'X-Men '97' Episode 6 just teased the arrival of Vulcan, the biggest a-hole in Marvel mutant history (2024)

If there’s one thing I know for sure about X-Men ’97, it is that this Disney+ cartoon is quite possibly doing the most. Every single episode is packed with so many Easter eggs, cameos, callbacks, and shout outs — each one a dangling plot thread that could lead to a future episode. Still, these little details are usually worth nothing more than an “oh, that’s cool”-level reaction. However, Episode 6 — “Lifedeath – Part 2” —has one incendiary cameo that could absolutely lead to a whole lot of trouble for the X-Men in future seasons of X-Men ’97. That cameo belongs to a character named Vulcan.

Who is Vulcan in X-Men ’97?

Vulcan is one of the many members of the Shi’ar’s Imperial Guard. He can be seen in the opening sequence of “Lifedeath – Part 2” during Deathbird’s raid on a Kree spaceship. He’s the guy with the glowing eyes — not that one, the other one. The one in the blue and red uniform — not that one, the other one. The one with the flame powers — oh my god, I’ll just show a picture of him!

There he is. Vulcan’s character design is so nondescript that his brief appearance is likely to go unnoticed unless you’re an X-Men obsessive. But his screentime is incredibly disproportionate to his importance in X-Men lore. I’d dare say that this is potentially the most consequential few seconds of X-Men ’97 thus far when it comes to planting seeds for future episodes. Why? Because Vulcan is Cyclops’ brother. Brace yourselves, because we’re about to bark up the Summers family tree.

Who is Vulcan in the comics?

Vulcan is Cyclops’ long lost brother, Gabriel Summers. This is all incredibly complicated, but at least Cyclops’ comic book origin and X-Men ’97 origin are virtually identical; you can see it in flashback in the X-Men Season 3 episode “Orphan’s End.” It goes like this: When Cyclops — Scott Summers — was a pre-teen, his family’s peaceful flight in his dad’s de Havilland Mosquito (it ain’t X-Men if it ain’t overly specific about types of aircraft) was intercepted by an extraterrestrial spaceship.

With their family plane crashing, Cyclops’ dad Christopher put his oldest son in the only remaining parachute on board and wrapped tween Cyclops’ arms around his younger brother Alex — and then Christopher shoved his sons out of the plane. As far as Scott and Alex knew, their parents died in a plane crash. That is, of course, not what happened.

As the comics and “Orphan’s End” explain, Cyclops’ parents —Christopher and Katherine Summers — were abducted by the Shi’ar and placed into prison camps. Katherine died and Christopher escaped with the help of a ragtag group of aliens, thus forming a band of space pirates called the Starjammers. And that’s how Cyclops’ origin remained until the release of X-Men: Deadly Genesis #1 in late 2005 by Ed Brubaker and Trevor Hairsine.

This is where the cartoon and the comics diverge. The Deadly Genesis mini-series revealed that Katherine was actually with child when she was abducted by the Shi’ar. The Shi’ar extracted the child, Gabriel, and expedited his aging process, thus unlocking his extremely powerful mutant abilities. Somehow, it gets even more complicated.

Gabriel Summers, a.k.a. Vulcan, made his way to Earth where he was recruited by a fervently desperate Professor X. At the time, his X-Men — the original X-Men —had gone missing and were feared dead. Xavier recruited a small squad of mutants, Vulcan included, to go on a rescue mission. That mission failed when the entire team was slaughtered. Thus Xavier was forced to recruit another team of X-Men: Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, etc. Xavier never told any of the new X-Men about the lost team —and that made Vulcan pretty damn angry when he was eventually revealed to be alive.

After that, Vulcan’s anger went from initially very justified (Professor X is, after all, a jerk) to, uh, well past justified. After unleashing his rage on the X-Men, killing some in the process, he took his anger to outer space where he hooked up with Deathbird, conquered the Shi’ar galaxy, and left everyone he met either incredibly pissed off or incredibly dead. To sum it up: Vulcan is a galaxy-conquering maniac whose almost godlike energy powers are only exceeded by his white hot rage. He is an asshole.

So… who is Vulcan in X-Men ’97?

Clearly none of that has happened in X-Men ’97 just yet — but it absolutely could. We know that X-Men ’97’s Cyclops has the same origin, and now we know that Vulcan exists in the animated universe. And remember, this show likes to play a long game. Corsair was not immediately revealed to be Christopher Summers when he debuted in the cartoon. Hell, Cyclops has met Alex as an adult (X-Men Season 3’s “Cold Comfort”) and still does not know that he’s his brother. There is absolutely enough story potential here for a messy, daytime talk show-style reveal that Cyclops has not one, but two long lost brothers —one he remembers as a child, and another from the same mother but another galaxy.

Considering all of the plot lines X-Men ’97 is juggling right now, I don’t think we should expect to see any of this happen in this season. But Season 2? Watch out Cyclops, because your days of family drama are far from over.