'X-Men ‘97' Creator Beau DeMayo Alleges “Lifedeath" Production Struggles
The disgraced also talks pitching a Nova series inspired by 'Starship Troopers'
Well if he’s going to keep yapping, I might as well get something out of it. Beau DeMayo, the creator of X-Men ‘97 fired for sexual misconduct of an “egregious nature” who subsequently and repeatedly violated his ban on promoting and talking about the show following his termination, has hit up Twitter again to lay down claims about an allegedly tumultuous production of the Disney+ and Marvel Animation series’s fourth episode, specifically its “Lifedeath” part 1 portion. Considering the heightened nature of the subsequent aggression he’s put on, take his recollection with a grain of salt.
DeMayo claims the episode was supposed to have a bigger focus on the relationship between Storm and Forge, more faithful to the “Lifedeath” comics storyline, with additional buildup toward Storm’s confrontation with the Adversary. Allegedly, a co-executive producer he refrains from identifying “stole the episode away and gave it to an editor on #WhatIf to redo it to her vision, which coincidentally eviscerated about 1/3 of Storm’s story and split Ep4 into two separate pieces.” He called it “beyond insulting to the director and editor who broke their backs to get it to work, only to have it handed to a completely different production that had no idea what we were doing.” It is unclear how literal the pieces part is as notably “Lifedeath” is a two-part story that amounts to an episode and a half. The episode 4 part in question is paired with the Jubilee story “Motendo” while part 2 is the entirety of episode 6, meaning both parts surround the Emmy-nominated “Remember It”.
The faithfulness to the comic storyline was purportedly so strong, that it would have opened with a recreation of the page in Uncanny X-Men #186 that saw Forge tending to a debilitated Storm with tea and bison chili. Forge then sits outside her door, trying to comfort her with a story set to a Dreamcatcher storybook sequence. DeMayo describes it in great detail and says the What If…? editor removed it, claiming they felt that he and the also-black director were “biased” toward Storm because of her blackness and that “When I argued that she’d cut life-death’s iconic opening, I got the usual stop being a comic collector speech from them.” He agrees with apparently common fan sentiment that the resulting pacing is “off”.
DeMayo also described his recruitment of Gil Birmingham to voice Forge at all was quite the ordeal. Birmingham, whom he had seen on Yellowstone, was already spurned from being cut from Thor: Ragnarok without ample notice. They had a meeting where DeMayo promised such disrespect would not happen on his watch and showed him his plan for the character over the course of the series. He subsequently claims that Marvel was not so pleased that Birmingham was back in the fold. Which is weird verging on nonsensical.
Before X-Men ‘97, DeMayo was involved with Moon Knight and early stages of Blade, and he has confirmed that before his firing he was also trying to get back in the live action side of things. After fans deduced a Starship Troopers-style Nova series pitch was his, he said “Hahaha I can’t speak to the larger plans but… it was def me. Was in the midst of discussions about developing #Nova once #xmen97 Season 3 (sic?) wrapped.” He revealed that it would’ve been centered around one of Marvel’s biggest cosmic stories “Annihilation”, describing that the Annihilation Wave would be analogous to the bugs. That whatever Nova would be the protagonist joins the army to impress Namorita. “Build a band of friends that we then slowly kill as Rick and his friends experience the horrors of intergalactic war.” DeMayo wrote, seemingly confirming it would still be a Richard Rider taking up the mantle. He then goes in depth about how much it mimics, where he’d keep the budget down, and even pinpointing specific episode events while even describing that he knows what season 2 would bring.
The Nova series Marvel is actually going with is in development with Ed Bernero as showrunner. It has not reached announcement yet. But yeah Beau, keep up the disparagement and all that promoting of the show. I’m sure if Disney had run out of ways to penalize you, you would’ve shared that by now too.
