How would we feel about this being the designs for the new animated series?

[superjosh]

Storm was one of the most mishandled characters in the series. She was weak af, barely had any lines and the only episode that focused on her had her be mind-controlled through half of it. Disgraceful!

Agreed. I think only Wolverine and Emma were actually given any real characterization. There was some Cyclops, Rogue, and Kitty but not a ton. And the rest were just wallpaper. I don't know why anyone was clamoring for more. The animation was your typical early 2000s uninspired stuff. X-Men '92 may have had some sloppy animation, but it was dynamic, exciting, and had great music.

Speaking of X-Men: TAS, I bought the new book! I've been in a nostalgic phase and finally caved. I LOVE it. I've only skimmed so far, but it is so cool to see what went on behind the scenes. Even as a kid, I could tell that there were massive obstacles to there series' success and yet they were still prevailing!

[AdamFTF]

I've been rewatching Wolverine and the X-Men and I've got to tell you it feels like a little too much like it's trying to be both different and the same. And not in a way that would really pan out for either comics fans or non-fans. I mean, the whole thrust of the series is that they're "putting the band back together" with the supposedly crazy idea that Wolverine is leading the team. But most of the people coming to the show from the movies probably thought Wolverine is supposed to be the leader. Meanwhile, they also recover a lot of really familiar ground to comics fans like Days of Future Past and Angel's transformation into Archangel. And the initial cast as well as the "band" they put back together doesn't really have any really interesting members. It's just all the major characters up to the end of the Claremont/Byrne run (Cyclops, Jean Grey, Angel, Beast, Iceman, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Kitty Pryde, Rogue) plus Emma Frost who was the darling of Morrison's run. The only one who stands out is Forge who got turned into comic relief tech guy (they couldn't have thrown in Banshee, Sunfire, Dazzler, Northstar, Cannonball . . . someone a bit more off the beaten path). I feel like it was trying to be different while at the same time trying to be more definitive than X-Men TAS. It's not bad. It just would have been even better if it had picked a lane.

You know what's funny, from a comics perspective, the X-Men series that feels least dated in a lot of ways is X-Men: Evolution. X-Men TAS draws a lot on the aesthetic and cast of the Jim Lee period. From what I've seen of the anime it seems very '00s. And WatXM . . . had an episode focused on Nitro. Who was a non-mutant, non-X-Men villain but who was very big in the lead-up to Civil War. The most that Evo draws on the era's comics is that Spyke is kind of like Marrow, but that's it.

[superjosh]

Agreed, AdamFTF! WatX was trying to be on trend, but it also understood that the classic comic book stories were classic/sacred for a reason. It missed the mark because everything felt forced. Putting Wolverine front and center meant making Cyclops and Storm less competent and lackluster (Hey! That's what the movies did! What a coincidence...). Then the whole "getting the band back together" theme... we have to care about the band first! So it was just a mess.

As a comic fan, it was cool that they were going to do the Age of Apocalypse for Season 2, but again, you have to care about the characters first before you care about an alternate reality.

Some say that X-Men: Evolution was really underrated and possibly the best X-Men series... I just can't with teenage X-Men. Not my cup of tea. I did like Rogue though and that wonderful voice acting/accent! Rogue was always realized pretty well.

[Grunty]

The most that Evo draws on the era's comics is that Spyke is kind of like Marrow, but that's it.

And that was entirely by accident, since they didn't even knew she existed.

Spyke basicly begann as attempt in wanting to diversify the cast by replacing Collosus as "armored guy" with a new black character. So they created "Armadillo" a young black teenager who could cover himself in armored plates. Then they wanted to give him some ranged attacks inspired by Iceman being able to throw ice spikes. So they gave him bone spikes. But then they got told that the black teen should be more "hip" which resulted in him losing the armored plates, only having the bone spikes, getting bleached hair and getting the skateboard.

Which is also the reason he got the carapace back later in the show, when he didn't catch on with the viewership and they could turn him closer to how the character was original meant to be.

Btw. I think of the 3 shows Evolution handled Wolverine the best. He was often more a supporting character, who just got his own little stories occasionaly, rather than hugging the spotlight all the time.

