Not only has the shows teased the return of a fan favorite character, but also introduced one of the greatest X-Men villains in his younger days.

The mid-credits scene of X-Men ’97 revealed to the audience that six months after the X-Men vanished, Apocalypse visited the ruins of Genosha to lament the mutant massacre. Given that Apocalypse was seen looking at a charred playing card, fans are assured that the next big villain that will be plaguing the X-Men is Apocalypse and his Four Horsemen.

In the comics, Wolverine, who is currently recovering, Storm, and Gambit (who is dead) have all served as the Horseman for Death, along with a slew of other characters that are yet to make an appearance in X-Men ’97. A theory says that these characters will be a part of Apocalypse’s Horsemen along with the one loose end when it comes to the villains for this season: Mister Sinister.

The theory suggests that Apocalypse could pit multiple X-Men against their former teammates

Apocalypse has employed multiple characters as his henchmen across his history in the comics, and a lot of times, it has been characters that have been part of the core X-Men team. Remy LeBeau and Logan famously served as incarnations of Death for the character, with Logan having a second tenure as Apocalypse’s Horseman for War. Storm had also famously served as a Horseman in X-Men: Apocalypse, which also saw Magneto and Angel ally themselves with Apocalypse as well.

As Apocalypse decides to lead Mutant kind into the next step of evolution, Wolverine, Gambit, and Storm, who have at various moments, served Apocalypse as his Horsemen, can do so simultaneously. Not only would this be a great emotional and narrative beat for the story to build on, but it would also bring back Gambit and restore Logan’s adamantium skeleton, two plot points that took quite some time to come back apart.

Apocalypse could also be the door to Mister Sinister’s return

Mister Sinister was a major player in the personal tragedies of the Summers-Grey family, but he was also one of the chief adversaries of the X-Men at large this season. The character met a brutal fate at the hands of Jean Grey in the final episode of X-Men ’97 Season 1, but the character was sent scurrying away. Apocalypse could restore Sinister to his former glory, despite the fact that the character is not a mutant.

Apocalypse is a character who advocates for ‘survival of the fittest’ regardless of whether the beneficiary of the philosophy is a mutant or not. Given that this is the case, Apocalypse could very much include Sinister as one of his Horsemen to use against the X-Men, which might shift the story toward mutant or superhuman supremacy in the world of X-Men.