Be honest with yourself: do you truly know the rules of Marvel Studios’ Multiverse? If the answer is yes, good for you; however, the vast majority of fans tuning in to watch the latest streaming series or heading into theaters for the next big MCU film don’t know a Nexus Point from a Jump Point. So while hardcore fans might love to debate what should or should not be counted as canon or what projects should be on the Sacred Timeline, it’s really not that big of a deal to most fans. However, according to Emi Yonemura, who directed two episodes of Marvel Animation’s X-Men ’97, Marvel Studios One Above All, Kevin Feige, almost made a change so big it would have grabbed everyone’s attention.
In an interview with Inverse, Yonemura revealed that Feige considered setting the events of X-Men ’97 firmly within the MCU’s Sacred Timeline. “That has always been something we know was on Kevin Feige’s mind, do we make this part of the MCU? Do we not make this part of the MCU?” said Yonemura. “It’s actually gone back and forth quite a few times, and I think we did land in a smart place because [X-Men: The Animated Series] was its own thing, and I think that to continue it we needed to be our own thing.“
While it’s not entirely clear how X-Men ’97–or its predecessor, X-Men: The Animated Series–would have fit within the current parameters of the Sacred Timeline, another member of ’97s creative team is glad the decision was made to keep it separate. “We’re getting the X-Men in this format and we’re doing it justice not just by ourselves, but also other fans as well, and we’re starting to get a resurgence of the X-Men in film again,” said director Jake Castorena. “I love that. And I think it’s great that we can have different things, let them be different.”
According to Castorena, “it’s all connected” actually presents its own set of problems. “If you try to connect things like that, it may or may not, I dare not say hinder storytelling, but let them do their stories,” Castorena continued. “Let us do our stories and let the rest of the world eat it up, man.” With a Multiverse full of possibilities and hundreds of great X-Men stories that have yet to be told through animation or live-action, there should be plenty for the world to eat up for the foreseeable future.
Source: Inverse
