With the upcoming X-Men ’97 sequel series I’ve been watching the original cartoon and thought it’d be a good idea to put together a list of episodes to watch before the new cartoon comes out, or after you’ve watched ’97. Which sounds simple enough, but then when thinking about what I’d recommend and hitting that wall of “well this episode is connected to these previous episodes, so maybe watch them first” and it all snowballing. So instead of a simple “Top 5” list I’ve broken it down into basic bare bones episodes to watch, and then an expansive list broken down by characters. So if you want a quick easy or want a catch-up for a specific character then this should help.
If you’re new to the show and want to watch here’s what I’d recommend, start at episode 1 and see if you like it, if you do then continue watching. Sounds obvious given todays media, but back then shows were a lot more episodic and had less ongoing stories. It did have some ongoing plot elements, at least in early seasons. The later seasons also had episodes shuffled around a lot in the airing, so online guides can vary what episode takes place in what season, even the Disney+ playlist. So that was probably a factor in why seasons 1 and 2 were a bit more tightly connected, but the creators decided not to continue with that for the latter seasons; given some episodes were aired years after they were originally supposed to. For the sake of this post I will be referring to the Disney+ episode order, since that’s the mostly likely place for folks to watch the show from.
Warning, there will be some spoilers for the show.
Bare Bones episodes to watch
Night of the Sentinels (season 1)
These are the first episodes, and a great introduction to the series, the characters, and the world. Newbie Jubilee joins the team, so we get a look at all the X-Men through her eyes, and the introduction of the mutant hunting robots, The Sentinels. You get a little bit about each of the characters, a lot of action, and some tragedy. If you don’t like this two-parter then you probably won’t like the rest of the series.
Graduation Day (season 5)
Xavier is terminally injured and the X-Men have to deal with how to help him and stop an all out war between humans and mutants. This is the final episode of the show, because as I said it is a bare bones list. Jumping from the first episode to the last will get a little confusing over a few elements, though not as many as you’d think. The new series is going to pick up from this episode, with it dealing with specific plot points from the ending, so you will definitely need to watch this episode. I should also point out the last 6 episodes of the show were done by an entirely different animation studio and look quite different in terms of artstyle and animation than the rest of the show.
Seasons
Here’s how each of the seasons break down, with the basics of what they cover, for your general information.
Season 1
The beginning of it all, introduction of many characters and villains. This season has an overarching story, ish, many of the episodes flow into the next one as they end with a tease for the next episode. It’s not modern serial storytelling, each episode is stand-alone and there is not really a plot going through the entire season, except one thing. In the first episode Beast is captured when the x-men break-in to destroy government records of mutant registration, so throughout the season we see Beast’s progress being in jail, going on trial, the X-Men’s reaction, even Magneto trying to break him out of jail and Beast refusing because he wants to see justice done. It’s a good subplot showing mutant rights progress.
Season 2
This season sees the resurrection of Morph by villain Mr Sinister, Xavier and Magneto being stranded in the Savage Land without their powers, the X-Men needing to figure out how to handle things without the professor, and the rise of the anti-mutant group the Friends of Humanity. The big thing running through this season is Xavier and Magneto in the Savage Land, almost each episode has a quick scene showing them dealing with something new there. It builds on what season 1 did with Magneto and Xavier’s past friendship, the anti-mutant sentiment leading into a hate group, and Morph being a major character.
Season 3
This is where things start to get funky. The seasonal through-line is mostly gone, but it is replaced with big multi-parters for the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix sagas. Aliens are introduced this season, as the X-Men go to space. Cyclops gets his share of drama as he not only has Jean’s whole Phoenix thing but also reuniting with his dad, who has also been in space. Xavier also gets a space girlfriend, who will be important plot wise for the series finale down the road.
Season 4
And this is where all the big seasonal long plots fully drop out of the show. It’s all episodic from here on out. Not to say there isn’t any episodes that pick up plot points from previous episodes, it’s just that there’s no bigger and longer plots going on. There’s also a curious focus on smaller groups of X-men for most of the season, with Cyclops and Jean being largely absent for most of it. Not that they haven’t done episodes with just a few team members before this, just a a little thing I noticed when rewatching this season. Not to undersell this season, as there’s plenty going on. Lots of backstory and family revelations with Xavier, Nightcralwer makes his debut, Wolverine gets fully traumatised over a number of episodes and it leads him to quit the team to find himself, and there’s time travel shenanigans. Bishop returns to try and stop an assassin from killing Xavier before he creates the X-Men, and we see what the world would be like without Xavier, in some of the series best episodes. Then the big season final 4-parter with Cable returning for a final face-off with Apocalypse, with all of time and space on the line.
Season 5
The final season is the red-headed step-child of the show. The final 6 episodes were outsourced to a different animation studio and thus look quite a bit different than the rest of the show, especially as they redesigned most of the characters. However there’s still good stuff in here. Opening story of an alien invasion that almost fully absorbs the world into a techno-organic hivemind, with only a rag-tag bunch of heroes and villains teaming up to save the day. Storm gets married to an alien who turns out to be a fascist. We see Wolverine and Captain America team up to fight Nazis in World War 2. Mr Sinister’s origin gets revealed in an episode entirely set in Victorian London as Sinister clashes with one of Xavier’s ancestors. And then the final that closes out the whole show.
