Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-NUH-nuh-nuh. Marvel Studios’ first X-Men project since acquiring the rights to the iconic characters is quickly approaching. Out of nowhere, the X-Men ’97 trailer dropped on Thursday, with a release date revealed to be a little over a month out on March 20.
Maybe Marvel heard all the noise about their cinematic universe being dead in the water, or perhaps Kevin Feige was just pissed off that Sony seemingly botched yet another adjacent property with the negatively reviewed Madame Web movie releasing this week. Whatever the case, between the historic Deadpool & Wolverine Super Bowl trailer, the Fantastic Four cast announcement, and now this, it’s safe to say Marvel is on a freaking roll in the past four days or so.
For those of a younger generation who are out of the loop, this X-Men ’97 is a revival/direct sequel to the original animated series that ran from 1992-97, hence the title and retro timeline. With the shenanigans of the Marvel Multiverse Saga, the likely setting of the Fantastic Four movie in the 1960s and Deadpool’s likely rollicking, time-hopping plot in his next movie outing, now is as good a time as any for the nostalgic, ’90s-set series on Disney+.
Much of the main voice cast is returning for X-Men ’97, which you love to see. The only bummer is that Charles Xavier, as revealed in the trailer, won’t be involved. It looks like his arch-nemesis Magneto has taken everything from Xavier’s last will and testament, so that’ll create a compelling storyline in and of itself. As of this writing, “#XMen97” is the No. 1 trending tag in the United States on X/Twitter. Goes to show how dope this show was back in the day.
Those who are fans of the old show may be cynical based on what the MCU has offered up lately. Other grown adults are perhaps turned off by animated shows and dismiss them as childish altogether. I implore you to give What If…? a shot, because it’s freaking awesome. That alone gives me faith that this will be yet another success. Also, for fans of big Disney-related IP, Disney+ has a ton of animated Star Wars content that slaps, like Rebels, Clone Wars, Tales of the Jedi, and the soon-to-premiere final season of The Bad Batch.
Outing myself as a total nerd here I see. Oh well. But for real, all any familiar fans wanted out of the X-Men ’97 trailer, deep down, was confirmation that the legendary theme song isn’t going anywhere. And confirmation we got. You’ve no doubt heard this tune before. It’s just the best. Argue with a wall. If this badass riff doesn’t get you fired up on a Thursday morning, I don’t know what will.
Speaking of Charles Xavier, What If…?, the X-Men’s animated theme song, and the Fantastic Four, we got a taste of all these things in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness when Doc pulls up to another universe and has a meeting with the Sir Patrick Stewart-led Illuminati.
Spoiler alert for a movie that released almost two years ago.
