X-Men ’97 is riffing on two of the worst stories of the ’90s. The first trailer for X-Men ’97 Season 2 finally brings the “Age of Apocalypse” to the small screen, one of the most popular comic book stories ever told. The X-Men have been launched on a time travel adventure that will take them from a dystopian future to the dawn of Apocalypse in ancient Egypt, and the trailer features a stunning number of X-Men characters (and even a variant of Kang the Conqueror).
The first season dared to confront some of Marvel’s most controversial X-Men stories, including the relationship between Scott Summers and Madelyne Pryor. This trailer confirms Season 2 will touch on The Rise of Apocalypse, The Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix, and other epic tales. But we also know it’s going to confront two more epic fails from Marvel.
X-Men ’97 Season 1 ended with a riff on the iconic “Fatal Attractions” story, where the X-Men launched a controversial kill-strike on Magneto’s orbital base. As in the comics, this saw Magneto strike back with his ultimate attack on Wolverine, literally tearing the adamantium from the Canucklehead’s skeleton. The comics then launched one of the strangest periods of Wolverine history, with Logan’s healing factor kicking into overdrive and gradually transforming him into a more animalistic form.
This story coincided with major editorial changes at Marvel, which meant stories weren’t particularly well plotted out across titles. That caused major problems for Wolverine, because Logan tended to turn up in quite a few books every month back then, and every writer had a different idea of how animal he was. Things became even worse when a time traveler named Genesis experimented on Wolverine, evolving him into a weird new design by the art team of Val Semeiks and Chris Hunt along with series writer Larry Hama.
It didn’t last long, with future creative teams ditching it (and it wasn’t much longer before Wolverine’s adamantium was restored). We know X-Men ’97 has to address this directly, given Season 1 ended with the “Fatal Attractions” story that launched it – and the trailer has confirmed Wolverine will get his adamantium back by the end of Season 2. This is, oddly, Marvel’s big chance to fix one of the worst Wolverine stories ever told.
That brings us to “The Twelve,” an Apocalypse-centered event that had been teased in the comics for years. Again, behind-the-scenes chaos meant the ultimate event – which culminated in Uncanny X-Men #377 – was unfortunately something of a mess. It turned out Apocalypse’s big plan was to gather together twelve key mutants (including several of the X-Men, of course). Placing them in a strange machine would somehow grant him godhood and make him invincible.
The basic idea was simple: all the key mutants were scattered across time and space. Apocalypse was seeking them out, Cable was the only one who knew what was going on and could stop him, and he was the first of the Twelve to be captured. The story was handled in quite an anticlimactic manner, to the extent some readers argued only two issues even mattered to understand the entire X-over event – all the rest were unnecessary. After years of build-up, what should have been the most epic Apocalypse story ended with a whimper, not a bang.
You can already see the comparisons between “The Twelve” and X-Men ’97 Season 2: Apocalypse-centered stories, with the mutants scattered. The trailer even features a brief mural reminiscent of “The Twelve,” while several key characters from that storyline have an expanded role – notably Polaris, who Apocalypse used in his machine as a south pole against Magneto’s north. Bishop appears to have taken on the role of trying to collect the X-Men, one Cable should have had (but didn’t) in the comics.
Looking beyond the surface level, X-Men ’97 actually seems rather more inspired by “The Twelve” than it does by “Age of Apocalypse,” and that’s a surprisingly bold choice. That turns this story into an opportunity to fix one of Marvel’s biggest X-Men failures, an entire event that didn’t live up to its potential. Only time will tell whether X-Men ’97 can pull it off or not, but the first season definitely gives reason to be hopeful.
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