X-Men Review!

Alright! Today I'm reviewing all three X-Men TV shows - X-Men: The Animated Series, X-Men: Evolution, and Wolverine and the X-Men. I'll be going through each of them and giving my thoughts on them. 

A lot of them have different strengths, staples of their time, and interpretations of the characters, but each one excels in a few particular eras. 

X-Men: The Animated Series

The first and most obvious thing about the show is that the theme song absolutely slaps (Rocks to the layman). You can often tell how good a television show is by how much effort they put into the theme song, and it really paid off. The theme song sounds so good that it remains the unofficial theme song of the X-Men for the past 25 something years. 

The overall plot of the show is that the X-Men are doing X-Men things. The series starts with Jubilee joining the X-Men, and it ends with the series ending. There's not one of those big overarching plots. Those weren't a thing back in the day. Over the course of the series, they introduce and adapt several X-Men plots, practically ripping them from the comics. The Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past come to mind. 

Somehow this is still the best adaptation of the Phoenix Saga we've gotten.

The show also hits some surprising levels of depth. The anti-mutant sentiment is a major part of the X-Men's identity, and this show doesn't skimp on it. The idea that not all humans are good abounds, and the series' examinations into prejudice and why it's a thing still hit hard today.

X-Men even produces some emotional depth by way of its practically original character Morph, who "Dies" in the first episode, setting up the darker tone the series would carry. Entire episodes are centered on how mutants, namely Wolverine, can never find peace because of the world that hates them. We even have a surprisingly sophisticated chat about God between Nightcrawler and Wolverine, the latter of which has been through too much to still believe. 

But, the series does have.. several problems. Most of them are just because it was produced in the 90s, and not actually related to the series. The first is that the dialogue during fight scenes is very cheesy. Superhero dialogue is regularly cheesy, but this was some Parisian parmesan level of cheese. 

The second issue is a huge drop in quality for the fifth season, which only happened because they moved production to the Phillippines to save costs. That did not produce the... greatest end for the series. 

My third issue is how some characters are presented. Jubilee is annoying. She's your stereotypical 1990s kid, through and through, and it did not age well. The other character that suffered heavily was Jean Grey.

Jean Grey is nerfed so hard in this series it hurts. She's completely useless for the entire show, has an eyesore of a costume (Who approved the tan?), and is constantly fainting. This show set the precedent for her and Scott to just yell each other's names, a trend that is, disappointingly, still around to this day. 

Overall, I give X-Men: The Animated Series an 8/10. "X-Men creates surprising levels of depth and drama, smothered in cheesy dialogue and Jean Grey fainting, and wrapped up in a theme that's been stuck in your head for the past 28 years."

X-Men: Evolution

The next series up in the X-Men television timeline is X-Men: Evolution, which is my favorite of the three shows. Maybe it's just the nostalgia (The amount of nostalgia a 16-year-old kid can get, anyway), but I used to watch this show all the time back win the day.

This also gives me the knowledge that their DVD release was horrendous. Instead of releasing the entire season in a set, they would break seasons down into three or four individual DVDs. It was confusing, to say the least. 

Like the series before it, X-Men: Evolution is chock full of stereotypes. Kitty Pride is a teen valley girl, always using words like "Oh my gosh" and "Awesometacular." Spyke, an original character, bears the inevitable "Skater dude/basketball player" stereotype. Rogue is a goth for... some reason... 

X-Men: Evolution has a unique take on the X-Men: To differentiate itself from prior versions of the X-Men, this one takes the X-Men back to high school and has the world unaware of mutants. It allows the main team to be a little less self-pitying over how everyone hates them (A trait that plagues X-Men media). It also doesn't start off with Jean and Grey in a relationship, allowing them to actually develop on their own.

This series has, by far, the best version of Cyclops and Jean. Here, Cyclops is a confident and attractive leader instead of the self-possessed loner he's often portrayed as. Jean has, like, a personality. She's like the mother/aspiring leader of the group instead of the light-headed Xavier replacement. Wolverine is... somewhat worse here. 90% of his dialogue is just growling.

