When the cast members and creators of the 1990s “X-Men: The Animated Series” gathered at the 2019 Hill Country Comicon in New Braunfels, Texas, they went out to dinner and collectively longed to one day work together again.
“We said, 'Let's tell the universe: Universe, why don't you come forward and say that someone buys the rights to the show and decides to reboot it and bring us all back?' We toasted the universe and here we are,” recalls Canadian actress Lenore Zann, voice of the irresistibly tough Rogue, during a recent video call while visiting Los Angeles.
The result of that metaphysical request is Marvel's “X-Men '97,” which debuted in 2024 on Disney+, not as a reboot but as a continuation of the classic original 1992 animated show.
The first season of this new era of the X-Men received an Emmy nomination for the animated program. Now the long-awaited second season has arrived, and the fourth episode will air this week. Even after the controversial dismissal of showrunner Beau DeMayo“X-Men '97” has already been renewed through Season 4 and the voice cast has begun recording their lines for Season 3, Zann says.
The show's success among fans and critics alike is due in large part to its commitment to honoring the original '90s show, about a group of mutants fighting for themselves and humanity, by not only preserving its hand-drawn animation style and mature themes, but also the characters' voices and personalities.
“When I introduced the program to Kevin [Feige]He understood it immediately and his first question was: 'Will you bring back the original cast?' And I was like, 'Yes, we are,'” says Brad Winderbaum, head of Marvel Television, Animation, Comics and Franchises at Marvel Studios.
Several voice actors from the original “X-Men” animated series returned for “X-Men '97,” which returned for season 2. From left to right, Beast (George Buza), Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith), Rogue (Lenore Zann), Professor X (Ross Marquand), Magneto (Matthew Waterson) and Nightcrawler (Adrian Hough).
(Wonder)
Not everyone was yet to return (Norm Spencer, voice of Cyclops, died in 2020), but in addition to Zann, actors George Buza (Beast), Alison Sealy-Smith (Storm) and Cal Dodd, the voice of the lovable, clawed curmudgeon Wolverine, have reprized their roles in “X-Men '97.” His iconic voice performances, Winderbaum says, are etched into his psyche.
“Every time Lenore says the word 'sugah,' I just melt into a puddle on the floor,” Winderbaum says, laughing. “She's Rogue, and when she turns it on, she becomes an icon.”
Busy with her political career as part of Canada's parliament, Zann stepped away from the entertainment business for more than a decade. Zann was back at her home in Truro, Nova Scotia, thinking about her next chapter when she received an email from a friend saying that Disney producers were looking for her to audition for a show. She was skeptical.
Zann finally received a call from casting director Meredith Layne and a script with lines that were instantly familiar from her time in the '90s playing Rogue, the plucky heroine whose touch can be deadly.
“I thought, 'I guess they're looking for Rogue, so I'll give them Rogue,'” he recalls, laughing. “And I did my Rogue voice, which is basically me, but with a little bit of a southern accent,” she adds with a slight accent.
Producers then asked him if he would reprise his superhero for a new generation of children.
Doing her Rogue voice, Zann recalls, “I said, 'You've got me on Hello, Honey.'”
She enjoys the similarities between her and Rogue. “We are both social justice warriors. We really fight for people to be accepted for who they are.”
In 2024, Zann published “A Rogue's Tale: A Memoir,” a tome chronicling his life, titled after a memorable episode of the '90s series that revealed his beloved mutant's backstory.
Wolverine in a scene from the second season of “X-Men '97”.
(Wonder)
For Dodd, leaving Wolverine behind after five seasons of the original show was like losing a part of himself. “X-Men '97” offered him the chance to feel whole once again.
“I was very happy because when I first created Wolverine's voice in '92, he quickly became my brother or my right arm,” Dodd says during a recent video call. “I got my arm and my brother back.”
After all these years, Dodd was also happy to see what the most important character of his career looked like in the new series. “Wolverine came out and I just said, 'Holy shit, you look cool, man,'” he recalls, laughing about the first time he recorded lines for “X-Men '97.”
When he first auditioned for the role in the '90s, Dodd had no idea who Wolverine or the X-Men were. At the time, he was making a living as a commercial and jingle singer in Toronto.
