Oh, my stars and garters!

X-Men 97 team

Thanks to X-Men ’97 turning out to be tantamount to perfection this past spring and Deadpool & Wolverine hopefully suit this summer, X-Men Mania is well and truly upon the MCU community and the hype for Marvel’s upcoming reboot of the Children of the Atom is as high as a Sentinel is tall.

While a director has yet to be found for the project (despite how much folks might want Jordan Peele to helm it), at least Marvel Studios’ X-Men has found itself a screenwriter, in the form of Michael Lesslie (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes). With the script still taking shape, then, it’s way too early for us to know too much about what Marvel may have got planned for the mutants of Earth-199999.

… except this new rumor which allegedly teases the reboot team’s roster. And oh, how we pray this is accurate.

Marvel’s X-Men reboot is rumored to feature the perfect team roster

X-Men '97 team

As per insider Daniel Richtman, Lesslie’s big pitch to Marvel for the X-Men reboot is believed to have featured the same lineup of heroes on the team as X-Men ’97!

Given how much everyone adored the X-Men ’97 cast of characters, this is thrilling news, even if it’s unclear if we’re talking about a 1:1 recreation of this roster or more of a grab-bag approach. The animated series changed its lineup from its opening episode to its first season finale. In the pilot, the gang consists of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit, Beast, Storm, Jubilee, Morph, and Bishop. However, by the finale, a couple had come and gone and Nightcrawler, Sunspot, and Forge were added into the mix.

It would be a surprise to see Morph on the team, given that he’s practically an X-Men: The Animated Series original (the comics Morph is a villain). However, the reboot movie opening with a team made up of all these heavy hitters would make a lot of sense — particularly regarding characters that Fox completely wasted, like Gambit and Bishop. Kicking off with the team at the height of its power would also mean we’d skip yet another origins story. Personally, though, I wouldn’t say no to an Emma Frost appearance (we do not speak of the January Jones version).

X-Men ’97 worked a treat and, although its continuity is separate from the MCU’s, cultivating a synergy between the animated series and the live-action reboot would be a galaxy-brained move worthy of Charles Xavier.