“The X-Men are dead.” So said Forge (Gil Birmingham) in the first season finale of X-Men ’97, which ended with the mutant heroes lost to time after they split into two teams, Blue Team and Gold Team, to stop Magneto (Matthew Waterson) and the anti-mutant Sentinel-human hybrid Bastion (Theo James) from waging their respective wars against humankind and mutantkind. “Tolerance Is Extinction — Part 3” concluded with the X-Men preventing Bastion from crashing Magneto’s Asteroid M into the Earth to cause an extinction event, seemingly dying in the process.
Videos by ComicBook.com
But as the time-displaced Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith) told Forge, “This ain’t our first time at ‘the X-Men are dead’ rodeo. But it’s a less a question where… and more when.” Bishop then explained that something, or someone, yanked the X-Men through time — leaving them to form a new team to rescue the X-Men in season 2.
Rogue (Lenore Zann), Nightcrawler (Adrian Hough), Beast (George Buza), Professor Xavier (Ross Marquand), and Magneto found themselves in the past — in Egypt in the year 3,000 B.C., the time of the ancient mutant En Sabah Nur (Adetokumboh M’Cormack) — and the duo of Cyclops (Ray Chase) and Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale) found themselves in the far-off future in the year 3960 A.D.
Meanwhile, with Wolverine (Cal Dodd), Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith), and Morph (JP Karliak) MIA — and Gambit (A.J. LoCascio) killed in Genosha — Apocalypse (voiced by Marquand) returned in the present day.
But original showrunner Beau DeMayo reveals there was an alternate season 1 ending in which Apocalypse isn’t the only major mutant to make a season-ending cameo.
Pages from the teleplay DeMayo co-wrote with Anthony Sellitti introduce Kitty Pryde, the phasing Shadowcat, accompanied by Piotr Rasputin, the steel-skinned Colossus. (Kitty never appeared on X-Men: The Animated Series, but Colossus fought alongside the X-Men in episodes like “The Unstoppable Juggernaut” and “Red Dawn.”)
In the alternate ending, Shadowcat — “20s, bushy brown hair and Valley Girl spunk” — phases Forge through halls of the X-Mansion, mistaking him for a henchman. Her dog-sized, dragon-like alien pet, Lockheed, blasts Forge with a fireball before clocking the X symbol on his belt. “So rash, Katya,” the Russian Colossus says. “We came to find the X-Men.”
When Forge tells Shadowcat and Colossus that the X-Men are dead, it’s Kitty, rather than Bishop, who says, “Nope, they’re dramatic. The professor should really teach theater.” Her grudge with that jerk Professor Xavier aside, Forge explains that he looked for the X-Men, but couldn’t find a trace of them — or Asteroid M.
“You look for a needle in the wrong haystack, comrade,” Colossus says. Kitty explains: “Little less ‘where‘ and a lil’ more ‘when.’” She then asks the mutant inventor if he’s ever thought about making a time machine, and we end on Forge, smiling, “About to create his most famous invention.”
While Shadowcat and Colossus were ultimately cut from X-Men ’97, their photos appear on Bishop’s board of potential recruits for the rescue X-Men team in season 2. Candidates include the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (both labeled “off world”), Iceman, Exodus, Dust, Emma Frost, Archangel, Havok, and Colossus’ little sister, Magik.
Most Viewed
-
TOHO Animation
