Marvel Animation’s X-Men ‘97 Discussion Thread.

[Xerxes82]

It's a right family reunion at the end of this one.

Spoiler

Not only do Jean and Scott reunite with a much younger Nathan, but in the comics Mother Askani is ALSO a child of Jean and Scott, namely Rachel Summers of the Days of Future Past timeline. Rachel appeared in the "Bastion's mutant slave utopia" vision just the other week as well. Could be she's finally going to actually get an out of comics appearance worth talking about in a S2. She's one of my favorite characters since Claremont's original run on Excalibur, so I have my fingers crossed.

Sure looks like S2 is going full Apocalypse. Wonder who his four horsemen will be. Well, the other three anyway, since they telegraphed one so hard here. I'm expecting Onslaught as well. Would sell my left arm for a quality Ahab appearance. Ooh, and Stryfe. The timing is ripe for Strife, maybe do X-cutioner's Song. They already did Cable's origin, so it would be a bit backwards, but you could still mine the drama between Cable and Stryfe I expect.

 

[JD]

Hopefully the MCU people are paying at least a bit of attention, not that they should outright copy the show but a lot of the style and spirit of the show really shows why the X-Men are awesome.

The "MCU people" are the ones who are making the show, so I'm pretty sure they're paying at least a little bit of attention to it.
This was a great finale, with a lot of nice character moments and some fantastic action.
I like that so much of it was focused on Xavier and Magneto, and their friendship and history.
It was nice that after everything he did, they were still willing to give Bastion a chance and let him join the team. That's the kind of thing I expect to see from these kind of heroes.
The end was a very interesting set up for Season 2.

 

[Christopher]

Sure looks like S2 is going full Apocalypse. Wonder who his four horsemen will be. Well, the other three anyway, since they telegraphed one so hard here.

Didn't the Horsemen already appear in the original series? I remember Angel being turned into Archangel.

 

[kirk55555]

The "MCU people" are the ones who are making the show, so I'm pretty sure they're paying at least a little bit of attention to it.

They're really not. The (now fired) head writer wrote one episode of Moon Knight, and one of the other writers was a writers room assistant on Moon Knight, none of the other writers have any Marvel credits at all except for this show. When it comes to producers most of those are in name only, its not like Kevin Feige was working day to day on this show (he probably had about as much to do with it as fellow producer Avi Arad had). There are 15 credited producers, and I doubt more then 2 or 3 actively did anything on the show (which is the standard thing with productions that have a lot of credited producers).

I'm not saying that the show was made against Feige's wishes or anything, but all of the direct creative people have little to no MCU credits, the show is a Marvel/Disney production but its not an MCU production outside of the fact that I think that Feige technically has a say in all Marvel media now.

But there is a difference between being the big boss and actively working on a project, and I doubt anyone working on this show will have anything to do with the eventually live action X-Men reboot, so I just hope the people that do work on that take a bit of inspiration from X-Men 97.

 

[Samurai8472]

It's a right family reunion at the end of this one.

Spoiler

Not only do Jean and Scott reunite with a much younger Nathan, but in the comics Mother Askani is ALSO a child of Jean and Scott, namely Rachel Summers of the Days of Future Past timeline. Rachel appeared in the "Bastion's mutant slave utopia" vision just the other week as well. Could be she's finally going to actually get an out of comics appearance worth talking about in a S2. She's one of my favorite characters since Claremont's original run on Excalibur, so I have my fingers crossed.

Sure looks like S2 is going full Apocalypse. Wonder who his four horsemen will be. Well, the other three anyway, since they telegraphed one so hard here. I'm expecting Onslaught as well. Would sell my left arm for a quality Ahab appearance. Ooh, and Stryfe. The timing is ripe for Strife, maybe do X-cutioner's Song. They already did Cable's origin, so it would be a bit backwards, but you could still mine the drama between Cable and Stryfe I expect.

Gambit
Professor X
Appearing as a cameo in the first episode of 97 was Angel so next season would an official debut of Angel.

 

[Xerxes82]

They did, yes. Archangel was that group's Death.

But Poccy tends to get a new crew with each appearance in the comics. Gambit, Wolverine, Polaris, Cable, and others have all been Horsemen at least once

 

[Saul]

A great ending to a great season.

Spoiler

It was a small thing, but all the Marvel cameos were great, I like how even Iron Man looked like the 90s animated version. Its cool to see that the world is bigger then just the X-Men. Then we see a bunch of mutants on Forge's chart which was cool, including Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (said to be "Off World"), and Shadowcat, who are all interesting to see being confirmed as existing in this universe.

Spoiler: Cameos

Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver did show up in an episode of the 90s series. I think maybe Shadowcat had a brief cameo in some episode too.

According to Demayo

https://twitter.com/BeauDemayo/status/1790648711456182623

Spoiler

Peter found MJ

Then this must be post Spidey TAS and somehow also Captain America returned. Or it's John Walker.

 

[Xerxes82]

I'm just going through all the 90's stuff trying to imagine what they could mine for S2. There's still so much stuff they could draw from. New Mutants predates the 90's, but Sunspot gives them a door there. Generation X is very much of the 90's, and would let them give Emma some focus. I could see them conflating the two a bit, might work. Or going X-Force with Cable, as New Mutants did in the 90's.

You've got all the stuff from Excalibur, including Captain Britain who I would not be at all shocked to see. (Also note the Psylocke cameo in the finale, which I believe is only her second appearance in TAS unless I'm missing something.) Onslaught is the big one they haven't done yet, and all the set up is in place. X-cutioner's Song is still on the table. The Legacy Virus, which they kind of took elements from for a Cable/Bishop two parter in TAS. The ending of that is heartbreaking, and a Colossus/Magik story and I'm not at all opposed to seeing more of the big C and his sis.

