'X-Men '97' Season 3 Officially Adds Marvel's Most R-Rated Hero

Published Oct 8, 2026, 4:49 PM EDT

Hannah covers horror, sci-fi, and games at Collider, where she writes news and features, reviews new releases, and interviews the people who make them. She’s helping build out Collider’s gaming coverage, with Pokémon as one of her specialties. If she isn’t writing about a monster, she’s probably watching one on a tape from her VHS collection.

Protecting a world that hates and fears them is already a full-time job, but the X-Men rarely get to focus on just one problem. There are enemies to fight, relationships to repair, and competing ideas about what the future should look like for mutantkind. X-Men ’97 has built its revival around those conflicts, giving its heroes plenty to contend with beyond whoever happens to be attacking them that week. Having superpowers doesn’t make any of that easier to manage.

The animated series also has decades of Marvel history available to complicate matters further. Its connection to X-Men: The Animated Series gives familiar characters a chance to return, while the wider comic book universe leaves room for some less predictable visitors. Not everyone who crosses paths with the X-Men shares their sense of responsibility, and some are much better at creating problems than solving them. The show’s next season is adding someone who should fit comfortably into that category.

Deadpool is confirmed to appear in X-Men ’97 Season 3, as revealed at New York Comic Con. The announcement adds Wade Wilson to the next chapter of Marvel Animation’s Disney+ series, giving fans another familiar Marvel character to watch for when the mutants return. The catch is, of course, the confirmation alone doesn’t establish how large a role he will play. For now, the news leaves plenty of questions about how the Merc with a Mouth will enter the story. A voice actor, episode count, and specific storyline were not included in the confirmation. An appearance could mean anything from a brief encounter to a larger part in the season, so there’s still more to learn about what Marvel has planned for him.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What MCU Superpower Would You Have? Strength · Spider-Sense · Invisibility · Chaos Magic

Eight honest questions about how you actually are: your first instinct when things go wrong, what your friends rely on you for, how you handle stress, what your real flaw is. Answer them and we will tell you which power you would wake up with. The best ones in the MCU are never random, because they always say something about the person who got them.

💪Super Strength(Hulk)

🕸️Spider-Sense(Spider-Man)

🫧Invisibility(Fantastic Four)

🔮Chaos Magic(Scarlet Witch)

FIND YOUR POWER →

What is your first instinct when something goes wrong? Go with the honest answer rather than the heroic one.

AGet in front of it. BReact before I have finished thinking. CStep back and work out what is happening. DFeel all of it at once, then move.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you handle being the centre of attention? Every hero on this list answers this differently.

AFine, as long as it is for something useful. BI did not plan it, but here we are. CI would much rather nobody noticed me. DIt depends entirely on my mood that day.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do your friends rely on you for? They would all name the same thing about you.

ADoing the heavy thing nobody else wants. BSpotting trouble before anybody else does. CNoticing what everybody else missed. DSaying the thing everybody is feeling.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you deal with stress? Nobody picks the healthy one, and that is fine.

ACarry it quietly and say nothing. BTake on more, which never once helps. CGo quiet and disappear for a while. DLet it out, then clean up afterwards.

NEXT QUESTION →

What is your actual flaw? The useful thing here is picking the true one.

AI carry things that are not mine to carry. BI cannot switch off. CI keep far too much to myself. DI feel everything much too strongly.

NEXT QUESTION →

What kind of help do you actually give people? Everybody has one default, whatever the situation is.

APractical help, straight away. BI turn up before they have asked. CI quietly remove the problem. DI sit with them in it.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you want strangers to see you? Answer for the first ten minutes, not the first year.

ASolid, and worth relying on. BQuick, warm and switched on. CI would rather they formed no opinion yet. DInteresting, and a little hard to read.

NEXT QUESTION →

What would you want a superpower for? Eight questions in, this is the one that picks your power.

ATo protect the people I care about. BTo never be too late again. CTo move through the world unnoticed. DTo change something I could not change before.

REVEAL MY POWER →

The Gift Is Given Your Power Is…

Four powers, and four completely different kinds of person behind them. Here is what you would wake up with, what it would cost you, and why the MCU keeps handing it to somebody exactly like you.

Super Strength

You get the power that is really about taking the hit so that nobody else has to. Strength in the MCU always lands on people who were already carrying too much, which is exactly why it suits you.

Your instinct is to put yourself between the problem and the people, and you do it before anybody has thought to ask.
Bruce Banner is the most interesting version of this because his story was never about lifting things, it was about control.
The catch with strength is that people stop checking whether you are alright, since you have made a habit of looking like you always are.
You would be the one everybody calls at two in the morning, and you would answer every single time.

Spider-Sense

You get the power that never switches off. Spider-sense is a gift and a nervous system on permanent alert, and the people who get it in these films are always the ones who were already worrying about everybody.

You read a situation faster than you can explain it, and you are usually right in a way you cannot show your working for.
Peter Parker is the template because he takes on more than he can hold and then apologises for not holding it well enough.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrived in July 2026 and put him back to being local, broke and permanently on call.
The cost here is real, since a power that warns you about everything also means you are never quite off duty.

Invisibility

You get the quietest power in the building, and quietly the most useful. Invisibility comes with force fields for a reason, because the people who prefer not to be seen are usually the ones holding a shield around everybody else.

You notice everything, largely because you spend more time observing a room than performing in it.
Sue Storm is the strongest member of her team and the least interested in anybody saying so, which is very much your energy.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps finally gave the family a proper MCU home in 2025 and made her the centre of it.
Your risk is that being unseen becomes a habit rather than a choice, and the people who love you would like a look in.

Chaos Magic

You get the biggest and least comfortable power on the list, the one that runs directly on feeling. Chaos magic is not really a superpower in the MCU so much as an emotional state with consequences attached.

You feel things at a volume other people do not, and you have spent years managing that rather than being managed by it.
Wanda is the best written character Marvel has, precisely because her power and her grief turned out to be the same thing.
WandaVision remains the high point of Marvel television, and it works because the spectacle is only ever a symptom.
The warning attached to this one is simple. A power that answers to how you feel is only ever as steady as you are.

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