Talking about X-Men, throughout comics and movies, only one man has been known to be the leader of the mutant team, Professor Charles Xavier. Now, if you watched X-Men: The Animated Series you probably know that the series ended with the death of Professor X. X-Men ’97 starts right after Professor X passes away and most of the world has gradually grown hostile toward mutants. However, X-Men ’97 brought us something none of us expected. After the professor’s death, we all thought that Cyclops would become the new leader of X-Men but it turns out that Xavier chose an unexpected new leader for the team before he died.
Spoiler Warning: This article contains spoilers for X-Men’97 Episode 1 and Episode 2.
Who Is the New Leader of the X-Men?
By the end of the first episode of X-Men ’97, we see that Magneto makes his appearance, and as it turns out before Xavier passed away, he wrote a will where he gave everything he had to Magneto. This means that all of Xavier’s money, the school, and even the team of X-Men, now belongs to Magneto. However, even though Magneto presents as if he has had a change of heart, none of the X-Men believe him and despise his leadership. As time passes, they see that Magneto does not kill humans anymore and is solely focused on defending mutants from being harmed.
Even though Magneto seems to have changed, the history between the X-Men and Magneto prevents them from trusting him completely. Soon enough, after Magneto starts appearing on TV he is called upon by the United Nations for a trial addressing his crimes against humanity. Where Magneto argues that just like humans created machines to kill or neutralize mutants for their protection, Magneto was trying to do the same for Mutants.
However, in the middle of the trial, a masked man calling himself “X-Cutioner” tries to hit Magneto with a laser to drain his powers but Storm comes in between and loses her powers. This angers Magneto and he takes the jury and X-Cutioner to outer space and explains to them that if he wants he can kill this man who has taken away Storm’s powers but he will choose the ways of his late friend Charles Xavier and spare his life. After this, the jury pardons Magneto and he finally wins the trust of the X-Men and becomes their leader.
So now, Magneto is the new leader of X-Men in X-Men ’97 and it seems that he has had a change of heart. However, as the series unfolds further no one knows what will happen next so let’s see if this good version of Magneto stays or is there something sinister behind all of this. We’ll have to wait for more episodes of X-Men ’97 for it.
