Posted in: Disney+, Marvel, streaming, TV | Tagged: beau demayo, disney, X-Men '97

X-Men '97 Episode 5: Beau DeMayo Shares Personal, Heartfelt Insights

Marvel Studios' X-Men '97 writer/creator Beau DeMayo shared some personal & heartfelt insights into how Episode 5 "Remember It" came to be.

As Disney started to re-integrate the X-Men back into the Marvel fold since they acquired Fox in 2019, one of the first major projects announced was X-Men '97, a sequel series to the popular X-Men: The Animated Series of the 1990s with the bulk of the cast intact. While some like Chris Potter, Alyson Court, and Catherine Disher were cast in original roles, the remaining holdovers with Lenore Zann, Cal Dodd, George Buza, Alison Sealy-Smith, Adrian Hough, and Chris Britton reprising their roles of Rogue, Wolverine, Beast, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Mr. Sinister. A.J. LoCascio, Holly Chou, and Jennifer Hale took over the Potter, Court, and Disher roles of Gambit, Jubilee, and Jean Grey. At the center of it was the series creator/writer Beau DeMayo, taking the torch from TAS creators Mark Edward Edens, Sidney Iwanter, and Eric Lewald. In an unusual twist of events, Disney "parted ways" with DeMayo despite having two seasons ready to go before the series premiere. With the release of episode five, "Remember It," DeMayo took to social media to break down how it was key to get the series greenlit on Disney+, and the following contains MAJOR SPOILERS, so tread carefully…

X-Men '97 Creator Beau DeMayo's Statement How Episode 5 Led to Series Creation for Disney+

"Lotta questions and so I'll momentarily break silence to answer," DeMayo began. "Episode 5 was the centerpiece of my pitch to Marvel in November 2020. The idea being to have the X-Men mirror the journey that any of us who grew up on the original show have experience since being kids in the 90s. The world was a seeming safer place for us, where a character like Storm would comment on how skin-based racism was "quaint" in 'One Man's Worth.' For the most part, to our young minds, the world was a simple place of right and wrong, where questions about identity and social justice had relatively clear cut answers."

DeMayo would explain how 9/11 changed his life from the direct effects of the hijackings, his coming out, and how Roberto and Jubilee's stories parallel Cyclops and Jean's when it came to uncertainty. "Yes, it looked like Gambit's story was going a specific direction," he continued. "The crop top was chosen to make you love him. Him pulling off his shirt was intentional. There's a reason he told Rogue any fool would suffer her hand in a dance, even if it ended up not being him suffering. But if events like 9/11, Tulsa, Charlottesville, or Pulse Nightclub teach u, anything, it's that too many stories are often cut far too short. I partied at Pulse. It was my club. I have so many great memories of its awesome white lounge. It was, like Genosha, a safe space for me and everyone like me to dance and laugh and be free. I thought about this a lot when crafting this season and this episode, and how the gay community in Orlando to heal from that event."

The episode would end with Magneto (Matthew Waterson) presumably perishing with the group of mutants he was trying to protect, Gambit sacrificing himself to kill the three-headed sentinel using his power to kinetically charge it into oblivion, and Rogue holding his lifeless body in tears. X-Men '97 streams on Wednesdays on Disney+. You can check out the rest of DeMayo's statements below.

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