X-Men ’97 Season 2: Episodes 1-3: An Astonishing Start

*Warning: Minor Spoilers Ahead*

X-Men 97 Season 2 takes place a few months after the first season. However, the show wastes no time at all putting the viewer right in the middle of the action. 

Episode 1 is a strong start to the series. It focuses primarily on the future stranded X-Men, and the episode puts emphasis on a young Nathan Summers. Each X-Man gets a moment to shine in the future. Wolverine gets a fun scene slashing robots; Storm shows an awesome display of power; Morph transforms into Thor; and Cyclops and Jean Grey are given a genuinely compelling emotional dilemma. This episode feels very comfortable with its characters; the first episode of the previous season had to reintroduce viewers to the X-Men; this premiere episode gets to throw the viewer into a dynamic world. 

Episode 2 is by far the most unique episode of the entire show. The episode follows Cable as the protagonist, and it doesn’t focus on the X-Men at all. It focuses on a completely different team: X-Force. Watching a whole new cast of characters lead the show is a welcome shift from following the same band of merry mutants. Cable makes for a great lead, and the rest of X-Force makes for great supporting characters. Even the intro is completely different from anything else before: X-Force 97. It’s these differences that make Episode 2 incredibly rewatchable: it almost functions as its own standalone episode, something that no other episode in the 97 show can attest to. 

Episode 3 is the weakest of the premiere. It follows the X-Men stranded in the past, teaming up with a young En Sabah Nur against the forces of Rama Tut. While accurate to the comics, having Rama Tut be the villain of the past with no set-up must be very jarring for those not familiar with the character. Rama Tut is Kang the Conqueror, which explains the futuristic technology during ancient Egypt. A casual Marvel fan would not have any knowledge on this, especially considering the MCU abandoned Kang entirely following Jonathan Major’s public scandals; therefore, at least one bit of thorough explanation on why robots are roaming around ancient Egypt would’ve been nice. The episode itself is also underwhelming; the action does not impress, and the X-Men themselves don’t have anything to do. The X-Men become bystanders in their own story, which leads to the episode feeling very dull. While a solid episode by every metric, the third episode drags the most in terms of quality. 

One flaw that persists from the first season is the pacing. Everything in this show happens so fast that it’s hard to process. Each event occurs at a breakneck pace because the show was only allocated nine episodes. The future-stranded X-Men take two episodes to return to the present; the second episode barely focuses on them at all, instead being primarily an X-Force episode. For a cliff-hanger that ended the first season, the show skips past it very quickly. Thankfully, the ancient Egypt storyline is left unresolved in episode 3; however, the structure of the season strongly implies that it will be resolved by the end of episode 4. Character moments are seldom given time to breathe, often ending very abruptly. Storm is called upon to summon a solar flare, a feat of power unlike anything she’s done before; the scene lasts roughly 42 seconds. Episode 2 highlights mutants that the original show spent little time with, particularly Archangel, Psylocke, and Emma Frost. However, because of how brief each episode is, new viewers don’t get a good grasp on these characters. Psylocke is the worst offender, considering she barely appeared in the original X-Men show and had almost nothing to do in her film appearances; if a viewer hasn’t read the comics, good luck knowing anything about Psylocke. If the show just took more time to flesh itself out, whether more or longer episodes, the pacing wouldn’t feel so abrupt. 

X-Men 97 feels like a reaction to the FOX X-Men movies. The show acts very intentionally to highlight the overlooked X-Men from the film franchise: Cyclops and Jean Grey are the primary protagonists; Storm and Rogue each get iconic moments to highlight their power; Nightcrawler and Beast act with nuance in each scene. In no character does this show feel more like a reaction to the Fox movies than in Wolverine. Logan functions as a background character in this series; he seldom moves the plot forward and acts as extra muscle for the X-Men. The show almost feels burdened by his presence: the script really doesn’t want Wolverine there, but the character is simply too big to leave out. As much as fans may hate to admit it, Wolverine is the X-Man: the only mutant to ever consistently hold a solo comic series. Wolverine’s first appearance in Season 2 has him slashing a robot with his bone claws. To any modern X-Men fan, Wolverine having bone claws is just an aspect of his character; why wouldn’t Wolverine have bone claws. However, Logan having bone claws was a reveal out of the 1993 Fatal Attractions storyline that the final episodes of Season 1 are loosely based on; it was only after Magneto ripped the adamantium off Logan’s skeleton did fans find out Logan even had bone claws; all prior media, including the infamous Weapon X storyline by Barry Windsor-Smith, heavily implied that Logan gained his claws during the Weapon X procedure. X-Men 97 completely glosses over this huge aspect of X-Men media. Hopefully, the upcoming episode Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs will rectify this Wolverine oversight and give the character his due in a series that has glossed over him.