Post by Branjita on Jun 18, 2024 12:37:58 GMT -6
I just finished binge watching the 90s X-Men the Animated Series a few days ago, and I have some thoughts/conclusions to share (without spoilers, unless I mention it). I'm not a super big X-Men fan, so I thought I'd just post it here.
I watched the show the best I could in the 90s when it aired. It was on at 10 or 10:30 am on Saturday mornings on Fox if I remember right. I was around 10 years old, I guess. If I couldn't watch it live, I'd try to record it on the VCR. I was constantly grumpy as a kid, because I'd sometimes miss it, it'd be a re-run, or I wouldn't have any idea what was going on from last week anymore. In spite of that, I was super into it and would buy the action figures, some comics, etc. I'd buy action figures of characters who I didn't even have any idea who they were. I'd play the Genesis and SNES video games and think that Gambit was the coolest thing ever.
Well, here's what I've discovered as an adult who just finished watching it over the course of a month or two.
The show didn't actually make complete sense chronologically. Sometimes an episode would stem as a continuation of one from several episodes ago. Sometimes it would stem from the previous one. Other times, it was just complete chaos or completely random. It's not like Dragon Ball Z where if you miss an episode, you have no idea what happened. Instead, even if you see every episode, there's a good chance you'll still have no idea what happened! And I did not remember how wild and "fantastical" some of these episodes were. Without giving spoilers, I'll just say that there are a lot of weird creatures and "people" that I do not remember at all, nor remember fighting in any of the video games as a kid.
There was at least one (if not two) episodes that looked like a re-run, but was actually new content. As a kid, I probably saw that episode, thought it was a re-run, and turned off the TV.
The Mojoverse episodes were so annoying.
(Some spoilers here) Rogue and Storm do pretty much all the work, especially in the first few seasons. I didn't remember or notice this as a kid, at all. But the men just do next to nothing but say catchphrases and get pummeled, and then Rogue or Storm come in and clean up the mess... basically doing all the work at times. Jean doesn't do much till she's Phoenix except do one thing, moan, and faint. My favorite character, Gambit, does almost nothing in the series. He throws 1 card in almost every episode he appears in, and there was one time he threw a chain, which was the highlight of his animated career in battle. I'd dare say that Jubilee has more battle impact than Gambit. The rest of the time, he's basically a NPC or serves as someone to get hurt. Cyclops basically just yells all the time. He's probably the most effective of the male characters in battles, however. Wolverine acts like a 10 year old boy (which is probably why he was the favorite character of all the 10 year old boys I went to elementary school with). His relationship with women in the show (especially Jean) is very cringey, which I think set up little boys like me and my friends to have unsuccessful dating habits in later years as young teenagers 😂.
For some reason, that is never explained, a character or two will go missing for no known reason and not be in a bunch of episodes. (Spoiler) at one point, they made a reference to Rogue and Gambit being on vacation after them being missing for a few episodes. But then, Gambit is back at some point, but Rogue isn't. It's weird. Since Rogue carries the series (very well) with an incredible voice actor, the episodes without Rogue or Storm just kind of... exist... and not much is accomplished.
The people who colored the characters made constant mistakes. Gambit would have black and red eyes, red and black eyes, white and brown eyes, be wearing his trademark gloves, be gloveless, or have entirely black hands from one scene to the next, just as an example. Beast's eyebrows will be blue in many scenes and black in many others. Cyclops' civilian sunglasses will be red sometimes, but other times silver. There's too many things to mention.
There's an episode or two where Beast says "fascinating" at least 4 times.
(Spoiler) there's a Christmas episode where the Morlocks have Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, Jubilee has an unusual emotional reaction to Leech being sick, and Jubilee holds an incredibly weird little girl while she cries, who we thankfully never see again and had never seen before.
(Spoiler) There's an episode where Professor X is magically standing at the end of the episode for absolutely no reason. And no, they aren't in the Savage Land. The artists just forgot he couldn't do that, I guess!
I still have absolutely no idea what mutant powers Shard (Bishop's sister) has. I think she blasted somebody one time, but I'm not sure.
