X-Men '97 Season Finale Teases the Return of a Surprising Character
X-Men '97's Season Finale snuck in the surprise return of a very controversial character - and fans probably didn't even notice.
X-Men '97 packed quite a lot into its Season Finale – including an epilogue section that was nearly half an episode in length. There was lot of setup for X-Men '97 Season 2 that got done in that time – including one surprising character return that most fans probably didn't catch!
(SPOILERS FOLLOW)
The climax of "Tolerance is Extinction – Part 3" saw the X-Men fighting impossible odds to stop Operation Zero Tolerance and its leader, Bastion, from dropping Magneto's Asteroid M on Earth. The X-Men succeed (with help from Magneto), but the team is yanked from the timestream and deposited in separate places across the past, present, and future.
While the majority of the X-Men landed in either ancient Egypt or a dystopian distant future, Forge and a few others were left in the present, facing the monumental task of building a new team of X-Men. Forge is seen in his workshop, looking over a photo gallery board of mutants who could potentially become New X-Men; Bishop finally comes back from the future to tell Forge that the X-Men aren't dead, they've been pulled into the timestream – and the future depends on rescuing them.
However, before Bishop appears, Forge is listening to a radio broadcast that establishes the new status quo six months after the X-Men's disappearance. On the political side of things, it's established that President Robert Kelly is having his political position challenged by a fringe anti-mutant candidate: Graydon Creed.
X-Men '97 Season 2 Villains – Who Is Graydon Creed?
Graydon Creed Jr. is the leader of the anti-mutant hate group "Friends of Humanity" (FoH). Although he's a human, Graydon is the son of Sabertooth (Victor Creed) and Mystique, after a chance encounter between the two. Graydon Creed buried his past, but couldn't bury his resentment, raging against his parents and all mutants.
In X-Men: The Animated Series, Graydon Creed's arc started as a supporter of Senator Robert Kelly, whose anti-mutant views he supported. After the X-Men defeated Bolivar Trask and Master Mold, Kelly reversed his stance on mutants, causing a schism between him and Graydon Creed.
Creed continued to threaten the X-Men and mutants throughout the seasons of X-Men: TAS. He was tricked by Apocalypse (in disguise) into framing mutants for the release of a virus that nearly wipes out Bishop's future before Bishop sets things right. The X-Men infiltrated the Friends of Humanity and eventually exposed Creed's mutant parentage to the group, causing him to suffer a mental breakdown. When he got out of the institution, Creed came at his own family, kidnapping Mystique and battling his "siblings" Rogue and Nightcrawler. At the end of the series, The FoH banished Creed and left him on Sabertooth's doorstep, where the feral mutant was seemingly going to punish his son in some horrible way.
If Graydon Creed Jr. is back, then it suggests a lot about what happened with Sabertooth, and what raises new questions about what Graydon plans to do with the new anti-mutant sentiment in the world. Although, we're pretty sure that real-life politics has laid out the roadmap.
X-Men '97 is streaming on Disney+.
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