Beau DeMayo, the original showrunner of X-Men ’97, claims that Disney’s actions went beyond just firing him a week before the series’ March premiere.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday evening, DeMayo expressed his gratitude for having worked on X-Men ’97 but felt compelled to speak out after his departure from the show.
He revealed that on June 13, Marvel notified him that his season 2 credits had been removed due to X-Men fan art he posted on Instagram for Pride Month in June.
The June 4 post featured an illustration of the X-Men character Cyclops shirtless, which DeMayo shared with a caption tagging and praising the artist, along with the message, “Happy Pride!”
X-Men ’97, a sequel to the beloved ’90s cartoon X-Men: The Animated Series, was first announced in November 2021.
It is the first X-Men title produced by Marvel Studios and was praised for retaining the series’ distinctive visual style while bringing back original voice actors like Cal Dodd, Lenore Zann, George Buza, and Alison Sealy-Smith. The White Lotus’ Theo James was also cast in a surprise role as the supervillain Bastion.
DeMayo had been attached to the project from the beginning and mentioned to EW a month before the March 2024 premiere that he was already working on season 2. However, a week before the series debuted on Disney+, he was fired from the project.
In an interview that same week, Brad Winderbaum, the head of streaming, television, and animation at Marvel Studios, provided some context for the unexpected change.
When asked if he would characterize DeMayo’s exit as being “fired,” Winderbaum responded, “I don’t. ‘We parted ways’ is the best I could probably say.”
Winderbaum commended DeMayo’s contributions to the series, stating, “Beau had real respect and passion for these characters and wrote what I think are excellent scripts that the rest of the team was able to draw inspiration from to build this amazing show that’s on screen.”
DeMayo broke his silence on social media in April after the airing of X-Men ’97’s fifth episode. “Lotta questions and so I’ll momentarily break silence to answer,” he wrote.
“Episode 5 was the centerpiece of my pitch to Marvel in November 2020. The idea was to have the X-Men mirror the journey that any of us who grew up on the original show have experienced since being kids in the ’90s.”
He further explained his attempt to depict a shift from a “simple” world where “questions about identity and social justice had relatively clear-cut answers” to the more complex world of the show, where “things weren’t so safe anymore.”
Neither DeMayo nor Disney has publicly disclosed the specific reason for his removal as the series’ showrunner. DeMayo’s Thursday post only addressed the allegation that Disney had stripped him of his credit for the show’s upcoming second season.
DeMayo concluded his thread by saying, “I’ll have more to say soon but must take a step back from social media to find a safer space for me to be out, proud, and nerdy. Stay tuned.”
