Given the multiple cliffhangers we ended with in the X-Men ’97 Season 1 finale, “Tolerance Is Extinction, Part 3,” it’s reasonable to want to watch Season 2 now. But according to EP Brad Winderbaum, it’s going to take a bit.
Winderbaum said as much in multiple interviews while doing press rounds the other day, repeatedly iterating that while Season 2 got a bit of a head start thanks to Marvel greenlighting the sequel season a while back, animation still takes its sweet time. Side note, but it is very funny to see three different outlets mark what is essentially the same quote as “exclusive.” To quote The Princess Bride: I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Over at Black Girl Nerds, Winderbaum talked about the potential delay the most extensively in an “exclusive” interview, saying, “Season two is in the animatic phase which is actually there’s a lot of storytelling that goes into that. It still happens in that phase. It’s where you do a lot of the fine tuning, because it’s transitioning from concept to fully realized animation. There is a significant amount of work still being done in the second season. But the roadmap is pretty clear and it’s very exciting. I feel about season two the way I did about season one. I hope the fans embrace it the way we kind of feel about it on the inside.”
He added to the outlet that “it might take a second,” though clarified they did get the green light before they aired meaning the lag time will be shorter. However, noted Winderbaum, “There will be more lag time than what I think the fans want or what I want.”
In an “exclusive” interview with ComicBook.com, Winderbaum said the exact same thing, with slight variations. “It’s still an animatic phase. Animation takes so long to make as I’m sure you know. There was a great bit about this in Invincible Season 2,” Winderbaum explained. “They just nailed it so hard, it is the greatest. And it takes a long time. Because the studio wants to see how successful the first season is before they greenlight the second season there’s a lag. We were lucky enough to get the greenlight before we aired so there’s maybe less of a lag. People are just going to have to be patient with us.
So, less of a lag, but also more lag. Let’s see what he “exclusively” told Screenrant:
“Something we learned in animation, where I learned in animation that has been very well known for animators for decades, is that there’s a season one and two lag because the studio or network wants to see how successful the first season is before they greenlight the second season and it takes so long to make anything animated that it often causes a pretty significant delay,” said Winderbaum. “In fact, Invincible did a great bit in their second season, they go to a fake Comic-Con and explain it to the audience which I thought was so hysterical. We were lucky enough to get a green light on the second season before we wrapped the first season because of the quality of the show. I wish it could come out tomorrow, the reality is it just takes time and we want to make it as good as it can possibly be.”
Breaking news? By the way, this is not to shame any of the individual writers who wrote these stories, just to point out there seems to be a general misunderstanding as to what constitutes an exclusive. If you and the subject, their PR, etc agree on an exclusive interview either before or after, that means nobody else is getting those quotes or that interview time. If you are in a junket, or the subject is doing the press rounds, per the above, that is not an exclusive, that’s just an interview.
Anyway! Point here is that as we speculated in our X-Men ’97 Season 2 post, it’s going to take a while for the season to come out. Given that Winderbaum says it’s in animatics, I think the first quarter of 2025 is still safe, per our previous article. But chances are it could be moved to mid to late 2025, too. And that’s an exclusive! Oh wait, no it’s not.
