The Uncanny X-Men. For a long time, it was THE marquee franchise at Marvel Comics. The only other franchise that made more and equaled its popularity was the face of the company – Spider-Man. No one was checking for the Avengers, and the Fantastic Four historically has its ups and downs depending on the creators on the book at the time. The Hulk had his frame from the 70’s television show. There were others of certain heights, but the X-Men was different. Back in 1991, I was first introduced to the title during the Muir Island Saga, a story in which the Shadow King attacked all teams in the franchise line (X-Men, X-Factor, etc) to get back at Charles Xavier. My interest was piqued as these characters looked amazing, but that paled compared to what came out later that year – X-Men #1 (specifically cover A with Beast on the cover). This is, in estimation, the greatest pure superhero comic of that era; thanks to Jim Lee’s art and Chris Claremont’s writing it was something you could go back and read over and over again until it fell apart. And many other kids felt the same way, as it sold over 8 million copies and still holds the record for selling the most copies of a single issue. EIGHT TIMES PLATINUM FOLKS! (Let me not forget the first set of trading cards, all drawn by Jim Lee) From there, the X-Men was on fire to an amazing unheard of 6 player two screen arcade game that was plastered with Lee’s art, and as its popularity kept building, it led to the next thing to explode its popularity into the stratosphere – The Animated Series on FOX Kids.
The premiere was so hyped they even partnered with Pizza Hut to sell tapes of the pilot with a special meal. This is something I definitely begged my mom to get. The premiere in 1992 had issues; even as a kid, you could see the mistakes in the animation, but it didn’t matter; we saw Wolverine slicing Sentinel’s legs off and Cyclops Optic Blasting Sentinel’s heads off. It had the whole dynamic of regular humans hating and fearing mutants as we meet Jubilee, the 90s teenage girl X-Men POV character of the time in the comic faithfully adapted to the TV. We saw Magneto and Professor X fight and debate on screen. We saw powerful women superheroes, stories of people dealing with intolerance and overcoming it, and hype battles each week. This show, along with Batman: The Animated Series that also premiered in 1992, really put FOX Kids on the map and changed how everyone saw superhero cartoons. During the four years it was on, it did things we take as normal with serialized stories and actually adapted the famous story arcs and issues from the comics that were happening in the books currently. Let’s go back to video games for a second; the show’s popularity pushed it to have the legendary video game company Capcom create a fighting game based on the X-Men and use the voices from the show in the game. Something that really hadn’t been done before setting off on the most important video game franchises in history.
Ever since the show ended in 1997, there have been those who would have liked to see it continue longer even though there have been other great X-Men animated series (X-Men Evolution low key the GOAT), but as time has gone on and nostalgia has built the hunger has been growing. With the X-Men being pretty absent from the mainstream for a bit and about to be welcomed into the MCU in the near future, it seems perfect that those at Marvel Studio have chosen to bring the show back as X-Men ’97. The show continues on from the series finale with Charles Xavier now dead, and we see the X-Men trying to find their way without their teacher and mentor. I’ve only seen three episodes of the season, but I can say these three episodes do something great in that the show feels like your memories of the show and not replicating the old one. There are no animation mistakes here in this premiere, like 30 years ago. The animation is exquisite and dynamic. The action sequences are thought out so well, with interesting camera angles and movements with such fluidity as the characters move on the screen. You can tell the whole team of people loves the X-Men as the quiet parts and the action parts show the same level of craft and care as they choose to frame shots that add to the drama and bring a mix of direction from the comics themselves and classic cinema. At times, they choose to focus on the character’s eyes as they talk to each other in the more soapy parts that are a core feature of the X-Men.
The show also feels retro in just the right way for comic book fans, as some of the characters and antagonists in this show haven’t been important or in the title in over 25 years. Characters like Val Cooper haven’t been important on a major level since the late 90s. The cartoon does not miss a beat for those who know the show mostly or have just watched or even re-watched the ’90s. I myself was like, whoa, it’s been a while since I’ve seen them like this. This show still has Logan (Wolvie) pinning for Jean and beefing with Cyke. Also, Gambit and Rogue are all lovey-dovey to each other, with Storm still giving speeches before using her powers over the weather. Having Bishop as a main member of the team and bringing in Sunspot adds some more color to the team along with them making the animated series Morph more like some of his comic book counterparts and being non-binary (cause he’s a shapeshifter you stupid haters) is a welcome change. With so many easter eggs to classic stories, wrestling moves, and even those Capcom games, it doesn’t take away from them telling very good X-Men stories that work as a new series and as a continuation. It threads the needle of adaptation and rebooting very well. I have some little nitpicky things about how they adapted some stuff, but what’s an X-Men fan if they don’t have extra nitpicky things about the X-Men? These first three episodes of X-Men ’97 are great, and I expect the rest of the season to continue with that greatness.
Score: B+
