The animated series 3 different timelines explained

Longtime viewers of X-Men: The Animated Series Now have a sequel series in X-Men ’97But it’s not the first Marvel property to branch out from the beloved X-Men Adaptation. The original X-Men: The Animated Series Taking animation to unprecedented heights, providing viewers with mature storytelling while remaining action-packed and highly accurate to the source material. The show lasted five seasons, with 76 episodes from its 1992 debut to its 1997 finale. Given its overwhelmingly positive reception among viewers and critics, it’s not surprising that X-Men would be continued in some form sooner or later.

Overlapping continuity is quite common in massive franchises, including the various Marvel Universes. Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz created the Marvel Comics 2 (MC2) universe in 1998 with an issue of What If…? Which has divided into various comic lines, including Spider-girl. Since the MC2 universe branches off from the end of the Clone Saga In Earth-616 (Marvel’s mainstream published continuity), every 616 story that takes place before the Clone Saga Conclusion is overlapping canon with MC2. The same principle applies to the episodes of X-Men: The Animated Serieswhose first three seasons are overlapping canon with three timelines.

X-Men’s first branching timeline began before the show ended

Around the same time as X-Men: The Animated Series Debut, Marvel began publishing these X-Men Adventures Comics, which began as simple adaptations of the animated series itself. Although there were some (mostly minute) differences between how events were depicted, the stories told in the animated series and Adventure were mostly identical. Before this, the two were overlapping canon, but that changed after the third season of both X-Men: The Animated Series And X-Men Adventures. There never were X-Men Adventures Adaptations of seasons 4 and 5, and A new series – titled Adventures of the X-Men – started instead.

Adventures of the X-Men Tells new stories that would often conflict with the continuity of X-Men: The Animated Seriesmaking it part of a new branching timeline after the events of season 3. Notably, Adventures of the X-Men Was not a revival, like the main X-Men series was ongoing at the time. moreover, Adventures of the X-Men Completed months earlier X-Men: The Animated Series Series finale.

X-Men ’92 was the first X-Men animated series revival

18 years after the finale of the original X-Men: The Animated SeriesMarvel gave the show its first official revival. During the 2015 secret wars Event, Marvel brought back the universe of the X-Men Series with these X-Men ’92 comics. While Adventures of the X-Men Branching off from just the first three seasons of the animated series, X-Men ’92 Taking the entire series into account, continuing where season 5 left off. X-Men ’92 Sees the return of Charles Xavier and expands the roster of the X-Men, adding Generation X as both a new team of heroes and new students for Xavier’s school.

X-Men ’92 Also adds characters that were unable to appear in the original run of X-Men: The Animated SeriesSuch as Deadpool and other members of X-Force. New villains are also introduced, such as Casandra Nova, Andrea and Andreas von Strucker, and Death’s Head. Mister Sinister, a returning villain from the original animated series, notably met his demise in X-Men ’92. Despite being a relatively short-lived comic series, X-Men ’92 Was a worthy follow X-Men: The Animated Series.

X-Men ’97 is the latest X-Men revival, but is it compatible with X-Men ’92?

X-Men: The Animated Series would have another – and even more popular – continuation in 2024 with the release of X-Men ’97which also continued from the events of the original show’s fifth season. Although both X-Men ’92 And X-Men ’97 are excellent continuations of the original X-Men: The Animated SeriesThey are, unfortunately, incompatible, making ’97 The third branching timeline. ’97 Retain the list of heroes from the original X-Men series and Mister Sinister is, notably, still alive. X-Men ’97 is expected to continue with at least two more seasons, making it the most successful continuation of X-Men: The Animated Series.