Dodd remembers that the lines he was asked to deliver were directed at the mutant villain Sabretooth. I had never seen a picture of Wolverine or any of the characters. “At one point I said to them, 'Is this an animal cartoon?' They just thought I was a complete idiot,” he recalls, laughing.
In that opening scene, where Sabretooth attacked Jubilee, a member of the Dodd recites it from memory in Wolverine's voice with a growl.
“The lines I was reading, I had heard before in the small town I grew up in Canada; it's a fishing town, a tough little town,” Dodd says of his reference for Wolverine's voice. “I knew guys who were exactly like him and I knew what they sounded like.”
Even without any notion of the X-Men, he pulled it off.
“The next morning, they called me and said, 'We'd love to have you as our Wolverine for the first X-Men animated series,'” Dodd recalls. “And I said, 'I'd love to be your Wolverine, whoever and whatever it is.'”
1. Cal Dodd, voice actor of Wolverine in “X-Men '97.” 2. Lenore Zann, who voices Rogue. (Paulina Aguirre)
When Rogue entered Zann's life, she already had a notable career as a film and theater actress. Zann had played Marilyn Monroe in a rock opera about the actor's life, for which she received much praise. “My agent called me and said, 'Lenore, they're doing this animated series and they're looking for 'a woman with a deep, husky, sexy voice who can do a Southern accent,'” Zann recalls, laughing. “And she said, 'That's you!'”
At the time, Zann was not interested in voice work, so she missed the first auditions. But about a month later, he says, his agent called again. They hadn't found the right voice yet, so he pressured Zann to audition. He walked in and looked at a drawing of Rogue that Larry Huston, the storyboard artist and director of the show, had drawn.
“She had a very sassy attitude, she had her hand on her hip and her head was back with her hair down. I was like, 'Yeah, I can do that.' And then I walked into the studio, put on the headphones, opened my mouth, did the first line: 'I remember I had a boyfriend, when I kissed him, the poor guy went into a coma for three days,'” she says in Rogue's voice. That was enough for her to land the role that would change her life.
At the end of the first season of “X-Men '97,” both Rogue and Wolverine find themselves on hard times. Wolverine's clash with Magneto, the eternal antihero, left him severely injured, physically and mentally.
“He's as tough as nails and he's more angry than anything because he was the only one who stood up to Magneto. He's disappointed,” Dodd says. “And it's a struggle for him in Season 2 for a lot of that. And then you see what happens. He's in a weird place, but he'll handle it.”
Part of that healing process will involve leaning into the humor that Dodd imbues into his speech. “What I think is surprising when you go back and watch that original animated series is how funny Cal is,” Winderbaum says. “Wolverine has one-liners throughout that original series.”
As for Rogue, she is mourning the loss of Gambit, aka Remy LeBeau, who died in the first season. To express Rogue's grief, Zann leaned on her own grief over the death of her 17-year-old niece from cancer. In season 2, Rogue tries to move on.
“He's basically still on a hero's journey who wants to get justice for what happened to Remy and for the genocide that he witnessed and is a survivor of,” Zann says. “He still feels the guilt of having survived and is still trying to find his place within the X-Men now that the one he loves is gone.”
At comic conventions, Zann and Dodd often meet fans of the original series, who are now adults, and their children, who have also grown to love the characters. The emotions that people share with them are sometimes overwhelming.
“Many times they tell us that this program saved their lives. Either they were LGBTQ+, or they were harassed, or they just felt different,” explains Zann. “A lot of Latino people tell me that when they were little kids, their parents were farm workers and they learned to speak English by watching our show. We made them feel that it's okay to be different.”
“I see grown men crying. They're 40 years old and they're crying,” Dodd says of meeting longtime fans. “I can tell you that Wolverine can cry too.”
Zann believes that the X-Men are like modern mythological heroes. Through their fantastic experiences, the X-Men illustrate qualities that inspire viewers young and old.
“They are a group of misfits who come together to learn to control the things that make them different and learn to accept and love themselves,” he says. “It's an honor to be a part of this incredible group of people and these characters who can truly touch lives and help change them for the better.”