[AdamFTF]

Agreed, AdamFTF! WatX was trying to be on trend, but it also understood that the classic comic book stories were classic/sacred for a reason. It missed the mark because everything felt forced. Putting Wolverine front and center meant making Cyclops and Storm less competent and lackluster (Hey! That's what the movies did! What a coincidence...). Then the whole "getting the band back together" theme... we have to care about the band first! So it was just a mess.

As a comic fan, it was cool that they were going to do the Age of Apocalypse for Season 2, but again, you have to care about the characters first before you care about an alternate reality.

I'm surprised they'd go for such a '90s concept. They didn't seem too forgiving of the characters from between Claremont/Byrne and Morrison/Quitely. Gambit was little more than a greedy thief who'd sell out other mutants. Psylocke was written off as an "amateur telepath" by Emma Frost. Domino was a villain and was leading the Brotherhood. Bishop . . . actually, Bishop was okay. And Marrow was a little better than how she was when she first showed up in the comics. I guess the good takes on these characters were in the future part.

Some say that X-Men: Evolution was really underrated and possibly the best X-Men series... I just can't with teenage X-Men. Not my cup of tea. I did like Rogue though and that wonderful voice acting/accent! Rogue was always realized pretty well.

This seems to be an issue for a number of people. The funny thing is that the whole "teen mutant coming-of-age" thing has been baked into the franchise since 1963. It's why so much of it is set at a school. It's also why one of the easiest things to look out for every time they overhaul the lineup of X-books is if there's a "young mutants" book. Personally, I liked Evo and its teen mutant concept. Like I said, it's baked into the X-Men concept. And the way they approached it, using more popular characters like Nightcrawler and Rogue, seemed smarter than trying to launch a cartoon about the Original 5 teen X-Men or trying to make a New Mutants or Generation X cartoon. (I wonder if some people would have liked it better if it had been one of those options). And since all of them were pretty young, none of the X-Men had to be singled out as the innocent kid "Jubilee" role. Also, their take on the Brotherhood was fun.

[superjosh]

I'm surprised they'd go for such a '90s concept. They didn't seem too forgiving of the characters from between Claremont/Byrne and Morrison/Quitely. Gambit was little more than a greedy thief who'd sell out other mutants. Psylocke was written off as an "amateur telepath" by Emma Frost. Domino was a villain and was leading the Brotherhood. Bishop . . . actually, Bishop was okay. And Marrow was a little better than how she was when she first showed up in the comics. I guess the good takes on these characters were in the future part.

I try not to think of what they did to poor Psylocke. Emma literally "flicked" Betsy's power away like it was a little pest... just the worst. At least she had the accent. Bishop was good and had that whole forlorn, long-suffering vibe pretty well-depicted.

This seems to be an issue for a number of people. The funny thing is that the whole "teen mutant coming-of-age" thing has been baked into the franchise since 1963. It's why so much of it is set at a school. It's also why one of the easiest things to look out for every time they overhaul the lineup of X-books is if there's a "young mutants" book. Personally, I liked Evo and its teen mutant concept. Like I said, it's baked into the X-Men concept. And the way they approached it, using more popular characters like Nightcrawler and Rogue, seemed smarter than trying to launch a cartoon about the Original 5 teen X-Men or trying to make a New Mutants or Generation X cartoon. (I wonder if some people would have liked it better if it had been one of those options). And since all of them were pretty young, none of the X-Men had to be singled out as the innocent kid "Jubilee" role. Also, their take on the Brotherhood was fun.

Yeah I understand that, but aside from the O5, Kitty, and Jubilee, the X-Men have always been portrayed as young adults. (To my knowledge, the O5 weren't even written very teenager-y, but that was in the 60s.) Even though there's a school, the X-Men were never some cheesy teen drama for any of the EVO characters (again, besides Kitty). I would never have read it if it was lol.

[Wolverine12]

Not going to quote to avoid a wall of text but Wolverine and the X-Men was great for Polaris, Professor X and Bishop as well as Emma and Logan. Scott had some decent development but he and Jean got cut off at the knees since it only got 1 season. Imho they should use a similar model for whatever the next animated show is. It doesn’t have to be so Wolverine focused (even if that’s what I personally would like) but the animation and story telling was great. Same with Avengers: Earth Mightiest Heroes

[Psy-lock]

Oh gosh, I forgot Betsy was even in that thing! She's probably the worst treated character. Literally just there to be humiliated by Emma and a villain to boot.

