X-Men '97 Finale Sets up New X-Men Team for Season 2

X-Men '97 ending explained: Who will be the new X-Men?

By Cameron Bonomolo - May 15, 2024 08:45 pm EDT

Warning: This article contains spoilers for X-Men '97 episode 10. The X-Men might look different when the mutants return in X-Men '97 season 2. In Wednesday's first season finale, titled "Tolerance is Extinction — Part 3," the telepathic Charles Xavier (Ross Marquand) uses his psychic powers to penetrate Magneto's (Matthew Waterson) mind and reverse the damage done to Earth by the master of magnetism — but shatters his psyche in the process. Meanwhile, having been defeated by the X-Men, the Sentinel-human hybrid Bastion (Theo James) plots a mutant doomsday: by hurling Asteroid M into the Earth and causing an extinction event.

The X-Men manage to spare the planet a dinosaur's fate, but only with Magneto's help: his mind restored by Xavier, Magneto sends Asteroid M into space... where it explodes and disappears. On the ground below, Jubilee (Holly Chou), Sunspot (Gui Agustini), and Forge (Gil Birmingham) witness what becomes known as "E-Day," leaving most of the X-Men missing and presumed dead.

Six months later, Forge fails to find any trace of the X-Men or the asteroid. In the ruins of Xavier's School for the Gifted, the time-traveler Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith) tells Forge that the X-Men's disappearance is "less a question about where and more when." Forge has been "searching for mutants to carry on the torch," as Bishop puts it, with a Days of Future Past-style board revealing the roster of potential recruits and their status:

Among the X-Men "missing / presumed dead": Xavier, Magneto, Cyclops (Ray Chase), Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale), Storm (Alison-Sealy Smith), Beast (George Buza), Nightcrawler (Adrian Hough), Morph (J.P. Karliak), Rogue (Lenore Zann), Wolverine (Cal Dodd), and former X-Man Archangel. Jubilee, Sunspot, and Cable (Chris Potter) have gone "AWOL," while Magneto's children — Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver — are "off world."

That leaves Forge with few candidates as the new X-Men: Iceman, a former founding X-Man with ice powers; Havok, Iceman's romantic rival and leader of X-Factor; Sooraya Qadir, a.k.a. Dust, a mutant with sand powers and member of the New X-Men in the comics; Bennet du Paris, the ancient mutant known as Exodus who was once an acolyte of Apocalypse and Magneto in the comics; the telepath Emma Frost, White Queen of the Inner Circle who served on the short-lived council of the mutant nation Genosha; Kitty Pryde, who has the power of intangibility as Shadowcat; and Russian siblings Piotr Rasputin, a.k.a. the metal-skinned Colossus, and Illyana Rasputin, the mutant sorceress known as Magik. Plus Bishop, who comes from a future where Forge invented the time machine that sent him into the past.

While Storm and Wolverine's fates are left unknown, the episode ends with Cyclops and Jean in 3960 A.D., and Xavier, Magneto, Beast, Nightcrawler, and Rogue in 3000 B.C in Ancient Egypt — the time of En Sabah Nur, the future Apocalypse.

"Something, or someone, yanked our friends through time," Bishop tells Forge. "And now, we gotta go rescue the X-Men." To be continued in season 2!

All episodes of Marvel's X-Men '97 are now streaming on Disney+.

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