X-Men ’97 Cast Discusses Season Finale Love Triangle

X-Men: The Animated Series meant a lot to many people. The breakthrough cartoon from the 1990s featured complex storylines marketed to children, with thoughtful messages about prejudice and being different that were not watered down for a younger audience. One of the kids it left an impact on was Ross Marquand, an actor from The Walking Dead and Avengers: Infinity War who now plays Professor X and Apocalypse on X-Men ‘97.

“X-Men: The Animated Series is quite literally the reason why I became an actor,” Marquand tells Polygon. “People look at me kind of cockeyed when I say that, but I mean it. That was such a seminal show for me as a kid because I was bullied a lot. I was super nerdy. I was in Boy Scouts. I was in theater. I was watching X-Men and getting into comics and everything.”

Marquand points to season 1, episode 6, titled “Cold Vengeance,” in which Wolverine heads to Alaska to clear his head and befriends a local tribe. Sabertooth eventually arrives, prompting Wolverine to lament, “There’s no peace for me. Not even here.” That specific line stuck with Marquand.

“As a 12-year-old going through puberty, getting picked on all the time, I resonated so much with that line and with that character,” he says. “After I watched that whole season and watched the show, I was like, ‘That’s what I wanna do. I want to do stories like this.'”

Using X-Men: The Animated Series as a template, X-Men ‘97 has continued the original story and taken it to new heights. This is especially evident during the season 2 finale of X-Men ‘97, which delivers a conclusion to the show’s Apocalypse plotline while taking the story in surprising and emotionally devastating directions. Ahead of the finale, Polygon spoke with Marquand, Lenore Zann, who voices Rogue, and Adrian Hough, who voices Nightcrawler, to gather the cast’s thoughts on four major moments from the season and its conclusion.

Warning: Full spoilers ahead for X-Men ‘97 season 2.

1. The philosophical battle between Professor X and Apocalypse

At the beginning of X-Men ‘97 season 2, Professor X and a few other mutants travel back in time to meet a young En Sabah Nur before he becomes Apocalypse. This event culminates in the brutal murder of Magneto. When Professor X and Apocalypse have their showdown in the season 2 finale, the conflict has been thousands of years in the making. Just as he did in ancient Egypt, Apocalypse tells Professor X that his compassion for his students will spell his defeat.

“Obviously, this is echoing episode four, where Apocalypse lays down the gauntlet and says, ‘We’ve done this dance so many times. Your Achilles heel has always been your love for your students and your willingness to put others before yourself,'” Marquand says.

I infused a bit of Jesse Ventura into the voice.

This may seem like classic supervillain goading, but the actor does not see it that way.

“That’s always been Professor X’s ethos, and it will ultimately be the thing that will cause his demise,” he says. “There is a lot of truth to that. Apocalypse is basically saying, ‘You always think you can save the world through empathy and through caring, but the reality is, I am here to show you that is all inherently wrong, and you will feel the taste of my wrath once this is all over.”

2. Playing two roles as one

Performing both sides of that conflict posed a real challenge for Marquand, who explains how he initially played Professor X and Apocalypse as two sides of the same mutant coin before splitting them into distinct roles:

“It’s so haunting, and it was weird going back and forth between those two voices because, obviously, they’re very different sounds, but more importantly, they’re very different energies. At first, when we were doing that, I was trying to go back and forth like I was talking to myself, but it was just sounding weird. It was too much of a linguistic hurdle, but also a mental hurdle because, if you want to do it right, you really have to take a moment, recenter yourself, and do each voice individually, which is what we ended up doing.

“I think that was the way to go because then you feel the malice and the pain and the genuine loathing quality of Apocalypse, who believes he is inherently better than everyone around him. Whereas Professor X is very much of the mind that everyone deserves a fighting chance in this life; we have to work together; we have to take care of each other. And Apocalypse is not on board with that ethos at all.”

To get the voice of Apocalypse right, Marquand channeled the performance of the late John Colicos from the original series and also turned to another inspiration.