(Spoiler) Cyclops was such a weirdo in the episode with Dazzler. Jean's gone for like one minute as Phoenix and he's flirting with Dazzler. Weird, weird, weird.
(Spoiler) I didn't remember Nightcrawler being religious. I really liked all of his appearances in the show, and I'm impressed/surprised they could air that on TV. I'd be even more surprised if they did that today, 30 years later, though.
(Spoiler, kind of) The episodes featuring civilian clothing were so funny. Half the characters would dress in normal clothes, and somebody else wouldn't. I was cracking up over Gambit, Jubilee, and Storm going to (I think) Genosha for a "beach vacation," and to fly under the radar and blend in, Storm and Jubilee wore regular clothes... but Gambit was in his outfit. Nothing says "blend in" like walking around with a guy in blue boot things, a hot pink shirt, a trenchcoat, and a black ski mask to a tropical, hot place. Other times were funny too. I recall there was one episode where there was a battle in the city, and Wolverine was in his trademark outfit, but then after the battle, he was in his civilian clothes! He was the only one who changed clothes in the next scene. Why, when, and where did he change clothes? LOL
(Spoiler) The final season of the show started out with 4 EXCELLENT episodes. I'd dare say they were some of the best episodes of the entire series. But then... whoa... episode 5... one of the worst by far. The animation studio had changed, and the show looked like a low budget version of an animated Disney cartoon. And then there was all this sacrireligious stuff where Cortez is dressed like a Bible character and Apocalype is like a pharoah or something... oh my gosh... this episode was so bad that I was afraid I was just going to stop watching the series right then and there. Not only was it ugly to look at, with ugly new characters, but this episode came out of left field so badly that if I was channel surfing and saw it, I never would have thought it was an episode of X-Men! The episode that followed it was ugly and bad too, but the next ones to follow were "okay." The very last episode is the only one that needs to be watched to make the actions in X-Men '97 make sense. It wasn't good, to be honest, but Professor X said some good things to his X-Men, which made a reasonably nice moment. The artwork was better in that episode than the previous ones by this lower budget studio, but it still wasn't close to what we were used to.
I think that's everything I've been holding in. 😆 Overall, it was fun to watch, but it's no wonder I couldn't figure out what was going on as a kid.
I watched the show the best I could in the 90s when it aired. It was on at 10 or 10:30 am on Saturday mornings on Fox if I remember right. I was around 10 years old, I guess. If I couldn't watch it live, I'd try to record it on the VCR. I was constantly grumpy as a kid, because I'd sometimes miss it, it'd be a re-run, or I wouldn't have any idea what was going on from last week anymore. In spite of that, I was super into it and would buy the action figures, some comics, etc. I'd buy action figures of characters who I didn't even have any idea who they were. I'd play the Genesis and SNES video games and think that Gambit was the coolest thing ever.
Well, here's what I've discovered as an adult who just finished watching it over the course of a month or two.
The show didn't actually make complete sense chronologically. Sometimes an episode would stem as a continuation of one from several episodes ago. Sometimes it would stem from the previous one. Other times, it was just complete chaos or completely random. It's not like Dragon Ball Z where if you miss an episode, you have no idea what happened. Instead, even if you see every episode, there's a good chance you'll still have no idea what happened! And I did not remember how wild and "fantastical" some of these episodes were. Without giving spoilers, I'll just say that there are a lot of weird creatures and "people" that I do not remember at all, nor remember fighting in any of the video games as a kid.
There was at least one (if not two) episodes that looked like a re-run, but was actually new content. As a kid, I probably saw that episode, thought it was a re-run, and turned off the TV.
The Mojoverse episodes were so annoying.
(Some spoilers here) Rogue and Storm do pretty much all the work, especially in the first few seasons. I didn't remember or notice this as a kid, at all. But the men just do next to nothing but say catchphrases and get pummeled, and then Rogue or Storm come in and clean up the mess... basically doing all the work at times. Jean doesn't do much till she's Phoenix except do one thing, moan, and faint. My favorite character, Gambit, does almost nothing in the series. He throws 1 card in almost every episode he appears in, and there was one time he threw a chain, which was the highlight of his animated career in battle. I'd dare say that Jubilee has more battle impact than Gambit. The rest of the time, he's basically a NPC or serves as someone to get hurt. Cyclops basically just yells all the time. He's probably the most effective of the male characters in battles, however. Wolverine acts like a 10 year old boy (which is probably why he was the favorite character of all the 10 year old boys I went to elementary school with). His relationship with women in the show (especially Jean) is very cringey, which I think set up little boys like me and my friends to have unsuccessful dating habits in later years as young teenagers 😂.
