MarvelBlog News for June 28th, 2026

The X-Men are back in the news as a new season arrives.

Also, Spider-Man is even more popular than we all thought.

I’ll explain in MarvelBlog News.

Cue the Theme Song

The X-Men should be on your mind this week as the second season arrives.

Three episodes will debut on July 1^st. I’ll save you the calendar check; it’s this Wednesday.

When we last left the X-Men, they were not in ’97. Well, some of them were.

Others had been thrown through time to various spots, all of which involve Apocalypse in some way.

Yes, the S-tier X-Men villain will play a huge factor in this season’s proceedings.

As a fan of the original cartoon, I’m all for this plan. “The name’s Cable. Remember it.”

Those words have resonated in my head for nearly 30 years now.

The Cable vs. Apocalypse matchup was mythic, and I presume he’ll play a factor now.

How remains up for debate, as season two of X-Men ’97 can go a lot of ways.

As a reminder, Apocalypse is eternal, which makes him the perfect foe this season.

With the X-Men living in different eras of the same timeline, he’s everywhere.

The Mutants will meet Young Apocalypse, Current Apocalypse, and Future Apocalypse.

This whole plot is interesting, especially if you’re familiar with the current comics.

Some of the most respected Mutants have been running a Mutant community.

Apocalypse, supervillain of the ages, somehow wound up one of the leaders.

Let’s just say that season two of X-Men ’97 isn’t going that way.

Apocalypse will combat Wolverine, Cyclops, and Jean Grey in all timelines.

That’s a tantalizing proposition, made even better by this trailer:

Okay, I’m not even sure that qualifies as a trailer. It’s great, though.

Magneto appears to fight Apocalypse in solo combat at the end of the clip!

These are the things comic book fans covet from the series.

More about X-Men ’97

As a reminder, season one of X-Men ’97 experienced a great deal of tumult.

None of the behind-the-scenes drama impacted the quality of the show, though.

The main writer for season one turned out to be *ahem* chaotic by nature.

Disney got tired of the drama and terminated the person running the show.

By this point, the individual had already written season two.

All this happened in March of 2024, which was 27 months ago.

As such, we have no idea how much of those stories made their way into the season.

The terminated employee indicated that they wouldn’t get credit for their work.

That’s not the same thing as the show not using the scripts/storylines, though.

Given how omnipresent this person is on social media, I’m pretty sure we’ll find out, though.

As soon as the first three episodes air, I fully expect a diatribe about what was used.

More importantly, I anticipate hypercriticism over unwelcome changes to the plot.

This inside baseball drama adds intrigue to what already looks like a great season.

So, we’ve got plenty of reasons to watch X-Men ’97 and then check social media.

Grab your popcorn. It may be like a Bravo reality series live reunion episode.

The Spider-Man Update

I’m only going to discuss two topics this week, one of which wasn’t the original plan.

On Friday, Deadline published a report about Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Specifically, the article listed how many people have watched the trailer thus far.

I dunno what you would consider a big number, but I’m pretty sure I’m about to top that.

The latest Spider-Man film has gained the second-largest number of views ever.

After just one week, fans have viewed the Brand New Day trailer 590 million times.

Whenever I discuss the Nielsen Streaming ratings, I mention total minutes watched as a metric.

Friends, that single trailer earned nearly 1.2 billion viewer minutes.

For the week in question, it was bigger than Bluey, the top streaming program for two and a half years.

The voracious demand for new Spider-Man footage strongly suggests a blockbuster hit.

Trailer views don’t always directly correlate to box office success, but come on!

Now, we have data to back up that thought process anyway.

Deadline also reports that early ticket sales for Brand New Day are off the charts.

In fact, they’re the best of any film over the past five years!

More about Spidey

You may be wondering which 2021 title surpassed it, and the answer is obvious.

It’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. Brand New Day isn’t quite at that level yet.

However, we’re still a month from release, which gives it plenty of time to catch up.

In case you’ve forgotten, No Way Home earned $1.9 billion at the box office.

If Brand New Day is even in the ballpark of that, it’ll be the number one film of 2026.

Last month, I indicated that I thought it and Toy Story 5 would fight it out for the summer title.

Thus far, that prediction appears accurate, with Toy Story 5 also soaring at the box office.

Still, for Spider-Man to win the year, it would need to hold off one other titan.

Remember that Avengers: Doomsday arrives in December. It could be a threat, too.

 

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