X-Men '97 Teases The Return Of An Infamous Marvel Villain In Season 3

Spoilers for "X-Men '97" Season 2, Episode 9, "Survival of the Fittest" follow.

Since Season 1 of "X-Men '97," many fans have been guessing that United Nations officer Valerie "Val" Cooper (Catherine Disher) is not what she appears to be. During the 1990s' "Muir Island Saga" in the "X-Men" comics, the shapeshifter Mystique/Raven Darkholme posed as Cooper. Fans theorized that the Val in "X-Men '97" is also Mystique, working undercover to sabotage the X-Men.

Season 1 did not bear that out, when Val turned out to be part of Bastion's (Theo James) anti-mutant Operation: Zero Tolerance. Sfter witnessing the genocide of Genosha, she repented, even declaring "Magneto was right" that mutants need to fight. But Val's portrayal in Season 2 renewed this speculation. She was now leading X-Factor, a government-sponsored team of mutants trying to keep mutants "safe" by locking them up. In Episode 6, "Danger.exe," Val fired Polaris (Carolina Ravassa) for going too hard on attacking the Purifiers, anti-mutant extremists. 

How does Val proclaiming "Magneto was right" square with her chastising Magneto's daughter to not become her father? Her actions in the "X-Men '97" Season 2 finale, setting X-Factor on a collision course with the X-Men, would also make sense as Mystique pitting enemies against each other. But "Survival of the Fittest" reveals that Mystique hasn't been impersonating Val Cooper ... until now.

A post-credits scene in "Survival of the Fittest" features Val in her office, when another Val walks in and her jaw drops. The Val in the office is Mystique (Randall Carpenter, another voice actor reprising her role from the original "X-Men" animated series), who then kills the real Val. This sets up Mystique as a major antagonist for "X-Men '97" Season 3, and one who can do a lot of damage from inside the U.S. government.

There's another key revelation at the end of "Survival of the Fittest" besides Mystique's reappearance. Earlier this season in "Strange Land, Savage Heart," it was revealed that anti-mutant activist Graydon Creed (Ben Prosky) is running for President. Now, he's won, perhaps leveraging sympathy and fearmongering from when Exodus and the Acolytes of Magneto kidnapped him in that aforementioned episode.

This post-credits scene also explains a preview clip for "X-Men '97" Season 3 screened at San Diego Comic Con, wherein the Brotherhood of Mutants (Pyro, Avalanche, Blob, Toad, and new recruit Surge) were fighting Sentinels. Mystique is the Brotherhood's leader, and with Creed in the White House, of course he recommissioned the Sentinel program. So, what else do these twists mean for Season 3?

The X-Men have lost a cautious ally in President Robert Kelly (Ron Rubin). It's worth noting that Kelly was once anti-mutant as well, like a more moderate Creed. Mystique and the Brotherhood even tried to assassinate Kelly back during the original series episode, "Days of Future Past." After the X-Men saved him from the Brotherhood and then rogue Sentinels, he turned over a new leaf. Kelly's betrayed former followers flocked to Creed as "The Friends of Humanity."

There's another important detail about Creed: he's the son of Mystique and her fellow mutant villain Sabretooth. He first hated mutants because he had two monstrous ones for parents. "Strange Land, Savage Heart" reminding us of Creed's connection to Mystique makes even more sense now that Mystique is back in the show. What's her goal? In Val's office, she's heard scoffing at a news broadcast announcing Creed's election. Perhaps she's planning another assassination to correct an unaddressed mistake of hers.

The "X-Men" movies got Mystique so, so wrong, depicting her first as a henchwoman and then as a hero, when she should be a cold-blooded master villain in her own right. This brief appearance in "X-Men '97" suggests the show will be honoring that. The show also has a chance to address another facet of Mystique the original show never could: her queerness.

In the "X-Men" comics written by Chris Claremont, Mystique's Brotherhood included a clairvoyant mutant named Destiny/Irene. Claremont saw Destiny and Mystique as lovers and the X-Man Nightcrawler's biological parents. (Raven shapeshifted into a man to get Irene pregnant.) But this being the 1980s, LGBTQ+ characters were still taboo, and Claremont had to settle for only coding Mystique and Destiny as lesbians. Times have changed, though, and nowadays Mystique and Destiny are explicitly written as lovers, with a 2023 comic even retconning in their shared parentage of Nightcrawler.

"X-Men: The Animated Series," which would've faced similar censorship as the comics, never included Destiny, but now "X-Men '97" can. The show may not make her Nightcrawler's mother, though, given that the classic "X-Men" already showed Mystique giving birth to Kurt. Plus, Nightcrawler (Adrian Hough) himself perished in "Survival of the Fittest." Mystique was never the most loving mother, having abandoned Nightcrawler in infancy, but could his death make her realize she loved him after all? Or will she see Kurt as weak for not killing his hateful half-brother, Graydon Creed, back in "Strange Land, Savage Heart"?

Mystique's return suggests that her other child, Rogue (Lenore Zann), is going to continue playing a central role in "X-Men '97" in Season 3. Just don't expect a happy mother-daughter reunion.

"X-Men '97" is streaming on Disney+, with Season 3 set to premiere in 2027.