Marvel StudiosX-Men fans might be Marvel’s strongest soldiers. The past few years have been filled with both good and bad updates: while the elite mutant team is finally making its way into Marvel’s cinematic universe with a live-action reboot, their official debut is still years away. Until more concrete details about the movie emerge, fans have found solace in X-Men ‘97. The animated series premiered in 2024, reviving the original X-Men cartoon and fixing the lack of mutant content in the MCU in one fell swoop. The next chapter of this itch-scratching adventure is on the way; unfortunately, it won’t come as soon as fans might have expected. Brad Winderbaum, Marvel’s head of streaming, recently revealed the series’ release plan. “Season 2 of X-Men ‘97 is going to be in ‘26,” Winderbaum said in an interview with Collider. “We’re working on it now. It’s exciting.”Waiting nearly two years for another season of X-Men ‘97 certainly isn’t ideal, but Winderbaum is keen to close the divide between seasons eventually. “It’s important to try to get to an annual cadence with these shows and to have something that people can rely on,” he told Collider. “This has been a challenge for streaming in general... but X-Men ‘97 and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man are the top priorities in trying to get to a place where we can reliably have very strong seasons every year.”X-Men ‘97 won’t return to Disney+ until 2026, but there is a silver lining. | Marvel StudiosWinderbaum and his team are working hard to marry the classic TV release model with the convenience of streaming, and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man will be the first series to get that treatment. (The second season of Spider-Man will hit Disney+ next year.) But X-Men ‘97 won’t be far behind: the show has been a labor of love for Winderbaum.“I grew up at Marvel, clocked a lot of time here, and I feel like I used a lot of currency to revive this thing that I loved watching after school,” Winderbaum said, referencing the original X-Men series. “The fact that we get to play in that universe with those actors is honestly why I went into this business in the first place... I can’t believe [Marvel] let me make it.”Audiences feel the same way about X-Men ‘97. It’s the rare reboot that doesn’t feel like an empty reimagining, but an organic extension of the original series. It walks the line between nostalgia and novelty, making old X-Men stories feel fresh while retaining the spirit of Saturday morning cartoons. Marvel has been shaky in recent years, especially on the big screen, but Winderbaum seems determined to deliver some consistency on the TV front. X-Men ‘97 could become a staple of the MCU... but for now, fans will have to hold out until 2026.