Aborted Arcs within the comics and webcomics of the shared Marvel Universe.
This page also lists examples for some adaptations based on (but not part of) the Marvel Universe.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has its own page.
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Comic Books
Comic Books
The following have their own pages:
- At the end of the first arc in All-New Invaders, The Eternals discovered a comatose Galactus in the Negative Zone (where he'd been trapped following Cataclysm: The Ultimates' Last Stand), and planned to use the Gods' Whisper to control him and make him destroy the Kree. The planned attack on the Kree never occurred, and Galactus later appeared without any reference to how he'd escaped the Negative Zone.
- In Beyond!, Dwayne McDuffie killed off the teen hero Gravity by having him perform a Heroic Sacrifice. However, the final panel of the book hinted that this wasn't the end of Gravity's tale. The character was later resurrected in McDuffie's Fantastic Four run, but hasn't really done anything of note since. It turns out that this is because the original plan was to resurrect Gravity and have him become the new Captain Marvel, but someone else decided it would be a better idea to introduce a Skrull posing as the original Captain Marvel in Civil War instead.
- Black Panther:
- Reginald Hudlin's first run ended with Erik Killmonger's son swearing vengeance against T'Challa after watching Monica Rambeau kill his dad. The son hasn't been seen since then, and his planned revenge has yet to occur.
- In The Man Without Fear, David Liss introduced an Evil Counterpart for T'Challa named the American Panther. The story ended with the villain defeated, but with his costume and mask unaccounted for. The final shot showed someone putting on the American Panther mask and cryptically saying "The world has been waiting for my return. Well...here I am," but the mystery of who this was ended up going nowhere. Word of God is that it would have eventually been revealed that the new American Panther was Kasper Cole, the young man who had briefly replaced T'Challa as the Black Panther near the end of Christopher Priest's run. The next time Kasper officially appeared, it was revealed that he'd given up on crime-fighting altogether, and there was no indication that he'd ever worn the American Panther suit.
- The Sky-Walker from Daredevil was billed as "the most startling character in the annals of Marveldom" when he first appeared. He showed up in exactly one issue before completely disappearing. Word of God from Marv Wolfman is that he had wanted to use the character to set off a big sci-fi story, but by that point he'd become so unhappy with his tenure on the title that he asked to be taken off Daredevil and moved to another book.
- Kevin Smith's infamous Daredevil/Bullseye: The Target mini-series, which was never finished. The first (and only) issue saw a group of Muslim extremists coming to New York to hire Bullseye to kill an extremely valuable target, for which he'd be paid 20 million dollars. It ended with him expressing surprise at the intended victim but then agreeing to do it anyway. We never found out who it was or what happened next, but Word of God is that the target would have been revealed to be Captain America.
- Happened a lot in earlier issues of Doctor Strange, when writers struggled to figure out how the titular character fit into a universe of costumed superheroes. In one issue Strange is suffering from financial difficulties due to a lack of income, and considers taking on mundane jobs, such as stage magic, to earn a living. Not two issues later Wong confronts him about their ongoing fiscal hardships only for Strange to conjure a giant stack of money out of thin air and demand not to be bothered again.
- A battle with Nightmare over a sleeping Eternity destroyed the entire planet Earth and everyone on it. As a token of appreciation for saving him, Eternity rewards Strange by creating a new Earth separate from but identical to the one that was just destroyed. Strange spends a number of issues grappling with the implication that he is the only "real" person left on a planet full of clones, and it drives him to the brink of insanity in a few stories. This subplot would later be abruptly dropped, with all its implications swept under the rug and dismissed as the work of some kind of illusion.
- Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four epic, The War of the Four Cities. The four blocs are the Lost City of the High Evolutionary (tied to Silver Age villain the Mole Man), the floating city of the Universal Inhumans (tied to, well, The Inhumans), the hidden lives of the Cult of the Negative Zone (tied to Annihilus), and the Last Kings of Old Atlantis (tied to Namor the Sub-Mariner)... who kind of... died suddenly. Presumably when Hickman realized that with Namor and the surviving Atlanteans living under Utopia meant there was no way to hold the X-Men off until the Grand Finale. Never mind, we were then treated to the addition of the Kree to the storyline.
- The final issue of Matt Fraction's FF ended with the implication that Pym Particles could be used to resurrect Cassie Lang, Ant-Man's dead daughter. Cassie did end up getting resurrected a relatively short time later, but in a manner entirely unrelated to the plot thread from FF.
