In episode five of X-Men ’97 season two, “Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs,” Wolverine puts together a squad of his former Team X comrades (and Morph) to infiltrate the site of a new Weapon X facility, the off-the-books government program that turned mutants into enhanced killing machines. There is a scene in this episode where Morph chances upon a row of DVDs with several names well known to Marvel Comics fans. Here’s every name we saw on the spines of those “digital video discs,” as Morph called them.
X-23
X-23 is the designation of Laura Kinney, the female clone/daughter of Wolverine. She first appeared in the animated series X-Men: Evolution, before Marvel introduced her in the comics, and was ultimately played by Dafne Keen in Logan and Deadpool & Wolverine. This is the first indication that she exists in the X-Men ’97 universe.
Fantomex
Debuting in New X-Men in 2002, the suave Charlie Cluster-7 was born and raised within the Weapon Plus program. He has an external, autonomous nervous system, called E.V.A., and can create sophisticated projections. He used the identity of Jean-Philippe Charles, a French mutant thief. He’s been both a member of the X-Men and the Uncanny X-Force. He has yet to appear in any non-comics X-Men media.
Ajax
Francis Freeman is a major Deadpool enemy, who served as his primary antagonist in the 2016 Deadpool film. He’s a human mutate, given enhanced strength, speed, and agility by the Weapon X offshoot program called the Workshop. He eventually adopted the identity of Ajax, and is one of Wade Wilson’s biggest foes.
Aurora
Aurora is the twin sister of Northstar, and a former member of Wolverine’s old Canadian super team, Alpha Flight. Like her brother, she has the powers of flight and superhuman speed and reflexes, but she also has dissociative identity disorder, something she once went to the Weapon X program to help her control her splintered personalities. This is why her name probably appears on these DVDs.
Wolverine
You know this guy. Call him Logan, or James Howlett, or Weapon X. He’s the best there is at what he does, and what he does is mostly killing things with his adamantium claws.
Silver Fox
Kayla Silverfox is a First Nations mutant, born with accelerated healing and slow aging, much like her former lover, Wolverine. A trained fighter, she was a member of Weapon X and Team X, before becoming an agent of Hydra. She appeared in the original X-Men: The Animated Series episode “Weapon X, Lies, and Videotape.”
Weapon XVIII
Weapon XVIII isn’t a character, it’s the name of another clandestine government program. It is yet another covert operation that experimented on criminals and psychopaths, giving them abilities or enhancing existing ones.
Psi-Borg
Aldo Ferro was the mutant telepath responsible for creating the false memory implants for the Weapon X test subjects like Logan. Weapon X agents promised him a healing factor implant to slow his aging, but they double-crossed him. He ended up in a cybernetic suit, and started going by the code-name Psi-Borg (probably because Cyborg was already a famous DC hero, hence the goofy spelling)
Mastadon
Mastadon, whose real name is unknown, was a member of Team X alongside Wolverine and Sabretooth. He first appeared in 1991, and he had slowed down aging. Mastadon was also an expert at firearms. He only made a handful of appearances.
The Winter Soldier
MCU fans are very familiar with the Winter Solider, a.k.a. Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers’ best friend and partner. Long believed killed in action in the ‘40s, but was rescued by Soviet agents (Hydra in the MCU) and turned into a cybernetic soldier.
Weapon VI
Weapon VI is the name of the shady government program that gave prison inmate Luke Cage his powers.
Ant
“Ant” in this instance probably doesn’t refer to Ant-Man, a founding member of the Avengers. It likely refers to the Ant-Hill, a secret underground base built by the anti-mutant creator Bolivar Trask, who used it to store many of his mutant-hunting Sentinels.
Garrison Kane
Affiliated with many covert government operations, including the Six Pack, Department K, and Weapon X (which he named himself for), Kane is a cyborg with enhanced metal arms. Unlike most characters involved in these experiments, Kane is a human, not a mutant. He first appeared in X-Force #2 in 1991. He appears in this episode but dies unceremoniously in the first act.
Sabretooth
Sabretooth is, of course, Wolverine’s arch-enemy, Victor Creed. He has the same mutant healing ability as Logan, and also has retractable claws. Victor and Logan served together on Team X, where a deep animosity developed, although the circumstances of the hatred have changed over the years. He appeared in the Fox X-Men films, as well as various cartoons and video games.
Agent Zero
Agent Zero is the other codename used by Christopher Nord (who also used the alias David North), who would later use the codename Maverick. He is a mutant who can absorb kinetic energy, and is a master marksman and trained soldier. Sadly, he does not survive the events of the episode “Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs.”
Kimura
The woman known as Ren Kimura became X-23’s handler (tormentor) at the mysterious “Facility,” the name of the lab where she was created and weaponized. When Laura Kinney escaped, Kimura traveled the globe trying to find her. She is a human mutate and not a mutant, and has indestructible skin. Usually positioned as X-23’s biggest nemesis.
Worm
There are a few Marvel Comics characters with the codename “Worm,” but we suspect that this refers to Deadpool’s friend, a cybernetically enhanced fellow patient with Wade Wilson in the Hospice, ultimately lobotomized by Ajax. He had a cybernetic eye, one that allowed him to calculate statistics and odds, making him the official keeper who ran the “deadpool” betting board, betting on which test subjects would survive. So he’s responsible for Wade Wilson’s codename in the comics.
Sluggo
Another early ‘90s creation, Sluggo is a mercenary affiliated with the Weapon X program. He has superhuman strength, high durability, and, as with most ‘90s “extreme” characters, a large arsenal of weapons.
Kestrel
Kestrel is the codename of John Wraith, a former member of Team X and a Weapon X test subject. He’s a teleporter and also has slowed down aging. Musician will.i.am played him in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The character also appeared in the Wolverine and the X-Men animated series, but has yet to appear in X-Men ’97.
Will any of these characters actually appear in future episodes of X-Men ’97? We’ll have to wait and see what the future holds.