Major X-Men ’97 Rumor Debunked by Star (And Marvel Fans Will Be Dissapointed)

When X-Men ’97 returns for its second season, one rumored new star won’t be joining the franchise after all. The first season of X-Men ’97 received high praise and acclaim, continuing the story from the 1990s cartoon and featuring some of the best inclusivity in comic book entertainment. However, big changes came during the production of the second season. Disney fired head writer Beau DeMayo, who had already written the entire second season before his termination. Before that happened, DeMayo had talked about what fans could expect from the show’s future. DeMayo even said he had hired Neve Campbell to voice Polaris.

In an interview with The Movie Dweeb, Neve Campbell was promoting her new movie, Scream 7, and was asked about X-Men ’97. However, Campbell denied she joined X-Men ’97 and said it hadn’t happened. “I have not,” Campbell said. “No, I haven’t. That is a rumor, though, isn’t it?” She did say that she would love to join it, finishing that, “It’s amazing, the internet, what it can create.”

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Beau DeMayo Previously Said He Hired Neve Campbell for X-Men ’97

The biggest question comes with why Beau DeMayo said he hired Neve Campbell to voice Polaris if he didn’t. There is no proof about what DeMayo says other than taking him at his word. There is a chance he hired Campbell, but when he was fired, that Campbell ended up not joining the cartoon. She only said that she wasn’t joining the animated series, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t planning to at one point.

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The news that Campbell joined X-Men ’97 was revealed when someone posted on X that Neve Campbell was playing Polaris in the MCU, but DeMayo corrected them. “Incorrect. I cast her as Polaris in Season 2 of X-Men ’97. She does amazing work bringing something new,” he wrote in response. This made it sound like she had already done work for him in the series, but either this is untrue, or Campbell is lying, which some actors are prone to do thanks to Disney and Marvel NDAs.

Campbell, who has starred in six of the seven Scream movies, returned for the latest release in the series as Sidney Prescott, the Final Girl from the first five films. This signing for X-Men ’97 would have been exciting, as Polaris only appeared twice in the original X-Men: The Animated Series in the 1990s, while Campbell was a ’90s icon, especially for horror fans. The idea that she was going to voice Polaris was also good news, since the mutant only appeared in one episode of the first season in a non-speaking role.

Polaris showed up in “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 1,” where Magneto saw an alternate view of the future when she helped rebuild civilization after the Sentinels destroyed everything. Seeing what happened to her in the regular timeline was intriguing, as she finished the original series by breaking up with Iceman and starting a relationship with Havoc as part of X-Factor. However, as far as Campbell says, there is nothing to the rumors, and DeMayo’s comment about her joining X-Men ’97 never materialized.

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