X-Men ’97: Will an MCU Favorite Have a Larger Role in Season 2?

The season finale of X-Men ’97 was released on Disney+ today, and it set up a bunch of excitement for Season 2. Warning: Spoilers Ahead! The end of the episode jumps six months into the future and reveals most of the X-Men have gone missing and are presumed dead. Forge has a wall of photos featuring various mutants with different labels. While most of the X-Men are unaccounted for, there are a few major Marvel players with known whereabouts. One such character is the fan-favorite, Scarlet Witch.

In X-Men: The Animated Series, Wanda Maximoff and her brother, Pietro Maximoff AKA Quicksilver, appeared in the episode “Family Ties,” which confirms that Magneto is their father. In the X-Men ’97 finale, Magneto briefly sees his children on a boat in his mind while Charles is attempting to get through to him. 

This little background cameo and a brief reference in “Montendo” are the most we got of the Maximoffs this season until Forge’s wall of photos confirms Wanda is “off world.” Now, the tease is giving fans hope that she’ll show up in Season 2 in a bigger capacity, especially since Season One showrunner, Beau DeMayo, has teased Operation Galactic Storm. You can take a look at Forge’s photo wall below:

What Is Operation Galactic Storm? 

X-Men ’97‘s Season One showrunner, Beau DeMayo, confirmed in a tweet earlier this month that the Avengers have been off-world dealing with Operation Galactic Storm. 

“Are the Avengers not around, because, as we have seen the Kree are at war with the Shi’ar, and the Avengers are busy with Operation Galactic Storm?” one fan asked. “Yes, indeed. Some of the Avengers are indeed off-world dealing with that conflict. Well done,” DeMayo replied.

Operation: Galactic Storm is a 19-part comic book crossover from 1992 that sees the Avengers intervening in an intergalactic war between the alien Kree and Shi’ar empires. There are three Avengers teams in the comics: The “Earth team,” which is by Wasp, and features Falcon, Henry Pym, Gilgamesh, Mockingbird, She-Hulk, Spider-Woman, and U.S. Agent. The “Shi’ar Team” is led by Captain Marvel, and includes the Living Lightning, Scarlet Witch, Starfox, Thor, Vision, and Wonder Man. Meanwhile, the “Kree Team” is led by Captain America, and includes the Black Knight, Crystal, Goliath, Hercules, Iron Man, and Sersi.

While X-Men ’97 has been sticking pretty close to the comics, there have still been some big changes in the storylines, which means there’s no guarantee the hypothetical inclusion of Operation Galactic Storm in the series will feature the exact same teams as on the page. In fact, if we’re following X-Men: The Animated Series, Wanda was not mentioned to be a member of the Avengers during her one appearance, and not much time has passed between that 1996 episode and the events of X-Men ’97. And just because the Avengers have been dealing with the conflict during the events of X-Men ’97 doesn’t mean we’ll see the events unfold in the show. 

Either way, it’s exciting to wonder how Wanda could fit into X-Men ’97‘s second season, especially considering the fate of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) remains a mystery. 

Stay tuned for more updates about Marvel.