Phoenix Saga
The biggest story of the show, and based on one of the most iconic X-Men stories. Jean Grey gets possessed by the cosmic entity known as The Phoenix, beginning the X-Men’s adventures in space and their interactions with the Shi-ar Empire, and we meet Xavier’s space princess girlfriend. I thought since I was listing episodes people might want to watch that I should probably list these as well, especially as there’s a couple that aren’t obviously labelled that connect to it. Here’s the relevant episodes:
(season 3)
Out Of The Past parts 1 & 2
Phoenix Saga Parts 1-5
No Mutant Is An Island
Dark Phoenix Parts 1-4
‘Out Of The Past’ episodes are a prequel that sets up the alien adventures as a crashed spaceship is found in the Morlock tunnels. It’s a little bit of set up for the next episodes and might be skippable but I’d still recommend watching them as they’re still a good set of episodes. ‘No Mutant Is An Island’ is the aftermath of the Phoenix Saga focusing on Cyclops dealing with the loss of Jean, which also sets up Jean’s return. The others are self explanatory, but if you were just looking for Phoenix episodes you might miss the other episodes that do add to the overall story.
Character episodes
Professor X
Xavier has more focus in ongoing stories in the early seasons, the Magneto episodes of season 1, season 2’s ongoing story of him and Magneto stranded in the Savage Land which was told in little short bits in almost every episode of the second season. The whole opening storyarc of season 3 has a lot of Professor X focus, from the ‘Out Of The Past’ 2 parter setting up the Phoenix Saga multiparter and Xavier’s space girlfriend, but to boil that down to a few episodes I’d have to say:
Cold Comfort (season 3)
Iceman has returned to the X-men because he’s in trouble. He butts head with Cyclops and Xavier as old resentments resurface. You get to see the original X-team and Xavier leading them, you see a different side of Professor X and Cyclops as they fall back into old toxic habits with Iceman, and there’s a new team of Mutants go toe to toe with the X-Men.
The Juggernaut Returns (season 4)
The Juggernaut has been a recurring villain throughout the show. From his first appearance we’ve known he was Xavier’s half-brother, but this episode is the first time they’ve delved into that. The set up is that someone else has gotten hold of the mystical gem that gives the Juggernaut his powers right when the Juggernaut is attacking the Xavier institute. So things go wrong and the Juggernaut loses his powers and is injured, leading Xavier to order the X-Men to find the gem to save his brother, which they’re not happy with. Meanwhile Xavier dives into his brother’s mind and relives their past together, so you get to see a lot of Xavier’s history in this episode as he’s discovering his powers, as well as the abusive childhood that made the Juggernaut choose a life of vengeance.
One Man’s Worth (season 4)
This is one of the big ones. A two-parter where the Sentinels send agents back in time to assassinate Xavier while he’s in college before he can form the X-Men and push for mutant rights. Time traveler Bishop and his sister go back to stop them, and along the way they stop in an alternate present where we see the consequences of Xavier not being around. Where there is a war between mutants and humans, and mutants are losing. Alternate versions of Wolverine and Storm, who are married, join the time travellers to change things back. So we get to see a young Xavier grapple with the knowledge of his importance to the future and why he’s an important figure for mutant kind.
Xavier Remembers (season 4)
Xavier’s mind is besieged by the Shadow King as he’s put into a coma like state and must fight against the Shadow King’s nightmarish visions. He’s tormented with seeing the X-Men all dying, and offered an illusion of an afterlife where he’s reunited with his dead mother and he could live there with his X-men and there’d be no more fighting to do. Which tempts him greatly, and almost falls to it. But it renews his drive to continue the fight for peace. We also get to see a bit more of Xavier’s past here as well, seeing his first encounter with the Shadow King.
Cyclops
No Mutant Is An Island (season 3)
Cyclops quits the X-Men after the apparent death of Jean at the end of the Phoenix Saga, and he goes back to his home town to visit the orphanage he grew up and reconnects with an old friend. We see a bit of Cyclops’ past, his struggles with his powers at an early age, and how that affected his adolescence. Meanwhile Zebediah Killgrave (you may remember him as the villain from Jessica Jones) is adopting and brainwashing mutant kids to use for his own ends, which Cyclops has to put a stop to and in the process rediscover his purpose.
Orphan’s End (season 3)
Cyclops is reunited with his previously presumed dead father, who is the space pirate leader of the StarJammers, Corsair. We first met Corsair in ‘the Phoenix saga part 4,’ and it was revealed to the audience about the two’s relation to each other, but neither found out till this episode. It’s not exactly a happy reunion at first, as Cyclops’ bull-headed nature comes out as well as his anger at his father leaving them behind. That plus the StarJammers’ apparently being on the run from the Shi’ar authorities doesn’t help matters.
Till Death Do Us Part (season 2)
Here’s the (first) wedding between Cyclops and Jean, and the return of Morph who is really angry at Cyclops of leaving him to die. The wedding is in part 1 but part 2 is where the Cyclops stuff really enters the picture, as their honeymoon is interrupted by Mr Sinister who has a sick fascination with Cyclops and Jean’s genetics. Cyclops gets some good badass moments at the end when he convinces Morph to turn on Sinister and then confronts Sinister himself.
