X-Men ‘97 is back for a second season, bringing Marvel’s mightiest mutants to TV screens with yet more action, adventure, and epic storytelling. Picking up directly after the events of the Season One finale, various members of the X-Men are cast adrift through time, and they are going to need a way to get back home!
And the fate of the team picks up with the first episode of Season Two, titled ‘Days of Past Future’. The title is a play on the classic comic book story, Days of Future Past – a tale not only adapted for film in 2014, but also the subject of a two-part story back in Season One of X-Men: The Animated Series.
And that’s just one little tidbit you might not have noticed about this first episode. Want to know what else you may have missed? Well, keep reading.
Below you’ll find details of the other in-jokes and references from Days of Past Future, which might have passed you by.
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Credit roll
OK, the first thing to notice is the opening credits, which begin as usual, but have some notable changes. As the credits start to work their way through the roll call of X-Men teammates there are a number of members missing.
Rogue, Beast, Jubilee, Sunspot, Nightcrawler, Professor X, and Magneto are not included. This is an early indication that these characters are not the focus of this episode.
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Days gone by
Sticking with the credits and there is a brief reference to Days of Future Past. The reference is in the form of a clip featuring Forge and Bishop staring at a tube containing Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton.
This scene originally featured in Days of Future Past, after Bishop returns back to his timeline believing a crisis in the past has been averted. Forge then tells him something else must have gone wrong, as their present (the X-Men’s future) is still post-apocalyptic, which paves the way for Bishop’s next time travel adventure during season two of X-Men: The Animated Series.
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A callback to last season
Away from the credits now, and as the episode opens, news reporter Trish Tilby is updating the world on the disappearance of the X-Men. Look carefully at Trish’s face and you’ll notice she has marks relating to last season, when humans were under the control of Bastion and turned into human Sentinels.
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Going feral?
As the episode progresses, Forge travels through time to 3960 AD in search of one faction of the splintered X-Men. After being attacked by robotic adversaries, he is rescued by Wolverine and Storm.
Following the events of last season, when Magneto ripped the adamantium off Wolverine’s skeleton, Logan now sports his bone claws. He also has a slightly different look, with a bandana across his face.
Wolverine wore a similar look in the comics, after he lost his adamantium in a similar encounter with Magneto. However, in the comics the loss of his adamantium made him feral.
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Ozymandias
Introduced into this episode is Ozymandias – a character who has not previously appeared in X-Men ‘97 or X-Men: The Animated Series. In the comics, Ozymandias is a former Egyptian warlord and the first servant of Apocalypse.
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Mother Askani
Another character who comes into focus in this first episode of Season Two is the mysterious Mother Askani. She helps Cyclops, Jean, Wolverine, Morph, and Storm and has been caring for the young Nathan Summers.
But Mother Askani is not just some random person keen to help. She has an ulterior interest in Cyclops, Jean, and Nathan.
Askani’s real identity is an alternate timeline version of Rachel Summers – aka Cyclops and Jean’s daughter. Rachel has telepathic and telekinetic abilities and originates from the Days of Future Pasttimeline.
Interestingly, Rachel did briefly appear in X-Men: The Animated Series, during the four-part story, Beyond Good and Evil. When Apocalypse was in the process of kidnapping psychics, Rachel can be seen amongst the ensemble of his kidnap victims.
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Got the X-Factor
As well as Wolverine having a comic-related costume, Cyclops and Jean are wearing notably different clothes which are also a nod to the comics. During the ‘80s, the pair were founding members of the mutant team, X-Factor and both their costumes here (Cyclops blue/white, Jean red/yellow) are variations of their X-Factor outfits.
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Ship
During a scene where Mother Askani is briefing the X-Men on Apocalypse, she discusses a vessel which Wolverine refers to as “ship”. He tells Askani the X-Men have encountered this craft before.
This is true. The X-Men crossed paths with Ship in X-Men: The Animated Series during the episode, Obsession.
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It’s Morphin’ time
This episode doesn’t include a great deal of screen time for Morph, but we do get to see him transform into another Marvel super hero – Thor, God of Thunder!
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X-Force
And as the first episode of Season Two draws to a close, the attention turns to Cable who is on a mission to destroy Apocalypse once and for all. Cable is joined by two mutants: Archangel and Psylocke, both of whom previously appeared in X-Men: The Animated Series.
During this scene Archangel refers to Cable as “boss”. The pair are working for Cable as part of a new team known as X-Force – a black ops group who take a more forceful approach to situations than the X-Men.
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