The Most Mindblowing X-Men ‘97 Season 2 Easter Eggs

By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated 1 second ago

To me, my X-Fans! After a painful wait of nearly two years, X-Men ‘97 Season 2 is finally here. The first three episodes dropped on Disney+, and they are filled with more of the excellent writing, killer voice acting, and breathtaking animation that you’ve come to expect. They’re also filled with something else: more Easter eggs than you can shake a ruby quartz visor at! Unfortunately, it can be tough for even the biggest X-Men fans to clock because these episodes are so chock-full of action and intrigue.

That’s where I come in! I’ve compiled a list of my favorite Easter eggs throughout these first three episodes. This isn’t everything, of course, Honestly, I’d probably need Cerebro and your own stable of powerful telepaths (now paging the Cuckcoo sisters!) in order to track every homage and reference. What were the best ones, though, and what makes them so cool? Put down those Fleer Ultra cards and grab your glasses so you can scope out the best Easter eggs from X-Men ‘97 Season 2!

X-Men ’01

The name of the show is X-Men ‘97. Predictably, many of the comic book storylines the show has adapted have come out of the ‘90s (including Wolverine getting his adamantium stripped from his bones) or the preceding decade (like the trial of Magneto). For the most part, Season 2 keeps this trend going, with the first three episodes borrowing extensively from ‘90s miniseries like The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix and The Rise of Apocalypse. However, these early episodes feature several characters from Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, a comic that didn’t begin until 2001. 

That was a comic where Professor Xavier had recommitted to teaching young mutants and, as such, his School for Gifted Youngsters was filled with new students. We see several in X-Men ‘97 who are captured by X-Factor and subsequently liberated by X-Force. Arguably, the most important mutants onscreen are the Stepford Cuckoos (powerful telepaths who are mentored in the comics by Emma Frost) and Quentin Quire (an Omega-level mutant who was a Magneto fanboy in the comics, going so far as to wear a “Magneto was right” shirt to class).

Secret Cameo From The MCU’s Most Notorious Villain

In X-Men ‘97 Season 2, half of the team is flung into the far future, a techno-fascist dystopia ruled over by Apocalypse. The other half is sent to Ancient Egypt, where Apocalypse hasn’t risen to power and goes by En Sabah Nur. In a fun bit of parallelism, Nur must find a way to defeat a technologically advanced foe in the same way that the Askani clan of the future must find a way to defeat him. In Egypt, En Sabah Nur’s foe is Rama-Tut, a relatively minor bad guy who looks more like a Scooby-Doo villain than a legitimate threat.

He is a threat, though, and a bigger one than either the X-Men or En Sabah Nur realizes. You see, “Rama-Tut” is actually Kang the Conqueror in disguise. We don’t yet know if X-Men ‘97 will reveal this, especially after Jonathan Majors’ Kang was yoinked out of the MCU following the actor’s legal woes. Even if the show never makes the reveal, though, it’s fun to know that Apocalypse is secretly fighting Kang, someone that Marvel Studios execs like Kevin Feige are desperately hoping we’ve all forgotten!

X-Force Opening

Okay, so this next X-Men ‘97 Easter egg is admittedly hard to miss. Then again, I know a bunch of you either play on your phones during the intro or skip it altogether, so quite a few fans did miss it. Basically, the familiar intro sequence for the show has been replaced with an intro sequence for X-Force. The new intro celebrates Cable’s ragtag team, which consists of himself, Psylocke, Archangel, Jubilee, and Sunspot. 

The new intro is very slickly edited, and it’s one that all X-Men ‘97 fans can appreciate. You’ll probably dig it even more, though, if you read X-Force back in the day. The premise of the comics was that the time-traveling Cable transformed some of Professor Xavier’s New Mutants into a lethal, militarized strike force. In the show, Cable is simply making use of the resources he has. With most of the X-Men in the past or the future, he simply adds Jubilee and Sunspot to his existing roster of allies so they can collectively investigate Apocalypse in the present day. 

Storm Goes Cosmic

Storm has always been one of the most powerful X-Men. After all, she controls the weather, meaning she can zap people with lightning, whip up tornado winds, and otherwise weaponize the elements as she sees fit. In X-Men ‘97, Season 2, she takes these powers to the next level. With the help of a new ally (one revealed to be an older Rachel Summers), she is able to summon a solar flare, giving their vehicle a much-needed jolt of cosmic power. Even Storm is perplexed by her abilities, leaving fans to ask, “When the heck did she learn how to do that?”

The answer, surprisingly enough, is “since 1976.” In Uncanny X-Men #99, she discovers that she has the ability to control cosmic energy and solar winds, helping her survive a fight against Sentinels in the cold vacuum of space. So, her gaining cosmic powers in X-Men ‘97 isn’t a retcon or a Mary Sue moment, but rather an homage to a cool power reveal that happened half a century ago!

Remixing The Age Of Apocalypse

Arguably, the most Marvel crossover story ever made was “The Age of Apocalypse.” It began when Professor X’s demented son, Legion, traveled to the past, intent on killing Magneto so his father’s dream of peaceful mutant/human relations could come true. However, he ends up killing Xavier, which screws the future over: not only does Apocalypse move to take over the world that much earlier, but Xavier isn’t there to stop him. The result is that Apocalypse takes over the entirety of America, but he is eventually stopped by heroes who are, mercifully, able to reset the timeline.

X-Men ‘97 Season 2 hasn’t directly copied the “Age of Apocalypse” story (at least, not yet), but it has remixed it. For example, some of the imagery of the far future in the show (particularly all the corpses outside of Apocalypse’s base of operations) seems inspired by those classic ‘90s comics. Furthermore, Magneto actively tries to change the future by encouraging young Apocalypse to embrace Professor X’s dream. It’s possible he will change the future in the show the way the professor’s kid did in the comics: by encouraging Apocalypse to make his big move before anyone is able to stop him.