Marvel just released a new trailer for X-Men ’97 Season 2, and fans think the studio edited out a spoiler before posting it online. The trailer, called "Roll Call," speeds through the show’s enormous roster one mutant at a time, building toward the series’ return on July 1 on Disney+. It sets up a story that throws the team across different eras in time, with the ancient mutant Apocalypse rising as the season’s main threat. The footage plays like a hype reel for most of its run, until you slow down one specific shot.
That shot belongs to Rogue. For her quick moment on screen, the space behind her is a flat blue-black void, while nearly every other character appears inside a real location or beside their teammates.
Fans quickly caught the signs of a keyed-out image, with faint white edges and strange shading around her body, which point to Marvel lifting Rogue from another scene and dropping her onto a blank backdrop. Part of her arm also seems to be burnt, pointing to a deadly altercation.
In that scene, she's screaming and charging at someone, so it's likely the individual is responsible for the burn on her arm.
The reason for this edit is presumably because whatever was there gave too much away, and Marvel would like to reserve the reveal for the show's premiere.
What Could the X-Men ‘97 Trailer Be Hiding?
The blank space is covering up something, and fans are wondering what it could be. The first thought that comes to mind is that it is hiding a character. The shot might show Rogue squaring off against, possibly, Gambit, her deceased partner, resurrected by Apocalypse as one of his Horsemen. That would be too big a reveal to spoil, so it makes perfect sense to hide it. Another reason Marvel edited the scene could be that it confirms the X-Men make it back to the present.
Among the two most likely reasons, a Gambit reveal is the one worth burying. He sacrificed himself in Season 1 to stop the Genosha massacre, and the finale’s mid-credits scene showed Apocalypse pulling Gambit’s tattered playing card from the wreckage, a clear tease that the villain brings him back.
In the comics, Apocalypse remakes dead mutants into his Horsemen, and Gambit takes on the mantle of Death. Place a revived Gambit into that erased background, standing across from the woman who mourned him, and you have a moment Marvel would never let slip weeks early. The burn on Rogue’s arm fits the idea too, since it points to a brutal fight rather than a quiet reunion.
The present-day theory is the weaker of the two. The official synopsis already confirms the team is trying to get home, so showing Rogue back in the 1990s would spoil almost nothing. Beast and Nightcrawler turn up in the same X-Corp gear Rogue wears elsewhere in the trailer. They seem to be in the present day, but their backgrounds haven’t been edited out. So a Gambit reveal or something bigger should be the culprit of this edit here.
How Would a Revived Gambit Reshape Season 2?
If a resurrected Gambit is what Marvel cut, it would be interesting to see how that dynamic plays out in Season 2. Rogue grieved him through all of Season 1 and turned that grief into a violent revenge streak. Putting him back in front of her, now as a weapon aimed at her own team, would be brutal. She would have to choose between stopping the man she loves and trying to save him, and that choice could drag the rest of the X-Men into the fallout.
The comics give us a fair idea of how a scenario like this could play out. Rogue can absorb and stack the powers of everyone she touches, and Apocalypse has always wanted powerful mutants with elite powers like Rogue. It wouldn’t be a big surprise if Apocalypse decides to go after her.
Reviving Gambit as Death gives the villain the perfect bait, because Rogue would walk into almost any trap for a chance to bring him home. A twist that ties Rogue, Gambit, and Apocalypse together in one move would give X-Men ’97 Season 2 one of its most powerful stories. Naturally, Marvel would want to keep a storyline like that under wraps until July 1, so it makes perfect sense that the Rogue scene was edited if it showed Gambit. Of course, this is just speculation, and it could be something totally different. Whatever it is, it's a big deal, and Marvel doesn’t want fans to know, for now.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
