Missed Opportunities in Superhero Animation

[Gaius]

Just about all of Wonder Woman's appearances in the DCAU.

[Vakanai]

Just about all of Wonder Woman's appearances in the DCAU.

The fact no one's ever seemed to even get a Wonder Woman series pitch in.

[Jackalope89]

Super Sons was literally made to be a cartoon. We may be able to get some of that in a future Young Justice season, but man was that a blown opportunity to get young kids interested in comics.

[WebLurker]

High School setting only works beautifully when there is actual development that is realistic, you know you also went through that phase and X-MEN Evolution got that right, even down to the way the show wrote the romances.

Rogue started off with a major teen crush on Cyclops in season 1 and 2, but was falling in love with Gambit by season 3 and 4.

Jean dated the stereotypical high school football Jork, but realised in the later seasons, it was Scott she liked.

Yeah, it was a comic book show, but it still had the Dawson Creek teen appeal of coming of age and character steeping into young adults.

Always found the implication of that to be more than a little creepy, given the age gap (teen and adult). I get that it's a popular thing from the comics, but if they wanted to play with it in this show, I really wish that they'd synced up the character's ages (like maybe making Gambit a teen Brotherhood member or something).

I was personally rooting for Cyclops and Rogue to get together (liked their back and forth and couldn't really get into Cyclops' relationship with Jean, for some reason, which was annoying, since it was important and all that). Remember seeing an old interview with one of the production people where they more or less stated that the intent was that Cyclops and Rouge were together in the flash forward we see in the finale (albeit not stated as such in the episode itself). Not sure if that can be considered "canon" (or was just someone on the team theorizing), but I think it does kinda make for an interesting experience rewatching the show with that assumption in mind.

Do wish that they'd gotten to make that 5th season. Glad that they were able to end with with as much closure as they did, but I really liked the characters and the show has kinda fallen into semi-obscurity since.

[CosmiComic]

The fact no one's ever seemed to even get a Wonder Woman series pitch in.

Why exactly did she never get one, despite being the most prominent female superhero?

[Castle]

Always found the implication of that to be more than a little creepy, given the age gap (teen and adult). I get that it's a popular thing from the comics, but if they wanted to play with it in this show, I really wish that they'd synced up the character's ages (like maybe making Gambit a teen Brotherhood member or something).

I was personally rooting for Cyclops and Rogue to get together (liked their back and forth and couldn't really get into Cyclops' relationship with Jean, for some reason, which was annoying, since it was important and all that). Remember seeing an old interview with one of the production people where they more or less stated that the intent was that Cyclops and Rouge were together in the flash forward we see in the finale (albeit not stated as such in the episode itself). Not sure if that can be considered "canon" (or was just someone on the team theorizing), but I think it does kinda make for an interesting experience rewatching the show with that assumption in mind.

Do wish that they'd gotten to make that 5th season. Glad that they were able to end with with as much closure as they did, but I really liked the characters and the show has kinda fallen into semi-obscurity since.

I can understand other opportunities for the characters in terms of romance but X-MEN Evolution still played out in a way like Smallville another YA based superhero show. Meaning there are still some certain tropes that cannot be erased. There were some fans who wanted Cyclops and Rogue to get together in Evolution but for me that would have just been like fans wishing for Clark Kent and Lana Lang to stay together forever in Smallville. Anyone watching Smallville by season 4-5 knew it was over for Lana once Lois showed up.

There are some ships you never try to bother shipping for long lasting reasons because you know it is not meant to be. Watching XMEN Evolution or Smallville. Clark and Cyclops are fated to be with Lois Lane and Jean Grey in the end. No matter the twist and turns. Those are the destined couples.

In fact there are some fans that really loved X-MEN Evolution because Wolverine never had a thing for Jean as with the other shows. It was easier for that reason for Jean and Cyclops to get together in Evolution without Wolverine trying to meddle.

Also in Evolution, Rogue's thing for Cyclops was more of an infatuation. a crush. Her first meeting with Gambit, sparks flew more. Also Rogue was over cyclops by season 3 and started to show feelings for Gambit.

Additionally I don't know were this rumour started about rogue and cyclops becoming a couple in season 5. I have heard the rumour before. it just does not add up to how the series ends. in the finale that gave insight to the future. Jean becomes Phoenix and I cannot imagine any story of jean as phoenix without The Cyclops love equation as part of that story, also Rogue and Gambit are together in that future.

