In 2026, Marvel and Mattel are each releasing tasks designed to capitalize on individuals’s love for iconic animated heroes from their childhoods. Masters of the Universe has put a live-action He-Man on the large display screen, and the second season of X-Men ’97 is about to fling a few of Charles Xavier’s mutants into an apocalyptic future. Each tasks had been clearly made by individuals who love the supply materials, and they’re equally crammed with nerdy Easter eggs meant to get hardcore followers puffed up. X-Males ’97 and Masters of the Universe are each nostalgia performs, however the greatest distinction between the 2 — and arguably the explanation one among them hasn’t been all that a lot of successful — is the work that has gone into retaining their respective characters and worlds alive within the popular culture consciousness.
In its second season, X-Males ’97 splits its workforce of mutant heroes up into a number of groups that discover themselves stranded at drastically completely different factors in historical past. Whereas one group winds up in historical Egypt, one other is transported hundreds of years into the long run. Although each groups wish to get again to the ’90s, they’re additionally desperately trying to find a method to cease the nearly immortal mutant villain Apocalypse (Ross Marquand) from destroying the world. And since Apocalypse occurs to be alive in each time durations, the 2 X-Males squads agree that it’s value spending a while precisely the place they’re.
Somewhat than adapting a single storyline from Marvel’s comics, the brand new season of X-Males ’97 combines narrative parts from numerous completely different restricted collection — chief amongst them The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix from 1994 and 1996’s Rise of Apocalypse. Utilizing beats from these particular comics to develop its story makes some sense given the ’90s of all of it. However extra stunning is the quantity of comparatively current X-Males comics lore the present introduces as a way to flesh out the world round its core characters.
Whereas X-Males ’97 is a continuation of X-Males: The Animated Sequence, Marvel has made it really feel recent by reworking the established canon in significant ways. Taking that method is a part of what made the collection a ratings hit when it first premiered in 2024, however followers’ long-standing fondness and familiarity with the X-Males had been additionally key components within the equation.
One of many primary causes that followers have been foaming on the mouth for brand new X-Males tasks like ’97 and the upcoming X-Men MCU film is that Marvel has by no means actually let this property fade into the background. Though twentieth Century Studios’ X-Males options tended to be horrible, there have been at all times sufficient X-Males comics and TV series within the combine to provide followers hope {that a} studio would finally come up with something excellent. And if Marvel spent much less time cultivating the X-Males’s model, the franchise may need discovered itself floundering the best way Mattel’s Masters of the Universe at the moment is.
There have been a handful of newer collection impressed by the unique Masters of the Universe cartoon. However on the entire, He-Man’s pop cultural prominence has waned within the years since Prince Adam and his pals had been explaining the teachings behind their adventures on tv each weekday from 1983 to 1985. That is possible a part of why Mattel’s new Masters of the Universe film has been underperforming on the field workplace since its launch final week. To this point, the film has raked in a paltry $54.4 million against a $200 million production budget, making it an enormous monetary dud.
Masters of the Universe has grow to be a case examine in Hollywood’s tendency to be taught the improper classes from its earlier successes. Individuals flocked to theaters to see Barbie as a result of it was a humorous, feminist deconstruction of an ever-present icon, however Mattel interpreted {that a} signal that viewers are hungry for stories about toys in general. Masters of the Universe makes an attempt to do some mildly important exploration of poisonous masculinity, however that clearly hasn’t been sufficient to persuade audiences to care about He-Man. Except for hardcore followers, many individuals merely aren’t that invested in or emotionally linked to He-Man’s world, and Mattel hasn’t finished sufficient to persuade audiences that there’s something fascinating about this newest movie.
If He-Man was a fixture in additional individuals’s imaginations the best way the X-Males are, the dialog round Masters of the Universe would possible be very completely different. Mattel would do nicely to internalize this as a useful lesson, however there have yet to be signs of that being the case. Between X-Males ’97’s second season and Avengers: Doomsday, Marvel is rolling right into a 12 months of huge tales that put mutants entrance and heart. And it’s a second that the studio has been constructing towards for years.
The second season of X-Males ’97 hits Disney Plus on July 1st, and Masters of the Universe is in theaters now.