In 2026, Marvel and Mattel are both releasing projects designed to capitalize on people’s love for iconic animated heroes from their childhoods. Masters of the Universe has put a live-action He-Man on the big screen, and the second season of X-Men ’97 is about to fling some of Charles Xavier’s mutants into an apocalyptic future . Both projects were clearly made by people who love the source material, and they are similarly filled with nerdy Easter eggs meant to get hardcore fans hyped up. X-Men ’97 and Masters of the Universe are both nostalgia plays, but the biggest difference between the two — and arguably the reason one of them hasn’t been all that much of a success — is the work that has gone into keeping their respective characters and worlds alive in the pop culture consciousness.

In its second season, X-Men ’97 splits its team of mutant heroes up into multiple teams that find themselves stranded at drastically different points in history.…