X-Men '97 continues the popular X-Men show called 'X-Men: The Animated Series', which came out in 1992 with our favourite X-Men characters. Cyclops, the leader of the X-Men, his girlfriend Jean Grey, and Storm, Beast, Gambit, Rogue, Wolverine, Morph and Jubilee attend a school run by Professor Charles Xavier. Following the events of the fifth season, Charles Xavier flies off into space with the Shi'ar Empire for healing, after an assassination attempt on his life and leaves the school in the hands of his dear friend Erik "Magnus" Lehnsherr aka Magneto, one of the X-Men's greatest foes. Not having much trust in Magneto, for obvious reasons, the season kicks off here and we are on a rollercoaster ride that goes high, goes low and at a pace where if you blink, you might miss a chunk of information.
Calling the show X-Men '97 harkens back to the original animated series and with the "replication" of the art design, this show, whilst very jarring at first, "seamlessly" continues on from the previous stories told whilst building from the 5 years of visual backstory and decades of comic book lore for the writers to sink their teeth into and for us, the viewer, to watch, like and devour, unless of course you do not like the art style, storytelling and modern day artistic flare. What I will say from the get-go is that, you do not necessarily need to watch the previous 5 seasons that came before X-Men '97 to know or understand going forward, but it would also help if you did. Also, the jarring "transition" from season 5 to season 6 (X-Men '97 being season 6) is more of a visual problem to overcome than it was with season 4 to season 5. Season 5's visuals/animation were terrible, but to have the art designs modernised and the animation brought up-to-speed to where we are now in society with animation, is something you will absolutely and quickly adjust to and enjoy.
Episode one introduces us to the characters, who they are and what they can do. If you are a first-time X-Men watcher, this is for you. If you have watched the OG series, you are looking at the well-needed "upgrade" you never knew you wanted. I have never heard some things said or discussed or seen how some characters move in this show before now. For new viewers, I can only guess the movement and the action is a nice to see, where people who grew up on the animated series might see this episode and think "WOW!" because if you were to compare everything in this episode to a single episode OR season in the OG series, this show frankly, blows it out of the water. Like it should, right, it was a different time. The first few episodes are great and the storytelling is amazing. What I will say, the introduction to story elements and in some cases, popular story-arcs are "rushed" through at a speed that does not really allow to sit with you. Some things happen quickly and you are onboard with it or you are not. This is the show.
As the episodes get on, we see supporting characters like Forge who pops up in a Storm story-arc and with Morph turning into anyone and everyone, the cameos are plenty. In the earlier episodes, you see Morph turn into Angel and in the latter episodes, The Juggernaut. But towards the end of the season, seeing characters like The Hulk (slight spoiler) does put a smile on your face considering, the Avengers are NOT the X-Men and they are two completely different teams within the same universe but with this happening, helps flesh out the world they are living in. Not to mention that last episode, wow! There are also some creative decisions made that struck me as a stroke of genius. Not only are you stroking the nostalgia factor with the show in of itself, but hitting that other medium you know people will be familiar with of that time, the nineties. I believe I said "
So cleverly done and the kind of easter eggs for comic book readers and "other" [blocked out due to spoilers] alike were superbly done."
The original series (mostly know as the OG series) used to have story-arcs than ran over a few episodes. 'Something something, part 1 of 3' etc. X-Men '97 does this twice in this season (once really) and with only 10 episodes, it is the last three that really roll into one continuous story, although, the entire season IS the continuous story. An example of what I mean is, The Marvel Cinematic Universe most commonly known as the MCU has three phases. Each phase was a combination of smaller stories leading into a finale (so to speak) an Avengers movie, but the over-arching story of Thanos coming to snap the galaxy away with the infinity gauntlet, spanned the three phases. X-Men '97 does something similar here and the over-arching bad guy for this season runs throughout and the final confrontation is a spectacle that ends with the promise of something else bigger to come.
I have said this before, "I honestly feel that the people behind this show sat down with Disney and said
"... I have this idea where we want to make an X-Men animation, in the vain of all past animation, style and story, with modern-day animation art and techniques, but continuing the stories from the animated show from the 90's and mine the stories even more..."". And this is exactly what they did. They raised the stakes, they touched on stories from the comics that were only hinted at in the OG series. They have targeted the children who are now adults and delivered a sensibility for the times we live in now whilst still focusing on being set in the 90's. By dropping this show weekly, you are keeping the focus on the X-Men and keeping it in the zeitgeist. Every week you are talking to your colleagues, friends and family about it for the entire duration of when it is airring. If you were to binge the show, (a little like the Fallout series), the talk about the show will last a few weeks if you are lucky and just a bit longer if it was really good.
This show deserves the buzz although I do believe they should slow the pacing down just a little. All the voice acting is great, the animation and design is great, the music is superb, the stories are simply wow, but to slow it down just a tad. I know we only have 30 minutes but maybe break the story into two episodes? There is not a need to overly explain everything as we are all smart enough to understand, but the break-neck speed in the story telling is, for what I'd imagine, for those who have short attention spans and to keep them entertained. I feel a lot of the information thrown into the show is very heavy and very political but very X-Men. X-Men is about outcats and people who are discriminated against due to their being, being a mutant, being a different colour, having abilities whether they wanted it or not. Soo much is touched on in this season as the writing is incredible. The dialogue is phenomenal. You definitely do not get this in the OG series but this form of storytelling is perfect for what the show is and always has been and it sits comfortably within the narrative. The drama in this show on levels much deeper than surface level storytelling and family dramas. Maybe to slow down the pacing a touch so it can sink in would be great, because the balance of drama and action, is perfect. Waiting patiently for season 2 though. Well done Marvel, Disney. Oh, and bring back Beau in some capacity if you cannot bring him back fully. He knows what he is doing and if you ask around, might be the person who has single-handedly (with a team of course) carried the entire Marvel business on his back with this show alone.
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