Marvel’s best Disney+ show is finally returning this summer
Apocalypse now
X-Men '97 is officially returning this summer, with Marvel Studios finally dropping the first trailer for season two alongside a 1st of July release date on Disney+. And honestly, we can't wait.
The first season ended up being comfortably one of the best things Marvel has released in years. At a time when a lot of the MCU has felt increasingly bloated and directionless, X-Men ’97 somehow reminded everyone exactly why people fell in love with these characters in the first place.
Rather than turning into “The Wolverine Show featuring occasional other mutants”, the series brilliantly balanced its huge ensemble cast, giving Cyclops, Rogue, Storm, Magneto, Jean Grey, Gambit and Nightcrawler all proper moments to shine while still delivering massive comic-book spectacle, emotional storytelling and some genuinely brilliant action sequences. It also helps that it might have the best theme song currently on television. Hearing that opening riff kick in every week somehow made the whole thing feel even bigger.
Season two looks set to double down on all of that chaos, too. Picking up directly after the events of the hugely acclaimed first season, the new trailer confirms the X-Men are now scattered across multiple timelines after their battle against Bastion. Some are trapped in the ancient past, others in a dystopian future ruled by Apocalypse, while the 1990s timeline descends further into anti-mutant paranoia in their absence.
The trailer above looks fantastic as well. Wolverine’s slashing things again, Magneto looks permanently seconds away from crashing out, Cyclops is barking orders at everyone, and Apocalypse is looming over the whole thing, ready to deliver on his supervillain status.
There’s also a strong chance season two gets even darker and more emotionally devastating than the first, which is slightly terrifying considering season one already emotionally flattened viewers on multiple occasions.
The returning voice cast includes Ross Marquand as Professor X, Jennifer Hale as Jean Grey, Cal Dodd as Wolverine and Lenore Zann as Rogue, alongside the rest of the revival’s core cast. Marvel has confirmed the new season will run for nine episodes.
While there’s still a fair amount of uncertainty surrounding Marvel’s wider future right now, X-Men ’97 genuinely feels like one of the few projects the studio has absolute confidence in.
The first season became one of Disney+’s biggest animated successes and currently sits at a ridiculous 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, with fans almost universally agreeing it captured the spirit of the comics better than most live-action X-Men adaptations ever managed. At this point, X-Men ’97 doesn’t just feel like a nostalgic revival anymore. It feels like Marvel accidentally rediscovered the blueprint for how to make people care about superheroes again.
The 1st of July can't come soon enough.
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