The X-Men have faced powerful enemies before. What makes Apocalypse different is timing.
Season 2 does not introduce En Sabah Nur when the team is united and ready for battle. Instead, the X-Men begin the new chapter fractured, grieving, and scattered across different points in time after the events of Season 1.
That setup gives the story an immediate emotional advantage. The threat is enormous, but the team is not operating at full strength.
The early critical response has been strongly positive. IGN’s Jesse Schedeen praised the season’s character drama and described it as both a love letter to the classic era of the franchise and an enjoyable story in its own right. Empire’s Amon Warmann called the new episodes fresh, exciting, and unpredictable, while RogerEbert.com’s Kaiya Shunyata argued that the series has become a more complex and refined version of itself.
The season currently holds a 97% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes from 38 reviews, with the consensus praising its animation, emotion, nostalgia, and storytelling.
Apocalypse Isn’t Just Attacking The World
He’s attacking the team.
The fallout from Gambit’s death still hangs over the story. The X-Men remain separated, trust has been damaged, and relationships are strained. Apocalypse enters that instability and turns it into another weapon.
TVLine’s Andy Swift, who awarded the season an A, praised its emotional and action-heavy exploration of Apocalypse while noting how effectively it handles multiple timelines and a large ensemble. ComicBook.com’s Simon Gallagher similarly described the first four episodes as a strong continuation that delivers a satisfying Apocalypse story without abandoning the character-driven approach that made the first season work.
The result feels less like a standard superhero conflict and more like a pressure test for the entire team. Can the X-Men still function as a family when every member is carrying a different kind of grief?
That question gives the season more weight than simply asking who can defeat the villain.
Feral Wolverine Could Be The Season’s Most Unsettling Storyline
Apocalypse may be the season’s central threat, but Wolverine is one of the characters attracting particular attention.
The Season 2 material teases a more feral version of Logan, and the idea works because Wolverine is already dangerous when he is fully in control of himself. A Logan operating primarily on instinct creates a problem that brute strength cannot easily solve.
The early reviews do not suggest that the season treats this transformation as a simple upgrade. Instead, the feral version of Wolverine raises questions about identity, restraint, and whether the team can trust one of its most important members.
That fits the larger concerns of X-Men ’97. The series has always been interested in what happens when power strips away the parts of a person that make them human. Wolverine’s storyline gives that theme a particularly violent form.
The Show Still Understands What Makes X-Men Work
The strongest reviews have not focused only on the scale of the action. They have also praised the way Season 2 continues to balance spectacle with character drama.
Collider’s Aidan Kelley highlighted the season’s comic-book visuals and described its action sequences as consistently impressive. Polygon’s Jake Kleinman wrote that the animation, action, and voice acting remain as colorful and dynamic as they were in Season 1, with no obvious drop in quality.
At the same time, TVLine’s Andy Swift pointed to the show’s ability to slow down and give its characters room to deal with existential crises, romantic complications, and shifting loyalties. That balance is essential for a series with such a crowded cast.
The powers bring viewers in. The emotional baggage keeps them watching.
Grief, identity, sacrifice, responsibility, and the fear of losing control remain central to the story. The X-Men are not simply reacting to Apocalypse. They are dealing with the consequences of their own choices and the losses that have reshaped them.
Apocalypse Finally Gets The Story He Deserves
One of the most encouraging details in the early reaction is the praise for Apocalypse himself.
The live-action X-Men: Apocalypse left many fans disappointed, particularly because the character’s enormous comic-book reputation was not matched by the film’s execution. Season 2 appears to approach the villain with a better understanding of what makes him frightening: his ideology, his scale, and his ability to challenge the X-Men psychologically as well as physically.
IGN’s Jesse Schedeen specifically argued that X-Men ’97 delivers a story worthy of Apocalypse, while GamesRadar+’s Lauren Milici said the animated series handles the character better than the 2016 live-action film.
That is an important distinction. Apocalypse works best when he is more than another powerful enemy waiting to be punched. He represents a worldview that forces the X-Men to question their own beliefs about survival, evolution, strength, and humanity.
Season 2 appears to understand that conflict.
Marvel’s Mutant Future Feels Much Closer
The arrival of Apocalypse also comes at an interesting moment for Marvel’s wider mutant plans.
The MCU’s future continues to generate speculation about the X-Men, mutant politics, Sentinels, and the eventual integration of more classic characters into the cinematic universe. Projects such as Avengers: Doomsday have only increased interest in how Marvel might approach its mutant mythology in live action.
X-Men ’97 does not need to directly set up those stories. Its value is that it demonstrates why the X-Men remain so important in the first place.
The series can deliver enormous action while still treating its characters as damaged, complicated people. It can use alternate timelines and cosmic threats without losing the emotional relationships at the center of the team.
And based on the reviews from IGN, Empire, TVLine, Collider, RogerEbert.com, and ComicBook.com, Season 2 appears to be expanding that formula rather than abandoning it.
There are still nine episodes to consider in full, and not every review is completely uncritical. Collider’s Aidan Kelley noted that several major characters, including Wolverine, Storm, and Rogue, have surprisingly little to do in the first four episodes, raising questions about how the season will balance its enormous ensemble.
But the early response is clear enough. X-Men ’97 Season 2 is not simply making Apocalypse bigger. It is using him to make the entire team more vulnerable, more divided, and more emotionally exposed.
