First up, we have the return of the X-Men’s power couple, Cyclops and Jean Grey, still in their classic ’90s outfits. Unlike Storm and Bishop, who are both sporting new haircuts in “X-Men ’97,” it appears there hasn’t been much style change for Cyclops and Jean Grey.
I’m happy to see multiple head sculpts for varying looks, but I wish Jean Grey came with some additional accessories to visualize her mutant abilities. Thankfully, Cyclops makes up for that somewhat, because Hasbro has included an optic blast FX accessory to visualize the beam that he can shoot out of his visor.
Also joining the roster is Nightcrawler, and much like Jean Grey, his accessories are fairly disappointing, with only an alternate head sculpt and swappable hands. It would have been cool if they crafted some kind of visualization of Nightcrawler’s teleporting abilities. While making a full-on 3D “BAMF!” graphic accessory might have been too much, including some kind of cloud plume on a little stand would have been pretty cool.
Finally, with a whole new look, there’s also the revamped version of Magneto. In “X-Men ’97,” Magneto is now the leader of the X-Men, with Professor X having been taken away from Earth by Lilandra of the Shi’ar Empire, thus bidding farewell to his X-Men. In his new position, Magneto has abandoned his previous wardrobe, losing the helmet and armor and replacing it with a dark purple suit while keeping his traditional pure purple cape.