X-Men: The Animated Series"s 3 Different Timelines Explained

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Longtime viewers of X-Men: The Animated Series now have a sequel series in X-Men ’97, but it is not the first Marvel property to branch off from the beloved X-Men adaptation. The original X-Men: The Animated Series took animation to unprecedented heights, providing viewers with mature storytelling while remaining action-packed and highly accurate to the source material. The show lasted five seasons, with 76 episodes from its 1992 debut to its 1997 finale. Given its overwhelmingly positive reception among viewers and critics alike, it is not surprising that X-Men would be continued in some form sooner or later.
Overlapping continuity is rather common in massive franchises, including the various Marvel universes. Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz created the Marvel Comics 2 (MC2) universe in 1998 with an issue of What If…? which branched off into various comic lines, including Spider-Girl. Since the MC2 universe branches off from the end of the Clone Saga in Earth-616 (Marvel’s mainstream published continuity), every 616 story that takes place before the Clone Saga’s conclusion is overlapping canon with MC2. This same principle applies to the episodes of X-Men: The Animated Series, whose first three seasons are overlapping canon with three timelines.
X-Men's First Branching Timeline Began Before The Show Concluded Close Around the same time as X-Men: The Animated Series’s debut, Marvel began publishing the X-Men Adventures comics, which began as simple adaptations of the animated series itself. Although there were some (mostly minute) differences between how events were depicted, the stories told in the animated series and Adventures were largely identical. For this, the two are overlapping canon, but this changed after the third season of both X-Men: The Animated Series and X-Men Adventures. There were never X-Men Adventures adaptations of seasons 4 and 5, and a new series – titled Adventures of the X-Men – began instead.

Related The Best X-Men: The Animated Series Episode For Each Major X-Men Team Member X-Men: The Animated Series featured a quintessential X-Men team. Each member was centered in an episode capturing their essential characterization.
1 Adventures of the X-Men told new stories that would often conflict with the continuity of X-Men: The Animated Series, making it part of a new branching timeline after the events of season 3. Notably, Adventures of the X-Men was not a revival, as the main X-Men series was ongoing at the time. Moreover, Adventures of the X-Men ended months before X-Men: The Animated Series’ series finale.
Sadly, the branching reality shown in Adventures of the X-Men is destroyed in the comic’s finale, which featured one final conflict between the X-Men and their universe’s Dweller-in-Darkness.
X-Men '92 Was The First X-Men Animated Series Revival Close 18 years after the finale of the original X-Men: The Animated Series, Marvel gave the show its first official revival. During the 2015 Secret Wars event, Marvel brought back the universe of the X-Men series with the X-Men ’92 comics. While Adventures of the X-Men branched off from only the first three seasons of the animated series, X-Men ’92 took the entire series into account, continuing where season 5 left off. X-Men ’92 sees the return of Charles Xavier and expands the roster of the X-Men, adding Generation X as both a new hero team and new students for Xavier’s school.
X-Men ’92 also adds characters who were unable to appear in the original run of X-Men: The Animated Series, such as Deadpool and other members of X-Force. New villains are introduced as well, such as Casandra Nova, Andrea and Andreas von Strucker, and Death’s Head. Mister Sinister, a returning villain from the original animated series, notably meets his demise in X-Men ’92. Despite being a relatively short-lived comic series, X-Men ’92 was a worthy follow-up to X-Men: The Animated Series.
Before the premiere of X-Men ’97, Chris Sims, one of the writers of X-Men ’92, noted on social media that the comic series is not set in the same continuity as the original X-Men: The Animated Series, revealing its status as a branching timeline.
X-Men '97 Is The Latest X-Men Revival, But Is It Compatible With X-Men '92? Close X-Men: The Animated Series would have another – and even more popular – continuation in 2024 with the release of X-Men ’97, which also continued from the events of the original show’s fifth season. Although both X-Men ’92 and X-Men ’97 are excellent continuations of the original X-Men: The Animated Series, they are, unfortunately, incompatible, making ’97 the third branching timeline. ’97 retains the roster of heroes from the original X-Men series and Mister Sinister is, notably, still alive. X-Men ’97 is expected to continue with at least two more seasons, making it the most successful continuation of X-Men: The Animated Series.

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10/10 X-Men: The Animated Series X-Men: The Animated Series is a television show based on the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name. The series, which aired from 1992 to 1997, follows the adventures of a team of mutant superheroes, led by Professor Charles Xavier, as they fight for peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants in a world filled with prejudice and fear.
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