"X-Men '97" Season One Talkback (Spoilers)

[Fone Bone]

There were a couple of curses but nothing too shocking. They are walking the line better than those other projects.

 

[RoyalRubble]

I'm leaning towards the clone theory in regards to the two Jeans but we'll see if they reveal more next week. It would be in line with the comics but they still might change some things to surprise viewers. Regardless, Cable was born and I imagine it won't be long until we see his future self again, either.

On a semi-related note, I wonder if they'll address why Bishop joined the team.

 

[Frontier]

The best thing I can say about this show is that it feels like not just a sequel to the original show, carrying on the storylines, character arcs, story conventions, and overall message of the original X-Men: The Animated Series but it's also very much a revival, featuring modern animation/writing, topical story beats, and amazing action animation. After so many years without an X-Men cartoon, it's a strong return to form for both Marvel Animation and the X-Men as a brand .

But seriously, the action is phenomenal! I mean, Cyclops was straight up dancing with his visor against those Friends of Humanity thugs !

They did a 1-to-1 recreation of the intro! Complete with adding new members and updating the villains to replace Thunderbird and the little guy with Emma Frost and Lady Deathstrike! And then in the second they update it with Magneto and some of the shows' greatest hits !

I love how the Sentinel Tech is just Mega Busters .

The only thing I missed more than Storm's speechifying is Rogue's Southern Charm and metaphors .

Roberto was pretty on-point characterization wise with being a smug, cocky, and carefree rich kid with plenty of charisma. I was kind of expecting he'd stick around the Mansion starting from the premier, but it looks like they're going to work up to him joining up. Makes me wonder what'll make him come back .

Also he and Jubilee were pretty cute together. Not sure if they plan on exploring that (would pairing the two "kids" up be a little on the nose?) but I look forward to seeing them share scenes together again .

Man it really does the heart good seeing a classic and truly jovial and compassionate version of Beast again .

Is there any better entrance to the X-Men than being greeted by Beast in his lab, getting your first Danger Room session, and nearly getting killed by Wolverine ?

Scott considering stepping down from the X-Men to be with his wife and their child? Where have I seen this before? Only the wife wasn't actually Jean...which might be the biggest tell .

Logan is still Logan, only now he can swear! Seriously, it's like they knew Wolverine had to be their one character who could swear .

I like how the shows' set up Val Cooper. She's the X-Men's UN contact and an old friend of Xavier's (so kind of like Moira in that sense) and she seems pretty respectable and law-abiding...she's just held back by being a human in an X-Men cartoon. All the same, I respect any woman who treadmills in a leotard .

Like we needed an excuse to have Gambit take his shirt off .

Gyrich may be as slimy and anti-Mutant as ever but honestly it was still kind of reassuring seeing him again .

Morph's main role in the show seems to be comedy relief, riling up and being a sounding board for Logan, and featuring even more cameos. We've got Professor X! Archangel! Blob! Sabertooth! Lady Deathstrike! Colossus (with his classic uniform that he never actually wore in the show! Psylocke with twin katana's !!!

Bishop kind of feels just...there. Like looking cool and talking about the future...which I guess is Bishop's thing, but it doesn't really help him stand out, as cool as it is to have him on the team here. He lacks a certain gravitas that he had in the original show .

I just love Bolivar Trask having a Master Mold in his back pocket .

As awesome as it was watching Storm flex her Omega-level Mutant muscle against the Sentinels, it was obviously set up for her losing her powers, which was handled as appropriately dramatic and life-shattering as possible. I wonder if she's going to find Forge to help her get her powers back? Too bad she left before she got to see her sisters' double though .

I can't think it wasn't in the back of the writers' mind having a radical group storming a government building...this show is as topical as ever .

Jennifer Hale voicing that redheaded firefighter almost made me think THAT was actually Madelyn Pryor .

Magneto, Mutant Superhero! Saving Mutants and humans alike and practicing non-lethal practices! Though you gotta love how he says "coexistence" like he's pulling teeth .

Not even a VA change could prevent Magneto from being the most poetic, complex, and philosophical character in the whole show .

Honestly, why weren't the X-Men trying to send more Mutants to Genosha? Good for the Morlocks though .

I...really was not expecting to see the Rogue and Magneto ship appear in this show. Especially when things seem to be going well for Rogue and Gambit. Though maybe it's more than it looks and it isn't romance like Remy's assuming it is? I get the sense that Erik is using his powers to give himself a kind of coating that lets Rogue touch something .

Wolverine taking Jean to the hospital to give birth totally felt like something we would have seen in the original show, especially with his crazy driving skills and a telekinetic in labor .

The doctor not willing to work on a Mutant Baby wasn't surprising but I found Rogue absorbing his doctor skills funnier than I think it was intended to be .

