X-Men ’97 Season 2 Ends as Marvel Confirms Season 3 Is Locked, Season 4 Underway

Elena Sokolova12/08/2026Updated 25/08/20265 min read

X-Men ’97 closed out its second season on Disney+ overnight with the finale “Survival of the Fittest,” and Marvel used the lead-up to the episode to confirm that season 3 is already finished while work on season 4 is well underway. Marvel Animation’s Brad Winderbaum shared the update at a Burbank screening event on August 4, according to Bleeding Cool, days before the ninth and final episode of the season dropped worldwide on August 12.

The revelation caps off a season that spent nine episodes bouncing the X-Men between ancient Egypt, a dystopian far future and a present-day showdown with a resurrected Apocalypse, and it sets up what could be the show’s fastest turnaround yet between seasons.

“Survival of the Fittest” Wraps a Season Built Around Apocalypse and Gambit

X-Men ’97 season 2 episode 9, titled “Survival of the Fittest,” premiered on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, on Disney+, serving as the season finale. The episode followed directly on from “The Dead Man’s Hand,” in which Rogue and Professor X helped Gambit regain control after learning that Apocalypse had implanted his consciousness into Remy, though his status remained uncertain because Apocalypse was still linked to Gambit.

Going into the finale, Gambit’s connection to Apocalypse remained unresolved, as Xavier and Rogue had restored Remy’s control over his actions but Apocalypse’s consciousness remained inside him. That left Cable in an especially thorny spot, since Cable considered Remy a continuing threat because Apocalypse remained connected to him.

Winderbaum Confirms Season 3 Locked, Season 4 Already Rolling

The bigger headline for fans might not be what happened on screen but what Marvel confirmed off it. At the August 4 finale screening event with cast members including Lenore Zann, JP Karliak and Matthew Waterson, Brad Winderbaum confirmed X-Men ’97 Season 3 is being finished, with Marvel already well on the way to Season 4.

Winderbaum gave the crowd a peek behind the curtain on where production currently stands, saying simply, “We are all in the editing room right now and on the recording stages.”

As for when audiences will actually see it, Marvel’s Head of TV, Animation, Streaming, and Comics Brad Winderbaum has confirmed that the show’s third season will drop sometime in 2027, following his previous statement that new seasons of the highly-rated cartoon will start to arrive every year from here on out. That would mark a dramatic acceleration compared to the roughly two-year gap between seasons 1 and 2, which was widely attributed to the show’s behind-the-scenes turmoil following the firing of original head writer Beau DeMayo.

Onslaught Speculation Swirls Ahead of Season 3

With Apocalypse’s arc pushed to its limit across season 2, comic-savvy fans and outlets have spent the back half of the season pointing toward Onslaught as the next major threat. BamSmackPow’s finale preview flagged the theory directly, noting that things for the X-Men could be about to go from bad to worse because Onslaught may be coming, and if Apocalypse was dangerous, Onslaught is a different level of villain entirely.

That reading lines up with the source comics: Onslaught was born from the psychic fallout between Xavier and Magneto in the 1996 “Onslaught” crossover, a rivalry X-Men ’97 has been building toward since Magneto’s mind was shattered in the season 1 finale. Long-running fan discussion threads on forums like SuperHeroHype have floated similar theories for months, with posters predicting that season 3 moves away from Apocalypse and goes full Onslaught. Marvel has not confirmed Onslaught’s involvement, and any such tease remains speculation until the studio or a verified cast/crew statement says otherwise.

A Show Built on Post-Credits Payoffs

Whatever the finale’s stinger ultimately reveals, X-Men ’97 has made end-credits scenes part of its identity since season 1. The original finale’s post-credits sequence introduced Apocalypse to the series for the first time, showing him mourning amid the ruins of Genosha before finding one of Gambit’s playing cards, a detail later confirmed by the creative team to be seeding the character’s season 2 storyline. Season 2 kept the tradition alive early, with episode 4 delivering a surprise Avengers cameo in which Wolverine heads to Paris where he meets with Captain America and Black Widow, sharing brief reminiscences of working together.

That scene doubled as narrative set-up too, handing Logan a file folder marked “Weapon X” and pushing him toward reclaiming his adamantium skeleton, a plotline that paid off later in the season. Given that pattern, a season-ending stinger pointing toward season 3’s antagonist would be entirely consistent with how the show has operated for two seasons running.

Streaming Times for Australia and New Zealand

For fans watching from this side of the world, the finale rolled out on Disney+ in the early evening local time rather than the small hours the US audience got. BamSmackPow’s regional breakdown listed the episode landing at 5:00 p.m. AEDT on Wednesday, August 12 in Sydney, making it a far friendlier watch for Australian viewers than the 3am ET drop in North America. New Zealand viewers on NZST would have seen it appear on the platform shortly after, in line with the usual gap between Australian and NZ Disney+ rollout times.

With season 3 reportedly locked and season 4 already in motion, X-Men ’97 looks set to keep testing whether a nearly 30-year-old cartoon can keep escalating its stakes without losing what made the 1990s original so beloved in the first place. If Onslaught really is next, Marvel Animation will have to top a season that already burned through Apocalypse as its central threat: a tall order, even for a show that has consistently exceeded expectations since its 2024 revival.