X-Men ‘97’s Original Gambit Plans Confirmed After Season 1 “Death” (& They Sound Incredible)

The original X-Men ’97 showrunner had some huge plans for Gambit in the series, but he believes that fans will never see it now. The Disney+ show continued the storyline from X-Men: The Animated Series, which ran from 1992 to 1997, explaining the “’97” in the show’s name. Beau DeMayo served as the head writer and showrunner for the first two seasons of the series, although he was fired right before the Season 1 premiere. Thanks to his continued social media posts about the project, Marvel removed DeMayo’s name from the credits for the second season, which is set to hit in 2026. However, DeMayo is still talking about the series and what could have been

In a post on X, former X-Men ’97 showrunner Beau DeMayo revealed what he had planned for Gambit in the future of the animated series. “Gambit’s season was S3, where I was going to adapt his arc in Age of Apocalypse, where he would be assembling a team at the behest of Magneto to find and steal the M’Krann Crystal,” DeMayo revealed.

This was all in response to a question from ComicBook’s Simon Gallagher about him moving Wolverine down the list to a “C character” in the series. He explained that he was going to follow a model he was taught by Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries, The Originals) to rotate characters each season. According to DeMayo, “This is not the Wolverine show. It’s time to move on.” He then said that Gambit’s story would have come in the third season.

What Else Beau De Mayo Has Revealed About The Lost Future Of X-Men ’97

DeMayo said his idea for the show was to focus on the Gold Team, which consisted of Cyclops, Storm, Magneto, and Jean Grey. The secondary characters were Rogue, Xavier, Wolverine, Morph, Cable, and Jubilee. Finally, Gambit would have been in the Red Team, which is just a support character. However, Gambit would have gotten his chance to shine in the third season. DeMayo then said that this was a “mandate both fought for and proven by my team.”

The one thing that Beau DeMayo pushed for was using Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s initial design for the X-Men as allegories for people who face discrimination and prejudice. The team has always been stand-ins for people of color and the LGBTQ+ community, as regular humans hate mutants in the comics because they were born with powers, something the mutants had no control over. This has been in place since the start of the X-Men comic books, and remains one of the biggest storyline ideas, from “God Loves… Man Kills” to “Days of Future Past.”

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While the movies mainly stuck with mutants fighting evil mutants, the animated series was one that always played with Lee and Kirby’s design the best. DeMayo always said he wanted to bring it into the modern world and focus on both found family and social commentary, focusing on hatred and bigotry in the world today. DeMayo had the idea that social acceptance became more complicated in the modern day, and that made X-Men ’97 an excellent series for fans of deeper Marvel stories.

Without Beau DeMayo, an openly gay Black man, leading the way, there are fears that the animated series will be neutered and won’t approach the most nuanced social messages that the X-Men were created to take on. DeMayo has almost no expectations that Marvel will push for the show to have these more profound meanings. There is virtually no chance that the Gambit in space storyline will take place since X-Men ’97 Season 3 changed after Marvel fired DeMayo, but at least he is letting fans know what could have been.

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