For some reason, that is never explained, a character or two will go missing for no known reason and not be in a bunch of episodes. (Spoiler) at one point, they made a reference to Rogue and Gambit being on vacation after them being missing for a few episodes. But then, Gambit is back at some point, but Rogue isn't. It's weird. Since Rogue carries the series (very well) with an incredible voice actor, the episodes without Rogue or Storm just kind of... exist... and not much is accomplished.
The people who colored the characters made constant mistakes. Gambit would have black and red eyes, red and black eyes, white and brown eyes, be wearing his trademark gloves, be gloveless, or have entirely black hands from one scene to the next, just as an example. Beast's eyebrows will be blue in many scenes and black in many others. Cyclops' civilian sunglasses will be red sometimes, but other times silver. There's too many things to mention.
There's an episode or two where Beast says "fascinating" at least 4 times.
(Spoiler) there's a Christmas episode where the Morlocks have Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, Jubilee has an unusual emotional reaction to Leech being sick, and Jubilee holds an incredibly weird little girl while she cries, who we thankfully never see again and had never seen before.
(Spoiler) There's an episode where Professor X is magically standing at the end of the episode for absolutely no reason. And no, they aren't in the Savage Land. The artists just forgot he couldn't do that, I guess!
I still have absolutely no idea what mutant powers Shard (Bishop's sister) has. I think she blasted somebody one time, but I'm not sure.
(Spoiler) Cyclops was such a weirdo in the episode with Dazzler. Jean's gone for like one minute as Phoenix and he's flirting with Dazzler. Weird, weird, weird.
(Spoiler) I didn't remember Nightcrawler being religious. I really liked all of his appearances in the show, and I'm impressed/surprised they could air that on TV. I'd be even more surprised if they did that today, 30 years later, though.
(Spoiler, kind of) The episodes featuring civilian clothing were so funny. Half the characters would dress in normal clothes, and somebody else wouldn't. I was cracking up over Gambit, Jubilee, and Storm going to (I think) Genosha for a "beach vacation," and to fly under the radar and blend in, Storm and Jubilee wore regular clothes... but Gambit was in his outfit. Nothing says "blend in" like walking around with a guy in blue boot things, a hot pink shirt, a trenchcoat, and a black ski mask to a tropical, hot place. Other times were funny too. I recall there was one episode where there was a battle in the city, and Wolverine was in his trademark outfit, but then after the battle, he was in his civilian clothes! He was the only one who changed clothes in the next scene. Why, when, and where did he change clothes? LOL
(Spoiler) The final season of the show started out with 4 EXCELLENT episodes. I'd dare say they were some of the best episodes of the entire series. But then... whoa... episode 5... one of the worst by far. The animation studio had changed, and the show looked like a low budget version of an animated Disney cartoon. And then there was all this sacrireligious stuff where Cortez is dressed like a Bible character and Apocalype is like a pharoah or something... oh my gosh... this episode was so bad that I was afraid I was just going to stop watching the series right then and there. Not only was it ugly to look at, with ugly new characters, but this episode came out of left field so badly that if I was channel surfing and saw it, I never would have thought it was an episode of X-Men! The episode that followed it was ugly and bad too, but the next ones to follow were "okay." The very last episode is the only one that needs to be watched to make the actions in X-Men '97 make sense. It wasn't good, to be honest, but Professor X said some good things to his X-Men, which made a reasonably nice moment. The artwork was better in that episode than the previous ones by this lower budget studio, but it still wasn't close to what we were used to.
I think that's everything I've been holding in. 😆 Overall, it was fun to watch, but it's no wonder I couldn't figure out what was going on as a kid.
and if you want to expand your knowledge, here is the list of 