- Simon Spurrier wrote a companion miniseries to Jason Aaron's Ghost Rider run titled Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch. It was basically used to explain why the second Ghost Rider was suddenly a very evil acting Well-Intentioned Extremist working for Zadkiel. One of the characters introduced was Mary Le Bow, Danny's confidante and occultist friend. She's "killed" at the end of the story, but her soul ends up in a sort of limbo, where her murderer resides. He says he'll find her a new body and that magic users like her are going to be facing a nebulous threat separate from the war in Heaven that the Ghost Riders were waging. This isn't followed up on, and the following Ghost Rider series introduces an entirely new Ghost Rider at that. Danny Ketch himself never mentions Mary again and wouldn't appear prominently again after Aaron's run for years.
- The Incredible Hercules had a subplot where Amadeus Cho visited his deceased family in the afterlife, only to discover that his little sister, whom he had presumed dead as well, was actually still alive. Maddy Cho did finally appear years later in Totally Awesome Hulk, but her actual reunion with Amadeus apparently took place entirely offscreen.
- During Heroes Reborn's "Industrial Revolution" arc's climax, Onslaught, the entity whose actions were the reason The Avengers and Fantastic Four were in that universe to begin with, briefly appeared in the reactor on Avengers Island as the Hulk sealed it off. Outside of Reed noting that Onslaught was alive before he disappeared, nothing was done with it and Onslaught Reborn would tie Onslaught's return to the events of House of M.
- Gerry Duggan's Hulk run ended before the plot about Gammon, Banner's evil A.I., could reach any sort of meaningful resolution. Earlier in the same run, there was also Foreshadowing for a confrontation between Doc Green and Kang the Conqueror. The anticipated fight never happened.
- The Last Defenders ended with Kyle Richmond forming a new group of Defenders consisting of She-Hulk, Son of Satan, Krang, and the new Nighthawk after learning from the time-traveling villain Yandroth that this team would go down in history as his greatest achievement and an important part of the Marvel Universe. Indeed, the last page had Yandroth ominously stating that these new Defenders were reality's greatest hope for survival. The new team only ever appeared again in the obscure mini-series Vengeance (where they weren't even the main characters), and then quietly disbanded offscreen. They certainly never did anything even remotely as important as the achievements Yandroth hinted at.
- A major part of Brian Michael Bendis' short-lived Moon Knight series revolved around the hero finding a decapitated Ultron head, with the series' final issue promising that the plot point would be addressed in the then-upcoming Age of Ultron crossover. Not only was the subplot about the Ultron head not resolved, but Moon Knight himself hardly appeared in the actual event.
- The final story arc of the original Power Pack featured the appearance of a mysterious homeless man known only as Mr. Raymond, who possessed fire-based superpowers and seemingly had some sort of connection to Frankie Raye. It was strongly implied that this was a grown-up version of Tommy "Toro" Raymond, the Golden Age Human Torch's seemingly-deceased Kid Sidekick, and that he was also Frankie's biological father (which would explain her powers). This plot thread was never continued, and later stories would definitively establish that Toro did indeed die for real back in Sub-Mariner #14. In fact, Toro's resurrection was a major plot point in the later Avengers/Invaders crossover.
- The "Home Schooling" arc of Runaways featured the Runaways' Malibu home being destroyed by a missile attack that also kills Old Lace, Klara going berserk, and Chase running away and later getting hit by a car while chasing after a girl who looks like Gertrude Yorkes. It also revealed that the Runaways had been under surveillance by Chase's mysterious uncle, Hunter Stein. But the series was cancelled before the arc came anywhere near a conclusion, and when the Runaways finally resurfaced several years later in Avengers Academy, the only part of "Home Schooling" that was acknowledged was Old Lace's apparent death (which was quickly undone - the arc revealed that Nico Minoru cast a previously-unmentioned spell that sent Old Lace into another world where she was restored to life.)
- Warren Ellis' short-lived Thor run introduced a subplot about Warren Curzon, a British cop who was investigating Thor. When Ellis decided to leave the title after the fourth issue, he had Enchantress casually kill off Curzon, making his whole storyline a "Shaggy Dog" Story.
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2008):
- At the beginning of the series, Drax is looking for Cammi, but when the possibility of reviving his daughter comes up, he forgets all about her.