It is an interesting conundrum, Magneto has committed numerous crimes and hurt innocent, but is that not matched by humanity's own obsession with exterminating Mutants? Especially if Magneto is willing to work with the X-Men and more or less adopt their methods...though I really thought he was going to give up and break bad after what happened to Storm, but he just wanted to make his point as clear as possible...and basically threaten them into exonerating him. But at least he was honest about it .

X-Cutioner being voiced by the original Cable was kind of neat, though whole time I kept thinking of him as Cable as a result. Guess you can change the guys' character but not change his love of firing big guns .

They just HAD to end on the other Jean showing up at the Mansion...so, bets on which Jean is the clone? I mean, for the most drama, it would be the new Jean being the REAL Jean and Scott married and fathered a child with a clone (like in the comics), though it feels like they've gotten us a feel for THIS Jean enough that the new Jean might be the clone designed to throw everybody off and cause drama just from people doubting the real Jean. I could see it go either way .

 

[RoyalRubble]

I like how Morph in a way helps the show have more cameos from other characters but it would be cool if the likes of Colossus, Archangel, Psylocke or Sabertooth still appeared in person later on.

 

[BigFatHairyDeal]

Just putting it out there. He's WAY too old for her, especially if they're going for the idea that he's a Holocaust survivor in 1997.

To be fair, the OG show had no issues Logan's attraction to Jean, and the age gap between Logan and Jean was even bigger (he was shown fighting Nazis alongside Captain America).

That said, I don't like how they're retconning the OG show specifically for Rogue and Magneto. Whenever a new creative team revives a story that's been dormant for years or decades, I always expect something like this to happen, but it doesn't make it any less disappointing. X-Men is a property that's interesting enough for me to tune in when new stuff comes along, but if you're specifically aiming for a revival, I would generally prefer more faithfulness.

Otherwise, I liked the cliffhanger. Looking forward to next week.

 

[Classic Speedy]

I didn't keep up with the original X-Men series past the first season as a kid, but I was curious about this new series anyway, even if I knew going in I wouldn't be up on all the plot developments from the later seasons. I didn't have TOO much trouble, luckily, though of course I'm not intimately familiar with where the original series ended up.

Big smile on my face during the recreated intro sequence. It's still one of the best American animation intros, and Studio Mir did it beautifully.

 

[PicardMan]

Okay, I finally got around to seeing the series and it is really good so far. Not surprised it's a little edgier with a "damn" and "pissed" thrown in (guess Common Sense Media missed those). Animation is much more fluid than the original, voice acting's good, the X-Men and Magneto are great characters. For a nostalgic revival, this is one of the best ones I've seen and for those Fox Kids/Jetix fans, this is a pretty big deal. The original was one of the best action cartoons of the 90s and this is the best follow up fans could ask for.

 

[Frontier]

Okay, I finally got around to seeing the series and it is really good so far. Not surprised it's a little edgier with a "damn" and "pissed" thrown in (guess Common Sense Media missed those). Animation is much more fluid than the original, voice acting's good, the X-Men and Magneto are great characters. For a nostalgic revival, this is one of the best ones I've seen and for those Fox Kids/Jetix fans, this is a pretty big deal. The original was one of the best action cartoons of the 90s and this is the best follow up fans could ask for.

Not to mention Wolverine can finally drink beer .

 

[PicardMan]

Not to mention Wolverine can finally drink beer .

And the fact that a character named X-Cutioner, which would probably be X-Destroyer going by Fox Kids rules. I think the linear action cartoon rulebook is no more. Streaming killed cartoon characters unable to say "kill."

 

[RoyalRubble]

I think they might have been able to use "X-Cutioner" on the old show. They did have the Guild of Assassins and there were probably other examples. Spider-Man TAS was the show that couldn't even use the word "sinister".

 

[Rick Jones]

Spider-Man TAS was the show that couldn't even use the word "sinister".

I like to think of Spider-Man as the show that had to contend with all of the backlash from Batman, X-Men and Power Rangers. On another note, I only just realized I used to mix up the Insidious and Sinister movies. I wonder if this is partly why.

 

[Medinnus]

I found the animation adequate, but the writing was disappointing. Many of the line-up are X-Men I don't particularly care for, especially Morph. Wolverine almost seems like a parody of this original appearance in the comics; disappointing in that the character evolution in the original series was not continued. Bishop and Beast were handled better than I'd expected.

Gyrich's speech sounded right in line with the original X-Men subtext, and the current intolerance from the bigoted extremists today, so I was kind of pleased about that.

Two episodes is not fair to judge a series, but so far this has me yawning. That said, its better than much of the (IMO) substandard art styles and writing in their other uninteresting animations currently on offer.