While I wish we had gotten a season 5. Season 4 was a good wrap up ending that tied all the loose ends with all the characters in the right place.

[SiegePerilous02]

Why exactly did she never get one, despite being the most prominent female superhero?

"Boys don't wanna watch cartoons starring girls" is probably the (flawed) logic at play here.

Despite the fact that Sailor Moon and Powerpuff Girls and other things do well across multiple demographics.

[CosmiComic]

"Boys don't wanna watch cartoons starring girls" is probably the (flawed) logic at play here.

Despite the fact that Sailor Moon and Powerpuff Girls and other things do well across multiple demographics.

Maybe i could understand thinking that before the 90s, but not nowadays. Shows like the ones you mentioned appealed to both demographics.

[Vakanai]

Why exactly did she never get one, despite being the most prominent female superhero?

My guess? Sexism.

[Vakanai]

Maybe i could understand thinking that before the 90s, but not nowadays. Shows like the ones you mentioned appealed to both demographics.

But Wonder Woman's chances were best during the 90s and 00s when the DCAU was in force, sadly the time when such flawed thinking was in effect. Then during the 10s Cartoon Network killed any and all action type shows in favor of low brow comedies with terrible art for...reasons. So that decade was a bust. But now thanks to streaming? Wonder Woman has a higher likelihood now in the 20s than she ever had before, so here's hoping.

[CosmiComic]

My guess? Sexism.

I would agree

But Wonder Woman's chances were best during the 90s and 00s when the DCAU was in force, sadly the time when such flawed thinking was in effect. Then during the 10s Cartoon Network killed any and all action type shows in favor of low brow comedies with terrible art for...reasons. So that decade was a bust. But now thanks to streaming? Wonder Woman has a higher likelihood now in the 20s than she ever had before, so here's hoping.

Ideally she could get an all-ages cartoon incorporating all of her mythos, or at least the good parts

[WebLurker]

1/2

I can understand other opportunities for the characters in terms of romance but X-MEN Evolution still played out in a way like Smallville another YA based superhero show. Meaning there are still some certain tropes that cannot be erased. There were some fans who wanted Cyclops and Rogue to get together in Evolution but for me that would have just been like fans wishing for Clark Kent and Lana Lang to stay together forever in Smallville. Anyone watching Smallville by season 4-5 knew it was over for Lana once Lois showed up.

Never saw Smallville, actually.

I guess I'd argue that in an adaptation, there is room for variation and subversion of the mythology, esp. if it's in an adaptation that, by design, is trying to make its own spin on it. It sometimes happens; Ant-Man characters Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne were never a couple in the source material, but are a couple in the movies (or how Scott is the modern-day Ant-Man and Hank Pym is the older veteran, despite them being the same age and Hank still being the go-to Ant-Man in the comics, etc.). Heck, the very idea of Rouge having feelings for Cyclops at all was a change from the original mythology. On the other hand, there's no need to not subvert stuff either in such adaptations, depending on the plan and how much familiar elements they do or do not want with the new set up.

TLR: While I think it was fair game for the show to keep the classic Cyclops/Jean relationship as what everything was going to, I don't see why the Powers That Be "had" to follow tradition.

There are some ships you never try to bother shipping for long lasting reasons because you know it is not meant to be. Watching XMEN Evolution or Smallville. Clark and Cyclops are fated to be with Lois Lane and Jean Grey in the end. No matter the twist and turns. Those are the destined couples.

Honestly, I never really got what was so great about Cyclops and Jean in the first place (franchise in general). So far as I can tell, they were put together just because they were the main boy and girl in the original comics run and I'm not sure they dynamic was ever that well developed as time went on (I mean, you can pretty easily graph the dynamics between Superman and Lois Lane, or Spider-Man and Mary Jane, to name a few of the definitive destined couples, but I haven't really seen a definitive take on that for Cyclops and Jean, if that makes any sense).

Course to be fair, outside of a few exceptions (like the aforementioned Superman/Lois Lane and Spider-Man/Mary Jane), I don't think a lot of comic book superhero romantic relationships are that "good" in the first place (kinda think even the Fantastic Four marriage is kinda toxic, at best, even factoring in systemic sexism of the '60s that it was created under) and have found I generally prefer the non-romantic bonds between characters in terms of writing (I'll take Hawkeye and Kate Bishop's surrogate-sibling-or father-figure/daughter-figure-or-whatever-it-is relationship over Cyclops and Jean's romance any day and, so far, cried more over the Black Widow sisters in their MCU movie than I did with Captain America getting together with Peggy Carter in the end).

