Marvel Just Killed a Major X-Men Icon (& X-Men ’97 Outdid Gambit’s Death)

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for X-Men ’97 Season 2 episode 4. Obviously. 2 years on from X-Men ’97‘s masterpiece episode “Remember It,” Marvel might have finally outdone Gambit’s heartbreaking death with an even bigger one. The Ragin’ Cajun met his end in a glorious sacrifice, taking down a huge Sentinel in Genosha in easily one of the most memorable Marvel screen deaths of all time. His return seems inevitable – with the incredibly dark twist that he’s likely to be resurrected as one of Apocalypse’s new Horsemen at some point – but that doesn’t dull the pain. And while Gambit was a beloved character, he’s nowhere near as iconic as the X-Men legend X-Men ’97 just killed off.

In the climactic battle between Magneto and the newly powered-up Apocalypse – who uses what appears to be the Power Stone from the Celestial buried within the pyramid – the terrifying villain underlines exactly how much of a threat he is by killing Magneto off, as Professor X watches on helplessly. Magneto sacrifices himself, but believes his effort to close Apocalypse’s black hole will kill him. In reality, the villain takes the weakened mutant by the head, picks him up and obliterates him. It’s a stunning moment, particularly when X-Men ’97 has already offered two different fake-out deaths for Magneto – and it doesn’t look like this one is going to be an easy reversal if it happens at all. Not only is Magneto a huge character whose death completely rewrites the hierarchy of the X-Men, but it comes after the season has spent great effort in drawing Magnus and Charles closer together.

Magneto’s Death Completely Changes X-Men ’97

In the epic Age of Apocalypse event, Apocalypse famously meets his end when Magneto tears him in half, so seeing the impossibly powerful villain reverse the dynamic to kill the master of magnetism is something of a shock. The sight of Charles, distraught at the death of his former best friend, almost carries the tragedy of a lover (and actually, his reaction eclipses that of Rogue when she witnessed Gambit’s death last season). And, of course, it’s a great irony that Magneto dies essentially fighting a distilled personification of his own belief in mutant supremacy. X-Men ’97 does an excellent job of drawing that parallel, and the one between Magnus and En Sabah Nur’s trauma that turns both of them into villains, and it makes Magneto’s death feel both more poetic and more futile.

What a way to underline Apocalypse’s threat level, though. We already knew he was a major threat, having seen his evil in X-Men: The Animated Series, but there was hope that the X-Men could stop him from becoming the worst version of himself (as subtly teased by Forge and Bishop’s discussion of the timeline’s being impacted by the displaced mutants). Ultimately, Magneto’s attempt failed, and X-Men ’97‘s version of Apocalypse did something even his comic book counterpart failed to do: he killed Magneto with surprisingly little friction. Is this Apocalypse even more powerful than the comics version? If the hint that the Celestial tech that gives him his higher power level is indeed the Power Stone, then he’s one of the few Infinity Stone-powered characters we’ve seen on screen, and most have been phenomenally powerful. Taking down an Omega-level mutant is no small feat, either.

There is, of course, a chance that Magneto will return: X-Men ’97 has brought in time travel as a major story device, and Forge and Bishop are unlikely to leave such a major disruption of the timeline in place. And then there’s the possibility that, like Gambit, Magneto could be resurrected later in the timeline by Apocalypse to become one of his Horsemen, as he was both in Fox’s X-Men: Apocalypse movie and in X-Men: Evolution. In the 1990s timeline, Apocalypse needs a new team of Horsemen, and if Gambit returns as Death, Magneto would be a great candidate for War. And forcing Charles to face his former nemesis and, at times, great ally would be a great way to escalate X-Men ’97 Season 2.

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