Jean Grey
Jean doesn’t really get a load of highlight episodes in the show, however it is a little balanced out by her having two big multiparters centring around her. ‘The Phoenix Saga’ and ‘The Dark Phoenix Saga’ both in season 3. Though those multiparters also focus on a multitude of other characters, and introduce a load of new characters as well. There’s nine episodes to watch there, so a bigger commitment than just a couple of single episodes. However if you only want one episode to watch for Jean then I’d suggest:
The Phoenix Saga: Sacrifice (season 3)
The first episode of the Phoenix Saga. It’s the episode where Jean gets the most to do in the series, in terms of being an active member of the X-men, having her be a lot more proactive and helpful in the plot rather than just being in the background, and showing off what she really can do with her powers. She uses her powers to infiltrate a military base for the team to get onto a space shuttle launch, then piloting the shuttle back to Earth in a big heroic sacrifice moment. So I’d say that’s her best episode in the show.
Till Death Do Us Part (season 2)
I don’t know if this is a Jean episode as such, but it is the episode where Jean and Scott get married, for the first time at least. But Jean’s not really the focus. There’s also the first part of ‘Beyond Good and Evil,’ where Scott and Jean get married for real this time. Those episodes are jam packed with so many other things, so while the wedding(s) do get their due amount of attention they’re not the main focus of the episodes. I know it’s not great listing the wedding episodes for Jean, but there’s not a whole lot to recommend. She gets some good moments in episodes spread across the series, but she’s sadly not the focus of many individual episodes.
Gambit
Slave Island (season 1)
Gambit’s another character that doesn’t have a lot of focus episodes yet does appear a whole lot in the show. So he’ll get a lot of moments in many other episodes, there’s not a lot about him. However there are a few, like this season one episode. Where Gambit, Storm, and Jubilee are captured in Genosha and forced to work in a slave camp with other mutants. Gambit is the one to break out and release everyone, though using his own treacherous methods that set him apart from the other X-Men.
Days of Future Past Part 2 (season 2)
This is the first big classic comic story that the show covered, appropriately it is used to lead into the season one final. In the future the Sentinels have subjugated both mutants and humans and the mutant resistance sends Bishop back in time to stop the key event that caused this from happening. The Gambit part of this is that he is believed to be one who caused this by assassinating Senator Kelly, which is revealed at the end of part one of this two-parter. So part two has a focus on Gambit, whether the X-Men trust him or not and how much they really know him.
X-Ternally Yours (season 2)
This one isn’t a great episode, but it is the one that looks at Gambit’s past. How he was part of the Thieves Guild in New Orleans, which had a rivalry with the Assassins Guild, and when he was younger he had a Romeo and Juliet romance going on. He abandoned that life long ago, but his brother gets in trouble so he has to go back and face it all. And there’s a weird swamp woman who gives power to whichever group puts a little metal box in front of her first every few years.
Rogue
The Cure (season 1)
The first Rogue focused episode of the show, where we see internal struggles with living with her powers, and how she can’t touch another living person for the rest of her life. The story has a mysterious doctor developing a cure for mutation, and while the rest of the X-men scoff at the idea that “there’s nothing to cure” Rogue’s not so sure. So she slips away in the middle of the night to travel to the doctor all the way in bonnie Scotland. Lots of good character drama, Canadians putting on dodgy Scottish accents, and the tease for one of the show’s big villains.
A Rogue’s Tale (season 2)
This one goes deep into Rogue’s backstory, showing how she got her flight and super strength, and what price she paid for it. Rogue starts getting visions of a mysterious woman that are driving her mad, as Mystique closes in on getting her hands back on Rogue. It shows Rogue’s past history with Mystique, and a special guest star that’s gotten more popular in recent years, Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, or as she was known at the time Ms. Marvel. The episode ends with a tease of the possible return of Carol, but she never did reappear on the show.
Love In Vain (season 3)
This is another episode dealing with Rogue’s past, this time the first boy Rogue ever kissed has returned, whom she put into a coma because that’s also when her powers first manifested. He’s come back to woo Rogue, but with a sinister purpose. There’s also aliens involved, trying to capture the X-Men, based on the villainous Brood, who are based on the Xenomorphs from Aliens, though called The Colony for some reason.
Jubilee
Night of the Sentinels (season 1)
First episodes of the show are also Jubilee’s introduction and so she gets a big focus here. She’s a new mutant and as her powers kinda blow up machines that she touches; there’s a bit of conflict between her and her foster parents, and just regular teenage stuff she deals with. The foster parents try to be well meaning by contacting the Mutant Registration department, which then brings the Sentinels to their door to capture Jubilee. The X-Men get involved to save her and offer her a place in their school. Good first episodes for the show and introduces each character nicely. You also get a good impression of Jubilee’s 90s teen attitude and hating that she’s treated like a kid, even though she’s only 15.
Cold Comfort (season 3)
This one’s got a few good focuses, Iceman, Xavier, and Cyclops, but Jubilee gets a nice spotlight as well. Since she’s the younger member of the team she feels a connection to Iceman who was the same when he was an X-Man. She’s the only one to hear him out and trust him, so she frees him from the X-Men to go find his missing girlfriend. And her voice of reason when the X-Men come after them leads Xavier to admit that he was in the wrong and that he fell into a toxic mindset of treating Iceman like he did back in the day.
Longshot (season 3)
This one is again about the title character, Longshot, but we see Jubilee’s first crush here as she really likes Longshot. Now they don’t try to make anything happen between the two, it’s just a 15 year old having a crush on an older guy, they even have her say her age and then lie and say she’s 17. Which is fine, it is just a crush. And it has the same themes around Jubilee throughout the show, that she’s frustrated with all the adults around her not taking her seriously.
