Marvel Studios has confirmed that the remake of Days of Future Past will be released in 2026, and the story that inspired it spans 45 years. Days of Future Past began as a two-issue comic book in 1981 and evolved into one of the most frequently retold stories in X-Men history—a time-travel saga that presented fans with a shattered future and a desperate quest to change it. Fox had already adapted the story for the screen, and the 1990s X-Men animated series told its own version several years earlier. Now, the animated remake, which will continue the storyline, plans to reimagine the concept on its own terms.
X-Men '97 returns for its second season on July 1, and the premiere episode clearly demonstrates its connection to the classic story. The first episode is titled "Days of Future Past," a direct retelling of the classic story's title. The official synopsis outlines the season's central predicament: Forge and Bishop devise a plan to save the X-Men after the team is scattered across time.
Season one ended with the X-Men scattered across time, and season two begins with the group stranded in the distant future of 3960 A.D.: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Wolverine, and Morph are there, and Forge arrives to take them home. The episode also reunites Cyclops and Jean with young Nathan Summers, the boy who would grow up to become Cable, giving them a rare opportunity to be parents before he is tasked with stopping Apocalypse.
This storyline is inspired by the mid-'90s miniseries "The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix," which follows a couple raising Nathan in the distant future. It's just part of a much larger story. A second group of X-Men, including Professor X, Magneto, Rogue, Nightcrawler, and Beast, find themselves in ancient Egypt in 3000 BC, where they encounter the mutant who later becomes Apocalypse. Returning to the 1990s, the remaining heroes face new enemies and a growing tide of anti-mutant hatred.
How X-Men '97 Turns Days of Future Past's Plot On Its Head.
The title change is the first hint that this season is adapting the original concept in reverse. In both the comics and the film, the X-Men send a single intelligence back in time to prevent a single event and erase a dystopian future before it even happens. In season two, it's the opposite. The team is already fragmented, the damage has been done, and the mission boils down to returning everyone home to the 1990s, not rewriting a moment in the past.
In a 1981 comic by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Rachel Summers sends the mind of an aged Kitty Pryde back to her youth to warn the team from the present. The 2014 film, directed by Bryan Singer, used the same technique with Wolverine, whose regeneration factor allowed his mind to survive the trip to 1973. In X-Men '97, the mind swap is completely omitted. Forge creates a time-travel device, and he and Bishop use it to reach their teammates scattered across different eras.
The villains in X-Men season two also differ from those in the comics and the film. In Days of Future Past, the horror centered on the Sentinels—the mutant-hunting machines that wiped out most of the X-Men. In the film, that future is entrusted to Bolivar Trask, a scientist whose death at the hands of Mystique and her subsequent capture gave the government both the reason and the means to create the invincible Sentinels.
The comic also focused on Mystique's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and their plot to assassinate Senator Robert Kelly. In the second season, all of this shifts to the story of Apokolips, who appears in two guises over his long life: as a young En Sabah Nur in Ancient Egypt and as the immortal ruler of his future empire.
The second season of X-Men '97 takes on a much broader scope. The original comics and the 2014 film only moved between two timelines: a dystopian near future and a single point in the past. In contrast, the second season divides the cast into three distinct eras, following various teams in Ancient Egypt, the 1990s, and 3960 CE.
Many of the same characters appear in all of these adaptations, as Wolverine, Professor X, Magneto, Storm, and Bishop play prominent roles in both the older versions and this new series. However, the animated remake features a much broader cast, devoting significant screen time to Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, Beast, Rogue, and Jubilee.
The original X-Men animated series comes full circle.
There's another nuance here that longtime fans will appreciate. X-Men '97 continues the plot of X-Men: The Animated Series from the 1990s, which had already adapted the "Days of Future Past" story in two parts. That version had one significant change. Instead of Kitty Pryde, the role of the time traveler was given to Bishop, and he traveled through time entirely, not just mentally.
This story turns the second season into a clever throwback. The same bishop now leads a brand-new time-traveling rescue mission, and the premiere borrows the title of the old story but turns it on its head. The original series chronicled the hunt for a traitor whose actions doomed the future, ultimately revealing that Mystique had been impersonating Gambit to frame the team for Senator Kelly's murder. Season two retains this time-traveling spirit, but directs it toward a completely different problem.
The second season's plot certainly represents a larger twist, and its chosen direction makes it far more intriguing. Instead of a tense race to prevent a single murder, the new season uses a disjointed timeline to tell multiple stories simultaneously and delve deeper into Apocalypse as a person, rather than simply a villain bent on destruction.
Watching Xavier and Magneto stand alongside a young En Sabah Nur, fully aware of what he'll become, is a situation that will truly test the X-Men's moral compass. Marvel Studios is developing its own adaptation of Days of Future Past, and it looks fantastic. Instead of retreading familiar comic book and film storylines, the studio is taking a larger, more epic approach, centered on one of Marvel's greatest villains.