X-Men ’97 Director Addresses That Rogue and Captain America Scene

The first season of X-Men ’97 culminated this past week, after delivering plenty of unexpected moments across its ten episodes. This included the contentious meeting between Rogue (Lenore Zann) and Captain America (Josh Keaton), which culminated in Rogue throwing his trademark shield into the frozen tundra during their disagreement. While speaking with ComicBook about the entire first season, X-Men ’97 director Emi/Emmett Yonemura responded to the larger-than-life reaction to that scene.

“I’m glad that it did [break the Internet], because at first, when we had Cap cameoing, I was like, ‘Is he just going to take away from Rogue’s precedence in all of this?’ But then the writers had a really good point that it was like, ‘No, we’re showing that even the Avengers, they’re going to play it by the book. They’re going to be boy scouts about it.’ And that Rogue is like, ‘No, I’m not here for that. And if you’re going to wait to pick sides, that is picking sides.’ And so I loved it. And then we also had this issue of, ‘Well, how does Cap not show up in Mexico, and then not show up in Madripoor?’ Well, because he’s got to go find his shield. I just honestly loved it. It was such a great thing. She’s just going to yeet it and ‘Good luck, man.’”

Is X-Men ’97 Renewed for Season 2?

Work has already begun on a sophomore season of X-Men ’97, which was already renewed by Marvel Animation prior to the show’s premiere.

“It’s still an animatic phase. Animation takes so long to make as I’m sure you know. There was a great bit about this in Invincible Season 2,” X-Men ’97 Executive Producer and Marvel Studios Head of TV, Streaming, and Animation Brad Winderbaum explained to ComicBook in a recent interview. “They just nailed it so hard, it is the greatest. And it takes a long time. Because the studio wants to see how successful the first season is before they greenlight the second season there’s a lag. We were lucky enough to get the greenlight before we aired so there’s maybe less of a lag. People are just going to have to be patient with us.

The first season of X-Men ’97 is now available to stream exclusively on Disney+. If you haven’t signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out here.