X-Men: Evolution also created a surprisingly popular character, X-23, a young teen clone of Wolverine. She was so popular she took over the mantle of Wolverine in the comics and appeared in Logan.

While a teenage take on the X-Men might seem counterintuitive to deep emotional depths and themes, it's much more similar to Batman Beyond. It still packs in action and great characters. People still try to stop the mutants, try to de-power the mutants, capture them, and be mean to them in general. 

The villains also have depth. While characters like Toad and Quicksilver are reduced to thin stereotypes, other characters like Avalanche, Magneto, and Mystique get a ton of depth layered onto them. They have realistic motivations and goals. Sometimes they even win the moral upper hand! 

And the animation here is perfection. The costumes, however, are not. They took the detailed and cool comic costumes and made them more "Animation friendly,' so several of the costumes are just black with gold belts and shoulder pads. 

R.I.P. season 5. 

But this series provides my ideal Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters. Like the X-Men movies, this place is bristling with mutants and powers. Everyone's training in places like the Danger Room and the animated format gives it a chance to go over the top that live-action just can't. One of my main detractors from the 90s show was how devoid Xavier's Institute was. Other than the main characters, no one lived there. 

This series doesn't have that problem. There are a crap ton of people in here. The mansion feels huge, like you could actually imagine yourself living in it. 

On a sadder note, I watched this show when I was 4 or 5 and thought high school was awesome. All the high schoolers are cool and attractive and hang out together. Now I'm older than some of them... how the time flies. It makes me sad upon rewatch to think about. 

Overall, I give X-Men: Evolution a 10/10. "Just because it doesn't hit the emotional depths that other shows may, or because it de-aged popular characters, doesn't make X-Men: Evolution any less of the showstopper that it is."

Wolverine and the X-Men

Rounding out the X-Men TV shows is Wolverine and the X-Men, which is probably the most plot-driven of any of the shows. It's about the X-Men after Jean Grey dies and Charles Xavier is put in a coma, and the team disbands. Wolverine desperately tries to get the team back together, recruiting Beast, Angel, Rogue, Emma Frost, and a depressed Cyclops. And yes, this is a kid's show.

This show only lasted one season, unfortunately. This show was going places. It's by far one of the darkest children's shows out there - Besides the aforementioned bombing and breaking up of the X-Men, death of Jean Grey, and the coma of Charles Xavier, the series spends a lot of time delving into the apocalyptic future in which all life on Earth is being destroyed by the Sentinels and all the original X-Men are dead. 

I mean... whoah. What type of premise is that? It gets dark. The apocalyptic future is explained through the glimpses of the future and the events we see in the show and comes to a neat head at the very end. It's by far the best structured of the three shows.

This series also introduces a plethora of characters previously untouched (Or not developed) by other shows - Emma Frost is a main character here, Bishop is important, Domino is here, Forge, and Polaris. Those are a lot of characters you really don't see a lot of. 

Props to them for giving Scarlet Witch a comic accurate costume without being... stupid. 

We even get tons of character arcs for the regular X-Men. Cyclops goes from being depressed and without Jean to being less depressed and finding Jean, Rogue goes from the X-Men to the Brotherhood of Mutants, Emma Frost betrays the X-Men but then joins them and [Spoilers] a hero, and even Nightcrawler gets to do stuff! He's kidnapped by Magneto, teleports across the ocean to get back to Xavier Institute, and then gets taken by Mystique and goes right back! That was one of the series' darkest moments. 

There was so much stuff going on and so much stuff being paid off that the series becomes a totally contained adventure and completely exciting adventure, and an unfortunate cancellation that stopped a second season from happening.

Overall, I give this series a 10/10. "Plot-driven but not without humor, Wolverine and the X-Men is an exciting and rousing adventure that never holds back on dark stories and mature characters."

There are some seriously underrated X-Men shows out there.