Will X-Men ‘97 Season 2 Follow Through on the Queer Love Story Hidden in Plain Sight?
X-Men ‘97 season 1 planted an unsuspected, albeit seemingly one-sided, romance plot between Morph and Wolverine. But what grows from it is anyone’s guess.
With only crumbs of X-Men ‘97 season 2 news to gnaw on, many fans are revisiting the X-Men: The Animated Series revival to refresh memories and, more importantly, take note of any plotlines we may see return in the upcoming season.
With Pride Month around the corner, one can’t help but wonder if one of the series’ more tender, quietly groundbreaking moments will survive the journey into season 2 or quietly disappear, the way queer storylines sometimes are, unfortunately, destined to do.
The moment in question is the one shared between Morph and Wolverine in the season finale episode, “Tolerance is Extinction, Part 3.”
Lying in near-death after Magneto yanked all the adamantium from his skeleton, Wolverine clings to life while Morph watches helplessly by his side. In a last desperate attempt to pull Logan back from the edge, Morph does the only thing they can think of; transforming into Jean Grey, the woman Wolverine has always loved, and confesses “I love you, Logan.”
On the surface, it reads as a simple act of comfort, one that could have been easily written off if not for the former showrunner and head writer, Beau DeMayo, confirming on X that this scene was romantic for the shapeshifting hero. As a queer individual himself, DeMayo insisted that Morph’s confession was always intended to be romantic and later compared it to being secretly in love with a close friend and finally finding a way to say it, even if not as yourself.
But with DeMayo having been fired before the series even premiered, the future of this storyline he planted is now uncertain. He may be gone, but the confession isn’t—it’s canon, it’s onscreen, and season 2 is going to have to reckon with it one way or another seeing that it’s one of (if not the most) intriguing plots for Morph’s character.
With the series having faced backlash for Morph being canonically non-binary, using they/they pronouns, and confessing their love to Wolverine, the question becomes whether the new creative team treats it as a thread worth pulling or simply lets it fray quietly away, hoping nobody notices or remembers. The irony here is that potentially forgetting would go against everything the X-Men have ever stood for.
To understand why that would be such a loss, it helps to remember what the X-Men have always been. Ever since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby launched the comics in 1963, Xavier’s Mutants have served as allegory for a wide array of marginalized groups and topics; the Civil Rights movement, religious persecution, the AIDS crisis. As the decades progressed, the queer metaphor became increasingly fitting too.
Mutants are born different in a world that fears and hates the identities they never chose. They constantly have to hide who they are from their families and friends, in fear of being judged or taken away by Bastion’s “Zero Tolerance” operation first seen in episode 7.
Thankfully, many find community among themselves, comforted by the fact that those who get it, get it. But even with the comfort of each other, X-Men who, for years, have fought not just for survival against Sentinels, Mister Sinister, or the literal physical manifestation of the apocalypse, but also for the right to exist.
If that all sounds familiar, it should because the allegories, no matter in what context, have rarely been subtle.
And while the Morph confession does fall somewhere between the implicitness of Bobby Drake (Iceman) “coming out” to his parents as a mutant in the 2003 film X2: X-Men United and the explicitness of Mystique and Destiny getting married in Marvel Comics 2024 Marvel Voices: Pride one-shot: X-men: The Wedding Special #1, it serves as another opportunity for the queer X-Men allegory to be done right.
Which is what makes Morph’s romantic storyline in X-Men ‘97 so significant and worth protecting. The character’s status exists in an interesting middle ground in terms of representation. Their non-binary status, while stated as canon by DeMayo, isn’t actually never directly referred to in the series, a likely deliberate choice seeing that Morph is explicitly referred to as a man in the ‘92 show.
As for where Morph is currently, the season 2 trailer offered a glimpse of the shapeshifter alongside Wolverine, Sabertooth, and Lady Deathstrike according to The Direct’s early viewing of the trailer at New York Comic Con. The group is seen in a room together, with Morph pondering over “digital video discs” to which Lady Deathstrike scoffs and says that she refers laser discs, possibly clues to what periods of time they are in or from (or both?).
The update doesn’t offer much in terms of what is to be seen but Morph being with Wolverine offers a glimmer of hope that the love story plot DeMayo planted may be continued, a choice that feels deliberate seeing that the rest of the X-Men were scattered somewhat randomly across time.
If season 2 picks up the thread and Morph’s feelings are acknowledged, explored, or even just made more explicit by having the hero confess their feelings as themself, then X-Men ‘97 would become something increasingly rare: a mainstream animated superhero series with a canon, developing queer love story for a core cast member. And if Disney is willing to put in the herculean effort of letting the “Wolverine wants Jean Grey but can’t have her” storyline go in favor of exploring his own queerness then that would mean even more progress.
If it’s dropped, well, that too is a statement and one that is all too familiar. A queer storyline being introduced with intention, abandoned without ceremony, and subsequently mourned in favor of keeping things ambiguous at best or queer-baiting at worst.
Where the confession will lead and end is yet to be seen and, though some may disagree or agree, it is admittedly not the most important thread for the show to pick up. With Apocalypse in the picture now and the X-Men split-up in several ways (or dead. We all miss you, Gambit), there is a lot on everyone’s plate.
Still, Morph’s romance storyline is a significant and timely one, and one that may be embedded in the series already as DeMayo had previously finished writing season 2 before current head-writer and showrunner Matthew Chauncy stepped into the role.
But for now, all fans can do is wait, rewatch the series, and continue to worry about the fates of our beloved mutants.