- The modern Guardians meet the classic/future Guardians from the year 3000, who are shocked to see Jack Flag and declare him to be the "chosen one". This was never followed up on as Jack was whisked to Comic-Book Limbo following the end of the series until he was brought Back for the Dead in Nick Spencer's Captain America run.
- Abnett's Nova run had an issue that ended with the return of Anti-Hero Substitute Garthan Saal with no explanation how he was suddenly Back from the Dead. He hasn't appeared since.
- Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run ended with the adult Valeria Richards gaining access to the space between universes that the multiversal Council of Reeds used as their base of operations. It was apparently her plan all along to gain access to this space, and she states that now she can build, an ominous reference to Doctor Doom's previous failed attempt at godhood. While Hickman's Fantastic Four run led into his Avengers run in a big way and the multiverse is collapsing within that story, nowhere does adult Valeria show up again.
Films
Films
- The Amazing Spider-Man Series: One of the many Sequel Hooks at the end of The Amazing Spider Man involves Peter attempting to track down the man who shot Uncle Ben. In The Amazing Spider Man 2, this plot thread is never even mentioned. Likely this was meant to be continued in a future film, however with the series now canned so Spider-Man can join the MCU, it'll never be resolved.
- The Amazing Spider-Man: Initially, the film contained strong hints of Richard Parker messing with his son's DNA (a la Hulk) and that Dr. Connors was involved with the deaths of Peter's parents, while also being more of a loose-cannon scientist ("Ready to play God?"); these were kept intact for the trailers. Due to early negative feedback pertaining to the movie's original "Untold Story" marketing, these subplots were altered or dropped (along with that tagline), but elements still remained behind in the final cut, leading to a few red herrings and loose ends.
- Some of this can be seen in the deleted scenes, as it's evident mostly the Connors stuff got cut. It's pretty watered down from what the early trailers hinted at, but we do have Connors philosophizing about evolution and revealing that Peter's father didn't trust him because he felt he was radical. There's also some stuff about Peter becoming more than his father would have ever dreamed.
- Throughout the film, Connors is shown wearing a wedding band and he has a moment while looking into his bedroom mirror at his missing arm and the empty bed behind him. A deleted scene also shows he has a son, so it's left up to interpretation what happened to his wife.
- An intentional example is Peter looking for Uncle Ben's killer, as he ends up learning that being a hero isn't about seeking revenge and so he stops searching in favor of stopping the Lizard and saving New York - basically fulfilling his "great responsibility".
- The Amazing Spider-Man: Initially, the film contained strong hints of Richard Parker messing with his son's DNA (a la Hulk) and that Dr. Connors was involved with the deaths of Peter's parents, while also being more of a loose-cannon scientist ("Ready to play God?"); these were kept intact for the trailers. Due to early negative feedback pertaining to the movie's original "Untold Story" marketing, these subplots were altered or dropped (along with that tagline), but elements still remained behind in the final cut, leading to a few red herrings and loose ends.
- Fantastic Four (2015): A lot of potential plot threads go nowhere after being built up.
- Ben's abusive family is never brought up again after the infamous "It's clobberin' time!" scene, where he is hit by his older brother.
- Victor's unrequited love of Sue is never explained - and Reed's love of Sue never has any kind of emotional pay-off, and is instead only vaguely hinted at.
- Reed's fugitive arc involves him building a teleporter from scratch using the black market and work around parts with the goal of fixing the others. Once he gets to Area 57, this plot is dropped entirely, even after Doom is dealt with.
- Ben is mad at Reed for his involvement in the accident and for leaving him until the plot demands that he suddenly isn't.
- Johnny being an irresponsible gearhead is not elaborated upon.
- Reed's step-father and mother are seen briefly but don't appear beyond that.
- There were plans for sequels, and at least some plot points were meant to be expanded upon in them. Due to the film's flop and the sequels being canceled, it's unlikely they'll get any kind of payoff.
- Elektra: Elektra seems to have forgotten that somewhere in the world is a bald Irish man named Bullseye who killed her and her father. In fact it isn't even brought up at all despite it being the reason she came back to life in the first place.
- Spider-Man 3: Even though this was a major problem that caused strain on Peter's life and his relationship with Mary Jane in the previous film, it is never explained or shown how Peter managed to balance his life as a civilian and his life as Spider-Man, as his daily schedule in this film is exactly like his daily schedule in the previous film.
