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Interview: ‘X-Men: The Animated Series’ Director/Producer Larry Houston Talks Season 2 of ‘X-Men ‘97’ and the Comic Storylines He’d Like to See Adapted in Future Seasons

June 29, 2026Ben MK




As far as animated shows are concerned, it doesn't get much more iconic and influential than X-Men: The Animated Series. A staple of Saturday morning cartoon programming during the mid '90s, Marvel's second attempt at a standalone X-Men show is to television viewers what Jim Lee's legendary reboot of the Children of the Atom's issue-to-issue adventures is to comic book readers. Often credited with introducing the X-Men to a new generation of fans, X-Men: The Animated Series received a long-overdue follow-up in 2024 with X-Men '97, a show that picked up right where its predecessor ended, triggering a new wave of nostalgia for those who grew up with the original series. And now, with X-Men '97 season two, that nostalgia is back, as Professor X, Magneto and the X-Men face off against their greatest and most unbeatable foe — Apocalypse.

I caught up with X-Men: The Animated Series' director and producer Larry Houston to chat about season two of X-Men '97, for which he also serves as executive producer, as well as to find out about his favorite episodes from both shows, this season's Easter eggs, his favorite X-Men character, and more.

X-Men: The Animated Series was such an influential show. It's left its mark on the films and comics that came after, as well as the medium in general. But can you speak about the influence of the original series — specifically, storylines, episodes, or characters — on season two of X-Men '97?

Houston: The crew of people who are doing '97 are all fans of the original series, which I'm happy they were. And they understood what we were trying to do in the beginning, which was to do a faithful adaptation of the books and put it on the screen. Because I knew that there are fans out there who want that type of storyline. And at that point, in 1992, nobody had done that before. So, my show was the first one that showed people how to do it, how to do it correctly. And all those people working in production are all fans of my original show — they respect what I did, and they are also comic book fans. I'm a fan boy, and they are too. So we got fan boys and fan girls working on '97, and they are making the adventures feel like a comic book that could have been printed. They're original episodes, but they're adaptations of different storylines. It feels like great escapism.

The original series dealt with so many storylines, and season one of X-Men '97 felt like an appropriate continuation of that. What can viewers expect from season two, in terms of storytelling?

Houston: We have a major bad guy called Apocalypse, that, when we did the original series, we had no backstory [for]. He's just a bad guy. That's all we had. In season two, they're exploring this major bad guy by going to the past and the future, showing how this character came to be, and also, his nemesis, Cable. And so, that's what's gonna be explored a lot in season two, to try and give us an idea of why. Why is [Apocalypse] doing this? And how did he become so powerful? And how do the X-Men stop him? Because he's the one character, at least in my series, that the X-Men could never defeat. I even have a scene where Apocalypse, in my series, kills all the X-Men. It was a two-part time travel thing — so in part one, he kills the X-Men; and in part two, things happen a little differently, so he doesn't kill them all. But he's always been the ultimate bad guy that you just had to outthink. You can't overpower him. And so, in X-Men '97, they explore that aspect of who he is and what he can do.

In the original series, you were responsible for a lot of the Easter Eggs in the various episodes. Are there any Easter Eggs in X-Men '97 season two that viewers should be on the lookout for?

Houston: There are some. I mean, Morph is an Easter Egg animal. Morph can turn into so many characters. You think that it's this character and then, oh, it's Morph again. But there are gonna be some more legitimate Easter Eggs. You know, like Captain America was in the show; Cloak and Dagger was in the show. So there's gonna be some more of that happening. Which I can't tell you, but it's coming.

If you had to pick one favorite episode from season two of X-Men '97, one from season one, and one from the entire run of the original series, what would they be?

Houston: In season one of '97, it would be the Gambit episode. That was a really strong and powerful episode from season one of '97. There is a favorite coming up in season two that I really enjoyed — I think it's [episode] eight. From my original series, my favorite episode was season one, the last episode called "The Final Decision." Because at that time, I didn't have a season two. That was it, that was my last shot to do anything X-Men, so I creatively put the kitchen sink into that episode — redrawing, rewriting, doing a lot of stuff, because I figured that's it, that was gonna be my last shot at doing anything X-Men. So besides "The Phoenix Saga" that I did, "The Final Decision," episode 13 in season one — that's my favorite episode from that series.

Likewise, you've helped bring to the small screen so many iconic X-Men characters, not to mention their various allies and enemies. Which of those characters is your favorite?

Houston: I would say that it's Cyclops, because when I was a young kid in elementary school, I picked up the X-Men book and it had this guy — he was called Scott "Slim" Summers. He had no muscles, but he had glasses, and he could blow a hole in walls. And I was a little kid wearing glasses, and I imagined I could do the same thing. That's the character that drew me into the X-Men. He was an orphan, I was raised by a single mom, so there are a lot of things that drew me to that character. That's what got me started, was Cyclops.

Last but not least, Marvel Television Head Brad Winderbaum recently revealed that thee are two more seasons of X-Men '97 are in the works. What direction would you like to see the show go in — for example, what comic storylines would you personally like to see adapted in future seasons?

Houston: After my series, there's like twenty plus years of new stories that they could adapt and run with. You got Onslaught and everything going on. There's the Krakoa stuff, the two different islands and everything. So, there's a ton of stuff to explore. For me, personally, I think if you could do a flashback episode, I'd love to do something with Krakoa, because that's the issue that created the new X-Men from the beginning. You have the new X-Men team saving the old X-Men team. But you got so many other stories.
X-Men '97: Season Two premieres July 1st, exclusively on Disney Plus.




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