X-Men ’97 Intro Now Includes Fan-Favorite Character

X-Men ’97 brought back a familiar face in the title sequence this week. After the sad ending to Episode 5, the following episode added Nightcrawler to that opening lineup of X-Men heroes. (I mean, they would have had to do something after losing Gambit and Magneto like that.) Kurt has his two swords and the entire little scene is slickly animated, something of a regular occurrence for this show. Still, fans have been trained to expect this title sequence to continue to evolve over time through other animated shows. X-Men ’97 covers so much ground, that it’s not exactly hard to picture there being even more additions over time.

Adrian Hough brings Nightcrawler to life in X-Men ’97. The show’s director/producer Jake Castorena talked to RadioTimes about some of the voice cast changes for the revival. “If we’re doing this show, we got to do it with the legacy cast – that was the decision from day one,” Castorena began. “[But] time hits us all – it’s been 30 years and so, unfortunately, some of the legacy voice cast is no longer with us, and some of the legacy voice cast, voices and things just change.”

Gambit → Nightcrawler #XMen97 pic.twitter.com/WWtK43jDb7

— X-Men Updates (@XMenUpdate) April 19, 2024

“Finding people to take up the mantle for the legacy cast, to fill in the roles, was an absolute process, but I absolutely love and appreciate all of our new cast taking on their new roles – and to hear the blessings from the legacy cast has been also awesome, too,” he added. 

“For those who wanted to come back and for whatever reasons weren’t able to do the voice, we brought them back to play other characters, to make sure we still had everybody in the sandbox… because how do you invite one person to come play, but not somebody else? Especially when they’re game and they want to. It’s like, ‘We’ll find something for you,'” Castorena continued. “Honestly, it’s a way to get everybody back. It’s the best way to get everybody back, as best as we could.”

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