Marvel Cinematic Universe

Some fun stuff in X-Men 97 this week

Bit surprised that

Is this show as effective if you don't really remember much about the original series, and definitely didn't watch it all the way until the end?

I remember loving it at the time but it didn't hang around my psyche the way Batman TAS did, and I've never seen any of it since it was on Live and Kicking or wherever.

For me X-Men, Batman and Spiderman are the gold standard for superhero cartoons from that era.

Although X-Men largely just did straight adaptations of classic comics with an accuracy the other two didn’t.

For X-Men 97 I think really you just need some affection or awareness of the Cyclops, Jean, Wolverine, Storm, Beast, Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee team to get on board. You might miss some of the silent cameos and references but the original run used to do the same thing with the comics and it probably didn’t affect things too much.

97 also introduces a new audience insert character for the X-Men to give X-planations and X-position to early on too.

Although there’s no pretending that its not largely an X-ercise in nostalgia bait for 40yr olds.

Yeah Batman is the absolute gold standard. It was so influential that the comics imported a lot of it's stuff. Harlequin for one.

I seem to remember X-Men wasn't that accurate with reproducing the storylines. Like Days of Future Past had no Kitty Pride as I remember.

Ehhh. There were deffo short cuts, not necessarily bad ones. Like they only kinda maybe a bit did X-Cutioners Song or Fatal Attractions etc.

Anyway it was great but it's not Batman the Animated series. Which is just amazing.

So after all the recommendations I watched the first episode last night. It was good; I agree that, so far, as long as you're familiar with the setup of the old show it carries on sort of as normal. I imagine a few of the references they've made to past missions and the like are specific episodes or arcs?

The animation is very good, evoking the old series but still feeling contemporary. Jubilee actually looks Asian, which is something I absolutely did not pick up on in the 90s just from watching the show (that may have been me and my sheltered upbringing). Most of the voices sound a little different to how I remember them though; I know not every old voice actor returned but not sure which are which.

Anyway, a solid enough start, I'm excited to see when the real "OMG" stuff begins.

Some of them are pretty cool, but not £500 cool.

This is a very mild statement so allow me to be more effusive:

Jesus fucking Christ this tv show is brilliant. Best marvel tv series by far. That whole sequence is one of the all time greats in the MCU. 100%.

What an absolutely delightful surprise that it is so good.

Shut up! I'm trying to wait until all the episodes have dropped.

Finally somebody else gets it

yeah, got a flight to Egypt soon so Ive saved it to binge

I tried watching the first episode and found it a bit "meh" I'll give it another whirl going by the comments here.

It's ok. Onny is rewatching it closely to make sure the asses are all good. 

One thing I really like about the series - I don't remember if they did this in the 90s - is how they change X-Men roster in the title sequence to reflect changes in the team dynamic. The change in the most recent episode, for instance, was quite poignant.