X-Men ’97 finally resolves a Spider-Man animated series cliffhanger

polygon.com:

Cameos: They’re not just videos that actors do in their living rooms for money! In its excellent first season, the X-Men ’97 writers have had a lot of fun giving viewers little views into the Marvel Universe beyond the X-Mansion. A quick glimpse of Spider-Man here, a conversation between Rogue and Captain America there — it’s a thrilling old-school approach to comic book cameos that signals the scale of what’s happening instead of teasing the potential for spinoffs.

Those cameos step up big time in the three-part “Tolerance is Extinction” finale, as the human-machine hybrid Bastion plunges the world into chaos. As a result, we get some neat cutaways to Marvel heroes around the world reacting to a pending apocalypse — Daredevil fighting crime, Doctor Strange mid-surgery — and one that implies something kind of big. Take a look at these two:

Marvel animation heads will recognize them as Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson as they appeared in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, which was set in the same continuity as X-Men. What’s notable here is that both MJ and Peter are seen here, together, in a show that’s a sequel to their cartoon contemporary.

Spider-Man famously ended on a cliffhanger, as escalating threats led to the webslinger bopping his way around the multiverse (I know) with Madame Web (I know) to find Mary Jane. The reason? Earlier in the series, Peter learns that the Mary Jane he married at the start of the final season was in fact a clone (relatable, as Scott Summers would say), and the real Mary Jane was lost in limbo after getting pulled through a portal two seasons prior.

So yeah: in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene, X-Men ’97 gives Spider-Man a happy ending, showing Peter and Mary Jane reunited at last. But there’s a bit more to the story if you’re curious.

Spider-Man producer and head writer John Semper has spoken quite candidly about his time running the animated series (not a picnic) and how his intended plans to end the series were disrupted by the