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When X-Men ‘97 premiered on Disney+, we didn’t have a thought in our minds that we’d be touching on it here at Soaps.com. Actually, that’s not entirely true. Because those of us who are fans of comic books and soap operas, have always known there are a ton of overlaps. Good guys, bad guys, villains, romance, boat loads of drama, stories continuing on fordecades— yeah, there’s a lot they have in common.
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But X-Men ‘97 has kicked those similarities into overdrive to the point that by the end of the brutal episode five, “Remember It,” fans were outright calling it a soap. And lucky for us, Marvel Entertainment and Disney+ leaned into the idea and gave us the brilliantly pitch perfect trailer, X-Men ‘97: Days of Our Future Past! (Get it? Days of Our Lives and one of the X-Men’s most famous storylines/movies, Days of Future Past? Yeah, you get it.)
Honestly, after watching the Genosha massacre, we kind of needed something light and fluffy. Check it out below!
Heck, the first three episodes alone were crazy soap opera! (And a super condensed version of Madelyne Pryor’s story.) The series starts about a year after the original X-Men animated series ended, with Jean Grey pregnant with her and Scott’s (Cyclops) son. That’s all well and good, but shortly after she gives birth to little Nathan, everyone learns that she’s actually Jean’s clone, given the real Jean’s memories by supervillain Mister Sinister for, well, sinister purposes.
This all kicks off when the real Jean shows up on the X-Men’s doorstep just in time to coincide with Mister Sinister activating Clone Jean to kidnap her and Scott’s newborn baby. Sinister then infects the poor kid with a techno virus, forcing his parents to send him into the future with Bishop to save him. (And become the time traveling Cable, natch.)
Need to catch your breath yet? Don’t worry, there’s more.
Like any good soap, things get messy whenever there’s a pregnancy.
Credit: Courtesy of Marvel Animation
Back in the present, meanwhile, after Clone Jean breaks free of Sinister’s control (and the whole supervillain, leather Goblin Queen look), she renames herself Madelyne Pryor and runs off to start a new life in mutant haven Genosha. Well, kind of a new life, since she has a psychic affair with Cyclops while he and the real Jean are trying to reconnect. That was actually kind of a surprise, though, mainly since the psychic affair happens between Emma Frost and Cyclops in the comics…
Then there’s Jean’s own confusion about her feelings after stepping back into her life, sorting through her messed up memories and coming to terms with the fact that Cyborg was clueless that he was sleeping with an imposter. That pushes Jean to kiss Wolverine, which is probably more familiar X-Men love triangle fare that even casual fans know about.
And that just about sums up the trailer!
Rogue and Magneto’s Age of Apocalypse relationship was not something we were expecting.
Credit: Disney+
But that trailer didn’t even touch on the Magneto/Rogue/Gambit triangle! When Magneto takes over the X-Men, Rogue picks up a romance with him, since his magnetic powers allow her to touch him without draining him with her powers. That breaks Gambit’s heart, right up until Rogue tells Magneto she can’t be with him… which is kind of undercut when both men in her life die in the Genosha attack.
Still, we wouldn’t hold our breaths on them staying dead. Just like with soap operas, in comic books, death tends not to stick — for good guys or bad guys. Professor X/Charles Xavier is certainly alive and kicking after his supposed death at the end of the original X-Men. But then, we pretty much figured that when he was taken by the Shi’ar. Regardless, it’s nice to see him back in action as of episode six!
That’s either Stefan or Tony Stark. It could honestly go either way.
Credit: NBC screenshot
And hey, maybe leaning into the Days of Our Lives thing is perfect, since the soap has its own mad scientist, Dr. Rolf, who brings people back from the dead with startling ease. (He once kept Stefan DiMera in stasis for four years without a heart, and then revived him when his identical twin Jake died and unwittingly donated his heart.)
That brings us to another thing Days has — or, sadly, had — its own Phoenix. (Though admittedly without Jean’s powers.) Supervillain Stefano DiMera (Stefan’s dad) was dubbed The Phoenix after returning from the dead a startling amount of times. The only reason he’s not around anymore is because his portrayer, sadly, passed away. And even after that, he came back in a way when a microchip containing his mind and his “essence” was implanted into poor Steve “Patch” Johnson. That’s a kind of techno virus, right?
Oh, Stefano was also very fond of brainwashing people. Like, all the time.
Credit: Paul Smith/JPI
Also, Cyclops sleeping with and falling in love with an exact duplicate of his actual love, Jean, does sound a whole lot like daytime TV’s tendency to break out evil twins. But Days of Our Lives has taken that even further since several times they’ve mentioned multiple Marlena clones existing. (Courtesy of Dr. Rolf and the late Stefano.)
They still haven’t explained what that’s about or if we’ll ever see the longtime heroine’s dopplegängers. Oh! Maybe a young version will pop up and get pregnant with husband John’s baby!
As StellarAvenger put it in the comments of the Days of Our Future Past video, “I’m glad they’re playing into the soap opera-ness of the X-Men because those relationships were hella messy.” Amen.
Want supervillains? Soap operas have plenty, and we’ve got a photo gallery full of them below.