============

In a related note Tom Brevoort runs a comics blog where he runs through with commentary on comics he grew up reading. I very much enjoy these articles, and the latest one has a note about Gyrich that said:

"Fun fact: apparently, Gyrich was intended to be a grown up version of an obscure Marvel character, Peter the little Pest, a Dennis the Menace knock-off. But this never got confirmed anywhere in print."

BHOC: AVENGERS #181

This next issue of AVENGERS was also a book that my younger brother Ken bought his own copy of, though in this case that copy vanished somewhere over the years and never made its way to me. It&#821…

tombrevoort.com

============

I wish that the series would take this opportunity to add Wakanda science to the research and cure for X-Cutioner's weapon.

 

[ShadowStar]

Theory regarding where the Jean Grey-Summers storyline is going (putting this in spoiler tags in case I'm right):

Spoiler

Is it possible that Jean has been a clone since the beginning of the Dark Phoenix Saga? At the end of the Phoenix Saga, she flew into the sun, and then of course she was discovered alive during "No Mutant Is an Island", with the Dark Phoenix Saga starting in the next episode. The hole in this little theory is huge though: wouldn't the Phoenix know (and explicitly acknowledge!) that it's inhabiting a different Jean Grey during the Dark Phoenix Saga? Still, the theory is an interesting one, so let's run with it for a moment. Let's say that Mr. Sinister was upset that Jean died in the Phoenix saga. He then created a copy, so that that clone could go on to marry Cyclops. Cue the Dark Phoenix Saga (in which Jean died again!) but she got through that (ultimately) and was married to Scott in "Beyond Good and Evil" (if I remember correctly). Now another Jean has appeared. What if this one is a second clone (complicated, I know) that Sinister has created for maximum drama, to make the big revelation that the Jean who's been with the X-Men all along is also his creation have more impact? After all, the team is more likely to doubt the authenticity of their Jean if they now are torn between her and the one who's shown up at their door. Bottom line: Sinister wants the child and has waited patiently for him (Nathan), and with two clone Jeans present (if the theory is correct), then we have a scenario on our hands where whichever Jean is rejected by Scott and the X-Men (assuming that they don't accept both women) will inevitably join Sinister and become his Goblin Queen. A total no-win situation for the gang, and if neither Jean is the original, then this will probably also have a devastating effect on the Jean that doesn't defect from the X-Men, as well as Scott's marriage to whichever Jean he "keeps" or chooses. Talk about a mess.

 

[RoyalRubble]

My reviews/recaps for the first two episodes are now up on the front page of AnimeSuperhero.com.

“To Me, My X-Men” follows some of the same plot points as the X-Men TAS premiere, “Night of the Sentinels”. This time the X-Men rescue a young mutant named Roberto da Costa (voiced by Gui Agustini), and who should eventually take on the code-name Sunspot, from the mutant hating fanatics known as the Friends of Humanity. It shouldn’t surprise viewers that not all humans have accepted the idea of mutants living among them and the show still touches on themes of bigotry, fear and hatred. The FOH have also managed to get their hands on some Sentinels technology (you know, those giant robots created to hunt down mutants). Jubilee (now voiced by Holly Chou) tries bonding with Roberto and convince him to stay with the team. There are a few neat parallels one can draw between this episode and “Night of the Sentinels” as Jubilee was in Roberto’s place in that episode, but is now a member of the team.

“Mutant Liberation Begins” follows up on Magneto’s return, with him trying to make up for his past acts of terrorism by helping out around the world. The X-Men aren’t ready to believe or trust him, though. The same goes for most of the world, as the United Nations try arresting him but instead put him on trial. This attracts more attention from Friends of Humanity protestors and a new foe, the X-Cutioner (voiced by Lawrence Bayne) with his mysterious weapon. The action in this episode is a bit more grounded than in the previous one, with no giant robots in sight, but it still leaves a pretty bit impact and is just entertaining to watch.

Overall, I think X-Men ’97 is off to a good start and I look forward to the next episodes. (And if all goes according to plans, I will continue doing these weekly recaps for the remainder of the season).

Click here to read the full article.

 

[Frontier]

I found the animation adequate, but the writing was disappointing. Many of the line-up are X-Men I don't particularly care for, especially Morph. Wolverine almost seems like a parody of this original appearance in the comics; disappointing in that the character evolution in the original series was not continued. Bishop and Beast were handled better than I'd expected.

[/QUOTE]
It's pretty in-line with how Wolverine was depicted in the original show, especially when he was angry about something. He was just really surly at the idea of Jean and Scott leaving.

I feel like they need to do a little more with Bishop. He felt like he had a lot more weight and gravity as a character in the original series than he does as just another member of the team here.

In a related note Tom Brevoort runs a comics blog where he runs through with commentary on comics he grew up reading. I very much enjoy these articles, and the latest one has a note about Gyrich that said:

"Fun fact: apparently, Gyrich was intended to be a grown up version of an obscure Marvel character, Peter the little Pest, a Dennis the Menace knock-off. But this never got confirmed anywhere in print."

