Warning: this article contains full spoilers for X-Men ‘97: Season 1, Episode 10! If you haven’t already, be sure to check out IGN’s review of the Season 1 finale.
X-Men ‘97 has wrapped its first season on Disney+, and a lot has changed as the dust settles from the final battle with Bastion. Operation: Zero Tolerance has been averted and the world was saved from total annihilation, but the X-Men themselves are now missing and presumed dead. And even as the world recovers, a new battle is brewing in both the distant past and far future of the Marvel Universe.
Confused as to where the series is headed in Season 2? Fear not, we’re here to break down the ending to Season 1 and how the series will likely move forward from here now that the X-Men are scattered across time. Here’s what you need to know.
The X-Men Save the World (Again)
Things are looking pretty bleak for humanity in the climax of the finale. Though Professor Xavier hijacks Magneto’s mind and forces him to undo the damage caused by his EMP attack, humanity faces certain extinction after Bastion turns Asteroid M into a massive projectile. Now intent on wiping out humanity rather than ushering in its salvation, Bastion is essentially borrowing a page from Ultron’s playbook in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Bastion himself is ultimately destroyed, rebuffing Cyclops’ act of compassion and being sucked into the black hole created by Asteroid M’s damaged core. But Magneto spares humanity the same fate suffered by the dinosaurs when he awakens just in time to stop Asteroid M from plummeting to the surface and returns it to the surface… where it promptly explodes. Magneto and the X-Men are feared dead (more on that in a moment).
This last-minute save seems to set the tone for human/mutant relations heading into Season 2. While Bastion succeeded in discrediting the X-Men and exposing the lie about Xavier’s death, now world leaders watched as the X-Men and Magneto saved them from certain doom. Anti-mutant hysteria is still on the rise (hence the radio broadcast referring to the rise in popularity of Friends of Humanity founder-turned-politician Graydon Creed), but humans have also been reminded that the X-Men are willing to throw down their lives in defense of those who hate and fear them.
The problem is that there are currently no X-Men in place to promote Xavier’s dream. That’s a problem Forge intends to solve, and he’s got some unexpected help from Bishop, who returns from his sojourn to the future with a surprising revelation.
Saved by Time Travel
In the final scenes of Episode 10, we learn that Magneto and the X-Men didn’t perish in Asteroid M’s implosion. Instead, they were dragged across time. Most of them have emerged 5000 years in the past in ancient Egypt. Cyclops and Jean Grey, meanwhile, have traveled 2000 years into the future.
Why did the X-Men time travel? One possibility is that an outside force saved them. Perhaps some powerful Marvel character wanted to spare the X-Men, while also needing them to set things right in both the distant past and the far future. The Watcher, perhaps?
However, it’s more likely this salvation by time travel was pure happenstance. Earlier in the finale, we see Bastion absorb Cable’s techno-organic arm into his body. The arm still holds Cable’s time band when it’s absorbed, suggesting Bastion integrated its time travel function into his body. And when Bastion is destroyed in Asteroid M’s core, his body may rip open holes in time that the X-Men and Magneto are dragged into.
It’s also worth pointing out that this means Cable is currently stranded in the present. This may be paving the way for Cable to spearhead the creation of X-Force, a more militant alternative to the X-Men. That could be a plot point in Season 2, with Cable doing his best to fill the void left by the X-Men.
Meeting Apocalypse In Ancient Egypt
Magneto and one faction of X-Men - Rogue, Nightcrawler, Beast and Xavier - are thrust backward in time, landing in Egypt in the year 3000 BC. There they encounter a lone warrior battling against several foes. After rescuing the warrior, they learn his name - En Sabah Nur.
Comic book fans will recognize this figure as a young Apocalypse. The “En Sabah Nur” name loosely translates to “The First One,” denoting the fact that this ancient being is one of the world’s very first mutants. Apocalypse was the main villain of several key storylines in the original X-Men: The Animated Series, but that show never delved very deeply into his origins. That’s clearly about to change in X-Men ‘97.
The final shot in the Egyptian sequence shows a massive and oddly futuristic temple in the background. In the comics, Apocalypse’s origin story sees him battle the Pharaoh Rama-Tut, a time-traveler who uses his advanced technology to lord over the ancient Egyptians. Apocalypse eventually drives Rama-Tut out of the past and harnesses that technology for himself, becoming the all-powerful mutant tyrant we know him as in the present.
