Apart from a packed movie calendar, 2024 is also the year for Marvel to give animation more importance. The popular 90s show X-Men: The Animated Series will see a revival on Disney+ as X-Men ’97, and is due to premiere on the platform in March. Taking off from where its predecessor ended, the show will comprise 10 episodes that will follow the famous mutants on dangerous new missions after the loss of their leader, Professor X.
Along with the marquee characters like Wolverine, Storm, Beast, and Rogue who will be central to the plot, the mutant shapeshifter Morph will also have a pivotal role in the show. X-Men fans though, are questioning a significant change regarding the s*xuality of the character which they believe, will dilute his importance in the series.
Netizens Are Critical Of Morph’s Characterization in X-Men ‘97
The Disney+ animated series X-Men ‘97 will premiere on the platform on 20th March 2024, and is one of the highly anticipated projects from the Marvel camp. This revival of the earlier show from the 90s will see many favorite mutants taking centerstage. A pivotal character who has played a significant role in the storyline is the mutant shapeshifter Morph, who was first seen in the 1967 comic book, The X-Men #35.
Originally appearing as Changeling, Morph is seen as an easy-going character with a complex and troubled past. Initially an adversary to the X-Men, Morph ultimately joins Professor X but dies while fighting for the mutants. In one of the versions, Morph is shown to be suffering from a terminal illness and wishes to atone for his past sins, while his Earth-1081 character struggles through life with a mother inflicted with cancer.
But Morph’s description in an Empire Magazine report (via X-Men Updates) is raising a few eyebrows among fans who are now questioning the non-binary tag attached to the character’s name. Netizens were of the opinion that the character’s s*xuality had no bearing on his back story or his impact on the plot, and only served to dilute the complexities of his past and the importance he held in the bigger picture.
If Morph being nonbinary makes you angry, you clearly don't know what X-Men stand for. https://t.co/OGwehdmldF
— X-Men Updates (@XMenUpdate) February 15, 2024
We have every right to be bothered that Disney is creating everything in their woke image but it’s very on brand for them to crap all over the source material so im not suprised.
— Ryan (@rcam_tv) February 15, 2024
If the sexuality of a character is what you care about and not the lore of the character you are boring.
— Wattanokomi (@wattanokomi) February 15, 2024
Don’t blame us when it flops. This is DoA
— Mr30Below (@mr30below) February 15, 2024
It’s not about Non Binary…
It’s about can we just stick with the story. That’s all us comic book fans want. It doesn’t have to be all that. They are catering to like maybe 1% of society.— Prados (@ItsPrados) February 15, 2024
He wasn’t like that in the original series, though
— Frosty (@Frosty2495) February 15, 2024
These brutally candid opinions about Morph’s character sketch do not bode well for X-Men ’97. With further criticisms about Disney’s apparent desperation to appeal to modern woke culture, it remains to be seen if the production house and Marvel will make netizens have a change of heart after watching the show.
What Happened To The Fantastic Four Vs X-Men Crossover?
While it is confirmed that Deadpool 3 will see Ryan Reynolds share screen space with a few key X-Men characters apart from Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, the mutants’ collaboration with Marvel’s first family did not go as planned. In 2016, producer and director of X-Men: Dark Phoenix Simon Kinberg, expressed a desire to create an ambitious crossover between X-Men and The Fantastic Four franchises.
Kinberg has been involved with many popular franchises like X-Men and Star Wars in different capacities. In an interview, the director who also wrote the screenplay for 2015’s The Fantastic Four starring Michael B. Jordan and Miles Teller, spoke to CBM about the exciting thought of bringing these two entertaining plotlines and characters together.
“I love the characters, I love the characters in Fan Four, and I love the new cast. Obviously I love the characters and cast of X-Men. So, hypothetically, the notion of putting them together is really intriguing, and there’s some really fun stuff that the comics have done in the past. So it’s not out of the realm of possibility.”
As fate would have it, The Fantastic Four based on Kinberg’s screenplay turned out to be one of the biggest failures that year at the box office. Following the critical backlash and the lukewarm responses from the public, uniting the two worlds of X-Men and The Fantastic Four in a crossover film seemed to be a very risky idea. To date, this film remains only a dream.
X-Men ‘97 will stream on Disney+ on March 20th, 2024.
