X-Men ’97 Season 2 Review: Animated Revival’s Sophomore Outing Continues to Be The Best X-Men Adaptation

The first season of X-Men ’97 had no business being as good as it was back in 2024. What could’ve easily been a cheap nostalgia revival, coasting on obscure continuity payoffs and that incredibly catchy theme song, ended up being a genuinely gripping story in its own right, feeling like a natural continuation and evolution of the iconic 90s animated series while still being easy to follow for newcomers. And maintaining that aforementioned catchy theme song didn’t hurt either.

After two years of waiting, the resolution to Season 1’s epic cliffhanger has arrived with the premiere of Season 2. Will the series be able to maintain its quality after setting the bar so high last time? For now, the answer seems to be yes. Though please bear in mind that this only applies to the first four episodes, as that was what was made available to me at the time of writing.

What is X-Men ’97 Season 2 about?

Photo courtesy of Marvel. © 2026 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

Following on from the Season 1 finale, we open Season 2 with our heroes scattered across three different time periods. In 3000 B.C., Rogue, Beast, Nightcrawler, Professor X, and Magneto find themselves in an uneasy alliance with En Sabah Nur, the mutant who will ultimately become Apocalypse. In the far-flung future of 3960 A.D., Cyclops and Jean Grey work alongside a young Nathan Summers, who, unbeknownst to him, is their son and the future Cable, to try to overthrow Apocalypse’s rule.

And back in the 1990s, Bishop and Forge attempt to rescue their time-displaced friends while what remains of the X-Men try to pick up the pieces in the wake of new villains and an increased wave of anti-mutant bigotry. Will our heroes be able to literally move heaven and earth to reunite? Can the seemingly invincible Apocalypse be stopped in either the past or the future? And will we as the audience get to see an inordinate amount of really cool stuff in the process of answering those first two questions? (The answer to that last one is yes, for the record.)

X-Men ’97 Season 2 Review

Photo courtesy of Marvel. © 2026 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

The best X-Men stories can often and accurately be described as “soap operas with superpowers,” and the same holds true for X-Men ’97 Season 2. Multiple timelines with future children, both spoken and unspoken romantic tensions, it absolutely embodies the high-stakes melodrama of your average soap opera. And to be clear, that is a compliment. There’s something so impressive about the way this show manages to translate the convoluted nonsense of the comic book storylines into something digestible while still earnestly committing to the bit of said nonsense.

This balancing act is achieved through the combination of three key factors: writing, animation, and voice acting. X-Men ’97 stays true to the roots of both the comics and the original series, not just through colorful costumes and creative uses of superpowers, but by leaning into the metaphor of mutants as a marginalized minority, whether that be people of color, LGBTQ+ people, neurodivergent people, or what have you, that’s been present in the franchise from Day 1.

Photo courtesy of Marvel. © 2026 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

While I don’t know if anything in the allegory department so far has been as big a gut punch as the X-Cutioner and Genosha episodes from Season 1, moments of feeling powerless as a cruel world rounds up innocent members of a vulnerable community or fearing that you’d feed into the oppressor’s narratives by fighting back feel raw, real, and powerful. As for the art design and animation, the “looks the way you remember the original show looking as opposed to how it actually looked” design philosophy carries over from Season 1 in all its glory.

Colorful and vibrant character designs that really pop on screen, gorgeous background art, and spectacular action set pieces that show off every character’s unique abilities to great effect. One particular sequence in Episode 2 stood out as amongst the best the series has produced so far, while simultaneously finally putting some respect on a character that’s been long overdue for it across various X-Men adaptations. It does occasionally run into the Invincible problem of dialogue scenes looking stilted compared to the action, but it’s not a huge deal, and it never gets anywhere close to how bad that show can get with it.

Photo courtesy of Marvel. © 2026 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

And where do I even begin giving proper flowers to this voice cast? Ray Chase continues to be what Cyclops should’ve been in the movies this whole time, Ross Marquand and Matthew Waterson, respectively, might just be the best Professor X and Magneto ever put to screen, and the immense presence Adetokumboh M’Cormack has as En Sabah Nur is simultaneously inspiring and deeply chilling, which is what you want out of a character like that. Moreover, the returning voice cast from the original series continues to be arguably the best versions of these characters.

Alison Sealey-Smith gives Storm the kind of effortless gravitas that no other adaptation thus far has been able to achieve, Adrian Hough perfectly embodies the kindness and charm of my favorite fuzzy boy Nightcrawler, George Buza is still the Beast voice I hear whenever I read the character in a comic book, and Lenore Zann’s passion and heart as Rogue give the character far more depth than the movies ever did. Also, with all due respect to Hugh Jackman, Cal Dodd IS Wolverine. He’s so good in this role that I momentarily forget my general Wolverine Fatigue whenever he’s onscreen and am just able to enjoy him being the best there is at what he does.

Is X-Men ’97 Season 2 worth watching?

X-Men ’97 Season 2, Photo courtesy of Marvel. © 2026 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

Only four episodes in, it’s difficult to tell exactly where X-Men ’97 Season 2 goes from here. And the timeline jumping between episodes makes latching onto any specific storyline more of an ask than might be necessary. But the story is still captivating, the characters are still compelling, and the action is still phenomenal, so I’m more than fine with waiting for the answers.

Plus, things seem to be coalescing into a unified plot and there’s certainly a lot of potential with what’s set up by the end of Episode 4. If the show can maintain this level of quality, and I’m pretty confident that it can, I think I’ll be tuning in and banging my head to the intro theme for a very long time.

X-Men ’97 Season 2 premieres on Disney+ July 1. Four out of nine episodes reviewed.

X-Men ’97 Season 2 Review: Animated Revival’s Sophomore Outing Continues to Be The Best X-Men Adaptation