Marvel Animation spent the weekend building anticipation for one of the most talked-about finales of the summer. After a special screening event at the AMC Burbank 16 that gathered the cast and creative team, and a fresh teaser rolled out for the closing chapter, X-Men ’97 arrives at the end of its second season this week with “Survival of the Fittest,” episode nine, landing on Disney+.
The season has been an ambitious one, splintering the team across three distinct time periods and building toward En Sabah Nur, better known as Apocalypse, as its central threat. The finale has a heavy load to carry. The previous episode left Gambit’s fate hanging in the balance after Apocalypse implanted his consciousness into Remy, leaving Rogue and Professor X scrambling to pull him back. Whether Remy can win that battle of wills, and what it means for his relationship with Rogue, is the emotional core the finale has to resolve.
The weekend buzz was fueled in part by early reactions from those who caught the final two episodes at the Burbank event, with attendees describing the closing stretch in breathless terms and promising that anyone worried the season was moving too slowly would be satisfied by how it lands. That word of mouth has done exactly what a good screening event is supposed to do, sending fans into finale week with expectations running high.
Beyond the immediate cliffhangers, Marvel used the moment to signal just how much runway this show still has. The series had already been confirmed for a third and fourth season, and executive Brad Winderbaum used the screening to tease that season three is essentially complete, with four and even five now in the conversation. New seasons are expected to arrive on a roughly annual cadence going forward, with season three targeted for sometime in 2027.
For a revival that began as a nostalgic continuation of the beloved 1990s animated series, that kind of forward planning is a striking vote of confidence. X-Men ’97 has grown into one of Marvel’s most consistently praised television efforts, and the studio is betting the audience will keep showing up. First, though, the team has to survive the fittest.
X-Men ’97 season 2 episode 9, “Survival of the Fittest,” premieres Wednesday, August 12, 2026, on Disney+.