“I infused a bit of Jesse Ventura into the voice,” Marquand says. “I grew up listening to Jesse and watching Jesse on WWF and I worked with him on a movie almost 20 years ago. I listened to Jesse all the time and he had these great stories about being a Navy SEAL in Vietnam. And, even after his words were done, they would resonate. There was an auditory warble to his voice.”

Marquand fused that sound with the Shakespearean quality Colicos brought to the role, along with a slight tinge of metal bands like Nine-Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, and Cannibal Corpse.

3. Rogue and Gambit (and Magneto)

Rogue experiences a full-circle moment in the X-Men ’97 season 2 finale when the man she loves, Gambit, played by A. J. LoCascio, returns from the dead and is rid of Apocalypse’s influence. It marks a reunion fans have awaited since Rogue chose Magneto, played by Matthew Waterson, over Gambit in season 1, prior to Gambit’s death in the attack on Genosha. Rogue’s decision had precedent in the comics, but it surprised her long-time voice actor, Lenore Zann.

“When I first read about [Rogue and Magneto] in the scripts, I was not aware of the fact that they had had this thing happen in their past lives,” Zann says. “When I realized, Okay, well, it’s, it’s in the comics, I realized this would give a little bit of spice to Rogue’s sugar. I figured the fans wouldn’t be particularly happy, but it’s a story. If everything just was all simple and Rogue and Remy just got together and they got married and they could touch and everything, it would be boring. So I figured this’ll keep people on their toes and get them talking. Sure enough, it did.”

Now that Gambit and Rogue are reunited, Zann says their relationship may be stronger than ever. “Rogue feels that Remy is her soulmate. She realizes that in episode five of season 1.”

According to Zann, Rogue chose Magneto not just because she could touch him, but because she wanted to help build up Genosha as a place where mutants were accepted. After the scene where Magneto and Rogue dance together, the character realizes she belongs with Gambit.

Rogue feels that Remy is her soulmate.

“Remy was right,” she says. “Some things are deeper than skin. She realizes it’s not all about touch. It’s about what’s deeper than that — the love that you feel for somebody deep inside. She’s about ready to fly to Remy’s side and then, bang, all, all hell breaks loose with the Genosha genocide.”

Gambit and Rogue are together again, but the resolution comes at a price.

4. Nightcrawler’s sacrifice

Despite appearing in only two episodes of X-Men: The Animated Series, actor Adrian Hough says the role stayed with him. Years before X-Men ‘97 entered production, he brought it up during auditions for other animation jobs.

“Even five, six years ago, I said to my voice agent, ‘Look, there’s this big animation job coming into town, can you just tell him I was Nightcrawler in the original X-Men?’ And he says, very flatly over the phone, ‘Nobody cares about a 25-year-old cartoon,’” Hough says with a laugh. “Then, two years ago, I get this kind of sheepish email from him saying, ‘Adrian, you might recognize these lines. Can you please read them out?’ And it’s all the lines from the Nightcrawler episode. So I got my little mic out and read them all out and, turns out, we’re back 30 years later.”

Nightcrawler has several memorable moments over the past two seasons of X-Men ‘97, largely due to the character’s religious and spiritual traits.

“If ever there’s anything sort of philosophical or soulful, it’s like, Okay, let’s give it to Nightcrawler,” Hough says.

Hough’s 30-year journey with Nightcrawler may now be complete. At the end of the season 2 finale, he makes a deal with a Celestial, sacrificing his own life so the X-Men can defeat Apocalypse. This occurs after Rogue makes a similar deal, meaning Nightcrawler takes his fellow X-Men’s place to give Gambit and Rogue a chance to be together.

“You don’t like to see that when you come and read a script,” Hough says. “Oh, my character’s going to make this ultimate sacrifice and go into the void? So yeah, I mean, I just went there and did my job.”

Death is rarely permanent in the X-Men universe, but when asked about the possibility of Nightcrawler’s return, Hough says, “I don’t know. That’s not in my hands. That’s in the hands of the writers and directors.”

Hough may simply be keeping secrets, and Nightcrawler could return. More than 30 years after X-Men: The Animated Series debuted, fans still care about its characters, leaving room for further stories to be told with Nightcrawler.

X-Men ’97 is streaming on Disney Plus.

 

Source: Polygon