In the first chapter of X-Men '97's three-part finale, we were reunited with the wall-crawler from Spider-Man: The Animated Series. The show ran from 1994 to 1998, and wrapped up on an open-ended note, so just seeing him again was a big moment for fans.
However, the finale brought an even bigger surprise when we saw that Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson had been reunited. Needless to say, none of us expected X-Men '97 to resolve a decades-old cliffhanger, but we now know the hero managed to track her down after she was lost in the Multiverse.
Talking to Screen Rant, Marvel Studios Head of TV, Streaming, and Animation, Brad Winderbaum touched on the excitement surrounding a moment many fans hope is setting the stage for a Spider-Man '98 revival on Disney+.
"It is amazing to see them back on screen together, I wish we could tell that whole adventure with Madame Web and figure out how exactly he did it!" the executive tells the site. "Maybe one day, we as fanboys could certainly dream."
"There is always potential, right? I don't want to close the door on anything. But I think that for now, for the foreseeable future, X-Men 97 will own the 90s and how much we bring in guest stars or tell stories from other Marvel characters from that era is TBD, but it will be seen through that lens of the X-Men," Winderbaum added.
While a Spider-Man: The Animated Series revival isn't necessarily happening right now, the cameo essentially confirmed that all the Marvel animated shows from that decade took place on the same Earth.
Whether this means we're getting a new shared world, the producer added, "Well, I think to me, X-Men '97 is the window into the 90s and into that universe. We can see how much that window expands over time perhaps. But there is a value to focusing on that era because it unlocks you from any other show."
"You get to explore this universe from this one perspective, which is basically what every episode of What If...? does to a certain degree," Winderbaum continues. "But those are one-and-done ones, an anthology, this is actually a universe that gets to exist for multiple seasons, which is one of the things most exciting about it."
We'll see what the future holds, but with multiple seasons planned for X-Men '97, there are bound to be more crossover opportunities down the line. Next time, we're hoping Spidey has a voice...