Beau DeMayo

Beau DeMayo is an American television writer and producer whose most prominent credit is Marvel Animation’s X-Men ’97, the Disney+ animated series that continues X-Men: The Animated Series. DeMayo served as the show’s creator, head writer, and an executive producer for its first season. The series reunites characters including Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Rogue, Gambit, Wolverine, Jubilee, and Magneto, while beginning after the apparent death of Professor Charles Xavier. Its first episode premiered on March 20, 2024, and the season’s story includes Genosha, the mutant nation led by Magneto in the comics. Before leading X-Men ’97, DeMayo worked in live-action fantasy and superhero television. He joined Netflix’s The Witcher as a writer and was credited on the first-season episode “Betrayer Moon,” in which Geralt investigates a striga created by a cursed princess, and on season two’s “What Is Lost.” He also wrote the story for Netflix’s animated prequel film The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf. Released in 2021, that film centers on Vesemir, Geralt’s eventual mentor, and depicts the events that lead to the fall of Kaer Morhen. DeMayo’s Marvel work before X-Men ’97 included Moon Knight, the 2022 Disney+ limited series starring Oscar Isaac as Marc Spector and Steven Grant. He wrote “The Friendly Type,” the third episode, which sends Marc and Layla El-Faouly to Egypt as they pursue Arthur Harrow and the scarab that can locate Ammit’s tomb. The episode also expands the series’ Egyptian-gods storyline through the Ennead’s meeting and Khonshu’s attempt to reveal a star map. Earlier in his career, DeMayo wrote for The Originals, the Vampire Diaries spinoff set in New Orleans. The ten-episode first season of X-Men ’97 aired between March 20 and May 15, 2024. Rather than restarting the franchise, DeMayo’s series retained the earlier program’s continuity, visual language, and many returning voice performers, including Cal Dodd as Wolverine, Lenore Zann as Rogue, and George Buza as Beast. It also introduced new performers for characters whose original actors had died or retired. In the season’s central political conflict, Magneto attempts to honor Xavier’s dream after inheriting leadership of the X-Men, even as anti-mutant hostility escalates. DeMayo’s credited work consequently spans an adult-oriented Witcher origin story, a live-action Marvel adventure, and a serialized animated revival built around one of Marvel’s longest-running screen teams. His X-Men scripts draw directly upon comic-book storylines involving Magneto’s trial, Inferno, Sentinels, and Genosha’s destruction from classic X-Men comics.