Beast
Beauty & the Beast (season 2)
Beast is working at a hospital and is working to allow one of his patients, Carly, to see again. They have fallen for each other, though her father is a mutant hating bigot who wants Beast removed from Carly’s care. The Friends of Humanity, an anti-mutant bigot group, attacks the hospital and kidnaps Carly. Beast, more angry than we’ve seen him, takes Carly’s father and sets about tracking the FoH down. Really good episode, delves a lot into Beast’s character, especially as we see how much the bigotry is getting to him in a good heart-to-heart scene with Jean. There’s also a nice subplot with Wolverine going undercover to take down the FoH and contrasting the normally angry and impulsive Logan being strategic with the calm and jovial Beast being full of rage.
Obsession (season 3)
This is not strictly a Beast episode, it’s more about Archangel’s obsessive hunting of Apocalypse, but there’s also a plot of the X-Men investigating a spaceship that belongs to Apocalypse. Beast gains a connection to the ship’s computer AI and they strike up a friendship. They devise a way to trap Apocalypse, but when that fails and the ship is destroyed Beast genuinely grieves for it.
Phalanx Covenant (season 5)
A techno-organic alien hivemind called the Phalanx is taking over the world and it has captured all the X-Men, except for Beast. He is saved when Warlock comes to his aid, he’s a member of the Phalanx who has broken away from them and just wants a peaceful life without conquest. So an unlikely team forms to stop the Phalanx, Beast, Warlock, Forge, Magneto, and Mr Sinister, and they have to do it before the Phalanx can figure out how to absorb mutants and their powers into the collective. It’s a big two-parter that has Beast as the lead character trying to save the world, and we see it is indeed a worldwide invasion.
Storm
Whatever It Takes (season 2)
Storm returns to her village in Africa as the Shadow King has returned and possessed her son, MjNari. The Shadow King wants to possess Storm and use her powers to become the ruler of the crime in Cairo. We get a bit of Storm’s life before the X-Men here, as well as her son, who is not biologically related to her but more of a godson, but everyone just calls MjNari her son. She performed CPR on him after he was born and so she raised him along with his other mother, Shani, before she left to join the X-Men.
Savage Land Strange Heart (season 3)
Storm gets taken back to the Savage Land as sinister forces plan to use her power to revive the powerful entity sleeping under the land, Garokk. The big thing about these episodes for Storm is her need for control over herself in fear that her powers would go out of control and cause so much devastation. She is hypnotised to release that control and at the end of the episodes she admits to Rogue that even though it was horrible, letting go and unleashing her full power for the first time did feel freeing for her.
Storm Front (season 5)
Alien ruler Arkon comes to Earth and causes havoc on the weather to lure Storm out in order to talk her into using her powers to help his planet with its unstable weather. She accepts and the two end up getting engaged to be married. But as the X-Men investigate this planet they discover that Arkon is a fascist, enslaving his people, and the unstable weather is caused by their dangerous power source. So they have to convince Storm that Arkon is bad news, free the people, and stop his invasion of a nearby planet.
Wolverine
Repo Man (season 2)
Wolverine has returned to Canada and fighting his old team, Alpha Flight, who want him back on the team. It’s here we get our first look at Logan’s past and how he got his bones. But we also see what happened afterwards as he’s found by Alpha Flight members and brought out of his animal sate he was in after the Adamantium bonding process, and then asked to join Alpha Flight . In the present Alpha Flight’s not too happy he left and capture him to get him back. While the government agent in charge of Alpha Flight has more sinister plans for Wolverine, experimenting on him to find out how he survived the Adamantium bonding process so they can replicate it, even if it kills Wolverine.
Out of the Past (season 3)
Wolverine’s old girlfriend is back and she wants revenge because she believes he killed her father, so she’s turned herself into a cyborg and calling herself Lady Deathstrike. We also get flashbacks to Wolverine getting captured and forced into the Adamantium bonding. There’s also an alien beast that Deathstrike accidentally unleashes that they have to work together to stop. It is a really strong 2-parter, setting up for the alien stuff in the next episodes, and has some of the series best animation.
Weapon X, Lies and Videotape (season 4)
Wolverine is losing his mind, as traumatic memories keep flooding in and he goes on berserker rampage in the X-Mansion. To find out what is going on Logan and Beast go to the place that made Wolverine, the Weapon-X lab where he got his bones. Inside they find the former members of Wolverine’s team who are also suffering the same trauma as Logan. As they explore the facility they discover all of their memories have been altered to better control and condition them as weapons. In the end they leave knowing less about their past than when they started.
Proteus (season 4)
This two parter is not focused on Wolverine, but his role in the story is unique for him since he’s now more know as an uber-popular badass. He gets traumatised by Proteus at the end of part 1 so much that his cowardly nature comes out, we see him as a full on sobbing mess. We get a very vulnerable and human side of him that isn’t magically fixed by the end of the episode, but something else he has to work through.
The Lotus And The Steel (season 4)
This is where all of Logan’s trauma and rage issues come to a head, as he quits the X-Men and goes to his old mentor in Japan to help him get some peace. Just as things are going well for him a biker gang lead by the Silver Samurai comes to town to cause trouble. And Jubilee tags along to try and convince Logan to come back.
Old Soldiers (season 5)
This one’s just a bit of fun. Logan’s in Paris and reminiscing on his time in World War 2, and the one who escaped his vengeance. We get a flashback adventure where Wolverine teams up with Captain America to fight Nazis and the Red Skull, and stop him from building his giant Sleeper robots.
