X-Men ‘97 Episodes Ranked

X-Men ‘97 Episodes Ranked 

All 10 episodes of X-Men ‘97 have dropped on Disney+. In typical fashion, I’m going to be ranking all of the episodes of the show. Let’s get started!

• SEASON REVIEW: If you saw my blog prior to this show starting, I talked a lot about X-Men the Animated Series. I watched that show for the first time in preparation for this show. So I didn’t have crazy sky high expectations for this movie, I was excited for it however. Now having seen the entire season, I loved it. I think it’s fantastic, when ranking this season with the others I think it’s one of the best. I thought they did a great job of continuing from where the original series left off. This show does fantastic at that, they found ways to flesh those ideas out and make them feel earned with stakes and emotions. They have all of the different character dynamics that would form after the events of the original show. When Magneto is on Charles’ will, rightfully so all of the X-Men are hesitant about it. We see what characters side with Magneto do in their backstories. All of the episodes end on a cliffhanger that makes you want to see the next episode. Some of the cliffhangers are pretty shocking with what they do, the big one everybody was talking about would be episode five. From beginning to end, the show has stakes and you feel the danger of the threat. It seems like everybody was satisfied with what we got, I’m one of those I thought was great. I think it’s the best Disney+ original project that Marvel has done, I thought it was fantastic!

NOTE: Since I really liked this show, there wasn’t a bad episode in here. So even the ones towards the bottom were still solid and entertaining episodes. 

10. Motendo/LifeDeath: Part 1 (Episode 4): This episode squished two episodes of plot into one episode. I think because of that, this episode didn’t work and come together as well as some of the other episodes did. The first half is focused on Jubilee and Ronaldo getting stuck in this video game world. There’s a lot of fun that comes with that, they’re able to do stuff with the animation that’s very cool to watch. The second half follows on the Storm plot with Forge. We get some twists and turns as to what’s going on. I think both plots easily could have worked as their own episode. But I think squishing them into one episode hurts the overall quality. 

9. LifeDeath: Part 2 (Episode 6): This episode both resolves one of the plot lines from earlier in the season and sets up a new plot line. This episode resolves the stuff that’s been going on with Storm and Forge. There’s some great payoff as Storm gets her powers back, that entire sequence is handled very well. The episode also teases what’s been going on with Charles up in space and we get a lot of time with them. And setting up Charles’ arc for the rest of the season. Like episode four, I wish this episode was two episodes. It felt like they had two episodes worth of plot that they squished into one episode. That was a bit frustrating, I think this season easily could have been 13 episodes long and not 10. Like I said, this is still a good episode, it's just not fantastic. 

NOTE: When I was putting this list together, episodes four and six were easily at the bottom (still good). The rest of these episodes are all really good, all of them range from B+ to A level episodes. The order of these episodes could move around depending on the day. 

8. Fire Made Flesh (Episode 3): This was a very interesting and different episode, I mean all of that as a positive. It feels like a horror episode, where at one point all of our X-Men see their worst fears come to life. Through that, we get character development Especially with Jean Grey, they do some wild and crazy stuff with her character. You have emotional weight with the final choice that Cyclops and Jean have to make. You get the return of Mister Sinister and they do a really good job of making him sinister and this guy that you want to see taken out. This was a very cool episode. 

7. To Me, My X-Men (Episode 1): A great first episode of the show. It does a great job of picking up and continuing where the original show left off. That show did come to a satisfying conclusion, but they also did set up a new plot for a new season. This episode builds off of that while continuing the ideas explored in the original show. This episode makes Cyclops a great character, he’s kind of a badass in the episode. Watching him and Jean adapt to being the leaders of the X-Men. It ends on a great cliffhanger that sets up the rest of the season really nicely. Especially now that we’ve seen the entire season, this episode did a fantastic job of setting things up for the rest of the season. 

6. Mutant Liberation Begins (Episode 2): This episode very much picks up where episode one left off. There’s a lot of moving pieces in this episode, but all of them really worked for me. It really plays out the idea of Magneto being a good guy and how different fractions would respond. We get how the world would react to this information as well as the X-Men themselves. You get this big action sequence at the UN, which is a very cool sequence. It has stakes to it with what happens and the message that Magneto is to present. All of these pieces come together to make a great episode. 

5. Bright Eyes (Episode 7): I felt like this episode should have been episode six because it builds off of episode five. This episode explores what happened to the X-Men after episode five’s cliffhanger. We see Rogue in a very different place than what we’re used to seeing her. She’s angry, she’s mad, and she does things that the X-Men aren’t supposed to do. Even Morph says the line “is this what we are now”, you just feel this dread over from that moment onward. It also does a great job of setting up the three part season finale. They add in twists and turns, revealing what’s really going on. It does a great job of balancing being a continuation and setting up new episodes. This was another great episode of the show. 

4. Tolerance is Extinction: Part 2 (Episode 9): What I thought worked about is that it really did a great job of exploring the different character’s worldviews. Where you have Magneto set up an ultimatum for our X-Men, some choose to fight with him while others remain X-Men. The season up to this episode did a really good job of building the character relationships, we understand why they’re making certain choices. We get conflict between Cyclops and Professor X that feels earned and valid. You get a great cliffhanger that is rather dark that makes you wanna see episode 10. It balances all of this dark stuff with just enough humor. I loved the little call back to X-Men (2000), all around a pretty great episode. 

3. Tolerance is Extinction: Part 1 (Episode 8): This is the first part of the three part season finale. From beginning to end, you feel the danger and the threat of everything going on. They balance all of the main plot lines and characters present in this episode. Our new main villain is fleshed out, we see his back story and why he is the way that he is. They build up his master plan, so when it comes into fruition at the end of the episode you feel the danger and the threat that’s going to follow it. You get some fantastic character moments especially with Cable as he’s meeting his father. Wolverine and Nightcrawler’s action sequence is fantastic. Once again, the episode ends with a great cliffhanger. This is all around another fantastic episode. 

2. Remember It (Episode 5): I was a bit late to watching this episode, but man this episode was pretty great. This episode had a lot of moving pieces with what was going on. We have Magneto, Rogue, and Gambit head off to the Gneosha and we explore the politics of that. They finally flesh out the relationship between Magneto and Rogue, we see the heartbreak that it’s causing Rogue because of her feelings towards Gambit. Some of the stuff between Cyclops and Jean, as we understand how each of them are feeling after the events that happened with their kid. All of this columnates in this cliffhanger that is shocking, emotional, and I can’t believe that a kids show actually did what they did with this episode. All around, a pretty great episode of the show. 

1. Tolerance is Extinction: Part 3 (Episode 10): I thought this episode did a pretty fantastic job of closing out the season. These last three episodes were all built around Bastion and his evil scheme and this episode it all comes together. So we get our X-Men fighting Bastion for the fate of the world. There’s big action in here, while there’s also big emotional moments especially when we see the humanity of Cable through the conversation with Cyclops and Jean Grey. You feel that our X-Men are at danger throughout the episode. You’re on the edge of your seat as you’re in the back half of the episode and you know something bad is about to happen, but you don’t know what. The episode also ends with a cliffhanger that sets up season two wonderfully and I can’t wait for season two!