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X-Men: The Animated Series and X-Men ’97 partially owe their success to their ability to streamline the knotty and wild world of Marvel’s mutants. While lots of characters show up for cameos and arcs, both series focus on a team of 8-10 members. But for X-Men ’97‘s second season, executive producer Brad Winderbaum plans on going a bit bigger.
“There’s many teams, in Marvel, that have the letter ‘X’ that are followed by a hyphen,” Winderbaum said during a Q&A with Comic Book (via Collider). “I would put it to you like this… there’s two other X teams in season two.”
Who are those two other teams? Winderbaum doesn’t say, but we can take a few educated guesses about who could show up in X-Men ’97 season two and how they would change the dynamic of the show.
X-Factor
X-Factor is one of the two most likely candidates for season two inclusion, as both the original series and the revival have been hinting at the team’s inclusion for a while. In the last episode of season one, the time-traveler Bishop visits Forge, a member of X-Factor in the comics, for a team-up to find missing mutants. Marvel also recently announced that another X-Factor mainstay Polaris would be a major player in season two.
The question, however, is what version of X-Factor might be involved. The first incarnation of X-Factor consisted of the original five X-Men (Cyclops, Beast, Jean Gray, Iceman, and Angel) who masqueraded as humans hunting mutants, but actually recruited and housed mutants in need (just go with it). The second incarnation was a government-sponsored team led by Havok, and also featured Polaris and Multiple Man. The third major incarnation was a detective organization led by Multiple Man and usually featured Wolfsbane and Strong Guy.
At this point, we can’t quite tell which version will show up. Apocalypse will be a big bad in season two, and he started out as an antagonist for the first X-Factor. Forge, Polaris, and Bishop’s sister Shard were on the government-sponsored team, while Polaris was sometimes a member of the detective team. Given the fact that Forge and Bishop are looking for missing mutants, we might see a mixture of all three.
X-Force
By the end of the X-Men ’97‘s first season, Cable officially joins the X-Men, while potential recruit Sunspot leaves to join Magneto. Both Cable and Sunspot are key members of X-Force, the other most likely team for season two. X-Force began as the New Mutants, a team of adolescents including Sunspot and Cannonball, who studied at Xavier’s School. Eventually, Cable takes leadership of the New Mutants and they become X-Force.
Like any other long-running teams, X-Force has had different incarnations. In addition to Cable’s team, other versions include a black-ops team that Cyclops used to take on missions that ran contrary to Xavier’s stated mission as well as the more recent take on the team that served as Krakoa’s defense force. In every version, X-Force took a more aggressive approach to super-heroics.
If X-Force does show up in X-Men ’97‘s second season, they’ll probably be the version led by Cable aka Nathan Summers. Season one ended with some time-displaced X-Men landing in the future, where the teen Nathan is being raised by the Askani Cult, and others in ancient Egypt, where they meet En Sabah Nur, who will become Apocalypse. Cable changed the New Mutants into X-Force, in part to do battle against Apocalypse, a storyline season two may adapt.
Excalibur
The rest of the possibilities are longshots (even if they don’t include the X-Men member Longshot), but they are all fan favorites. The X-Men cartoons have had fun nodding at the fans with their deep cuts, so none of these are totally out of the realm of possibility.
In the comics, Excalibur came into existence when it appeared that the X-Men had disbanded. Nightcrawler, Rachel Summers, and Kitty Pryde all relocated to the UK, where they joined Captain Britain and the shapeshifter Meggan to form Excalibur. Although the line-up changed over time, Excalibur remained a group of British mutants dealing with the paranormal.
Given what we know about season two, it’s hard to see where Excalibur would fit in X-Men ’97, but it would be fun to see them running around.
X-Statix
Arguably the weirdest collection of mutant weirdos, there’s X-Statix. A creation of writer Peter Milligan and artist Mike Allred, X-Statix began life as X-Force before taking a new name. In both incarnations, the X-Statix were a group of pop star mutants who lived lives of debauchery before they die in front of the cameras for reality show audiences.
X-Statix debuted in the early 2000s, alongside Grant Morrison’s radical run on New X-Men. Milligan and Allred used the book to poke fun at celebrity and reality TV culture, while also looking at Marvel’s mutants from a new angle.
As with Excalibur, it’s hard to see how the X-Statix would work in X-Men ’97, but with season two putting the X-Men in the costumes from Morrison’s run, maybe they can appear on a television in the background.
Generation X
Jubilee was the audience surrogate for X-Men: The Animated Series and had a big part in season one of X-Men ’97. In the comics, however, Jubilee got the most attention as a member of Generation X, an updated version of the New Mutants.
Led by Emma Frost and Banshee, Generation X featured a new set of young mutants, including Cannonball’s little sister Husk, who could turn her skin into any type of material, and Chamber, who had a giant furnace in his chest. Season one of X-Men ’97 saw Jubilee trying to help another young mutant in Sunspot, so it wouldn’t be a shock to see her head up a team of other teens.
X-Corp
Mutants may be hated and feared, but some of them are also very, very rich. X-Men ’97 viewers saw that with Sunspot, but it’s also been true of Angel, a founding member of the original X-Men. In its various incarnations, X-Corp has focused on the financial dealings of the richest mutants.
If that doesn’t sound very heroic, well, that’s kind of the point. X-Corps sheds light on larger parts of being a mutant, and gets at an economic reality that many superhero stories ignore. To be frank, that’s a bit more complicated than the average X-Men animated story, even the more sophisticated X-Men ’97. But given the state of disarray at the end of season one, it wouldn’t be absurd for the mutants to shore up their resources, and that’s where X-Corps does its work.
X-Men ’97 returns for season two on Disney+ in 2025.
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