X-Men ’97 Season 2 Episodes 1-3 Recap: Who Sends the X-Men to the Past and the Future?

X-Men ’97 picks up its second season exactly where it left the mutants: hanging in the balance. Different factions of the X-Men are scattered across time after their fight with Bastion ends on an exploding asteroid. The team wakes up split into two groups, with one stranded in a devastated future and the other dropped into ancient history.

X-Men ’97 Season 2	Details
Head Writer	Beau DeMayo
Voice Cast	Ray Chase, Jennifer Hale, Alison Sealy-Smith, Cal Dodd, J. P. Karliak, Lenore Zann, George Buza, A. J. LoCascio, Holly Chou, Isaac Robinson-Smith, Matthew Waterson, Ross Marquand, and Adrian Hough
Release Date	July 1, 2026
Episodes	9
RT Score (As of July 1, 2026)	100% | 100%
Streaming on	Disney+

After the first three episodes of Season 2, we know that Mother Askani is behind the split. She pulled the X-Men through the timestream on purpose, hoping that placing them at two pivotal moments in Apocalypse’s rise would let them stop him for good. Moreover, Askani isn’t quite who she claims to be, and her real identity directly connects to the Summers family. Here’s what happened over these three episodes.

What Happens to the X-Men at Mother Askani’s Camp in the Future?

X-Men ’97 Season 2’s premiere, Days of Past Future, picks up with Bishop and Forge plotting to bring back their missing teammates. Forge builds a new time machine and heads for the future, since Storm is stranded there, while Bishop takes the trip to the past.

When Forge arrives in the ruined future, he’s ambushed by Apocalypse’s robots before Wolverine, now fighting with bone claws, saves him. Forge and Storm reunite, and he is taken to the camp of Mother Askani, the hooded figure who has been raising Nathan Summers, voiced by Gates McFadden. Nathan has been infected with a techno-organic virus, turning part of his arm metallic.

Nathan is being trained to eventually become the warrior Cable, and his parents want time with him before the timeline pulls them apart again. Meanwhile, in Apocalypse’s citadel, Ozymandias reports that Nathan could serve as a permanent body for his regenerating master. Apocalypse sends his four Horsemen after the boy.

Not convinced by Askani’s prophecy about Nathan, Cyclops and Jean sneak off with Nathan. They are captured by the four Horsemen and hauled back towards the citadel in a specialized bullet train. Askani and the team set out to save the Summers. The hooded figure reveals to Storm that she was the one who sent the X-Men across two timelines to save the world from Apocalypse.

As she removes the hood, some viewers might recognize her as Rachel Summers, the daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey. The rest of the team, aided by a solar blast from Storm, catches up in time to fight off the Horsemen and crash into the citadel.

Seeing the failure of his Horsemen, Apocalypse decides to attack the X-Men when they are at their most vulnerable and travels back to the 1990s. Nathan frees the enslaved captives and forges his signature metal arm from Apocalypse’s own tech. The episode then jumps forward to reveal Cable, who is looking to recruit Jubilee for a war against Apocalypse.

Who Are the X-Force and the X-Factor in X-Men ’97 Season 2?

Episode 2, A Force to Be Reckoned With, shifts focus to the present day, where Cable assembles a black-ops strike team to hunt down Apocalypse. He recruits Jubilee and Sunspot to his team, which already includes Psylocke and Archangel (who was a former Horseman). The newly formed group takes the name X-Force.

Their first target is Apocalypse’s Horseman of War, Abraham Kieros, whom they track down and interrogate. Psylocke tries to dig into his mind using her telepathic powers, but gets blocked out. Cable asks Archangel to execute War, which disturbs Jubilee. She questions her new leader’s methods.

The episode also reveals the X-Factor, who has been placed by the government as a replacement for the X-Men, who are believed to be dead. The squad is formed by Dr. Valerie Cooper and includes former X-Men allies like Havok, Polaris, Wolfsbane, Strong Guy, and Multiple Man.

They round up mutants in the name of public safety and imprison them. This puts them at odds with the X-Force. After a tip from Emma Frost, the X-Force members walk into an ambush set up by the X-Factor. All but Jubilee escape from the ambush. She is taken to a helicarrier, where she sees that many more mutants have been imprisoned.

She is able to convince Polaris to help her escape. During her daring escape, she frees all the mutants and takes them with her team on their plane. This incident brands the X-Force members as fugitives, making their mission even harder. Meanwhile, the team from the future is brought back to the present day.

Will Magneto Give Up on His Attempt to Change Apocalypse’s Fate?

The third episode, Rise of Apocalypse, jumps back roughly 5,000 years to catch up with the team stranded in the past. Magneto has been quietly grooming a young En Sabah Nur, the mutant destined to become Apocalypse. He hopes to turn him toward Xavier’s dream of peaceful coexistence rather than conquest.

Nur is fighting a war against the despotic ruler, Rama-Tut. For that, he has to first take down his general Logos, who commands an army of robots powered by futuristic technology. The X-Men hope to use this technology to travel back to the present.

Nur leads his Sandstormers against Logos’s robotic army. He manages to bring out his mutant power and destroy the powerful army. He overpowers Logos, but instead of killing him, he listens to Magneto and takes him alive. Xavier is openly skeptical of gambling on Apocalypse’s redemption, but Magneto presses forward anyway.

During their interrogation of Logos, Xavier digs into his mind and comes face-to-face with the power that Rama-Tut holds. The X-Men’s plan collapses when Nur’s confidant Baal discovers the X-Men’s hidden lab and turns Nur against Magneto. Nur executes Logos in a rage, signalling that Magneto’s efforts are in vain.

When they are about to be attacked, Bishop, who has been hiding among the Stormsanders, intervenes. Just as the team prepares to escape using the devices Bishop hands out, Rama-Tut unleashes a devastating attack from his temple. The episode ends on a cliffhanger as the X-Men are potentially buried beneath the mountain of debris.

Longtime fans of the comics know that Rama-Tut is actually another identity of the all-powerful villain Kang the Conqueror. This has already excited us to watch the further episodes. The first three episodes alleviate any concern that behind-the-scenes issues have affected the quality of the show. It remains the best X-Men adaptation ever, a compliment shared by Callie Hanna of FW in our review of X-Men ’97 Season 2.

What do you think of the first three episodes of the show? Let us know in the comments below!

The first three episodes of X-Men ’97 Season 2 are now available for streaming on Disney+.