Guest Characters
Morph
Now Morph has an interesting journey on this show, they’re an older obscure X-Men character and they were used to make tension and drama in the first episode by having them die. But the character became popular with fans because of this and so in season 2 Morph was brought back to life by the villain Mr Sinister, and turned on the X-Men. With Morph being heavily traumatised by their death because in their twisted up mind the X-Men left them behind. Morph only had 8 appearances in the show, but they had a big impact on it and the fans. Here’s a list of all their episodes for the full Morph story:
Night of the Sentinels (season 1)
Till Death Do Us Part 1 and 2 (season 2)
Whatever It Takes (season 2)
Reunion parts 1 and 2 (season 2)
Courage (season 4)
Graduation Day (season 5)
Now in ‘Whatever It Takes’ the Morph story is just a b-plot as Wolverine has gone looking for Morph after the events of ‘Till Death Do Us Part.’ Morph’s role in ‘Graduation Day’ is small as it is the final episode of the show that’s jam packed with many other things, but a nice way to round out the series by having them back helping the team. ‘Courage’ is the big Morph focused episode after they’ve been freed from Mr Sinister, where they have returned to the X-Men after being treated on Muri Island, but all is not well with them. We see Morph is still suffering from PTSD and after a run in with the Sentinals, which killed them the first time, this triggers their PTSD and so they decide to leave the team once again to continue their treatment.
Bishop
Here’s another recurring character that has been upgraded to a main cast member in the ’97 sequel series, like Morph. Bishop’s from the near future where the Sentinels have taken over and enslaved humanity. He is sent back in time to fix things, though there’s always a new disaster with the X-Men so Bishop’s task is never complete. Here are his episodes, which don’t look like much but they are all multi-parters so there’s 10 in all.
Days of Future Past (season 1)
In the future Sentinels have enslaved humanity and Bishop is a tracker, a mutant hunting down other mutants for the Sentinels. He thinks he’s “one of the good ones” and it’s the mutants he hunts who are the trouble makers who ruin things for everyone. After he captures an older Wolverine and his resistance pals the Sentinels decide Bishop has fulfilled his quota and will be exterminated with the rest of the mutants. So he joins Wolverine and the resistance, and volunteers to use their newly created time machine to go back and stop this bad future from ever happening. Which leads to a clash with the X-Men, as history has recorded one of them is an assassin who’s actions caused the rise of the Sentinels.
Time Fugitives (season 2)
Bishop returns to a future which has changed. Instead of a Sentinel uprising that has devastated the future there is now a plague that is wiping out mutants and humans. So he jumps back in the time portal to find a way to stop the plague. Which he then clashes with another time traveling from the further future, Cable, who’s timeline will be wiped out if Bishop succeeds.
One Man’s Worth (season 4)
In the future the Sentinels plot to cut the mutant resistance down by killing Xavier when he’s just a college student, before he can form the X-Men and spread peace between mutants and humans. Bishop and his sister Shard go back to stop him, but when they get to the present to recruit the X-Men for help they find out they’re too late and history has already changed. Now mutants are at war with humans, and losing badly. They manage to convince the Wolverine and Strom of this timeline, who are married, to help them change things back. Even if it means erasing themselves from existence.
Beyond Good and Evil (season 4)
The big season 4 final, which was intended to be the finale for the whole show, but then they got picked up for another season. Apocalypse is trying to destroy time and space, all the cast of heroes and villains are involved, including a whole lot of cameos. Bishop’s role is a bit minor here, as he gets knocked off course on his way home from his last time adventure, and is trapped walking the on Axis of Time. So he does a lot of walking in these 4 episodes, where he talks to the comic relief janitor for the Axis. If you just want Bishop episodes then these aren’t essential, but I’m mentioning them here for completions sake.
Cable
Cable is… complicated when it comes to this show. When he started out in season 1 he had clearly just started appearing in the comics and they hadn’t made up his backstory yet. So we just see him as a mercenary in ‘Slave Island’ and an antagonist in ‘The Cure,’ then in season 2 things changed. By that time they’d made him a time traveler in the comics, so in season 2 he’s now from the year 3000 and no attempt is made to marry the seasons 1 and 2 versions together. But going forward they are consistent with him, he’s from the far future, fighting against Apocalypse, and the future son of Cyclops and Jean. That last bit is more thrown in as an easter egg than anything the show actively tried to deal with. Jean doesn’t even tell anyone Cable is her future son.
Time Fugitives (season 2)
There’s a plague hitting humans that will eventually spread to mutants. The Friends of Humanity made it to stir up more hate towards mutants. Bishop goes back in time to stop it, but in doing so he’d wipe out Cable’s timeline, and his son, so Cable goes back in time to stop that. It’s a neat two-parter where we see the Bishop story play out in part one, then in part 2 we get Cable going back in time and intersecting at various points in the previous episode to try and kill Bishop.
Beyond Good and Evil (season 4)
Cable gets a big role in this season final, as Apocalypse steals Cable’s time machine to wreak havoc in the past. So Cable has to steal a different time machine to go back to the past and defeat Apocalypse once and for all. While it is a big final, with so many returning characters and cameos from the comics, Cable is definitely the main character here.
Archangel
A man of tragedy and hate; Archangel started as Warren Worthington III, a rich boy who has to hide himself away because of his mutation of huge white wings on his back. Desperate for a cure he fell prey to Apocalypse and was turned into one of his Horsemen. When freed from Apocalypse Archangel feel into rage and anger at being turned even more non-human looking, with blue skin and metal wings, which he can’t hide in public anymore. So he became obsessed with destroying Apocalypse.