[superjosh]

Betsy was really bad. And as AdamFTF mentioned, Gambit was written as a sell-out thief... and I think the main problem being that he had NO charm. Forge was also just a goof played up for comedy. Hate that kind of stuff. The voice acting for Kitty (like with EVO) was just typical mallrat-trope for the kid audience. I'm still waiting for a more lovable nerd Kitty to be represented!

But Wolverine12, you're right about Polaris getting good characterization. Badlands was my favorite episode and it was adapted from actual source material (Morrison's run).

I played a few eps tonight on Disney+ and there are some entertaining episodes but also some really bad ones. So I'll revise my opinion to it just not being very consistent. The X-Calibre ep featuring Nightcrawler was quite fun and the action was good. Weird choice of characters though when you're trying to establish a show and have so many characters to play with... that's kind of a theme for the whole series.

[Triniking1234]

Gambit was a shady dude in his last 2 animation appearances and his only movie appearance.

Bless up. Claremont must be proud.

[Kingdom X]

Agreed, AdamFTF! WatX was trying to be on trend, but it also understood that the classic comic book stories were classic/sacred for a reason. It missed the mark because everything felt forced. Putting Wolverine front and center meant making Cyclops and Storm less competent and lackluster (Hey! That's what the movies did! What a coincidence...). Then the whole "getting the band back together" theme... we have to care about the band first! So it was just a mess.

As a comic fan, it was cool that they were going to do the Age of Apocalypse for Season 2, but again, you have to care about the characters first before you care about an alternate reality.

Some say that X-Men: Evolution was really underrated and possibly the best X-Men series... I just can't with teenage X-Men. Not my cup of tea. I did like Rogue though and that wonderful voice acting/accent! Rogue was always realized pretty well.

It really bothers me how Ororo wasn’t also allowed to be a teen like the majority of the cast. It played into problematic tropes of black women needing to be caretakers and black girls not being allowed to be youthful. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...getown/532050/

[Triniking1234]

If we're talking about WatXM, only Polaris, Iceman and Kitty were younger than their then-comics counterparts.

[Psy-lock]

It really bothers me how Ororo wasn’t also allowed to be a teen like the majority of the cast. It played into problematic tropes of black women needing to caretakers and black girls not being allowed to be youthful. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...getown/532050/

I hated that too. Storm was horrible in that show in general, only slightly better than WatX. And the same can be said about that show as a whole, I can only stomach the last two seasons of it. The whole set up with the X-Men having to go to a normal human school where Mystique moonlighs as the principal was just so ridiculous...What the hell was she even doing there? Waiting to put them in detention? And the love triangle between Scott, Jean and some stupid jock...It wasn't great.

[Phoenixx9]

Not going to quote to avoid a wall of text but Wolverine and the X-Men was great for Polaris, Professor X and Bishop as well as Emma and Logan. Scott had some decent development but he and Jean got cut off at the knees since it only got 1 season. Imho they should use a similar model for whatever the next animated show is. It doesn’t have to be so Wolverine focused (even if that’s what I personally would like) but the animation and story telling was great. Same with Avengers: Earth Mightiest Heroes

I agree, but Jean really got short-changed. We see her for a few minutes in the first episode. Then nothing until like Ep 21 or 22, which was a good 7 months later when it aired. Jean's only storyline was with the Phoenix but Jean had that stolen from her and was not even Phoenix in the few remaining episodes.

I was looking forward to the second season to see if any of the problems I and everyone mentioned were fixed and what new episodes would present to us.

[Wolverine12]

I agree, but Jean really got short-changed. We see her for a few minutes in the first episode. Then nothing until like Ep 21 or 22, which was a good 7 months later when it aired. Jean's only storyline was with the Phoenix but Jean had that stolen from her and was not even Phoenix in the few remaining episodes.

I was looking forward to the second season to see if any of the problems I and everyone mentioned were fixed and what new episodes would present to us.

Agreed. I think it definitely deserved a second season but it had the unfortunate timing to debut around the time Disney was not promoting the X-Men. A lot more could’ve been done for the team members but overall it is my second favorite X-Men animated show.