Could X-Men '97 Take Place After Avengers: Secret Wars?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ohxiuXOU9XP8BqLHCzHy0?si=M8lvtlEdTfqu5PrCCV5R2A
So X-Men '97 has come to an end and has set a new quality standard for what audiences should expect from Marvel Studios on Disney+. The end of the season does a great job of setting up the impending adaptation of Age of Apocalypse for season two and delivered a satisfying ending to the ongoing saga of the X-Men in their battle against Bastion. That said, there is something that sticks with me about this season that needs to be explored: Beast's lines about absolute points.
For those who have not been keeping up, in the back half of the season Cable discusses with the X-Men that he was unable to stop the attack on Genosha because any time he attempted to interfere, he would get pulled away. At this point Beast says that the mystics of Kamar-Taj have theories about "absolute points" which are events that occur across all timelines. We've seen this concept explored in Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (though they were called "canon events" there) but even there the rules still mostly applied to the MCU, even if the movie is just part of the wider Marvel multiverse.
There is this small question when it comes to X-Men '97 however because, despite branding it as "Marvel Animation," it appears that X-Men '97 is still canon to the MCU, even if it is an alternate universe. Should the attack on Genosha be one of these absolute points, this poses two possible options for how this impacts the prime MCU timeline. Option 1 is that there is a Genosha attack coming way down the line for the MCU once mutants are introduced in live-action and option 2 is that the show takes place in a post-Secret Wars rebooted multiverse so it can be background story for the MCU. Should this be an "Absolute Point," simply rethreading the same or a similar attack in live-action would lose impact since the viewer knows its coming, especially since it would have to be in a film released at some point in the 2030s. That's too long to wait for that payoff.
Outside of that, I do stand by my assertion that the show's use of Mr. Sinister as a recurring bad guy does kind of telegraph what the likely direction for the live-action adaptation will be, especially since that is what the Fox movies were moving towards before Disney's acquisition. It's not a bad move for the franchise, especially since it allows for a long-running villain to be explored for a while before being dispatched. Hopefully the next animated shows (Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and Eyes of Wakanda) will be up to this quality and not the quality of What If...?.
★★★★★