Marvel's Mightiest Mutants have made their long-awaited return to screens this year. Marvel Studios Animation's long-awaited second season of X-Men '97 made its presence felt on Disney Plus at the beginning of July and it has proceeded to entertain ever since. It's not surprising considering that this is the highly-anticipated revival of the critically-acclaimed X-Men: The Animated Series but it is awesome to see what the studio has been cooking up all this time.
The X-Men have certainly been going through it this season - but then again, that's not really a surprise as they are always going through it, poor guys - with adventures that dealt with alien invasions, Apocalypse's return through time travel and, once again, outdated notions and bigotry. As always, the X-Men have handled all of these issues with class, dignity, and everything they have.
Unfortunately, we have bad news about next week's episode.
X-Men '97 season 2 episode 9 is the last episode of the season
X-Men '97 season 2 episode 9, titled "Survival of the Fittest", premieres on Disney Plus on Wednesday, August 12, at at 3:00 a.m. ET, 12:00 a.m. PT, 1:00 a.m. MT, and 2:00 a.m. CT. That's the show's typical release time slot, so that won't come as a surprise to you if you have been keeping up with it on a weekly basis. However, what might catch you a little off-guard is that this episode will serve as the season 2 finale.
Yes, that means that Marvel's Mightiest Mutants will be closing out their sophomore season with what will undoubtedly be an epic affair, especially based on that episode title. While Marvel fans were aware that the season 2 finale was on the horizon for X-Men '97, bowing out with the ninth episode might surprise some folks, as it is admittedly an odd number to close with (most shows opt for 8 or 10). It's even more curious considering that the first season did indeed have a full 10-episode season.
As for why season 2 is one episode shorter, this might have something to do with the creative restructuring after the departure of showrunner Beau DeMayo and just the overall requirements of high-end animation. There is also speculation that Disney Plus revised the episode count so that it would be more in line with previous live-action Marvel shows that aired on the streamer such as WandaVision, Agatha All Along, and She-Hulk: Attorney At Law.
The good news is that this is far from the end of the X-Men's adventures. It has already been confirmed that X-Men '97 has been renewed for a third season, with a fourth season also in development. Better yet, now that the two-year break between seasons 1 and 2 has been bridged, it's highly likely that animated shows such as X-Men '97 and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man will release new episodes annually going forward. So there probably won't be much of a wait on that, especially as work on the third season has wrapped production - with Marvel's Head of Streaming, Television, and Animation, Brad Winderbaum, confirming at SDCC that season 3 has been completed and that season 4 is on the way.
With that in mind, the silver lining with X-Men '97 season 2's ending is the fact that we won't have to wait anywhere near as long as we did for new episodes after season 1 concluded. The Mighty Mutants will return to screens in the not-too-distant future and we will be ready to hum that iconic theme song for another run right along with them.
The good news is that we still have the undoubtedly epic season 2 finale before all of that!
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