The Cure (season 1)
Warren makes brief appearances here at the beginning and end of the episode, where we find out he’s been funding a scientist to make a cure for mutants. Then at the end we see him go to said scientist, but he’s not what he appears as he’s really Mystique in disguise and working for Apocalypse. Leading to the next episode.
Come the Apocalypse (season 1)
This is Apocalypse’s first appearance as the main villain of an episode, and he’s brainwashed and altered four mutants to become his Horsemen to attack the world with. Turning Warren into Archangel, Apocalypse’s angel of death. Rogue manages to free him from Apocalypse’s control by absorbing a lot from him, and so she becomes forever connected to him.
Obsession (season 3)
This episode we see Archangel’s life has been obsessively trying to find out everything he can about Apocalypse, going through all sorts of historical records and artefacts, all in a search to find a way to kill him. He’s a bit out of control, and Rogue tries to help him, but he gets tricked by Apocalypse and further enraged in his fruitless quest for vengeance. His actions nearly cause the destruction of the X-Men and when confronted about it by Cyclops Warren storms off not caring about any collateral damage, only thinking of his obsession.
Beyond Good and Evil (season 4)
He makes an appearance in this four part final, where we see him living in a castle that Psylock tries to rob. He flirts with her a bit as they fight, and she chastises him for not using his wealth and privilege to help all mutants. He seems to have calmed down a little bit from his last appearance, not letting his anger and obsession destroy him. He even admits that his quest for vengeance is insignificant compared to the huge weight of the current crisis, which is growth for him.
There’s also a slight continuity issue with Warren, in that his season 1 appearances have him be unknown to the X-Men, they’ve never met him before then. Yet in seasons after that whenever the series did a flashback to Xavier first starting the X-men they used the original team from the comics, with their original costumes, which included Warren as Angel. They never try to reconcile this issue on the show, they just ignore it. Probably because it’s more fun to have a little cameo of the original X-team than worry about the continuity issues.
Nightcrawler
Born with his his mutation Nightcrawler was branded a demon at birth, cast away by his mother, Mystique, and found by a traveling circus who took him in and raised him as their own. He performed in the circus as the Amazing Nightcrawler and was carefree and happy. But him being constantly judged for his appearance drove him anyway and into faith. Trying to live a quiet life for God in a monastery in a small Germanic village. He becomes friends with kindred spirit, Wolverine.
Nightcrawler (season 4)
Rogue, Gambit, and Wolverine are on a skiing vacation when tales of a demon in a nearby village attract Wolverine’s attention. They get caught in an avalanche and find refuge in a monastery, where they meet Nightcrawler. After the usual misunderstanding fight they get along and Nightcrawler talks to them about God. But the villagers and one of the monks of his order think of him as a demon and they attack the monastery because “it has been corrupted” in their eyes. Once Nightcrawler gets through to them that he’s not evil and in fact their actions have set the monastery ablaze with their hateful prejudice they regret their actions and put down their weapons. All the open talk of God is very unusual for an American cartoon since anything religious is typically not allowed for a TV cartoon for kids. This episode is about not being hateful towards others, particularly for how they look, and that God, Christianity, religion, should not be about that. Also that people who use God to hate people, especially for being different (for example being LGBTQAI+, non-white, non-binary, etc,) are wrong and cause harm. Sadly a message that is still needed, and the people who most need to learn it aren’t open to hearing it.
Bloodlines (season 4)
Nightcrawler has received a message from his mother that she wants to meet him after abandoning him as a baby. He goes to the X-Men for help, which is a good thing as it was a trap set by the Friends of Humanity’s Greydon Creed. As it turns out Creed is Nightcrawler’s half-brother and Mystique is their mother. Nightcrawler tries to reason with both of them, trying to see the good in everyone. But ultimately we’re left unsure if Mystique was swayed by his love or not.
Colossus
A Russian powerhouse who can turn his skin into metal, but he’s just a jovial softy. He doesn’t join the team despite a few offers, preferring to work construction or farming in order to help his family and little sister in his home country. And since he’s Russian and it was the 90s we get a touch political, as we see a bit of the transition from the Soviet Union to being the “former Soviet Union” of the 90s.
The Unstoppable Juggernaut (season 1)
Colossus’ first appearance we see him as a construction worker who is hated by his co-workers for being a mutant and they think he’s going to put them out of work. He naively doesn’t understand why they have a problem with him. And there’s a little mix up with the X-Men as they wrongly assume he destroyed their mansion, and then another mix up when he’s accused of bank robbery in place of the Juggernaut. He can’t catch a break. He helps the X-Men stop the Juggernaut and even helps rebuild their mansion, because he’s just that nice.
Red Dawn (season 2)
Colossus goes to get the X-Men’s help as his home country is under siege by an old foe of Wolverine’s, Omega Red. The Soviet Union has crumbled and the old generals take drastic steps to wrestle back power by unleashing Omega Red to take back all the countries that have broken away from them, which includes Colossus’ and his family’s farm. We also see Colossus’s sister, Illyana, who does become an important X-Men character in the comics. Here she’s just a little sister with no signs of mutant powers.
