Although this is the first time the creator of the X-Men series has spoken since his firing, he breaks his silence to explain his intentions with the shocking recent episode.
[MAJOR SPOILERS FOR X-MEN ’97 EPISODE 5, “REMEMBER IT,” ARE IN THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE]
While Marvel Studios is struggling in the live-action department, Marvel Animation is currently captivating fans with its very nostalgic continuation of the 90s X-Men animated series that would broadcast every Saturday morning on the Fox Kids Network. X-Men ’97 has brought back the drama that kids used to get entangled in every week. The cartoon adaptation had the distinction of showing not only the struggles of mutants desperately trying to be accepted in a world that has shown a lot of hostility toward them but also the internal struggles of the team in a very soap opera-like manner.
X-Men ’97 is seemingly praised all around for successfully recapturing those themes and sentiments. However, as much as the show tries to emulate the era of the original, the revival series creator, Beau DeMayo, who encountered his own drama when Marvel let him go, had a big play up his sleeve to emulate a devastating turn for the world when the 90s ended and the new millennium began. Entertainment Weekly reports on DeMayo breaking his silence to address the newest episode, “Remember It.”
MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW
DeMayo explained, “Episode 5 was the centerpiece of my pitch to Marvel in November 2020. The idea being to have the X-Men mirror the journey that any of us who grew up on the original show have experienced since being kids in the 90s.” The impact that DeMayo chose to capture was the devastation of September 11th and the major shift in society after those events. “Things weren’t so safe anymore. Grassroots populist movements began to rise around the world as a whole nation struggled to deal with collective trauma and fracture at the seams of every diverse demographic. The effects we still feel today, and have only been exacerbated by more collective traumas like COVID or several recessions.”
So, to hammer home the feeling, DeMayo conceived of an episode that featured an attack on mutant haven Genosha which would claim the lives of important X-Men characters Gambit and Magneto. DeMayo states, “Yes, it looked like Gambit’s story was going a specific direction. The crop top was chosen to make you love him. Him pulling off his shirt was intentional. There’s a reason he told Rogue any fool would suffer her hand in a dance, even if it ended up not being him suffering. But if events like 9/11, Tulsa, Charlottesville, or Pulse Nightclub teach us anything, it’s that too many stories are often cut far too short. I partied at Pulse. It was my club. I have so many great memories of its awesome white lounge. It was, like Genosha, a safe space for me and everyone like me to dance and laugh and be free. I thought about this a lot when crafting this season and this episode, and how the gay community in Orlando rose to heal from that event.”
DeMayo decided to break his silence after he was publicly fired from the show, but he would devote his entire attention on his intentions with this episode. “Like many of us who grew up on the OG cartoon, the X-Men have now been hit hard by the realities of an adult and unsafe world.”