- The Fantastic Four: There was a subplot about Thing coping with his new form, but this is put to a halt when Alicia Masters is kidnapped.
- Venom: It's brought up that Venom is killing Eddie, causing his heart to shrink and multiple organ failures. This proves to be the entire reason why Anne separates Eddie and Venom. After that, it's not brought up again until the final scene. Venom does assure Eddie he can "fix it", but this comes across more as desperate pleas to not be separated from his host and it's not entirely clear if he actually can (And why he hadn't done so already if he could). The final scene of the movie does have Venom admit that Eddie's "liver is gonna start looking real delicious" if Eddie doesn't eat soon, suggesting that the repeated consumption of living flesh can stave this off and that Eddie was simply not adjusted to the Symbiote/eating enough yet.
- X-Men Film Series
- X-Men: The Last Stand: The Stinger ends with Moira McTaggart discovering that Xavier (who was seemingly de-atomized by Jean earlier in the film) has somehow managed to transfer his mind into her patient, who is otherwise in a comatose state. The film ends with Moira expressing surprise at Xavier's voice speaking to her. Come the next film in the chronological timeline (The Wolverine), Xavier is back in his original body in that film's Stinger, with no explanation given as to how he was able to get his original body back. The whole question is rendered moot by the ending of X-Men: Days of Future Past, which changes the timeline so that Jean never becomes the Phoenix, and is still alive with Scott in the Everybody Lives future.
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine ended with the reveal that Deadpool had survived being decapitated, setting the character up for future appearances. The movie's poor reception and mediocre earnings led to the studio completely abandoning any plans for a sequel, and releasing the unrelated The Wolverine and Deadpool instead. The whole thing is later lampshaded in The Stinger of Deadpool 2, where Deadpool time-travels to the events of Origins: Wolverine and shoots Wilson several times in the head before he even has a chance to fight Logan at Three Mile Island.
- X-Men: Apocalypse ends with Xavier and Moira beginning a relationship, Psylocke escaping, and the Essex Corporation recovering a sample of Logan's blood from the Alkali Lake facility. While Logan does have a plot thread about X-23, the film takes place 40 years after the events of Apocalypse and no direct connection is made to either the Essex Corporation or Mr. Sinister (the presumed benefactor in charge).
- Logan: The Stinger for X-Men: Apocalypse featured the Essex Corporation taking Wolverine's blood samples in a set-up for this film, strongly suggesting that Mister Sinister would be the primary antagonist—or at least the Essex Corporation in his place, who would use Wolverine's blood samples to make Laura. Mister Sinister is nowhere to be found in this movie, however, and the people responsible for making Laura are Transigen instead (presumably through the same methods that the Essex Corporation were employing).note Later statements made by producer Simon Kinberg would reveal that Sinister was intended to appear in a different X-Men movie instead, which would suggest that Essex Corporation is planned for that movie.note
- Dark Phoenix
- After the last film closed on the promise of Quicksilver telling Magneto he was his father someday, this film never touches on it. The director and Quicksilver's actor indicated there was originally a scene to this end, but it felt too forced in light of the situations the film would put the two in
. - Likewise, nothing ever comes of Charles Xavier and Moira MacTaggert reconciling in the same movie. She's not even mentioned.
- After the last film closed on the promise of Quicksilver telling Magneto he was his father someday, this film never touches on it. The director and Quicksilver's actor indicated there was originally a scene to this end, but it felt too forced in light of the situations the film would put the two in
Live-Action TV
Live-Action TV
- Iron Fist: At the end of season 1, Madame Gao is seen in Paris as she overhears Joy and Davos plotting to kill Danny. Since Gao dies in The Defenders (2017), her potential involvement in season 2 is cut short.
- Jessica Jones: At the end of season 1, Will Simpson remains at large, still pining for Trish and hopped up on super-soldier serum. He's reintroduced in season 2 following Trish in a few early episodes, then gets suddenly killed off-screen by Alisa, ending that plot line rather abruptly.
- Luke Cage: In response to Cottonmouth declaring that it's impossible to kill Luke due to his bulletproof skin, Mariah ominously suggests that bulletproof skin wouldn't stop him being drowned or poisoned. No-one ever ends up actually trying either of these options.