Villains
Magneto
While he is considered the main X-Men villain, and the show plays him as antagonistic. but mostly he’s an ally and old friend of Xavier. Season 1 has him as a pure villain, wanting to dominate or even wipe out humanity for mutant superiority. But then at the end of the season he joins with the X-Men to stop the Sentinels, and he saves Xavier’s life. After that he’s not got any villainous schemes going on anymore in the show. In season 2 there’s an entire subplot running throughout the season of Xavier and Magneto having to survive together in the Savage Land, with Magneto feeling some consequences for past actions. In ‘Sanctuary’ he makes Asteroid M, a separate mutant nation in space, and while there is debate with Xavier if that’s such a good idea, he’s not the villain in those episodes. A fanatic takes over, nearly kills Magneto, and tries to use the defensive missiles on the Asteroid to destroy humanity. Which is something season 1 Magneto tried to do but by season 4 he’s not the same man. Here’s his episodes:
Enter Magneto (season 1)
Deadly Reunions (season 1)
The Final Decision (season 1)
Sanctuary (season 4)
Family Ties (season 4)
The Phalanx Covenant (season 5)
Graduation Day (season 5)
In ‘Family Ties’ Magneto finds out Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are his long lost children. His role in ‘Phalanx Covenant’ is not as big as some others, but we see him depressed over the loss of Asteroid M and his own dreams dying; and him joining the group to save the world helps him through it. The final episode, “Graduation Day,” we see him take the news of Xavier dying as a rallying cry for a mutant uprising, and he stops it in order to save Xavier’s life. Because in the show it always came back to his friendship with Xavier, and that was paramount above all else.
Mr Sinister
This evil geneticist and eugenicist is obsessed with Cyclops and Jean Grey, wanting to use their genetics to make super mutants or some such. He was a season 2 villain, and was the one of revived Morph after their apparent death. He didn’t really do a whole lot after season 2, but he made a few cameo appearances here and there.
Till Death Do Us Part (season 2)
Reunion (season 2)
Descent (season 5)
‘Descent’ is the big Sinister episode as it is all about his origin in Victorian London, performing experiments on young mutants to expand their powers. All in order to cure his wife, who may or may not be related to Jean Grey as that was the implication but nothing outright stated. We see the start of his obsession with genetic experimentation, how far he goes with it, and of course he experiments on himself turning him into what he is today.
Sentinels
The Sentinels are the mutant bogeymen, giant robots designed to capture and destroy mutants. First made by Dr Trask but then soon gained a life of their own with the creation of Master Mold, a huge Sentinel who is its own self-contained sentinel factory. Master Mold became sentient and worked out that mutants are just humans and its core programming of protecting mutants from humans is flawed. So they set about to conquer the world to “protect humans from themselves.” Here’s their key episodes:
Night of the Sentinels (season 1)
Slave Island (season 1)
Days of Future Past (season 1)
The Final Decision (season 1)
One Man’s Worth (season 4)
As they are mutant hunting robots they do pop up here and there throughout the series, even when Master Mold is thought to be defeated. We still see they have taken over in Bishop’s dark future, so even though they look like they’re gone they still managed to come back and Bishop’s future still turns out badly because of them.
Juggernaut
Cain Marko is Professor Xavier’s step-brother who is so angry at his brother, stemming from childhood abuse from his father, he found a magical gem that gave him the powers of the Juggernaut. Using his unstoppable strength and invulnerability he attacks Xavier looking for revenge, of which the X-Men barley manage to defeat him. In his final appearance we see Xavier going into Cain’s mind and reliving those abusive childhood moments and the abuse that Cain then in turn inflicted on him.
The Unstoppable Juggernaut (season 1)
The Phoenix Saga Part 3 (season 3)
The Juggernaut Returns (season 4)
Mystique
Rogue’s adoptive mother and Nightcrawler’s bio mom, Mystique in this series is a servant of Apocalypse. She says Apocalypse made her what she is today, and so she’s loyal to him and his destructive ideology. She took Rogue in after she ran away from home when her powers first awakened, raising her and training her as part of her Brotherhood of Mutants. She then manipulated Rogue into absorbing Ms Marvel’s powers, putting Ms Marvel into a coma and leading Rogue to run away again, this time to the X-Men. She left Nightcrawler in a river after he was born visibly a mutant, and we don’t know what happened with her other son, Graydon Creed, other than he grew up to hate mutants. She’s got quite a lot of family drama. Here’s the episodes:
The Cure (season 1)
Come The Apocalypse (season 1)
Days of Future Past part 2 (season 1)
A Rogue’s Tale (season 2)
Bloodlines (season 4)
Season 1 she’s just working for Apocalypse, and it’s the end of ‘Days of Future Past’ that we learn she was Rogue’s “momma.” Season 2’s where we get the full story with Rogue. She was also part of the ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ multi-parter, where she and Magneto turn on Apocalypse after learning his true intentions of destroying all of reality. Which now leaves Mystique a free agent, with her Brotherhood of Mutants, with whatever comes next.
Apocalypse
He is a big villain with a big booming voice, and big monologues. He wants to create conflict worldwide to usher in his “survival of the fittest” ideals, but mostly he’s a big baddie who wants to destroy things. He works best when paired against characters who have a personal vendetta against him, such as Archangel and Cable.
Come the Apocalypse (season 1)
Time Fugitives (season 2)
Obsession (season 3)
Beyond Good and Evil (season 4)
The Fifth Horseman (season 5)
If you haven’t watched ‘The Fifth Horseman’, or have just forgotten it, then you might be confused as to how Apocalypse can still be around after he was supposed to be wiped out of time and space at the end of ‘Beyond Good and Evil.’ Watch that season 5 episode to see how he managed to come back.
Sauron
Mutant dinosaur man from the Savage Land. He has to steal life energy in order to survive and if he takes mutant life force then he turns into the tyrannical Sauron. We see him working with Mr Sinister in season 2 but he gets much more of a spotlight in season 3 as he’s one of the main villain in those episodes.
