Another superhero team will be featured in X-Men ’97 Season 2, adding one more mutant group to a lineup that already includes some of the most iconic X-Men teams. The animated series from Marvel Animation continues the story of the beloved 1990s cartoon X-Men: The Animated Series, and its first season ended with the heroes scattered across different points in time.
In recent weeks, Marvel has been rolling out promo images and trailer footage packed with familiar mutants, and the newest look confirmed one more group is along for the ride. That group is Generation X, the youthful squad of teenage mutants straight from Marvel Comics. The team appears in the newest Season 2 trailer, tucked into a quick background shot near the 1:38 mark, after first turning up in footage shown at Comic Con Revolution. Their arrival gives X-Men ’97 a sixth distinct mutant team, and it points the series toward a younger crop of heroes than its first season showcased.
In that footage, Polaris, the magnetism-wielding daughter of Magneto, can be seen using her magnetism powers to shield the kids from danger. Among these Gen X kids is Chamber, who has an orange psionic fire that rings his neck and chest.
In the comics, a burst of that same power tore a hole through his torso, leaving him to speak through telepathy alone. Beside him is Hollow, a feral, near-silent girl whose skin can harden into something close to a blade.
Interestingly, she can resist telepathy, making her a great asset to the team. Right by Hollow is Synch, the bald teen whose gift lets him copy the abilities of any mutant nearby.
The most exciting member who appears in the scene is Quentin Quire, the pink-haired troublemaker better known as Kid Omega, an omega-level telepath whose "Magneto Was Right" streak made him a poster child for mutant rebellion.
Behind the group, another young boy can be seen on a stretcher with his head wrapped in a bandage. This person is Wing, an obscure Xavier student from the early 2000s comics. As his name suggests, Wing's abilities grant him the power of flight.
The group also appeared at the beginning of the Comic Con Revolution footage, which opens on the young mutants sprinting toward the X-Mansion, the one place that always meant safety for kids like them. However, they arrive at the mansion, and it stands in ruins with the X-Men nowhere to be found. The group quickly realizes there is no one left to protect them.
Wing puts the fear into words, lamenting that the school was the only refuge for mutant kids and that, with the X-Men gone, they have nowhere else to turn. The footage includes a few more Generation X members than the Polaris scene in the official Season 2 trailer.
Among the kids running are two more interesting faces that will get fans excited. The footage features a young Black woman with braids and an orange cap who appears to be Cipher, the invisible, intangible mutant who slipped through the Genosha battle alongside Psylocke and Alpha Flight in Season 1.
Another, with long blue hair, seems to be Monet St. Croix, better known as Penance. She's a longtime Generation X member with one of the more tangled backstories in the comics. She's a formidable mutant with a vast array of powers, including an incredible Penance form that gives her hard, red, diamond skin.
Who Is Generation X in Marvel Comics?
Generation X first appeared in 1994, the work of writer Scott Lobdell and artist Chris Bachalo during the Phalanx Covenant crossover. The team consisted of young mutants brought together at the Massachusetts Academy under two unlikely teachers, the Irish X-Man Banshee and the reformed villain Emma Frost. Their aim wasn’t to drill soldiers but to help raw teenagers control powers that scared them, the same vulnerable energy the new footage portrays.
The trailers tuck in other nods to that history. Jubilee, a fan favorite from X-Men: The Animated Series and a founding Generation X member in the comics, turns up in the fight against Apocalypse. Emma Frost also makes a brief appearance in the latter part of the footage. X-Men ’97 Season 2 premieres on Disney+ on July 1 with nine episodes, picking up after the Season 1 finale, which flung the X-Men across history.
Other Superhero Teams Appearing in X-Men '97 Season 2
Generation X joins a season that already splinters mutantkind into five separate camps. Three of them operate in the present day, each with a different job. X-Factor operates as a government-sanctioned unit, the official face of mutant response now that the X-Men have vanished, with Polaris and Cyclops’s brother Havok among its ranks.
X-Force takes the opposite approach under Cable, working in the shadows on the missions no official squad would touch. Then there's X-Corp, a global operation pushing mutant rights and sheltering ordinary super-powered people.
The other two camps are the core X-Men themselves, broken apart by the Season 1 cliffhanger. One band landed in ancient Egypt, where Charles Xavier, Magneto, and a handful of teammates run headlong into a young En Sabah Nur, the mutant who becomes Apocalypse.
The rest wound up in a far-future wasteland of 3960 AD, where Cyclops and Jean Grey cross paths with Clan Askani and, eventually, the teenage version of their son, Nathan. Both groups are likely to spend the season fighting to reach each other and claw a way home, leaving the present-day defense of mutantkind to Cable, Jubilee, and Sunspot.
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.