- WandaVision: : An in-universe example. Much of the conflict in the early episodes is derived from Wanda and Vision having to hide their superpowers from the residents of Westview. However, as the series goes on, both characters use their powers in full view of these people, who don't seem to have any reaction. This is showing that the Show Within a Show is "losing the plot" while the reality of the situation becomes harder and harder to ignore.
Video Games
Video Games
- The first Marvel Ultimate Alliance ended with a Sequel Hook where Galactus was revealed to be planning a strike against Earth. This was completely ignored in the sequel in favor of an adaptation of the Civil War storyline, with Galactus' planned attack only mentioned in passing.
Western Animation
Western Animation
- The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes: Due to being canceled after only two seasons, the show had a few of these. Notably, the heavily foreshadowed showdown with Surtur and the Enchantress never took place, and Maria Hill's repeated rants about a Superhuman Registration Act never panned out.
- Surtur and his Asgard shenanigans are this thanks to the cancellation of the show.
- The results of Skurge's Heel–Face Turn are never shown.
- Beta Ray Bill's story and his people are left hanging. As well as any Ship Tease with Sif.
- Amora's still captured.
- When Thor had a hammer forged for Beta Ray Bill, he owes one favor to the dwarf king, and it can be anything, and the king looked as if he was interested in collecting.
- Maria Hill's efforts to start a Super Registration Act and leading the heroes toward Civil War didn't come up after episode 28.
- Abigail Brand's implied alien ethnicity.
- Korvac's plotline never went anywhere after his debut, though Peter Quill essentially says "Leave this kind of stuff to us, you really don't want to know what else is out there," to both Tony and the audience.
- Kang's final episode never resolved his main arc. Although the The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes tie-in comic lends some closure to him and Ravonna. Unfortunately for them, it's a massive Downer Ending since they are both trapped in Ancient Egypt with no way out, which should potentially erase their future time period completely.
- The romance between Hawkeye and Widow was never even acknowledged after she was revealed as the Mole.
- Avengers Assemble Season 2 ended with Captain America and Iron Man deciding that they needed to expand the team in order to face bigger threats, and the last shot showed them looking at images of a bunch of potential new recruits like Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, and Moon Knight. The Season 3 premiere then opened up with none of these characters as part of the Avengers roster, with The Falcon offhandedly mentioning that the expansion plan had been canceled. Later episodes did however find ways to incorporate some of the new recruits, but not in the original plan: they were part of a government sponsored team, then later filled in for the original Avengers when they disappeared.
- Despite Captain America's promise to redeem Bucky, now the Winter Soldier, the show seems to forget about this plot point between each of Bucky's appearances. Half-way into season four, this has yet to be resolved.
- Aaron Reece, aka Molecule Kid from the same-titled Season 1 episode. At the end of the episode, he (and Fury) are convinced that he should join up with Fury's SHIELD. Academy Hero Program, the same one that Spider-Man is in. Despite him departing with Fury in the end, and despite a rather powerful and emotion-filled episode introducing the character, Aaron is nowhere to be seen or heard after the episode ends. Not even the 3rd and 4th seasons of Ultimate Spider-Man which expands the hero count and even shifts focus to the Academy's HQ sees any hide or hair of Aaron.
- Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.
- Skaar's true parentage is still unknown by the end of the series. All the audience knows by this point is that he was abandoned on Sakaar as a child and adopted by a family on said world before the Leader took over.
- Absorbing Man and Titania's road to redemption.
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series: The last season introduced elements that indicated they were going to develop The Clone Saga with a cloning scientist getting a sample of Spider-Man's blood. The plot of the Grand Finale even included took this story in The Multiverse as another incarnation of Spider-Man (fused with the Carnage symbiont) having an identity crisis from his universe's Clone Saga and trying to go Omnicidal Maniac.
- The Marvel Super Heroes: The series for the most part avoided leaving storylines hanging and primarily stuck to adapting stories that were self-contained, but the Hulk segments had two episodes that ended on a cliffhanger that was ignored by the next installment and never resolved because of the comic stories where they were resolved never being adapted.
- "Terror of the Toad Men/Bruce Banner: Wanted for Treason/Hulk Runs Amok" had Bruce Banner find a solution to his transformations by creating a hideout to enter whenever night comes, relying on Rick Jones to let him out in the morning after his transformation wears off. By the next episode, this solution is forgotten and Banner is back to struggling to keep his transformations into the Hulk under control.
