The newest episode of X-Men ’97 subtly included a big villain, and most viewers probably didn’t even notice! This hidden detail sets up a surprising twist that’s been in the works for over two decades.
The latest episode of X-Men ’97, titled ‘Danger.exe,’ centers around Polaris joining forces with the X-Men again and fighting Danger – an artificial intelligence gone rogue after a problem in the Danger Room. While viewers were excited to finally see Danger appear, there’s another, even more well-known villain secretly at work.
A significant villain from the past is secretly returning in X-Men ’97, and no one seems to realize it yet.
X-Men ’97 Just Stealth-Introduced Mystique
Right away, in one of the episode’s first scenes, Polaris meets with Valerie Cooper who is giving her a talking-to. While Cooper speaks, Polaris absentmindedly strokes a ginger cat with a distinctive diamond shape on its forehead – and I strongly suspect that cat is actually Mystique disguised! Here’s my reasoning.
In 2000, Marvel relaunched the X-Men comic book series with Ultimate X-Men, a fresh start set in the present day. Professor X had a marmalade cat with a diamond-shaped marking on its head, which seemed like a normal pet. However, in issue #32 of Ultimate X-Men, written by Mark Millar and illustrated by Adam Kubert, Charles Xavier surprisingly revealed the cat’s name: Mystique.
Mystique hadn’t been introduced in this version of the story yet, so this comic strongly suggested she was secretly hiding at Xavier’s School – disguised as an unassuming animal while waiting for the right moment to act.
There were plans for something that ultimately didn’t come to fruition, but it’s obvious X-Men ’97 is using a similar approach. The parallels are too precise and the specifics too unusual for it to be a coincidence.
Mystique Is Secretly Controlling X-Factor?
As a long-time X-Men fan, it totally clicked when Mystique showed up with Cooper’s X-Factor team in X-Men ’97. It’s a smart move because in the comics, she actually led a team very much like this one – a government-funded mutant group also run by Cooper, called Freedom Force. And things get even more interesting because later on, she was strong-armed into working against X-Factor, even though she didn’t want to. It’s great to see them pulling from that history!
Given how X-Men ’97 is blending classic storylines from the comics, it’s logical that they’re bringing Mystique into the X-Factor world—it feels long overdue! Now fans are wondering what she’s really doing at the government team’s headquarters when she isn’t disguised as a cat.
Mystique was in the original ’90s X-Men cartoon, but she hasn’t appeared in the new X-Men ’97 series. Now that Magneto has left the show, X-Men ’97 needs a strong leader, and Mystique is arriving just when they need her.
Marvel Finally Has a Chance to Pay Off Its Wasted Twist
The new show X-Men ’97 is cleverly using the idea that Mystique can transform into a cat, which will be especially rewarding for longtime fans. Previous versions, like Ultimate X-Men, hinted at this connection but never fully explored it. Writers Millar and Kubert had planned to reveal this detail, but they left the series before they could. When new writers Vaughan and Immonen took over Ultimate X-Men, they created a different version of Mystique without acknowledging the cat storyline.
The origin of the cat’s name was explained in Ultimate X-Men Annual #2, written by Robert Kirkman with art by Leinil Francis Yu. It turns out the cat was named after a villain as a pointed joke! In the Ultimate Marvel universe, Xavier and Mystique used to date, but he ended things for Emma Frost. Angered, Mystique vandalized his office. Years later, when Xavier and Frost’s new kitten caused similar destruction, Frost sarcastically suggested naming it after her rival, Mystique.
It was enjoyable watching the early episodes, even though that storyline didn’t end up being important. But after Marvel first introduced Mystique as a hidden agent over twenty-six years ago, it would be incredibly rewarding if X-Men ’97 finally explores and delivers on that original concept.
X-Men ’97 is available to watch now on Disney+.
2026-07-22 18:49