After 10 episodes, that’s a wrap on X-Men ’97 Season 1 on Disney+. The epic continuation of X-Men: The Animated Series went harder and more impressive than anyone could imagine. And of course, it ended with a doozy of finale that made us more rabid than an adamantium-less Wolverine (Cal Dodd) to see Season 2. So how about an ending explained, in case you’re confused or curious?
Good news, that’s exactly what we’ve got for you here. Briefly, we’ll recap the events of the X-Men ’97 Season 1 finale, “Tolerance Is Extinction, Part 3,” and then explain what we can about the ending of the episode… And where we’ll end up in Season 2, thanks to that surprise end credits scene.
X-Men ’97 Season 1 Finale Recap: What Happened In “Tolerance Is Extinction, Part 3”?
We pick up in the season finale with the team split into Blue and Gold. Or rather, we seemingly pick up back in time with Professor X (Ross Marquand) and Magneto (Matthew Waterson) at the beginning of their friendship, first discovering that the other is a mutant. That’s not really what’s happening, though: we’re still on Asteroid M, and Xavier is attempting one last ditch effort to get Magneto to reactivate the magnetism of the Earth before everyone dies.
Magneto does not agree to do this, so Xavier takes over his mind and does it for him — trapping them both in Magneto’s mindscape. In the process, this also reactivates Bastion’s (Theo James) Prime Sentinels, which we’ll get to in a second. To stay on this track, though, the mutant duo work through their whole relationship and almost get trapped in there. Instead, Xavier finally breaks through and Magneto comes out of his coma just in time to stop a crashing Asteroid M. Also, as far as I’m aware, they do not have a mind-baby named Onslaught as expected but stay tuned.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Bastion is about to kill Cable (Chris Potter), much to the chagrin of Mister Sinister (Chris Britton). Enter Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale) who reactivates her Phoenix powers long enough to put an inhibitor on Bastion to block his connection to the Prime Sentinels and free the cyborgs from his control. She also literally rips the DNA out of Sinister, turning him into the old, decrepit man he actually is. Morph (J.P. Karliak) makes fun of him.
Phoenix spent, the team is back together — but Bastion isn’t done yet. He rips off Cable’s arm and integrates it into his body, vowing to destroy Asteroid M and bring it crashing to Earth. The team on the asteroid rally to stop him, and once the rest of the team minus Forge (Gil Birmingham) show up in a Trojan Horse Sentinel, they manage to fight him to a standstill… Which is when Cyclops (Ray Chase) appeals to Bastion, mutant to mutant, and essentially asks him to join the team.
It’s too late, though, as Earth has decided to activate the Magneto Protocols. In the comics, those were a magnetic net protecting the Earth. Here it’s a bunch of missiles that blow up Asteroid M’s gravity core, causing it to fall to Earth. Yes, that’s the same thing Bastion was trying to do.
Looping back to Professor X and Magneto, the team all uses their powers to halt the descent of Asteroid M, with the whole world watching and cheering — only for the Asteroid, and all the X-Men to disappear. Only Forge, Roberto (Gui Augustini), and Jubilee (Holly Chou) are left behind.
X-Men ’97 Ending Explained: What Happened At The End Of X-Men ’97 Season 1?
Six months later, Forge is in the wreckage of the X-Men’s Westchester mansion. He’s desperately trying to find the team, but no luck there. Enter Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith), who reveals that the X-Men aren’t dead… They’re lost in time.
That’s when we catch up with various members of the team in different parts of the time-stream. Cyclops and Jean Grey are in “The Future – 3960 A.D.” There they meet Mother Askani (Gates McFadden) and the Askani Clan, a group straight out of The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix comic from 1994. This group is who raised Cable to be the ultimate weapon against Apocalypse. And in the comics, Cyclops and Jean Grey did make a jaunt to the future as “Slim” and “Red” to raise Nathan Summers, as well. Most likely we’ll see a lot more of all of this in Season 2… Including the teen version of Nathan, though in this case our mutant duo straight up tell Mother Askani that they are Scott Summers and Jean Grey.
Meanwhile, a much larger chunk of the team is way back in time. Specifically Egypt, 3000 B.C. There we pick up with Rogue (Lenore Zann) and Nightcrawler (Adrian Hough), who fight off some baddies and save a man who turns out to be En Sabah Nur (Adetokumboh M’Cormack), aka Apocalypse the original mutant. Also back in time are Beast (George Buza), Professor X, and Magneto. They know who En Sabah Nur is — as Beast quips in the season-ending line, “Oh dear” — and presumably we’ll get some of them trying to change Apocalypse’s mind about the whole, er, apocalypse deal.
There’s one more scene though, after the main credits of the series. We pick up in present-day Genosha, where a cloaked figure is sifting through the wreckage. It’s none other than Apocalypse (Marquand again) who finds a burnt playing card from Gambit (A.J. LoCascio), says there’s “so much death” and smiles. In case it wasn’t abundantly clear: yeah, Apocalypse is going to resurrect Gambit as Death, one of his four Horsemen.
So who shunted the X-men throughout time? Was it Apocalypse? The Askani Clan? Someone else? Stay tuned.
Where’s Wolverine?
There’s one very big open question here, as the rest of the team is accounted for… Where’s Wolverine? Throughout the episode, he was dealing with the after-effects of having his adamantium skeleton ripped out by Magneto, lying on a hospital bed on the edge of death. The biggest moment for Wolverine had to do with Jean Grey… Specifically, Morph turns into Jean and tells Wolverine they love him — with Logan thinking it is Jean, and it is pretty clear this was Morph actually saying they love Wolverine.
But in the end, when everyone is scattered through time, we don’t know what happened to Wolverine. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine without his adamantium, Wolverine’s bone claws era is coming. But is he in the future with Jean and Scott? In the past with the rest of the team? Or somewhere else? It’s going to be a long wait until Season 2.
Will There Be A X-Men ’97 Season 2?
Yes, there will indeed be an X-Men ’97 Season 2. The series was confirmed to have a second season way back in July of 2022 at San Diego Comic-Con. By San Diego Comic-Con 2023 (also in July), work had already started on writing the Season 2 finale. A bit of a wrinkle to all of this, in March of 2024, head writer Beau DeMayo was fired — or parted ways — with Marvel, though he reportedly was already done with his work on Season 2, and development had already begun on Season 3.
So yes, there will be a second season of X-Men ’97 — and a third season — though given the long production time for animation (usually about two years per season) it might still be a little while until it comes back to your streaming screens.