Sidebar - we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that Rama-Tut is one of the many identities of Kang the Conqueror. Another of those identities, Immortus, appeared in cameo form in Season 4 of X-Men: The Animated Series.
It seems we’re going to see the conflict between Apocalypse and Rama-Tut play out in Season 2, only now the X-Men are fighting alongside En Sabah Nur. How will that affect things? Is there a chance the X-men could alter En Sabah Nur’s destiny and prevent him from becoming the villain he is in the 20th Century? Or does the sight of these mutant heroes help inspire Apocalypse’s obsession with “survival of the fittest” in the first place?
Cyclops, Jean Grey and Clan Askani
While some of the X-Men find themselves far in the past, Cyclops and Jean Grey have instead traveled to the far-flung year of 3060 AD. There they encounter a group called Clan Askani, led by the mysterious Mother Askani. Mother Askani’s true identity is a pretty big reveal, but we won’t spoil that here.
For now, what matters is that Scott and Jean come face to face with a younger version of Nathan Summers. Clan Askani are the ones who rescued baby Nathan when he was lost in time and raised him to become a time-traveling freedom fighter.
In a kind twist of fate, Scott and Jean are now being given the chance to become parents to young Nathan, regaining some of the time they lost with their son. This draws on the 1994 comic series The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix. In the comic, Scott and Jean’s psychic forms were brought into the future to raise Nathan. Here, they’ve arrived in the flesh.
Clan Askani are the main form of resistance in a world dominated by Apocalypse. Therefore, it stands to reason that both groups of time-displaced X-Men are connected by one overarching, Apocalypse-centric storyline. Expect the conflict with Apocalypse to play a major part in Season 2, even as the series sets other important plans in motion.
What Happened to Wolverine and the Other X-Men?
Episode 10 reveals the fates of many of the X-Men who were trapped aboard Asteroid M, but not all of them. Wolverine, Storm and Morph are all still MIA, with no indication of where or when they might be.
We’re going to go out on a limb and assume that these three didn’t die aboard Asteroid M. Wolverine and Storm in particular are too popular to simply write out of the picture like that. Presumably, these three were also saved by the power of time travel. It’s a question of when in the timeline they emerged.
Whenever Wolverine finds himself, he’s going to have to deal with the trauma of having the adamantium ripped from his bones. As we see in Episode 10, this is one injury even his healing factor is having trouble containing. Assuming the show follows the example of the comics, Logan will eventually regain consciousness but learn that his healing factor has shorted itself out. He’ll also discover that he has bone claws underneath the adamantium.
If Season 2 is anything like the comics, Logan will take a break from the X-Men to recover, physically and psychologically, and come into conflict with villains like Lady Deathstrike and Cyber. Depending on when and where Logan is right now, he may have no choice but to become a wandering hero. The real question is whether Storm and Morph are with him, or if they were dragged to their own points in time. The fate of these three X-Men is perhaps the show’s biggest mystery heading into Season 2.
X-Men ‘97’s Post-Credits Scene Explained
In true Marvel fashion, X-Men ‘97 ends its first season with a post-credits scene setting up a future storyline. Here, we see Apocalypse on Genosha, mourning the loss of so many mutants in Bastion’s attack. Apocalypse muses, “So much pain. So much death,” while holding up one of Gambit’s playing cards.
The implication here seems to be that Apocalypse plans on resurrecting Gambit as his Horseman of Death. That’s sometimes been a convenient way of resurrecting dead mutants in the comics, thanks to Apocalypse’s advanced Celestial technology.
At this point, it’s clear that all roads lead to Apocalypse in Season 2. This long-running villain is active in the past, the future and now, even the present. Present-day Apocalypse is resurfacing following his resurrection in Season 5 of X-Men: The Animated Series, and he’s recruiting mutants to become his Horsemen. Who else will join his cause? Could this be how Wolverine gets his adamantium back (as happened in the comics)? Could Apocalypse recruit human superheroes as well as mutants? Anything is possible when this powerful and immortal villain is at the forefront of the series. Will find out how past, present and future connect when the series returns, likely in 2025.
For more on X-Men '97, find out why the series understands that less is more with Wolverine and brush up on every Marvel movie and series in development.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
