5 Marvel Comics Storylines That 'X-Men '97' Could Use In Seasons 3 & 4

X-Men ‘97 (2024) has been a rousing success for Disney, with the revival of the beloved animated adaptation X-Men (1992) pushing the boundaries of what the franchise can do in the TV space. The series went even bigger and bolder with Season 2, introducing different time periods and pushing the heroes to the breaking point in their efforts to stop Apocalypse. In the end, the villain was defeated and sealed away, with Gambit restored in the process.

However, the final moments of the season tease a grim potential future, with the mutants now potentially facing the machinations of the United States government that is being run by the anti-mutant agitator Graydon Creed. With the show pulling from all sorts of stories for inspiration, there are some that seem like likely candidates for expansion going forward. Here are the storylines that could easily inspire future plots in X-Men ‘97’s upcoming seasons.

Days Of Future Now

X-Men ‘97 Season 2 ends with the United States government now run by the anti-mutant bigot Graydon Creed, with the mutant terrorist (and Graydon’s mother) Mystique planning to attack while in disguise as Val Cooper. Season 3 is currently prepped for a potential release next year, with a scene from the new season revealed at the 2026 San Diego Comic-Con. As confirmed by Polygon, the clip shows the Brotherhood of Mutants facing off with United States-sponsored Sentinels. This could be a hint that the season will be toying with the grim world of Days of Future Past, a potential future where the Sentinels have taken over, and mutants have been confined to prison camps. 

While that storyline by Chris Claremont and John Byrne in Uncanny X-Men #141 and #142 has been previously adapted for shows like X-Men and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), no adaptation has really explored how that timeline fell to ruin, largely cutting to the grim future instead. With Graydon Creed getting the government to sponsor Sentinels and terrorist organizations only escalating tensions, it’s possible that the show could take cues from prequels to that original storyline, like Weapon X: Days of Future Now or Wolverine: Days of Future Past, to set up a vicious world that the heroes have to undo.

Mr. And Mrs. X

Gambit and Rogue are the big love story of X-Men ‘97 Season 2, with the pair finally getting the chance to be together once more following Gambit’s restoration and Nightcrawler’s sacrifice to save Rogue. After all that drama and tension, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the pair get a more scaled-down storyline to break the tension. An ideal starting point would be an adaptation of Mr. and Mrs. X by Kelly Thompson and artists Jan Bazaldua, Javier Pina, and David Lopez. 

After getting married on an impulse, Rogue and Gambit go to space for their honeymoon, inadvertently getting themselves involved in shenanigans in Shi’Ar space. This could be a natural way to revisit the cosmic corner of the universe that appeared during Season 1, all without forcing Xavier back into that drama. It’d be a relatively light adventure to let Rogue and Gambit experience after the trauma of the last two seasons, even while teasing out new plot beats or directions from space. That original comic even introduced Xavier’s daughter with Lilandra, Xandra, who could easily become a major player in future seasons if she gets introduced.

Riot At Xavier’s

One of the more interesting elements of X-Men ‘97’s second season was the way it laid the foundation for the Xavier Institute to take a more central place in the action. There are new generations of students under the tutelage of Storm who are learning to control their powers. However, the tensions of the outside world could spill over into the school, as it did in the “Riot at Xavier’s” storyline from New X-Men. That arc by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely focused on Quinten Quire, an Omega-Level telepath whose fury at the world around him (and with a little push from power-enhancing drugs known as Kick) leads him to revolt against the teachers.

This could easily fit into X-Men ‘97, with human/mutant relationships likely at a new low if the government has Sentinels in the field. It could play off the struggles of mutants to keep their most volatile members from making things worse, while also drawing attention to the real inequities around them. Quinten has already been introduced in the show as one of the more notable background characters from the school, so seeing him take the spotlight wouldn’t be surprising. It could also further bring Emma Frost into the fold given her importance in that original story and turn the former villain into a more prominent character in the show.

Onslaught

One of the stories that has been quietly teased for X-Men ‘97 since the Season 1 finale is an adaptation of “Onslaught.” The amalgamation of the worst parts of Charles Xavier and Magneto, fused into a single psychic being after their confrontation on Asteroid M, Onslaught became one of the definitive Marvel villains of the era that the show is adapting. It was so fearsome that the X-Men were forced to team up with other heroes to defeat it, something that even seemingly got the Avengers and the Fantastic Four killed in the process.

Onslaught’s arrival could make for a compelling threat, especially if it were to try to take up the legacy of Magneto in a way that complicates the arcs of Xavier and Polaris trying to accept his demise. It could create the kind of danger that the entire universe would need to align to fight, setting up a larger Marvel animated crossover with characters from Spider-Man (1994), Iron Man (1994), and The Incredible Hulk (1996). Alternatively, fears over what a corrupted Xavier would do could potentially prompt the other heroes to fight the X-Men to get to him, giving the show its own take on Avengers vs X-Men.

The Krakoan Age

One of the wildest, weirdest, and best runs in X-Men history is the overarching “Krakoan Age,” a comics initiative that directed the X-Men line from 2019 to 2024. The connective thread was the creation of a sovereign mutant nation on the living island Krakoa, with the X-Men heroes and villains alike united in the pursuit of their own community and place on the global stage. It was an ambitious run of stories that saw the mutants master resurrection and balance their heroics with real politics, all while contending with outside forces who sought to bring them down. While Krakoa might be a big swing for Season 3, it could easily be a driving force in future batches of episodes like the confirmed Season 4.

If the mutants rebel against the government’s laws in Season 3, a natural step would be to create their own home and haven away from persecution. Doing this could open up the franchise to any number of spin-offs as well as put emphasis on the ways the interpersonal dynamics and lingering politics of the franchise drive the story forward.

The introduction of resurrection through the Five (a group of mutants whose power use in sync can create new versions of lost friends) could even allow fallen heroes like Nightcrawler and Magneto to return to the land of the living without invalidating their prior demises. With X-Men ‘97 proving to be an ambitious adaptation of the source material, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for the producers to try and adapt one of the wildest stories ever.