Beau DeMayo, creator of the wildly popular X-Men ‘97 animated series, has been no stranger to controversy recently, what with his messy departure from Marvel. But despite that, excitement over the X-Men finally making their MCU debut is at an all-time high, with the newest trailer for Avengers: Doomsday centering around their story. And now DeMayo has released pages from what he refers to as his “bible,” giving fans the blueprint that the live-action adaptation could really benefit from following. 

Adamant that Wolverine should only be a C-rank character, DeMayo said that it was time for the X-Men to move on from their most well-known face. He stated that each season he planned for X-Men ‘97 would focus on a different character, with Season 3 being all about Gambit and “his arc in Age of Apocalypse, where he would be assembling a team at the behest of Magneto to find and steal the M’Krann Crystal,” essentially confirming that Gambit isn’t dead—at least in the DeMayo-verse. In response to his thoughts about downgrading Wolverine’s screentime, one fan said, “I love that you divided up the teams into colors like the comics. Glad also it didn’t become the Wolverine show like the other cartoon series that followed the original X-Men series.”

What Could We Have Expected From DeMayo’s X-Men?

The former showrunner seemed very focused on portraying the X-Men as eternal underdogs, who “rely on teamwork to fight for social justice and inclusion. Unlike the Avengers or the Fantastic Four, the X-Men save humanity from a diabolical threat, only to return home to news coverage blaming them for the very incident they averted. This means the X-Men must rely on each other not only in the field, but also at home for emotional support.” It seems the found family trope was one that DeMayo intended to lean heavily into, weaving those threads throughout the rest of the story. 

The characters were also broken down into colored teams, essentially ranking them in terms of their storylines and the kind of narrative relief that they would bring. The “gold team,” characters who would have season-long story arcs, with their points of view favored, consisted of Cyclops, Storm, and Magneto. The “blue team” was made up of characters that would receive “mini arcs,” and featured Jean Grey, Rogue, Xavier, Morph, as well as Cable. And finally, the “red team,” characters who were there in a more support style, to bring “flavor” to the main storyline, consisted of Gambit, Wolverine, Jubilee, and Beast. 

The MCU would genuinely benefit from embracing these strategies, which would enable it to breathe new life into the live-action X-Men, setting whatever comes next apart from the films we’ve gotten in the past and allowing the new generation to be something wholly unique. 

What are you most excited for when it comes to the X-Men’s future in the MCU? Let us know in the comments. And don’t forget to check out the ComicBook forum to keep the conversation going.