At this past weekend's New York Comic Con, Marvel Television revealed that X-Men '97 Season 3 has been officially greenlit ahead of Season 2's highly anticipated return next Summer.
Plans for the series may stretch far beyond that, though, as Brad Winderbaum, the Head of Streaming, Television and Animation at Marvel Studios, has confirmed that talks about Seasons 4 and 5 are already underway.
Talking to Collider (via ComicBookMovie.com), the executive revealed, "There is definitely, more than possibly, more to come from X-Men '97. We're talking about Seasons 4 and 5 now."
There have been rumours—started by fired showrunner Beau DeMayo—that Kevin Feige wasn't overly pleased with X-Men '97 potentially stealing the planned live-action X-Men reboot's thunder. We're not sure how much stock to put into those claims, but if they are accurate, then that could impact the chances of Season 4 and 5 becoming a reality.
Marvel Television's plan moving forward is to release its shows annually, so Season 3 is likely to be released in 2027. Confirming that work is well underway on that, Winderbaum said, "Season 3 is, I've almost seen animatics for the entire season, and it is incredible. I saw an episode the other day."
The X-Men: The Animated Series revival was a hit with fans and managed to more than live up to its predecessor. DeMayo developed much of Season 2, so Season 3 will be the big test when it comes to whether the show can keep that momentum going.
Once again addressing the changes behind the scenes, Winderbaum recently said, "Same director, same producers, same cast, many of the same writers, and it's standing on the shoulders of giants. One thing that makes X-Men '97 work so well is that everybody's rowing in exactly the same direction. Everyone that works on the show knows that original series inside and out."
"And we work very closely with Eric and Julia Lewald and Larry Houston [creators of X-Men: The Animated Series]," he continued. "They're here all the time reviewing material and talking to the artists. The second season feels very much a worthy successor to the first season."
Pushed to comment on DeMayo's social media claims, Winderbaum added, "We've talked about this before. I'm grateful to Beau. We launched this series together. I think he did excellent work. Frankly, I don't really look at it or read any of it, so I don't really know."
X-Men '97 features the voices of Ray Chase, Jennifer Hale, Alison Sealy-Smith, Cal Dodd, J. P. Karliak, Lenore Zann, George Buza, A. J. LoCascio, Holly Chou, Isaac Robinson-Smith, Matthew Waterson, Ross Marquand, and Adrian Hough. Neve Campbell is expected to lend her voice to Polaris.
X-Men '97 Season 2 premieres on Disney+ next Summer. All episodes of Season 1 are now streaming on the platform.