X-Men ’97 is using an old MCU trick to build up its shared universe

X-Men ’97 has been a delightful breath of fresh air for Marvel fans, eschewing big-name cameos and Easter eggs and instead focusing on telling a great story. 

Still, change is in the air, it seems. With the release of X-Men ’97’s Episode 7, titled Bright Eyes, we got not one but two appearances from major Marvel characters who aren’t mutants. The first was the Hulk’s nemesis, the mustachioed menace Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, and the second was the star-spangled man with a plan, Captain America. 

Yet despite these two cameos being pretty incidental (although I suspect Cap’s appearance is teasing a more significant role in the future), they didn’t get under my skin in the same way more recent attempts to crowbar characters into Marvel projects have. 

A carousel of cameos

Disney+

Much of that comes down to the goodwill  X-Men ’97 has generated. It’s genuinely brilliant television, and it’s made me really interested to see how the mainstream MCU will handle the merry mutants in any upcoming Marvel movies like Deadpool 3. That aside, though, the reason X-Men 97’s cameos don’t offend is that they’re borrowing some old tricks from the MCU of yesteryear. 

Unlike the cavalcade of random characters we’ve got in recent Marvel fare (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness being the worst offender), X-Men ’97 is, first and foremost, focused on telling a coherent story. As a result, the narrative flows naturally, allowing cameos to feel part of a cohesive shared universe. 

Of course, Rogue would attack someone like Thunderbolt Ross when she was looking for classified military secrets; he’s one of America’s top generals and has a history of building robotics death machines. Similarly, Cap would definitely be on the trail of Bolivar Trask following the attack on Genosha. He’s an Avenger, and it’s totally in character for him to investigate a tragedy like the Sentinel attack.

When Marvel is at its best, this is the approach it takes to cameos. They make sense in the shared universe. So when SHIELD agents approached Tony Stark about the Avengers, it made sense for it to be Nick Fury, or if Spider-Man needed a lawyer, he’d turn to Matt Murdock. It’s not just people appearing for the sake of them being in the movie (I’m sorry, but I’m looking at you, Valkyrie in The Marvels, or Bruce Banner randomly bringing his hitherto unmentioned son to a family barbeque).

Make them matter

Disney+

Perhaps the bigger reason Cap and Ross’s walk-on roles aren’t particularly aggravating is that neither of them relies on you knowing who Ross or Cap are. If you’re a Marvel aficionado, then you get a little more out of seeing Ross, but if you don’t, it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. He’s just an army guy who can help Rogue find Trask. Similarly, if you’ve been living under a rock for the last decade and don’t know who Steve Rogers is, he’s just another hero looking to help. 

That was the big problem with the carousel of superhero faces we got in Multiverse of Madness. To get excited about the Illuminati scene, you have to have some degree of background knowledge outside of the MCU. We’ll give Patrick Stewart a pass, but the John Krasinski Mister Fantastic cameo relied on the audience knowing that fans on social media wanted him to be in the MCU Fantastic Four movie for it to land. Even worse, they had to have watched the largely forgotten Inhumans series to know who Black Bolt was. 

These were bizarre choices to make, but it’s hardly the only example of Marvel expecting you to be literate in the franchise’s history to get the most out of their films. I know it’s sacrilege to say, but this was the issue with Spider-Man: No Way Home. 

Sure, it was a brilliant film for fans who’ve watched all the Wallcrawler’s big-screen adventures, but if you’d only seen Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies, you’d probably be a bit lost as to why it’s a big deal Andrew Garfield caught MJ. 

No, X-Men ‘97 is handling its cameos and references perfectly. They’re unobtrusive and help build a shared universe without making those watching feel stupid for not having an encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel’s vast and sprawling history. Let’s hope the MCU can remember this is how it used to do things as we had deeper into Phases 5 and 6.

If you’re a newbie to the miraculous MCU check out our guide explaining how to watch all the Marvel movies in order, or learn about the X-Men timeline. Or, if you’re desperate to know more about what’s coming, we have pieces on a number of upcoming superhero movies, including Thunderbolts and the MCU Blade reboot. Finally, why not check out all the best new movies coming to streaming this month?