So far in X-Men ’97 season two, things are reeeeeeally not going well for Professor X. After watching Apocalypse smash his bestie bro Magneto’s head in Ancient Egypt, Charles and his X-Men arrive back in a 1997 that fears mutantkind even more than before. The X-Men are no longer allowed to operate in the United States and the Xavier School might be next. So what’s the world’s most powerful telepath supposed to do? In X-Men ’97 season two, episode six, “Danger.exe,” after both he and Polaris deal with their loss of Magneto, Charles announces he and his mutants will go overseas in something called X-Corp.
X-Corp is a very specific reference to a period of Marvel Comics, but it later went on to have an interesting new life in the 2020s. For those curious, here’s the history of the incorporated mutant franchise in X-Men.
X-Corp in New X-Men
Despite only writing on the title for 44 issues, from 2001-2004, Grant Morrison has had an outsized influence on the X-Men in the decades since. From making Emma Frost a (most of the time) goodie to introducing characters like Quentin Quire, Cassandra Nova, and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Morrison’s impact is arguably up there with Chris Claremont or Jonathan Hickman.
One of the earliest things Morrison and artist Frank Quitely introduced in New X-Men is the concept of X-Corporation, or X-Corp. After the fallout of the destruction of Genosha, Xavier starts the global organization as a way for his trained X-Men (or X-Force or X-Factor, etc) members to aid “civilian” mutants on a worldwide scale that the X-Men simply could not keep up with. X-Corp first appeared in Morrison and Quitely’s New X-Men Annual #1, only the fourth issue of the run.
Running each office is a former member of the teams, people like Domino and Sunspot. The X-Corporation headquarters was, of course the Xavier Mansion with satellite offices in Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Mumbai, Nairobi, Salem Center, Paris, and Singapore.
Years later, in the wake of M-Day, when 90-95% of mutantkind found themselves suddenly depowered, Cyclops ordered the evacuation of the X-Corp offices and called all remaining mutants back to the mansion.
X-Corp Returns in the Krakoan Era
Roughly 20 years after the closure, X-Corp returned in the Krakoan Era, during the Reign of X period. With the island of Krakoa its own nation state, the mutants needed their own business entity. The surprisingly action-packed travails appear in the five-issue series X-Corp by writer Tini Howard and artists Valentine De Landro and Alberto Foche.
Heading up this version of X-Corp was chairman Warren Worthington III, aka Angel/Archangel, chosen because he’s the son of a wealthy businessman. Other members of the Board of Directors are Monet St. Croix, aka Penance, Jason Wyngarde, aka Mastermind, the mutant witch Selene, and Shilpa Khatri, aka Trinary.
X-Corp had two main branches. The first is their pharmaceuticals arm, with lead scientist Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man, who expanded on the human-friendly drug findings on Krakoa. The second is X-Corp Telecom, in which mutants Vulcan, Bishop, Thunderbird, and Sunspot used their powers to create an Ionospheric Bandwidth Generator for immeasurably fast internet speeds.
This version of X-Corp folded during the Fall of X and the conclusion of the Krakoan Era.
X-Men ’97 Goes Full New X-Men
X-Men ’97 season two’s “Danger.exe” episode has the main X-Men don their New X-Men uniforms (but who made them is my question?) and head to see the devastation on Genosha. It’s there they fight the robot AI version of the Danger Room. Following this, Professor X and crew unveil X-Corp and their giant office building on the island. Val Cooper, human leader of X-Factor and all-around government stooge, is none too happy about Xavier circumventing the U.S. for mutant activities. We’ll see what happens next.
X-Men ’97 airs weekly on Disney+.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.
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