I could also see them reaching for some more early '00's stuff, like E is for Extinction this season. After the finale, I could absolutely see them doing End of Greys, with Jean in place of Rachel and working the Shi'ar back in. They are at least teasing Gambit's time as Death, from that same era. Maybe some stuff from Claremont's Xtreme X-men? I don't honestly remember much from that book, so I can't recall if there were any major beats worth drawing from. Sublime? From later in Morrison's run (source for E is for Extinction), though you'd have to make a lot of changes to avoid retreading some ground with Magneto. Maybe Whedon's Breakworld stuff with Colossus (ooh, animated Abigail Brand what a thought).

Figure anything pre-House of M is probably fair game. I can't imagine they would touch that, or any of the Decimation/Messiah stuff that came later, though you never know.

It's a huge, open canvas. Exciting times.

 

[Firebird]

I went into this season skeptical because I'm just so burned out on superheroes in general. And now, I'm sitting here realizing how painful the wait is going to be for season 2. I thoroughly enjoyed the hell out of that finale and the rest of the season. X-Men '97 was a show I didn't know I needed, especially as someone who never really watched the original.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Good heavens! is my reaction. What a fantastic show this has been so far.

 

[Christopher]

I'm just going through all the 90's stuff trying to imagine what they could mine for S2. There's still so much stuff they could draw from. New Mutants predates the 90's, but Sunspot gives them a door there. Generation X is very much of the 90's, and would let them give Emma some focus. I could see them conflating the two a bit, might work. Or going X-Force with Cable, as New Mutants did in the 90's.

No reason they have to limit themselves to '90s comics. The original show adapted material ranging from the '70s to the '90s, and the destruction of Genosha is from the early 2000s, while the show's version of Genosha borrowed a bit from the recent "Krakoa Era" in the comics.

(Also note the Psylocke cameo in the finale, which I believe is only her second appearance in TAS unless I'm missing something.)

Psylocke had a speaking role in Parts 2 & 4 of the "Beyond Good and Evil" storyline in season 4, but had made two non-speaking cameo appearances in season 2.

 

[FreezeC77]

I don't think the show necessarily has to only have stories or plots up until 1997 or whatever point the show is taking place.

Some of the characters shown at Genosha didn't show up in the comics until many years after 1997 like Pixie or Glob

 

[Saul]

Figure anything pre-House of M is probably fair game. I can't imagine they would touch that, or any of the Decimation/Messiah stuff that came later, though you never know.

I know the basics of House of M but have not read it. Why would they avoid it?

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

So everyone that seemed dead at the beginning already came back or will. Shocking. So much for the "emotional weight" of having that all stick.

Regardless of tropes of the genre, this was fantastic. Great season, great finale, and it seems the praise is near universal, a rarity for Marvel productions anymore. Is season 2 confirmed or we waiting on official word on that?

 

[Christopher]

So everyone that seemed dead at the beginning already came back or will. Shocking. So much for the "emotional weight" of having that all stick.

Uhh, Gambit is still dead. They let it stick and let it pay off emotionally with Rogue's "Remember it!"

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

Uhh, Gambit is still dead. They let it stick and let it pay off emotionally with Rogue's "Remember it!"

That's why I said "or will". That's what the after credit scene was about.

 

[Christopher]

That's why I said "or will". That's what the after credit scene was about.

Oh, are you suggesting that Apocalypse intends to revive Gambit as a Horseman? If so, is there precedent for a dead character being resurrected fully that way, as opposed to temporarily?

 

[FreezeC77]

Oh, are you suggesting that Apocalypse intends to revive Gambit as a Horseman? If so, is there precedent for a dead character being resurrected fully that way, as opposed to temporarily?

I'm not sure if any of Apocalypse's various four horsemen lineups featured a character who was dead, revived, and then returned to being their normal selves.

But after Apocalypse has Angel (who becomes Archangel) as his Horseman of Death, eventually Archangel becomes the 'heir' to Apocalypse and has twins with Pestilence. Those twins eventually claim the mantle of successor and as part of it they got access to Celestial items called the Life and Death seeds. They used the Life seeds to resurrect four dead characters (Banshee, Grim Reaper, The Sentry, and Daken) all four remained alive afterwards.

So they may be borrowing different elements for a Gambit revival since Apocalypse could have a life seed to bring him back and then the 'death seed' would be put into him because he'd likely be the Horseman of Death since

Spoiler

He became the Horseman of death previously although was alive and chose to do it shortly after House of M

In fact we may see the horsemen made up of multiple revived Genosha dead mutants and not just Gambit as the only one revived.

 

[Christopher]

Well, I stand by my belief that resurrection is an overused story trope, that it's unhealthy to condition viewers to react to a death by expecting and gaming out its reversal rather than feeling its emotional impact as the characters do. But I guess there can be some emotional weight to a story about the X-Men's reactions to seeing Gambit brought back as a mind-controlled slave of Apocalypse. Still, it would be a refreshing novelty if just once, a superhero would be allowed to stay dead.

Plus, of course, I never liked Gambit and don't want him to come back anyway.

In other news, I was reassured to read elsewhere just now that Beau DeMayo completed his writing work on season 2 before he was let go. So we'll get one more season of his excellent writing, at least.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Showing Gambit's burnt playing card getting scooped up seems like it was foreshadowing in a very clear way that Gambit will figure somehow into the events of the next season.