X-Men ’97Season 2 is here, and it has certainly hit the ground running. In just four episodes (at the time of writing this), Season 2 has explored the rise of one of the X-Men’s ultimate villains (Apocalypse) and teased us with dark portents of the nightmare future he will create. Now the seasonal storyline is set to explore how the X-Men’s present-day fight (in the 1990s) will determine whether or not the future of the Apocalypse War comes to pass
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However, the first arc of X-Men ’97has made one thing clear: the animated series is sidestepping the origin story of one of the most iconic villains in X-Men lore, and we feel some kind of way about it – along with every other kid who grew up on X-Men comics!
X-Men ’97Ditches A Pivotal X-Men Villain In Apocalypse’s Story
The X-Men ’97Season 2 story arc is adapting any number of famous X-Men comic stories, involving Apocalypse. That includes the Rise of Apocalypseminiseries, which chronicles En Sabah Nur’s transformation from downtrodden slave to the all-powerful ambassador of mutant supremacy. Another key work adapted for Season 2 is The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, which revealed how Cyclops and Jean Grey get transported to the future, where they live out many years under the identities of “Slim” and “Red,” raising their son, Nathan Summers, to become the time-traveling soldier known as Cable, and training him to use his power to supress the techno-organic virus that Apocalypse infected him with as a baby.
The Summers family and their cult of allies, “Clan Askani,” also race to keep Nathan out of the clutches of Apocalypse’s forces, as the boy’s unparalleled psychic power has made him a suitable vessel for Apocalypse’s next lifetime. One pivotal twist in The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenixis the reveal that Clan Askani doesn’t have complete faith in Nathan’s recovery, so they commission a clone that can take the messiah’s place, if needed. That clone gets kidnapped by Apocalypse, who mistakenly believes him to be the real Nathan, and that the “fitness for survival” made the young boy conquer the virus.
In some elaborate X-Men lore, the clone of Nathan Summers is trained to be Apocalypse’s heir, who is named “Stryfe.” Stryfe eventually breaks away from Apocalypse and starts his own war for the future, but switches focus to meddling with the past after his future war effort fails, hoping to get revenge on both Apocalypse and his “parents,” Cyclops and Jean Grey
Arriving in the present day, Stryfe disguises himself in an ostentatious costume and starts a terrorist group known as the Mutant Liberation Front. His presence draws Cable back to the past, where he forms X-Force as a militaristic group meant to oppose Stryfe and the MLF
X-Men ’97Won’t Be Telling Stryfe’s Best Story
X-Men ’97 has side-stepped this lore by removing Stryfe’s origin story from Season 2’s adaptation of The Adventures of Cyclops and Jean Grey. In the show’s present-day storyline, X-Force has been formed as a future-preservation assassin squad, taking out targets related to Apocalypse before they can become world-ending threats. It’s sort of a mashup of different eras of the X-Force team, keeping the core story intact while rearranging the finer details
It seems as though the show will be skipping over Stryfe’s lore entirely, which is kind of a shame. The rivalry between Cable and Stryfe was a defining part of X-Men lore in the 1990s. It started as one of the more tantalizing mysteries that got introduced (Stryfe having the same exact face as Cable, or possibly being Cable), and soon led to one of the bigger X-Men crossover events, “The X-Cutioner’s Song”. That story saw Stryfe (posing as Cable) attempt to assassinate Professor Xavier during a public rally. That act pitted the X-Men and the government-sponsored X-Factor against Cable and X-Force; meanwhile, Stryfe used the chaos to make his real move: drawing out and killing Apocalypse when he is weak and in hibernation, during the ’90s.
As you can see, “X-Cutioner’s Song” is a storyline that could easily be refitted to fit the X-Men ’97continuity, had the show started sowing those seeds properly in the first episodes of Season 2. Instead, the animated series will continue to throw more X-Men Easter eggs and references at us, but strangely not the one we most expected to see
X-Men ‘ 97Season 2 is now streaming on Disney+. Discuss with us on the ComicBook Forum!
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