X-Men ’97 Season 2 has pretty much confirmed the next season’s story. Marvel is playing the long game with X-Men ’97; the second season is airing now, but the animators are currently working on Season 4. Appropriately enough, that means we can see some pretty blatant foreshadowing in the latest episode – as war between mutants and humans comes one step closer.
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The latest episode, “Strange Land, Savage Heart,” is really all about Graydon Creed: the non-mutant son of Sabretooth and Mystique, founder of the Friends of Humanity, and now apparently a presidential candidate. The episode comes straight after San Siego Comic-Con, where Marvel released an exclusive clip turning one X-Men member into a villain. More to the point, though, we think all this tells us everything we know about Season 3’s plot.
The U.S. Government Is About to Turn on Mutants
The X-Men have always been sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them. Back in the ’90s, the animated series made no secret of the fact humans have always had a low tolerance for mutants; the show began with the two-part “Night of the Sentinels,” in which Bolivar Trask unleashed mutant-hunting Sentinels on the world. Still, X-Men ’97 has tended to keep government conflict pretty low-level; President Kelly has become a mutant sympathizer, ushering in the closest mutants have ever been to a pro-mutant society in the U.S. But we now know that’s changing, with Kelly outlawing the X-Men even as Xavier’s School re-opens.
“Strange Land, Savage Heart” reveals why. We’re in the run-up to a presidential election in the United States, and Kelly’s pro-mutant policies are coming under the microscope. Graydon Creed – founder of the Friends of Humanity, a grassroots anti-mutant pressure group – is making waves. Worse still, Exodus and the Acolytes were foolish enough to kidnap Graydon and put him on trial for his crimes against mutantdom. Had they found him guilty, and had Exodus chosen to kill him, they’d have given the Friends of Humanity a martyr. Instead, he returns a hero.
All this comes hot on the heels of another X-Men ’97 reveal; the previous episode introduced a ruthless group of anti-mutant extremists called the Purifiers. Led by Reverend William Stryker, the Purifiers believe mutants are of the devil, and they’ve sworn themselves to wiping out every mutant in the world. In the comics, they targeted Xavier’s School, and even killed an entire busload of depowered mutant children and teenagers. All the signs suggest we’re headed for intense hostility between humanity and mutants.
The Brotherhood of Mutants Take Charge
That brings us to the X-Men ’97 Season 3 footage shown at SDCC. In this clip, members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants – specifically Blob, Pyro, Toad, Avalanche, and (surprisingly) an X-Man named Surge – took on Sentinels painted in the stars and stripes. That paintwork is highly suggestive; it hints Graydon Creed will succeed in his presidential bid, becoming president of the United States and approving a full state-sponsored Sentinel program. If that’s the case, then the mutant race’s darkest days have officially begun. Previous administrations built Sentinels, but Creed will want them to be killers.
In the comics, Creed’s presidential bid was unsuccessful. He was assassinated, and Marvel hinted his own mother, Mystique, was responsible. The truth wasn’t revealed until years later, in a hilariously twisted bit of comic book logic; the Mystique who killed Graydon was revealed to be a future version whose mind was possessing her past body at the time. I don’t know how this is going to play out, but it’s notable the Brotherhood team seen in Season 3 is the one Mystique led in the comics… and she was absent from the footage. It’s reasonable to assume Mystique is working against her son, mirroring the original story.
X-Men ’97 tends to draw from countless different comic book eras, while also fixing some of the weaker plots. If the show draws on plots from the 2000s, it could easily set up a scenario where Xavier’s School is converted into an internment camp for mutants, before being targeted by the Purifiers. Meanwhile, the X-Men would continue to battle to save a world that hates and fears them, proving their heroism once again. This particular is only a guess, of course; but Season 2, episode 7 combines with the SDCC footage to make the rest of this theory seem pretty certain. It will be fascinating to see if we’re correct.
The first seven episodes of X-Men ’97 are streaming now on Disney+, and new episodes will be released weekly. Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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