X-Men ’97 Season 2 is a success by any measure. The first three episodes are absolutely electrifying; as a lifelong X-Men fan who grew up in the ’90s, I sat watching them with absolute delight. It feels like a love letter to the comics I loved with when I was just a child. For me, the highlight was an unforgettable moment in the first episode, when the X-Men stood behind Cyclops and Jean Grey. The classic theme tune played, and I genuinely couldn’t have been happier.
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All that makes this particular article rather saddening to write. Because, as much as I love X-Men ’97, I can’t help feeling the first three episodes got not one but four characters badly wrong. Some of these mistakes have been noticed on social media, but others are more subtle, and emerge through knowledge of the comics themselves. Still, I can’t help feeling they do the characters a disservice.
Magneto
Let’s start with one of the strangest: Magneto. On the whole, X-Men ’97 Season 2, episode 3 shines a fascinating light on the Master of Magnetism. Remarkably, he is the one who hopes history can be rewritten and even Apocalypse can be redeemed. It’s a delight to see Magneto like this, truly evolving into the torch-bearer for Xavier’s Dream – moreso than Charles Xavier himself, frankly. But, despite all the good things here, one thing is totally missing.
Magneto is Jewish. To this day, Jewish culture and faith is shaped by history; specifically, by the account of the Jews beginning as a nation of slaves in Egypt. X-Men ’97 Season 2 sees Magneto and the X-Men stranded in ancient Egypt, dealing with a man who was raised as a slave. But Magneto’s Jewish roots and soil don’t play a role in the story at all. There are so many fascinating ways it could have manifested; he could have used his heritage to reach En Sabah Nur, or he could have imagined Apocalypse as a failed Moses figure. Instead… there’s nothing. It just doesn’t fit.
Nightcrawler
This brings us to the second X-Men ’97 character who should have an instinctive tie to ancient Egypt: Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler. Magneto may have been raised as a Jew, but Nightcrawler is a devout Catholic. That means the story of Israel’s slavery in Egypt is vitally important to him; episode 3 literally shows Nightcrawler walking around in biblical times, and there’s no hint of the wonder and joy you’d expect him to feel. That’s particularly disappointing, because Nightcrawler is a character shaped by joy as well as faith. This is a huge missed opportunity.
I do have some concerns about Nightcrawler’s portrayal in this show. The original animated series stressed Nightcrawler’s Catholicism, but the first trailer for X-Men ’97 Season 2 hinted that his faith has been redirected. “I believe in the X-Men,” we see him saying; still a man of faith, but believing more in Xavier’s Dream than (from the evidence so far) his Catholic faith. While I understand this decision, and it certainly avoids some of the weirder comic book plots where Nightcrawler became a priest, it just doesn’t quite feel right for Kurt Wagner.
Emma Frost
Emma Frost is one of X-Men ’97‘s most controversial characters, and rightly so. In the comics, Emma made her debut as a villain in 1980. She has, however, been a hero since at least 1994 (depending on whether you count a three-year coma in the calculations). And yet, episode 2 treats Emma as a pretty straightforward antagonist – not an outright villain, but ruthless and utterly selfish. The problem, though, is that season 1 showed some major events that should have changed her into an actual hero. It all feels more than a little discordant, as though an X-Man who’s been central for over two decades now has been sidelined.
The core problem, of course, is that X-Men ’97 has totally skipped one core part of Emma’s character; the fact she’s a teacher. In the comics, she was redeemed after her students were slaughtered by the Sentinels; she committed wholeheartedly to the X-Men after the destruction of Genosha. But X-Men ’97‘s Emma Frost has no trace of this, meaning it’s not easy to see how she could be redeemed in anywhere near so compelling a way. Making matters worse, she turns Jubilee in to X-Factor – and the show gives Jubilee the costume she wore when she was under Emma’s care in Generation X.
Jubilee
The last one I’m going to mention here, though, is probably the one most readers will be surprised with: Jubilee. First, I should note that Jubilee is one of my all-time favorite X-Men. I grew up with the animated series, and I met the X-Men through Jubilee. I’ve often lamented how poorly she’s been handled by the comics, where she even became a random vampire at one point. So you’d expect to be thrilled by X-Men ’97 Season 2. The problem, though, is that this isn’t a Jubilee story; the character is occupying someone else’s role. Granted, another superhero based on the same archetype – but another mutant, all the same.
I’m speaking, of course, of Boom Boom. In the comics, Boom Boom is a skater girl who was among Cable’s first recruits into X-Force. She generates powerful explosives, and at times she’s been shown having a relationship with Sunspot. Some of the dialogue in this episode actually felt a little more reminiscent of Boom Boom’s than Jubilee’s. And one moment in particular stood out: Cable’s confidence Jubilee would be okay because he’d trained her.
Now, to be fair, the show conceals a major time jump (a tie-in comic published this week will tell more). But regardless – Jubilee isn’t great because she’s been trained by Cable. She’s an X-Man. She’s taken on Magneto, Sentinels, Omega Red, and so much more. By this point in the timeline, she’s already one of the most experienced superheroes on X-Men ’97‘s Earth. Cable’s comment unwittingly underlines the fact X-Men ’97 has made Jubilee great by putting her in someone else’s shoes. And she deserves so much more than that.
The first three 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!
