X-Men '97 Season 2 Reveals Who Sent The X-Men Through Time

This article contains spoilers for "X-Men '97" Season 2, Episodes 1-3, "Days of Past Future," "A Force to Be Reckoned With," and "Rise of Apocalypse Part 1."

"X-Men" stories love time travel. The 1981 "X-Men" comic two-parter "Days of Future Past" by Chris Claremont and John Byrne is the original "Terminator." A decade later, the 1992 animated "X-Men" adapted that story with newer time-traveling character, Bishop (Philip Akin). 

Sequel series "X-Men '97" brought Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith) back as a full-time X-Man, at least for a bit. Back in Season 1, Episode 3, "Fire Made Flesh," Bishop leaves to bring Scott Summers/Cyclops (Ray Chase) and Jean Grey's (Jennifer Hale) son Nathan to the future, when technology might be available to treat his infection by a techno-organic virus. 

That paid off at the end of the Season 1 finale, "Tolerance is Extinction." After the explosion of Magneto's Asteroid M, the world thought the X-Men were dead, but really they were sent through time. Cyclops and Jean arrive in 3960 AD, where they meet a hooded psychic named Mother Askani (Gates McFadden) and her Clan Askani. One member is a preteen Nathan, who his parents now know will become the cyborg supersoldier Cable (Chris Potter).

This cliffhanger made us wonder not only how the X-Men would get home, but who sent them through time in the first place. If you thought "X-Men '97" Season 2 would leave this mystery hanging for long, think again. Season 2 premiere "Days of Past Future" clears up the fates of Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith), Wolverine (Cal Dodd), and Morph (J. P. Karliak), who were MIA at the end of Season 1: They were simply sent to the future alongside Cyclops and Jean. During the episode, Mother Askani confesses to Storm that she was the one who brought half of the X-Men to the future, and sent the other half to the distant past.

Clan Askani's future is not a fun place. It's ruled by the tyrannical mutant Apocalypse (Ross Marquand), the X-Men's immortal foe who wishes to cull the world of any weakness. As we see in "Days of Past Future," Apocalypse's reign has left the world barren. Entire oceans are gone, and Apocalypse's citadel is surrounded by a literal field of skewered corpses. 

To defeat Apocalypse, Askani turned to the X-Men, reweaving the threads of time so they would not die on Asteroid M. She brought half of them to the future to train Nathan to become the soldier who will one day kill Apocalypse, and sent the other half (Professor X, Rogue, Magneto, Beast, and Nightcrawler) back to Apocalypse's youth in ancient Egypt, so that they might stop him from rising in the first place. 

Back in "Tolerance Is Extinction," when the Egypt-bound X-Men arrived, they met the young Apocalypse: En Sabah Nur (Adetokumboh M'Cormack). Nur is a powerful mutant, but one without the Celestial technology that makes Apocalypse truly indestructible. As Season 2, Episode 3, "Rise of Apocalypse Part 1," reveals, the X-Men's idea of "stopping" Apocalypse is different than what Mother Askani probably intended.

Magneto (Matthew Waterson) has become a teacher to Nur, trying to guide him down a more merciful path so he never becomes Apocalypse. If he can convince Nur of the X-Men's philosophy in the distant past, Magneto says, then the future will be brighter for everyone. None of the X-Men know regret better than Magneto, who quite recently had a brief lapse to his old super-villain self. But Charles Xavier (Marquand) never lost faith in his dear friend. Magneto now wants to pay forward his friend's faith by teaching Xavier's dream to En Sabah Nur.

Potential spoilers ahead for "X-Men '97."

Mother Askani, created by Fabian Nicieza and Dwayne Turner, originated in the 1993 "Cable" comic series. The character's biggest role, though, was in the 1994 miniseries "The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix" by Scott Lobdell and Gene Ha, which is the primary source material for this Season 2 premiere.

However, Askani's history stretches back further into "X-Men" — in the comics, she is Rachel Summers, the daughter of Scott and Jean. She appeared in the acclaimed "Days of Future Past," where she was a member of the future X-Men in place of her dead parents. However, around 50 issues later, writer Chris Claremont brought Rachel to the present and had her join the X-Men. (To avoid any causality paradoxes, Rachel's native time has been retconned into a parallel universe rather than a possible future.)

But "X-Men: The Animated Series" never featured Rachel Summers. "X-Men '97" episode "Days of Past Future" focuses on Scott and Jean's relationship with Nathan, who they finally get to raise as a family, and how they'll have to sacrifice that if the X-Men go back to the 1990s. Revealing that the couple has another long lost child would be one twist too many, even for a roller coaster-paced show like this.

The episode alludes to Askani's origins, when she tells Storm she comes from another, even worse timeline. The Phoenix Force (bonded to Jean) also appears in Askani's eyes when she describes her power. It remains to be seen if "X-Men '97" will get around to including Rachel Summers eventually, or if Mother Askani will remain shrouded in mystery.

"X-Men '97" is streaming on Disney+