In all good X-Men stories, out of the fires of chaos something new and exciting is reborn in phoenix-flame. There’s perhaps no better example of that right now than the consolidation of the Fox X-Men movie era into mutantkind’s renaissance on the small screen for X-Men ‘97—and the latter is certainly cute about letting us know it knows it.
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Today Marvel released one more trailer for X-Men ‘97‘s smash hit debut season, as it prepares to barrel into its three-part finale over the next few weeks, “Tolerance Is Extinction”. There’s not actually all that much new in it—it’s mostly scenes from already broadcast episodes, although there’s some intriguing snippets of new moments, like Jubilee and Sunspot being chased by an angry mob, and the X-Men battling new, human-esque Prime Sentinels after their encounter with the transformed Bolivar Trask last week. But the trailer ends with a very good little comeback.
Nathan Summers, aka Cable, aka Scott and Madelyne’s baby from a few weeks ago (ah, superhero stories), is back to help the X-Men of “our” time face their new threat, so Cyclops gives him a matching uniform. “What did you expect?” Cyclops tells his son. “Black leather?” It’s a pointed nod toward the similar gag in Bryan Singer’s 2000 X-Men movie, where a disgruntled Wolverine, chafing at the team’s all-black leather get up, is mockingly asked if he’d prefer yellow Spandex, in cheeky reference to his comic book look.
The symbiotic nature of adaptation and source material is such, of course, that a year after the movie the X-Men did pick up their own black leather team uniform in the comics, for Frank Quitely’s redesign of the team alongside Grant Morrison in New X-Men. But it’s funny how we’ve closed the circle at this point, going from joking admonishments of how goofy the source material for these stories can be, to a wholesale embrace of it. Especially in having X-Men ‘97 be the one to do it—a project that now surrounds the Fox movie era, from X-Men: The Animated Series in the early ‘90s to ‘97 being the first released X-project since Disney acquired Fox in 2019. Yes, Cable, at this point we’re all just fine with the Spandex—and X-Men ‘97 knows it.
X-Men ‘97 continues this Wednesday, May 1, for the first part of “Tolerance Is Extinction” on Disney+.
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