By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Disney just dropped an unexpected summer treat on fans: a trailer for the second season of X-Men ‘97. Frankly, it looks absolutely awesome, with plenty of killer action sequences and hints of fan-favorite comic storylines. The first season of the show was the best Marvel project in years, and this trailer establishes that this was no fluke. X-Men ‘97 Season 2 looks like it will deliver even more of what audiences have been craving, and Disney revealed that Seasons 3 and 4 are already in production and that we’ll be getting a new season of this breakout animated series each year for the next couple of years.
For fans of Marvel’s merry band of mutants, this is everything we’ve been waiting to hear and then some. But this is one case where we might be getting a little too much of a good thing. Why is that? As I have written about before, X-Men ‘97 is so awesome that it’s setting completely unrealistic expectations for future Marvel projects. Between the show’s awesome writing and its seamless inclusion of awesome comic storylines, one thing is clear: the upcoming live-action X-Men movie is going to be a major disappointment, and that might be enough to fully halt the momentum the MCU has been desperately trying to regain.
The X-Men Movie: What We Know
Right now, we only know a few details about the upcoming X-Men movie set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s going to be directed by Jake Schreier, the same man who brought us The Thunderbolts. Theoretically, that’s good news. The Thunderbolts was a critically acclaimed movie, one that had particularly solid interactions between its eclectic characters, and that should serve Schreier well when directing the X-Men film. Additionally, MCU guru Kevin Feige told CBR that he thought the director “has his pulse on … a younger demographic.” This is crucial “because X-Men, as it was in the comics, will be a very youth-oriented, focused, and cast movie.”
Beyond that, very little is known. The MCU X-Men movie doesn’t have a release date, though we know it will be released after Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars come out. This is presumably because the latter film will be doing a reboot of this cinematic universe, which will presumably explain why mutants are now one of the dominant forces in the MCU. It’s no secret that Feige wants these mutants to be the new focal point of this rebooted universe. Unfortunately, that plan may already be unraveling thanks to the continued success of X-Men ‘97!
Send In The Toons
There’s a famous proverb (often attributed to Teddy Roosevelt) that says, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” The meaning is quite simple: it’s hard to be happy with something you’d otherwise like once you have something else to compare it to. In a vacuum, the X-Men MCU movie would likely be an unqualified hit, especially if (and this isn’t exactly a huge hurdle) it’s notably better than other disappointing team-based films like Eternals and The Fantastic Four: First Steps. But when this team makes its official live-action debut, fans will inevitably start comparing it to X-Men ‘97, and that’s not going to go well for Kevin Feige.
Obviously, X-Men ‘97 is an excellent show on its own. It has world-class writing, killer lore, and some of the best character chemistry to ever grace superhero television. But part of why it was so successful was that this mutant franchise has been decidedly hit or miss over the years. The first two 20th Century Fox films were great, but the third one was an unmitigated disaster. The same thing happened when the studio rebooted the universe (sort of): X-Men: First Class and Days of Future Past were blockbuster successes, but X-Men: Apocalypse was a huge letdown, and Dark Phoenix was so bad that most who watched it have spent years trying to get its taste out of their mouths.
The MCU’s Apocalypse Is Here
After that last cinematic failure, X-Men fans’ expectations had hit rock bottom. Therefore, it was that much easier for X-Men ’97 to completely blow us away. But by the time the MCU X-Men movie comes out, fans will have enjoyed at least four seasons of this franchise’s hit animated series, plus Deadpool & Wolverine. By that point, their expectations will be through the roof, and if the X-Men movie is anything less than brilliant, it will be rejected by fans and become a box office bomb. Should that happen, then Kevin Feige’s final, most ambitious plans to reignite interest in the MCU will fail right alongside the movie.
As a lifelong X-Men fan, this is one of those times when I’m desperately hoping to be wrong. With any luck, the X-Men movie will be even better than X-Men ‘97, and we’ll enter a new golden age of mutant mania. However, this beloved show has set the bar almost impossibly high for the upcoming film, and with the MCU’s recent spotty record, it may be impossible to meet those expectations. That could spell doom for the biggest cinematic universe in history, and fans will again be stuck right where they are: spending years hoping someone can make mainstream audiences actually care about the X-Men again.