BHOC: AVENGERS #181

This next issue of AVENGERS was also a book that my younger brother Ken bought his own copy of, though in this case that copy vanished somewhere over the years and never made its way to me. It&#821…

tombrevoort.com

Of course Gyrich started off as a pest .

Theory regarding where the Jean Grey-Summers storyline is going (putting this in spoiler tags in case I'm right):

Spoiler

Is it possible that Jean has been a clone since the beginning of the Dark Phoenix Saga? At the end of the Phoenix Saga, she flew into the sun, and then of course she was discovered alive during "No Mutant Is an Island", with the Dark Phoenix Saga starting in the next episode. The hole in this little theory is huge though: wouldn't the Phoenix know (and explicitly acknowledge!) that it's inhabiting a different Jean Grey during the Dark Phoenix Saga? Still, the theory is an interesting one, so let's run with it for a moment. Let's say that Mr. Sinister was upset that Jean died in the Phoenix saga. He then created a copy, so that that clone could go on to marry Cyclops. Cue the Dark Phoenix Saga (in which Jean died again!) but she got through that (ultimately) and was married to Scott in "Beyond Good and Evil" (if I remember correctly). Now another Jean has appeared. What if this one is a second clone (complicated, I know) that Sinister has created for maximum drama, to make the big revelation that the Jean who's been with the X-Men all along is also his creation have more impact? After all, the team is more likely to doubt the authenticity of their Jean if they now are torn between her and the one who's shown up at their door. Bottom line: Sinister wants the child and has waited patiently for him (Nathan), and with two clone Jeans present (if the theory is correct), then we have a scenario on our hands where whichever Jean is rejected by Scott and the X-Men (assuming that they don't accept both women) will inevitably join Sinister and become his Goblin Queen. A total no-win situation for the gang, and if neither Jean is the original, then this will probably also have a devastating effect on the Jean that doesn't defect from the X-Men, as well as Scott's marriage to whichever Jean he "keeps" or chooses. Talk about a mess.

Spoiler

I did wonder if it was deliberate that "Jean" brought up the Dark Phoenix saga in her talk with Ororo.

 

[Last Spider]

I found the animation adequate, but the writing was disappointing. Many of the line-up are X-Men I don't particularly care for, especially Morph. Wolverine almost seems like a parody of this original appearance in the comics; disappointing in that the character evolution in the original series was not continued. Bishop and Beast were handled better than I'd expected.

What character evolution are you talking about?
As someone who just got through marathoning the original series, Logan never had this big character development that lead to him acting significantly different.
By the end of the series he was still a surly jerk who had issues with Cyclops, and pined for Jean.
He definitely tried being better and tried to learn about his past, but he never stopped being himself.

Also I don't quite the point in complaining about the line up, this a continuation of the original series and this is the line up they had, they're not gonna change it.

 

[RoyalRubble]

X-Men '97 - "Fire Made Flesh"
Debut: March 27, 2024 on Disney+

"When a visitor arrives at the mansion with a dangerous secret that threatens Cyclops and Jean's relationship, the team is propelled into a tragic confrontation with an immortal mad scientist."

Comments?

Mod Note: We appreciate and encourage discussion, but please keep your posts civil, relevant and insightful. Please do not post any improper or inflammatory material, as we will issue warnings if we believe it necessary. And remember to keep the discussion ON-TOPIC!

Side Note: The first issue of the prequel tie-in comic also releases today. Use this thread to discuss it -
"X-Men '97 (2024 Mini-Series)" Comic Talkback (Spoilers).

 

[Rick Jones]

This was a story I never imagined they would adapt before this show was in the works. What a wild episode. Some of the imagery here really shows why they were considering TV-14.

 

[bigdaddy313]

That was dark and very interesting episode. I knew it was d clone given birth to cable storyline they were going to adapt. The only difference is that Cyclops and Jean didn’t go with him to the future. The tension between Scott and Jean is going to be high moving forward in the series, especially with everything that has happened and knowing how Wolverine really feels for Jean during her invulnerability.

 

[wonderfly]

From the front page of AnimeSuperhero.com:

"X-Men 97 Officially A Hit"​

"Disney has released the initial numbers for its new cartoon X-Men 97, and they’re promising. Within its first five days, the show took in four million views globally, making it the most viewed full-length animated series premiere in the streamer’s history.

We mentioned earlier that two seasons of the series are guaranteed so far, and a third has not been confirmed…but this news makes it more likely to happen. The existence of X-Men 97 has also boosted interest in the original series, where views have risen by 522% since the launch of the X-Men 97 trailer February 15."

Read the full article here.