After X-Men ’97, These Other 90s Marvel Cartoons Need a Proper Send-off

Decades after the original cartoon ended, X-Men ’97 is set to take viewers back to the world of Marvel’s animated mutants. As in the case of the classic show, it’s set in the Marvel Animated Universe, which united various heroes long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This shared world consisted of numerous other cartoons, with one in particular due for its own revival.

Spider-Man: The Animated Series was a beloved show on par with X-Men: The Animated Series, and it notably ended on a cliffhanger. There were also several other cartoons in the MAU, though most weren’t considered nearly as top quality. Despite this, the release of X-Men ’97 offers the chance to bring back one fan-favorite series – all while redeeming others that fell by the wayside.

As soon as X-Men ’97 was announced, many fans hoped for a similar revival to another Marvel cartoon: Spider-Man: The Animated Series. This was the quintessential Spider-Man adaptation for an entire generation before the release of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies. Centered around a Peter Parker who was already in college, the series utilized and remixed several storylines from the comic books, namely those from the Silver Age and Bronze Age. Even then, it also incorporated elements from most comics of that era, namely by incorporating both Venom and Carnage. Strangely enough, it was also the first appearance of Blade the Vampire Hunter outside the comics, and it introduced Whistler, who was Blade’s ally in the later Blade movies.

Sadly, for as beloved as the series became to a generation of viewers, it didn’t end on a satisfactory note. Instead, it ended on a cliffhanger, with Spider-Man still searching for his missing wife, Mary Jane. The series Spider-Man Unlimited was arguably a sequel to the series, but it didn’t follow up on any of the previous series’ storyline. This meant that fans never saw Peter reunite with Mary Jane, let alone go on any further adventures. With the release of X-Men ’97, however, that doesn’t have to remain the case. A Spider-Man revival can finally finish the storyline and give fans the return of Christopher Daniel Barnes’ Peter Parker/Spider-Man and building on that cliffhanger.

From there, the series can reintroduce classic villains while also utilizing other characters that were never in the original show. These can include foes like Mr. Negative or allies such as the Jessica Drew Spider-Woman. It’s also worth noting that the X-Men ’97 trailer briefly showed a copy of the Daily Bugle newspaper. This issue featured a headline asking whether Spider-Man is a mutant, with the copy and pictures credited to Eddie Brock and Peter Parker. This coincides with the timeline of the Spider-Man cartoon, which had an iconic crossover with the X-Men. It could thus be laying the groundwork for Spidey’s appearance in the show or the hero getting his own cartoon again. A revival of Spider-Man is the most obvious path forward for Marvel Animation, but there are other options.

X-Men ’97 Can Help Redeem These Unpopular Marvel Cartoons

Beyond the adventures of Spider-Man and the X-Men, the Marvel Animated Universe also had other entries. These were Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man.Avengers: United They Stand was marginally connected at most, and the Silver Surfer cartoon can largely be considered its own continuity due to how it excised The Fantastic Four from the character’s origin stories. That might have been for the best, as the First Family’s animated adventures weren’t nearly as enticing to fans as those of Spidey and the mutants.

Fantastic Four: The Animated Series was poorly received in its initial season, namely due to its poor animation, which was actually lampooned in The Fantastic Four comic books of the time. Even while adapting the classic Stan Lee/Jack Kirby stories from the source material, the series was seen as cheesy and vastly inferior to the other Marvel cartoons. The same was the case for Iron Man, which felt more in line with the less developed cartoons of the 1980s. While some saw the second season as somewhat of an improvement, it still didn’t succeed at getting the hi-tech hero over in the same way as the Spider-Man and the X-Men cartoons did for those characters. The result was that the team came off as outdated characters more fitting for another time.

On the other hand, The Incredible Hulk was actually fairly well-received, namely in its first season. It also introduced then-recent concepts from the comics, such as the thuggish Grey Hulk persona operating as “Joe Fixit.” Sadly, it’s mostly been forgotten, as some lump it in with the Iron Man and Fantastic Four cartoons. Despite Hulk’s popularity, he barely featured in the wider MAU after his own show was completed. Thankfully, that series doesn’t have to be the end for him. X-Men ’97 could feature an episode where other Marvel heroes, such as The Fantastic Four and the Avengers, team up with the X-Men.

While their initial shows were likely too unpopular to be brought back for full-on revivals, a broad Marvel Animated Universe miniseries might be enough to tie up loose ends and feature these heroes for another grand adventure. This can also capitalize on how much more popular those properties have become since the 1990s, with similar ideas being used for X-Men ’97.

The Revived Marvel Animated Universe Can Build Upon Recent Comics

The best part of X-Men ’97 premiering nearly 30 years after the original series ended is that there have been numerous iconic characters and storylines introduced in the X-Men comic books since then. This means that characters such as Vulcan, Cassandra Nova, Fantomex and X-23 can make their debuts on the show, not to mention spinoff teams such as Generation X. That’s along with a potential take on the comics’ Krakoa Era, which radically changed the status quo for the mutants. Conversely, the suggestion in the trailer that Jean Grey is Cable’s mother and not Madelyne Pryor leaves the door open for all manner of possibilities that the comics never took advantage of.

The same goes for a potential Spider-Man revival, which has several modern stories to adapt. Allies such as Ezekiel Sims might show up, along with developments such as Flash Thompson becoming Agent Venom or even the birth of Mayday Parker. The latter would be particularly enticing, as the success of the new Ultimate Spider-Man comic book shows that fans want to see Peter and Mary Jane together as a married couple raising children. Doing so would present the best chance of a successful revival of the entire Marvel Animated Universe, all the while giving older fans the animated content that they’ve been begging for throughout the last two decades.

X-Men ’97 releases on Disney+ on March 20, 2024.