What a time to be alive if you're a 90s X-Men fan.
Here’s a thing that old school X-Men fans will tell you: The 1990s were some of the best (and worst) times to be a comic book fan, and even more so if you were an X-Men fan. You had the rise of the Image guys: Todd McFarlane and David Michelinie doing gangbusters on Spider-Man, Peter David and Dale Keown and their iconic Incredible Hulk run, and, uhm, Rob Liefeld and his pouches and vanishing feet on X-Force.
Over on the other side of the street, DC Comics were doing their usual DC things, with the launch of the Vertigo line, The Death of Superman, Knightfall and Grant Morrison’s legendary JLA run.
X-Men, however, was something special. Rising from their explosive collaboration on Uncanny X-Men, writer Chris Claremont and artist Jim Lee released X-Men issue 1 in 1991, selling 8 million copies and setting a Guinness World Record for the best selling single issue of a comic book of all time. Alas, that teamup was short-lived with Claremont’s exit by issue 3 and Lee following suit by issue 11.
Which brings us to the here and now with the return of Marvel Animation’s Emmy-nominated series “X-Men 97.”
While Season 1 saw the series crib from some of the X-Men’s best storylines such as “E for Extinction”, “LifeDeath” and the death of Gambit, this season promises to be more Apocalypse-centric, with glimpses of the X-Men fighting the shapeshifting mutant in different eras in what could be a trip down The Twelve or the Age of Apocalypse storylines.
We also get glimpses of major X-villains such as Exodus and Danger plus a young Nathan Summers, in what could be a tease to the mini-series The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix.
“X-Men ’97” returns to Disney+ for a second season on July 1. The second season of the original animated series features 9 episodes.
Voice cast includes Ross Marquand as Professor X, Matthew Waterson as Magneto, Ray Chase as Cyclops, Jennifer Hale as Jean Grey, Alison Sealy-Smith as Storm, Cal Dodd as Wolverine, Lenore Zann as Rogue, and George Buza as Beast.
The series is executive produced by Brad Winderbaum, Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Dana Vasquez-Eberhardt, Julia Lewald, Eric Lewald, Larry Houston, and Beau DeMayo. The supervising producer is Jake Castorena. Episodes written by JB Ballard, Beau DeMayo, Bailey Moore, Antony Sellitti, Brian Ford Sullivan, and Mariah Wilson. The episodic directors are Emmett Yonemura and Chase Conley.