavier and Magneto is worth checking out these first four episodes and hopefully the rest of the season.
