The X-Men franchise has been lucrative for Hollywood, with successful film and TV adaptations that stretch back to the 1990s. Of course, not every take on the X-Men has been perfect, with screen adaptations like the 2000 live-action film now looking hilarious with the way it tried to incorporate “real-world” looks like black leather suits into the comic book lore. Sequels like X2: X-Men United and X-Men: Days of Future Past are praised for making everything from Lady Deathstrike to X-Men characters like Bishop to the mutant-hunting Sentinel robots look good onscreen.
And then there are the missteps that fans don’t like to acknowledge – and the X-Men movies have plenty of them to speak of. However, as X-Men TV shows and movies enter a new era under the Marvel Cinematic Universe brand, it’s quickly becoming apparent just how big a difference in quality there is between Fox and Marvel Studios. Case in point: the villain that the Fox X-Men movies fumbled the most is getting an epic new TV arc that has fans hyped!
X-Men ’97 Season 2 has premiered on Disney+, and the three-episode launch was an event, to say the least. Last we saw, the X-Men and their foe Magneto had been ripped through time; half the team ended up in Ancient Egypt (3000 BC), while the other half was thrust into the distant future (3960 AC). It turns out that the one thing these two time periods have in common is Apocalypse, the ancient mutant warlord who believes in total mutant dominance of Earth, through the doctrine of “Survival of the Fittest.” Meanwhile, in the 1990s, Cyclops’ son, Nathan Summers/Cable kept Apocalypse and his horsemen from exploiting the X-Men’s absence by forming the future-preservation kill squad, X-Force.
The first three episodes of Season 2, “Days of Past Future”, “A Force to Be Reckoned With”, and “Rise of Apocalypse”, show the X-Men (and X-Force) at war with Apocalypse across all three time periods: past, present, and future. In the midst of that three-part battle, we get a more complete depiction of who Apocalypse was, what he becomes, and what he does to the world in the future. In short: it’s the most complete portrait of why Apocalypse is one of the biggest villains in not just X-Men lore but Marvel lore in general. And we’re just getting started on the seasonal storyline.
Now hold X-Men: Apocalypse up to what we just got with X-Men ’97, in terms of an Apocalypse-focused story. The 2016 film was one of the bigger missteps of the X-Men movie franchise, specifically because of the way that fans felt writer Simon Kinberg and director Bryan Singer handled the character of Apocalypse and his lore. Unfortunately, favorite actor Oscar Isaac was handed the unenviable task of playing Apocalypse in the film, a career downturn before he hit his stride with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Marvel’s Moon Knight series, and other acclaimed work.
However, the poor costume and makeup work will forever mean Isaac’s Apocalypse is compared to the likes of Ivan Ooze from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie in memes and TikToks. Meanwhile, X-Men ’97‘s “Rise of Apocalypse” episode makes En Sabah Nur (and all his funny-looking features) into a badass revolutionary against Egypt’s cruel hand – until newfound power quickly makes his hand just as cruel as his enslavers’. That’s not only a more complex and nuanced characterization of Apocalypse than the movies ever gave us, but arguably a better execution on the origin story and the war across time periods than the comics have done.
X-Men ’97 is streaming on Disney+. Discuss the Season 2 premiere with us on the ComicBook Forum!
