X-Men ’97 is back, baby! After two years, the hit Disney+ animated series returned with three wild episodes today that — spoilers past this point — found the X-Men lost in time. It’s the first episode, “Days of Past Future,” we want to talk about as it dived deep into the mystery of: who is Mother Askani, voiced by Star Trek legend Gates McFadden?
In the episode, we pick up with Cyclops (Ray Chase) and Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale) stuck in the future (3960 AD, to be precise) with their son, Nathan Summers (Michael Johnson). He’s not Cable yet, and struggling with harnassing his powers, while being guided by Scott and Jean, who he doesn’t know are his parents. He’s also guided by Mother Askani, who has him at the center of a prophecy to bring about the end of arch-villain Apocalypse (Ross Marquand).
While Jean and Scott are very focused on whether to tell young Nate about being his mom and dad, Scott also has a lot of questions about the Phoenix-powered Mother Askani, who explains that she comes from another alternate future, and sure seems to drop a lot of pointed dialogue about parentage and knowing your parents, and siblings and whatnot. That’s because though it’s not revealed in the episode… She is Rachel Summers, the daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey.
Who Is Mother Askani? And Who Is Rachel Summers?
The character of Mother Askani is wildly complicated, as is all things X-Men. But the simple version is she was introduced in Cable #6 in 1993 by Fabian Nicieza and Dwayne Turner. In normal human reading order, Mother Askani was the leader of Clan Askani. They are a future society dedicated to destroying Apocalypse, the villain who ruled their future world.
The Clan Askani, through Mother Askani, believed in the prophecy of Dayspring, or the Askani’son. They came to believe that the warrior who would help them overthrow Apocalypse was none other than a baby: Nathan Summers. Just as he was infected with a Techno-Organic Virus — in the comics, by Apocalypse, on TV by Mister Sinister — they took him to the far future to help him manage the virus with his native telekinetic abilities.
Years later, in the comics, Mother Askani transferred the consciousnesses of Jean Grey and Scott Summers into future bodies. There, they were called Red and Slim, respectively, and helped raise Nathan… Who didn’t know they were his parents.
This is the highly simplified version, but I’ll throw one more complicated wrench in there… Mother Askani is an older version of Rachel Summers. And Rachel is the daughter of Jean and Scott as well — albeit from an alternate post-apocalyptic future, as seen in the classic Days of Future Past, where this week’s premiere gets its title. So in classic X-Men fashion, Mother Askani is secretly Nathan, aka Cable’s, sister from another timeline, who raises him, along with his parents who are in different bodies, also secretly. Yeah! This also explains why once Mother Askani takes off her hood, her character design looks like a skinnier, female Cable.
Of note, we already got a glimpse of Rachel Summers during a vision of Bastion’s not-quite utopia in Episode 9 of X-Men ’97, Season 1, “Tolerance Is Extinction, Part 2.” There, she was working as a “Hound,” which are mutants turned into tracking dogs to hunt down other mutants. That’s where the marks on Mother Askani’s face come from, by the way; all Hounds have them.
The next two episodes of the season focus on X-Force, then the X-Men stuck in the past of 3000 BC; so other than a quick bit where Young Nathan gets the power to Timeslide, aka send the X-Men back to the ’90s, we don’t see Rachel/Mother Askani again. Will she be back before season’s end? Will we find out how she got from one post-apocalyptic future to another? And will she reveal she’s Jean and Scott’s daughter, adding to their already complicated family tree? Stay tuned.
X-Men ’97 Season 2 Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
X-Men ’97 Season 2 premieres on Wednesday, July 1 on Disney+ at 3am ET / Midnight PT, with three new episodes on premiere date followed by one episode weekly until the finale.
Here’s the full list of episodes in X-Men ’97 Season 2 with expected premiere dates:
- Wednesday, July 1, 2026: X-Men ’97, Season 2, Episode 1, “Days Of Past Future”
- Wednesday, July 1, 2026: X-Men ’97, Season 2, Episode 2, “A Force To Be Reckoned With”
- Wednesday, July 1, 2026: X-Men ’97, Season 2, Episode 3, “Rise Of Apocalypse – Part I”
- Wednesday, July 8, 2026: X-Men ’97, Season 2, Episode 4, “Rise Of Apocalypse – Part II”
- Wednesday, July 15, 2026: X-Men ’97, Season 2, Episode 5, “Weapon X, Lies, And DVDs”
- Wednesday, July 22, 2026: X-Men ’97, Season 2, Episode 6, “Danger.exe”
- Wednesday, July 29, 2026: X-Men ’97, Season 2, Episode 7, “Strange Land, Savage Heart”
- Wednesday, August 5, 2026: X-Men ’97, Season 2, Episode 8, “The Dead Man’s Hand”
- Wednesday, August 12, 2026: X-Men ’97, Season 2, Episode 9, “Survival Of The Fittest” *Season Finale*
Where To Watch X-Men ’97 Season 2
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