X-Men '97 Finale Secretly Introduced Another Summers Child

Did you know that Cable wasn't the only Summers Family child who appeared in the X-Men '97 Finale?

By Kofi Outlaw

X-Men '97's Season 1 Finale did a LOT. Episode 10, "Tolerance is Extinction – Part 3" had the X-Men finally trying to end the threat of Bastion and his Prime Sentinels – not to mention reversing Magneto's catastrophic EMP attack on Earth. 

(SPOILERS FOLLOW!) Even though the X-Men managed to complete their mission objectives, there was a monkey wrench thrown into their victory when a majority of the team (plus Magneto) got transported away into the timestream, with some X-Men landing in the distant past – and some landing in a distant future. 

X-Men '97's breakthrough success means that a considerable portion of the mainstream viewing audience doesn't know about the deeper lore (and chaos) of X-Men comics. That means a considerable portion of the audience watching the X-Men '97 Finale may not know that Cable wasn't the only child of Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Jean Grey (Marvel Girl) who appeared in the episode! 

X-Men '97 Finale Reveals Cyclops & Jean Grey's Daughter

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(Photo: Marvel Animation)

In one of the epilogue scenes for X-Men '97 Episode 10, Cyclops and Jean are transported to the distant dystopian future of 3900 AD. They find themselves surrounded by a clan of warriors, who are commanded by a robed figure, who identifies herself as "Mother Askani," and has a young boy named Nathan as a her ward. Scott and Jean realize that they are in the future Nathan Summers/Cable grew up in. 

X-Men '97 is setting up an adaptation of the 1994 comic book miniseries The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix. In that comic, Cyclops and Jean had their minds transported into sent into the future so that they could raise Nathan Summers into the soldier that is Cable, and teach him to use his formidable psychic powers. 

What X-Men '97's teaser scene for The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix arc doesn't tell you is that "Mother Askani" isn't just a random leader: She is Rachel Summer, the daughter of Cyclops and Jean, known as Phoenix II. Rachel was born in the reality of Earth-811, the future timeline known as "Days of the Future Past" where the Sentinels rule Earth and the reality where Nimrod was first born. 

In the Earth-811 reality, Jean Grey's Phoenix/Dark Phoenix Saga story took a pivotal turn when Dark Phoenix visited Jean's parents and sister at their home. Instead of Jean's father disowning her and banishing her (leading to Dark Phoenix's Shi'ar duel and tragic death), in the 811 reality he welcomed her back into the family fold. Jean stayed alive and married Scott Summers, giving birth to Rachel Summers, who would inherit her mother's powerful psychic gifts.

Rachel's reality took a dark turn when Senator Kelly and Charles Xavier got assassinated in Washington D.C., sparking the Mutant Control Act to pass, and Sentinels to be deployed against mutants, leading to mass deaths, forced genetic breeding, and mutant concentration camps. She was captured by the notorious future timeline slaver Ahab, and became one of his mutant-hunting "Hounds." After escaping captivity, Rachel began trying to change the timeline to a better one for mutants, eventually attracting the Phoenix Force who saw her as a successor host for Jean Grey.

Eventually, Rachel ended up in the mainstream reality of the Marvel Universe where she became a member of the X-Men and the UK team Excalibur. Rachel's time-hopping continued when she ended up in an alternate future timeline that Apocalypse had conquered. Taking on the name Mother Askani, Rachel guided her brother's maturation into becoming the time-traveling messiah that ended Apocalypse's threat to the future. When that mission was completed, the dark alternate future was erased and a younger Rachel returned to the modern Marvel Universe, where she kept the name "Askani" and has served as an X-Man throughout the Krakoa Era. 

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So, in other words, X-Men '97 Season 2 is going to be a whole Summers Family affair. 

X-Men '97 is streaming on Disney+. 

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