Two X-Men 97 posts in one day? The show is just that good. If you haven’t seen it yet, go see it, and then return here for a breakdown of the making-of documentary that Disney+ just posted.
The doc is part of the Marvel Assembled series, and goes into not just X-Men 97 but the original series itself, who was behind it, its appeal and anything interesting that happened in the background. Beau DeMayo has been wiped from the doc entirely and you wouldn’t know he existed if this was all you saw, but here are the five most interesting facts we learned today otherwise:
The Fox Kids chairman bet her job on X-Men: Actually, this one we knew already, but it bears repeating again. Margaret Loesch was president of Fox Kids and some of the block’s biggest hits were the result of her riskiest gambles. As the popularity of the Claremont-led comic book soared, there were multiple attempts to get an X-Men cartoon off the ground throughout the 80s, but no suit could be convinced. By 1992 Loesch’s superiors still weren’t wild on the idea, and told her if the show failed, she could be fired. Of course it didn’t and became one of the most fondly remembered shows of 90s Saturday Morning. There’s a very similar story for how Loesch got Power Rangers on the air.
The original show did not want cartoon actors: Several members of the original cast returned for X-Men 97, but none of them had any prior experience working for animation. This casting was intentional and the audition did not even reveal what kind of show it was (using the name “Project X”). Only the actor who played Beast, who was a fan of the comic already, recognized the character he was reading for and knew what was going on.
Storm’s VA has a Shakesperian background: It shouldn’t surprise you to learn Alison Sealy-Smith was better known on the stage at the time. Her tendency to throw muscle into every single sentence, an oldschool method of making sure the folks in the back can hear you, was also a great take for the inflections of an all-powerful weather goddess. We’ve noticed Storms in X-Men cartoons afterward have copied Smith’s signature inflection for her voice (Halle Berry didn’t, and the result felt lacking).
Lenore Zann skipped her first audition for Rogue: Zann’s agent told her about the job and felt she’d be perfect, but she blew it off. Later she was told they were going through a second round of casting, “because they haven’t heard you yet.” Zann decided to show up at that point, and in her words, “as soon as I started talking there was all this commotion in the booth, like DON’T LET HER LEAVE THE BUILDING.”
The cast wasn’t aware of the show’s impact until rather recently: It was only after getting invitations to guest-star at comic conventions in the States that the show’s cast realized how many childhoods they had affected. “We’re all Canadian, most of the time we’re kinda humble, and we were just gobsmacked that our work had that effect on so many people.”
Marvel Assembled: The Making Of X-Men 97 is now on Disney+ along with X-Men 97 itself (and X-Men).
