While we all wait with bated breath for concrete news on X-Men '97's premiere date, the fact Marvel Studios is skipping next week's San Diego Comic-Con really doesn't bode well.
We've been led to believe the show had once been on track to debut this Fall, hence why merchandise based on the X-Men: The Animated Series revival is slowly trickling into stores. Thanks to Toonado.com, we have a first look at an action figure depicting one of the revival's Sentinels and, well, the design should be instantly familiar to you.
In X-Men: The Animated Series, the Sentinel was a robot designed to police, fight, and capture mutants. They were designed by Bolivar Trask and Henry Peter Gyrich and built by an enormous Sentinel-looking factory called Master Mold.
We're not surprised the robot's appearance hasn't undergone a drastic overhaul given what an iconic design it boasts, though the fact this action figure is being released confirms they're still a threat to the world's mutants. With Mister Sinister set to take centre stage in this follow-up series, that's definitely interesting.
It was back in February when Wolverine voice actor Cal Dodd claimed to already be hard at work on season 2 of X-Men '97, and rumour has it the show could get as many as four seasons. That's very exciting if true and suggests the X-Men: The Animated Series follow-up will remain on our screens for the foreseeable future.
However, while we originally expected X-Men '97 to premiere on Disney+ this year, work on Marvel Studios' animated offerings appears to have ground to a halt, with the fate of this show, What If...?, Marvel Zombies, and Spider-Man: Freshman Year now a mystery to us.
They're no doubt somewhere on the horizon, but with Marvel Studios getting back to quality over quantity, there's a chance these shows are no longer a major priority (the ongoing WGA strike halting many live-action productions could change things, of course).
Take a closer look X-Men '97's take on the Sentinels in the Tweet below.