Reunion (season 2)
Savage Land Strange Heart (season 3)
Inner Circle Club
They are called the Hellfire club in the comics, but since a cartoon in America couldn’t use the word “hell” on TV it was renamed as the “Inner Circle Club.” They planned to mind control and manipulate the Phoenix for their own gain, and it backfired on them spectacularly. The most notable member is Emma Frost, the White Queen, who in the comics later became an X-Woman herself.
The Dark Phoenix Parts 1& 2 (season 3)
They only appear in the first two parts of the four-parter, with a few cameos here and there when the show does one of its worldwide montages that show off cameos from the Marvel universe.
Morlocks
The Morlocks are homeless mutants that live in tunnels under New York City, lead by Callisto. They kidnapped Cyclops and Jean, and Storm had to fight their leader in single combat to defeat them and gained leadership in the process. But they didn’t want to live in a mansion with the X-Men and preferred a life in the sewers, for some reason. They discovered an alien spaceship that was in the massive caverns under New York City once, and the X-Men had Christmas with them another time. That’s pretty much the Morlocks, here’s their episodes:
Captive Hearts (season 1)
Out of the Past (season 3)
Have Yourself a Morlock Little X-Mas (season 4)
Noted their appearances here for completion, because maybe they show up in the new series. But I really don’t care for them in this show.
Shadow King
The Shadow King was a crime lord in Cairo, who used kids as thieves, before Xavier got involved and they had a psychic battle, sending the Shadow King to be locked away in the astral plane. And that all happened before the series started and we see him try to escape his Astral prison in his appearances in the show. Storm was also one of the young kids he used as pickpockets, and Xavier rescued her. Here’s his episodes:
Whatever It Takes (season 2)
Xavier Remembers (season 4)
Mojo
This inter-dimensional alien is a parody of a TV mogul, who kidnaps the X-Men in order to make them perform on his TV shows to entertain the masses. There’s some fun action and adventure in the “TV shows” Mojo puts the X-Men in, and some satire on TV executives obsessed with ratings and the like. Only appeared twice, so him and his shtick wasn’t overused:
Mojovision (season 2)
Longshot (season 3)
I’d say to give Mojovision a watch even if Mojo doesn’t appear in the new series. It’s a good bit of fun and a stand-alone adventure.
Friends of Humanity
The FoH are the KKK for bigotry against mutants. That’s not even an exaggeration, we see the groups leaders all dressed in hoods styled after the KKK, and their members have armbands styled after Nazi armbands. They are representative of every bigot group, with their tactics and views. Their very first scene has them staging a fake mutant attack in order to spread scaremongering about mutants. We see them attacking store fronts that display anything pro-mutant. They doctored footage to make it look like Beast attacked some “innocent motorists” as we see those “innocents” were FoH members who attacked a pro-mutant bar Beast was at, and then ran away when he took their weapon off of them. They hold rallies and protests, with catchy slogans such as “mutants go home,” and lie about mutants to stir up hate in order to attack a minority.
Till Death Do Us Part (season 2)
The first appearance of the FoH, where we meet the group’s face Graydon Creed, we see their many attacks on mutants and a rally with a whole lot of bigotry that is still very close to real life. And when Jubilee asks “why do you hate us” Creed chillingly answers “you were born.”
Time Fugitives (season 2)
There is a viral epidemic in New York and the FoH is blaming mutants for it. No mutants have caught it, there’s no evidence they spread it, but a panicked public is easily manipulated to hate minority groups. Directly paralleling the HIV/AIDS crisis and the treatment of queer people by society, and more recently the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes in the early 2020s covid pandemic.
Beauty & the Beast (season 2)
The FoH attack a hospital for the crime of a mutant working there and kidnap his human girlfriend. While this is happening Logan goes undercover to try and save her. We get a look behind the curtain a little bit as Graydon Creed gets a one-on-one recruitment conversation with Logan. And Creed gets his comeuppance as his own bigotry comes home to haunt him.
Bloodlines (season 4)
We see the leadership of the FoH, all in KKK styled hoods, as they drag Graydon Creed in to sort his mess of a family tree out. Which means trapping Nightcrawler, Mystique, and Rogue to try and get back into the good graces of the FoH. This is the first episode with the FoH in it since season 2, and also the last time we see them in the series. With the FoH still very much intact by the end of the episode, but Graydon Creed is left in a precarious position that means he might be gone for good.
Other notable episodes
While definitely not essential to anything related to X-Men TAS, there was a crossover with the other big 90s Marvel cartoon, Spider-Man TAS. All the voice actors reprised their roles, and we saw the two meet and team-up. Spider-Man is looking for help with his mutation disease and comes to Xavier, who can’t help him so Beast points him to an old colleague who is doing work in the field. Beast gets captured, Wolverine goes out to save him and gets in a fight with Spider-Man, and it turns out Beast’s old colleague has used Beast’s research as a way to kill mutants.
The Mutant Agenda (season 2)
Mutants’ Revenge (season 2)
You don’t need to watch it, but it’s a good little two-parter if you want more X-Men and a nice little team-up with Spider-Man.
And that’s everything. Quite literally everything, with almost every episode of X-Men TAS listed here. As I said at the beginning the best thing to do is just watch the show, from start to end, but it’s always handy to have a character breakdown of episodes. Especially if you’re wanting to see certain episodes after watching X-Men ’97. Happy viewing.
