It’s claimed that head of Marvel, Kevin Feige, is said to be “annoyed” by the apparent success of the X-Men ’97 animated series.
The claim comes from Beau DeMayo via X who Marvel fired prior to the show’s premiere for alleged inappropriate behavior, which DeMayo has also claimed isn’t true.
DeMayo has also alleged there is racism going on at Marvel and that various executives wanted to ruin the show (more on that below). Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld has also fired shots at Feige over alleged behavior toward him at the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere.
What did Beau DeMayo say about Kevin Feige?
The latest from Beau DeMayo is that he says he was told by a Marvel employee that Kevin Feige has found it annoying that fans compare X-Men ’97 to the live-action X2: X-Men United movie released in 2003, which some fans consider the best of the films. Kevin Feige happened to get his start on the Fox X-Men movies and was a co-producer on X-Men 2. DeMayo says Feige has nothing to do with X-Men ’97:
Man, talk about never meet your heroes. I was informed by an employee at@marvelstudios that Kevin Fiege’s response to the success of the show, and it being their highest rated project on @RottenTomatoes, was that he would prefer if it wasn’t being used as a referendum on the MCU’s failures, and his annoyance that people hold it up to X2. Kevin did not give #xmen97 any of his attention. I met with him to pitch it and was hired and never got a note from him afterwards at all, and now he’s annoyed it did well without me and the crew needing him.
Sorta disgusting disrespect and ego. Explains why I had to pay for the wrap party for the crew out of my pocket bc Marvel declined to honor the crews hard work. Never meet your heroes.
Beau DeMayo releases Disney Marvel statement
About a month ago saw Beau DeMayo release a statement on his YouTube about the Disney / Marvel allegations. He said in part:
“These allegations of egregious misconduct are false. The rumors being spread around me online are lies and they are offensive. But more concerning is that they’re a smear campaign designed to discredit my credibility in order to cover up egregious, prejudicial misconduct stretching from select crew members on X-Men ’97 all the way to the top of Marvel Studios.”
In the video, DeMayo also says Marvel wanted to change X-Men ’97 from being something similar to the comics to its own thing:
“When I called these things out, they pivoted to attacking my talent, accusing me of being too much of a fanboy. They openly resented me fighting for the fans fighting for the comics, They accused me of playing karaoke with those comics and repeatedly I was told by these individuals that we should be doing our own version of X-Men, writing new stories and not adapting those written by ‘old white men’—by which I could only assume they were referencing individuals like Stan Lee and Chris Claremont.”
DeMayo went over some of the changes Marvel wanted, which included having Jubilee throwing up gang signs:
“These individuals would then attempt to sabotage me on my job painting me as abusive when I decline to make wholesale changes to characters—when I declined to have Jubilee fire plasmoids from her mouth or make gang signs or paint the sky with plasmoids in the shape of middle fingers.”
DeMayo added the alleged smear campaign surrounding him is aimed at distracting fans from the truth:
“The offenses Marvel and others have leaked are designed to distract you from what really offended them—that someone like me dared to speak truth to people like them… They wanted me to be the Black stamp of approval on this project—I declined.”
What’s next for X-Men ’97?
Seasons 2 and 3 are currently in development with new writer and showrunner, Matt Chauncy, with it said the second season has been revised. No release date has been announced.
Worth a mention is that under DeMayo, the viewership for the first season is known to be really low. DeMayo – or someone at Marvel – also changed Morph to gay, hinted Morph and Wolverine are gay, used pronouns that didn’t exist in the ’90s, and DeMayo shared gay art of the characters on social media. He also tried to promote X-Men ’97 on RuPaul’s Drag Race:
It is wrong… when I suggested this past February that we reach out to RuPaul’s Drag Race to find a way to promote X-Men with a beloved queer franchise on that show—to be told by Marvel that they wouldn’t want to alienate certain audiences.
X-Men ’97 Season 1 and the original animated series can be watched on Disney+.
