The first season of “X-Men ’97” did what most legacy revivals only promise: it picked up the emotional and visual language of “X-Men: The Animated Series” without embalming it. The series kept the melodrama, the soap-opera plotting, the operatic mutant angst, and the bright Saturday-morning iconography, then pushed it into heavier, sharper territory. Now, the mutants are scattered across time, and Apocalypse is waiting.
Marvel Animation has released a new trailer for “X-Men ’97” Season 2, which returns to Disney+ this summer. The new season continues directly from last year’s finale, with the X-Men trying to find their way back to the 1990s after being thrown across different points in the past and future, while Apocalypse emerges as the season’s central threat.
Season 2 setup has been hiding in plain sight since the Season 1 finale, which left the team divided across multiple eras. That time-fractured premise also gives the series room to lean even harder into Marvel’s mutant mythology, with promotional art and recent reporting pointing toward several team configurations, including X-Force, X-Factor, X-Corp, an Ancient Egypt group, and a Wasteland team.
A new season’s expanded roster appears to include several major comic-book additions. Promotional materials have pointed to X-Factor’s lineup of Havok, Polaris, Strong Guy, Wolfsbane, Multiple Man, and Val Cooper, while X-Force includes Cable, Archangel, Psylocke, Sunspot, and Jubilee. That’s a lot of continuity to juggle, but “X-Men ’97” earned some trust in Season 1 by treating dense comic-book history as emotional fuel rather than homework.
Season 2 is produced by Marvel Studios Animation, with Jake Castorena returning as supervising director. Matthew Chauncey took over as head writer moving forward after Beau DeMayo’s exit, while returning voice cast members include Jennifer Hale as Jean Grey, Cal Dodd as Wolverine, Lenore Zann as Rogue, and Ross Marquand as Apocalypse.
This latest animated Marvel show is also getting a festival rollout before its streaming return. The Season 2 world premiere is set for the Tribeca Festival on June 13, with the festival listing the presentation as a 60-minute Tribeca TV event. A precise Disney+ premiere date has not been announced yet, but Marvel previously confirmed a summer 2026 return.
That timing makes sense. “X-Men ’97” became one of Marvel’s strongest recent television swings by refusing to sand down the X-Men into generic superhero branding. It was bright, bruised, political, tragic, and proudly overstuffed—the way X-Men stories should be. Season 2 now has the harder job: following a beloved comeback with a story that has to handle Apocalypse, time travel, splintered teams, new costumes, and the emotional fallout from Genosha without losing the character work that made the first season land.
“X-Men ’97” Season 2 premieres July 1 on Disney+. Watch the trailer below.
