Published Jul 2, 2026, 7:52 PM EDT
Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more.
Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics."
Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool 2 was responsible for bringing a dark Marvel team from the comics to live-action, and after nearly a decade, that same superhero squad has returned in a new adaptation, looking better than before. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is responsible for using many of the best Marvel teams from the comics, as well as some underrated ensembles.
For instance, it was the MCU with some of its best movies that made the Guardians of the Galaxy's popularity increase in the comics, not the other way around. Marvel also developed a different kind of Defenders team, taking away characters like the Hulk and Doctor Strange to create a street-level squad centered on Charlie Cox's Daredevil. Notably, the Avengers are the MCU's premier team.
That said, Marvel Studios is not the only one responsible for bringing exciting superhero teams from the comics to the big screen. There were three Fantastic Four movies before the MCU's take on the team and several X-Men films at Fox. That said, one of Marvel's most underrated teams never got a full movie to shine, though it appeared in Deadpool 2.
That is the superhero team that has not gotten the chance to show its might in X-Men '97 season 2. The animated Disney+ Marvel series is back, with three episodes out so far on the streaming service and the rest releasing weekly. While the X-Men are the main focus of the show, two other mutant teams appear in season 2, and one of them deserved a comeback.
Deadpool 2 Was X-Force's Latest Major Appearance
Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for X-Men '97 season 2's first three episodes.X-Force is a darker mutant team from the comics. It is often depicted as a black-ops team of mutants sent on missions that the X-Men can't be seen by the outside world, given the fragility of the mutants' standing with humans. It is a lethal team. X-Force got its biggest appearance thus far in live-action in Deadpool 2. The second solo movie for Ryan Reynolds' Merc With a Mouth was released all the way back on May 18, 2018. The film featured Deadpool and Weasel holding auditions for the X-Force, with hilarious results.
In the end, Deadpool 2's X-Force had among its members Deadpool, Domino, Bedlam, Brad Pitt's Vanisher, Shatterstar, Zeitgeist, and Peter. Later in the movie, Josh Brolin's Cable and Colossus aided the surviving members of the team. I say surviving because most of the X-Force members were immediately killed in chaotic and stupid ways right after the team was assembled for the first time. While it made for a fun sequence, it was disappointing for those who wanted to see these characters and an underrated Marvel Comics team get to shine in live-action.
X-Men '97 Season 2 Does Right By X-Force After Deadpool 2
Eight years after Deadpool 2, Marvel Studios' X-Men '97 season 2 finally brings back the X-Force and does so with a take on the mutant team that is much more interesting and relevant than that of the Deadpool movie. Cable is the leader of this iteration of the X-Force, not Deadpool, and due to his key role in season 2's Apocalypse-focused storyline, Marvel fans can expect the X-Force to be integral to the story going forward. The animated version of the X-Force consists of Cable, Psylocke, Archangel, Jubilee, and Sunspot.
The X-Force's debut is so important that Marvel Studios decided to change X-Men '97's iconic opening to focus it on the new mutant team. Like in the comics, the show's X-Force is a covert team that has no problems killing anyone in their way and using extreme methods to get information. The X-Force also clashes with another mutant team, the X-Factor, which is a government-run squad, and thus goes directly against why the X-Force exists. As such, X-Men '97 season 2 finally brings back the X-Force for the first time since Deadpool 2 and does something more exciting with it.
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Deadpool 2
5/10
Release Date May 15, 2018
Runtime 120 minutes
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Wade Wilson / Deadpool / Juggernaut (voice)
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English (US) ·