We're hoping X-Men '97 season 2 will premiere on Disney+ next year. That's yet to be confirmed by Marvel Studios, though we learned at D23 earlier this month that the team will don costumes inspired by Grand Morrison and Frank Quitely's New X-Men run.
Over the weekend, Marvel Studios Head of Streaming, Television and Animation Brad Winderbaum appeared at a Q&A alongside supervising producer Jake Casterona and director Emi/Emmett Yonemura.
When Winderbaum was asked about what to expect from the upcoming second season, he teased (via Collider), "There [are] many teams, in Marvel, that have the letter 'X' that are followed by a hyphen. I would put it to you like this...there [are] two other X teams in Season 2."
We'd have to imagine that at least one of them will be X-Factor. Forge's old team was teased at the end of season 1 and, with Polaris confirmed to appear in the next batch of episodes, we'd bet on the likes of Havok, Wolfsbane, and Quicksilver joining her.
With Lady Deathstrike and Sabretooth also named at D23 as characters who will be featured in X-Men '97 season 2, we'd bet on the second team being a new version of Weapon X-Men or X-Force.
After all, with the X-Men lost in time, someone will need to step up and fill the void left by the heroes!
Talking to Awards Radar about X-Men '97 being nominated for an Emmy for "Outstanding Animated Program," Winderbaum explained why an X-Men: The Animated Series revival was always a priority for Marvel Studios.
"The first idea out of the bag was to revive the original series," he said. "When I talked to Kevin Feige about it, he said, 'If you can get that theme song and the original cast, let’s go for it.' Then it was a long road of finding like-minded people who understood what we were trying to achieve with the series."
"We didn’t want to create the 2024 version of X-Men, but the 1997 version of X-Men, which is easier said than done because everybody wants to bring their own thing to it, including me and every single person that touched it," Winderbaum concluded.
X-Men '97 revisits the iconic era of the 1990s as The X-Men, a band of mutants who use their uncanny gifts to protect a world that hates and fears them, are challenged like never before, forced to face a dangerous and unexpected new future.
All episodes of X-Men '97 are now streaming on Disney+.