- "Within This Monster Dwells a Man/Another World, Another Foe/The Wisdom of the Watcher" has the ending narration mention that the Hulk is unable to change back into Bruce Banner. The next episode disregards this detail and has Bruce change into the Hulk and back with no problem.
- Ultimate Spider-Man: When the Lizard first appeared, a serum for scorpion mutations were seen as well. When the Scorpion finally appeared on the show, it was as as Badass Normal and later with a suit of Powered Armor. At no point did he ingest or get his powers from the serum.
- Man-Wolf aka John Jameson. He only appeared once, still having the wolf's curse by the end of the episode. He is never seen again.
- During the season one finale, Harry Osborn swore he would "get to the bottom" of what happened between his dad and Spider-Man, and have his revenge, suggesting he would become a new villain later on. But as season two rolled around, he showed no signs of actually investigating what happened to Norman, or of taking revenge on Spidey, instead settling on hating the webslinger from afar.
- Near the beginning of Season 3, it was established that Echo, Gravity, and Speedball were potential S.H.I.E.L.D. recruits handpicked by Nick Fury to undergo training. One season later, we never see these three superheroes again.
- In "The Parent Trap", Luke is exposed to a burst of energy when Scorpio suffers Phlebotinum Overload from a tampered batch of super soldier serum. At the end of the episode, his eyes glow with the same energy, suggesting that he would gain some kind of Mid-Season Upgrade. However, nothing ever came of this.
- Wolverine and the X-Men (2009): A significant amount of plot points and storylines have not been resolved due to the show’s cancellation.
- The Age of Apocalypse storyline, which was going to be the main arc for the scrapped second season.
- Professor Xavier is still in a coma.
- Colossus never got the chance to rejoin the X-Men.
- Angel is currently under Mister Sinister's control.
- Master Mold is still out there, trapped in the body of a Sentinel.
- X-23 is still in Weapon X's custody.
- The MRD continue to pose a threat, even by the series' end.
- The X-Men are still rebuilding themselves, even after the X-Mansion incident.
- Due to the fact that the series was canceled, Cyclops had never received the opportunity of rising up and redeeming himself and becoming the hero we all know him to be. However, due to that the cliffhanger showed Cyclops would have spent half the season working for the bad guys, it seems highly unlikely that Cyclops would have became the leader again had the series continued.
- X-Men: Evolution: Because the fourth season had nine episodes, we never really got to see the conclusion to Legion's (presumably planned) story arc.
- There were also a few hints that they would have focused on the Phoenix if the show continued.
- Season 3 had a rather heavy Brotherhood presence early on, culminating in Magneto imposing them a new field leader tasked with whipping them into shape and taking out the X-Men... but the "field leader" turned out to be a petty tyrant who wasn't interested in reaching any of his stated goals and the two teams never faced each other again.
- X-Men: The Animated Series:
- "The Unstoppable Juggernaut" ends with Colossus declining an offer to join the team and saying that he intends to travel the country to find Illyana, his missing little sister. The next time Colossus shows up, he's still in New York, and Illyana is safely in Russia with their parents. There's no further mention of her supposed disappearance, and nothing to indicate she's ever even been to America.
- In the second episode of the "Beyond Good and Evil" arc, Apocalypse is able to keep Magneto in line by promising to resurrect his dead wife. This is never brought up again, and a later episode of the same storyline instead offers a completely different explanation for why Magneto chose to work for Apocalypse.
- The same episode has the Time Traveler Shard say that Archangel is destined to become a member of the X-Men. Despite this, Archangel never actually joins the team in any of the subsequent episodes. This is because "Beyond Good and Evil" was initially going to be the show's Grand Finale, and was planned to end with the team's line-up shifting. When the show was unexpectedly picked up for one more season, the scene showing Archangel and the other new heroes joining the X-Men was scrapped.
- "The Fifth Horseman" ends with Apocalypse resurrecting himself by pulling a Grand Theft Me on Cortez, clearly setting him up to serve as an antagonist in the future. And yet, the show never dealt with this before its conclusion.
- In Cyclops and Corsair's flashbacks to the plane crash in which they were separated, Scott is shown to have a younger brother. In another episode in the same season, "Cold Comforts", the X-Men meet the character Havok, whose powers Cyclops is shown to be mysteriously immune to and vice versa, and at the end of the episode it is strongly implied that Havok and Cyclops will meet again, foreshadowing that as in the comics, they will be revealed to be brothers. However, Havok never appears again.
