X-Men (TAS)
X-Men: Evolution
Wolverine and the X-Men
I was already in my twenties when TAS first aired, but I still loved it. It’s still my hands-down favourite, and I think it had the best formula by a wide margin, and I believe it has aged just fine. Evolution was ok, but WatXM was like a slow-motion train wreck.
As I’ve mentioned in another thread, what Disney needs to do now is make a new animated series with the original TAS cast, add a few characters from Evolution, update the animation and they’ve pretty much got a licence to print money.
I consider angrily running with his tail between his legs after his Horsemen fell to be a defeat. It implies he couldn’t take on the X-Men by himself. In later seasons writers just gave him new abilities completely nowhere that made no sense with his first season appearances to make him more of a threat. Like randomly giving him Mystique-like shapeshifting, which makes you question why he even needed Mystique to act out his plan in the earlier season.
This is the main reason why never liked the cartoon Apocalypse. Even as a kid.
Last edited by Divine Spark; 01-02-2018 at 01:55 PM.
X-Men TAS!
Apocalypse was surprised at how weak his horsemen turned out, and how much resistance the X-Men put up. A tactical withdrawal is not the same as being beaten. He came back again and again. Unlike in the films, where they just waste his concept completely and have Jean deus ex machina him out of nowhere.
Let the flames destroy all but that which is pure and true!
In some ways I preferred TAS to the other two, but it was missing some of my favorite characters. Nightcrawler's portrayal was spot on in Wolverine and the X-Men, so I had to vote for that one.
Withdrawal can be considered a defeat. Caesar retreating from the battle of Gergovia after his Legion was being overwhelmed is considered a defeat. You don’t need to die or get captured to lose a battle.
The film verson ended like any other Apocalypse story in the comics: him dying. The film already foreshadowed what Jean was capable of earlier in the film with her destroying a planet.
Last edited by Divine Spark; 01-02-2018 at 02:50 PM.
While I enjoyed all 3 IMMENSELY, and even Pryde too, there's certain aspects of W&tXM that captivated me more than the others. Now that could be 'cause it's just the most recent & modern, so still the "freshest", in terms of experiencing it & all that entails. But it had the best depictions of many characters I'm the most fond of, which I feel is the real reason, at this time. Polaris, of course, Angel, Nightcrawler, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Emma Frost, Psylocke, & Domino, just to name a few. Plus the likes of newbies Hellion & Dust, as well as TONS of Mutant cameos, from Blink & Dazzler to Firestar & Scanner. Enjoyed depictions of others like Rogue, Bishop, Jean, Mags, Gambit, Storm, Iceman, Kitty, etc., also. Oh, and even Blob, found him HILARIOUS! LOVED EVERYthing & every scene involving Genosha/HoM, as well as Selene & the HFC, and all the future stuff too. Was SO lookin' forward to season 2 & AoA, and couldn't have been more disappointed when it was cancelled, while bein' in the early stages of actual production no less. But alas, guess it just wasn't meant to be, and I say that with a VERY heavy heart.
I even used it for one of my earliest, self-created avatars here, I was so enraptured by it:
Really? Jean was one of my least favorite characters on that show (found her really bland).
My favorite is Evolution. Really liked the characters,
I've tried getting into the '90s cartoon and found it really bad. Saw a bit of the Wolverine cartoon. I enjoyed it, but it didn't hook me the way the Evolution cartoon (or the movies did).
Doctor Strange: "You are the right person to replace Logan."
X-23: "I know there are people who disapprove... Guys on the Internet mainly."
(All-New Wolverine #4)
Evo really hit its stride at the end of the second season, and it was pretty phenomenal after that, I thought.
TAS will always be important to me, because it introduced me to the X-Men, but it hasn't aged well, and their treatment of Jean has soured my perception of the show. Evolution did a wonderful job with Jean, and their Apocalypse story is among my favorites, and while I didn't care for WATX's name, I did enjoy Genosha and the House of M. Which is why I gave those two my vote.
Hot take: TAS is obectively bad. The bad animation, the cheesy storytelling, the subpar voice acting... Jean Grey entirely, and Storm for that matter. Without any nostalgia fueled glasses, TAS is bad. It's just bad. There's no other way to actually explain it.
Now, that leaves WATXM and X-Men Evolution. I've watched both of them to their conclusions, and they are both quite good cartoons... but. X-Men Evolution is the only one of the two that told a decent, well composed, and most importantly finished storyline. WATXM was good, and had a good story, but it ended on a cliffhanger that will forever remain unfinished. It had so much potential that, due to the nature of the burgeoning (at the time) CompleX, went untapped. Storylines that went unresolved, character arcs that were overall unfinished, and a second season that they were meant to get that promised to likely be the best Apocalypse storyline that the cartoons would have offered. But that's the thing. It didn't deliver, or rather, wasn't allowed to deliver.
That's why I'm voting for Evolution, which I will also mention had the best interpretations of numerous X-Men and even if it didn't inherently have that, it had the best character development by far.
"We come into this world alone and we leave the same way. The time we spent in between - time spent alive, sharing, learning together... is all that makes life worth living." - Jean Grey