Marvel promises third season of X-Men '97 will go a lot smoother than the second

After a two-year gap—and massive behind-the-scenes turmoil—Marvel promises it's now aiming at an annual schedule for the X-Men animated revival.

By William Hughes  |  June 27, 2026 | 5:12pm
X-Men '97 Season 2, Screenshot: YouTube
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Marvel promises third season of X-Men '97 will go a lot smoother than the second

It can be difficult, when analyzing the wide, varied, and very human world of pop culture, not to see subtext where there isn’t any. Take, for instance, recent comments made by producers on Disney+ animated series X-Men ’97, who’ve promised that the critically heralded cartoon won’t be repeating the two-year gap between its first and second seasons when its third one allegedly comes along next year. Executive producer Larry Houston—who worked on the original Fox animated series that the new show serves as a continuation of—told The Direct this week that, “Luckily, the production problems won’t occur again. There was a huge gap of time between [season] one and two. They’ve learned their lessons, so with [seasons] three and four, that won’t happen again… That was a one-off.” Marvel animation head Brad Winderbaum has made similar statements, expressing his belief that both a third and a fourth season of the series will arrive annually, free of any earlier production mishaps.

All of which is pretty hard not to read in the context of the massive shake-ups that happened behind the scenes of the show, just as it was debuting back in March 2024—regardless of whether the firing of series creator Beau DeMayo amid allegations of sexual impropriety was connected to the gap. (DeMayo, who wrote or co-wrote all but three episodes of the show’s first season, had reportedly penned several scripts for the second by the time he was fired, although at least some of those were reportedly reworked.)

Marvel execs, for their part, are pretty clearly trying to push the narrative around the show into a post-DeMayo phase. (Tricky, given how open he was about how personal some of the narratives in the first season, most especially its standout episode “Remember It,” were.) Although DeMayo remains an executive producer on the series, Winderbaum has given statements over the last year emphasizing all the members of the creative team who have not been fired under a cloud of bitter recriminations and slightly off-putting OnlyFans posts: “Same director, same producers, same cast, many of the same writers, and it’s standing on the shoulders of giants.” 

X-Men ’97 returns for its second season on July 1.

 
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