Now, to be fair to X-Men: Evolution, I think that, at worse, their take on Cyclops and Jean was just boring, which I prefer over thinking the relationship is a bad one for both of them. At least then I'm not rolling my eyes at why they're together; they're just not interesting to watch, IMHO.

In fact there are some fans that really loved X-MEN Evolution because Wolverine never had a thing for Jean as with the other shows. It was easier for that reason for Jean and Cyclops to get together in Evolution without Wolverine trying to meddle.

I will freely concede that I never found the triangle ever interesting in any form (esp. the movies), and, while I think Hugh Jackman played the character best, I really liked the cartoon's depiction of Wolverine in terms of how he related to the other characters.

(On the other hand, one could argue that Rogue essentially takes Wolverine's place as the "troubled" corner of the triangle in the Evolution version, even if things are switched up so Cyclops is the one the other two are fighting over. Accident or not, I think it was better triangle then the classic one, but that's me.)

[WebLurker]

2/2

Also in Evolution, Rogue's thing for Cyclops was more of an infatuation. a crush. Her first meeting with Gambit, sparks flew more. Also Rogue was over cyclops by season 3 and started to show feelings for Gambit.

As said before, I never got why people liked the idea of this version of Rogue and Gambit together; it's a kid and a grown man, which is inherently creepy from the get go. Also, even if we overlooked that, they only had substantial interactions in one episode, so the foundation they're building on is undercooked, to say the least.

Kinda thought that Rogue "getting over" Cyclops wasn't so much established as just lost in the shuffle of things (at least I remember thinking that I would've liked more closure on that when I last watched the show). Also, as noted before, there wasn't much with Gambit in season 3 (he tries to blow off her hand with one of his cards and she steals his power like the other characters in the season finale; the one where they go down south was in the last season, and that was it); IMHO, they did more with her learning that she was Nightcrawler's older sister in the latter part of the show than anything regarding her love life (and, to be fair, I think she and Nightcrawler had a good dynamic in the show).

Additionally I don't know were this rumour started about rogue and cyclops becoming a couple in season 5. I have heard the rumour before. it just does not add up to how the series ends. in the finale that gave insight to the future. Jean becomes Phoenix and I cannot imagine any story of jean as phoenix without The Cyclops love equation as part of that story, also Rogue and Gambit are together in that future.

Okay, this's what I have in terms of sources I can verify (e.g. are stil posted online); awhile back, Frank Paur, one of the rotating directors gave an interview on a fan site (for the sake of discussion, I'm assuming that this was a genuine interview and not a fabrication of the site's), discussing his work on the show. When giving examples about how the production team had to make background notes to hash out the character's motivations and mindsets as they wrote the episodes, he explained their rational behind why Rogue fell for Cyclops: "We played the relationship card with Scott and Rogue, she makes a play for him, and why not? If anyone has an idea of what she's going through, it would be Scott. He lives in fear of losing control of his powers and killing someone; so does she. He had a lousy childhood; so does she. He always feels isolated because of his powers and of his responsibility; so does she. And he's the one who reached out to her and brought her into an environment of warmth, family and friends. Why wouldn't she make a play for him? She reads Jean's actions toward Scott as mean. Jean is a player, the cheerleader who has everything, and can't make up her mind at what she wants. Scott is an item to her, just like Duncan, and who knows whom else. Rogue thinks Jean is a dumb ass and cannot recognize a good thing when she sees it, so yeah, she's going to make a play on the guy. (Oh, as a minor side note; on the final episode, during the peek into the future, check out who is not included in the group shot and check out whom Rogue lands next to.)" (my emphasis)

The bolded bit is the "smoking gun" of the "Rogue and Cyclops got together in the end" theory (the moment Paur cites can be found here, timecode 0:54) . I will agree that it's pretty darn vague and who knows how things would've played out had the show gone on longer (if they were considering doing the Phoenix story, I'm not sure Jean would've died in the end, the way they're implying happened in the flash forward we got). The gist of the theory, as I understand it, based on the epilogue and the interview, is that Scott and Jean were a couple until the Phoenix incident ended with her dying (based on how Professor X's narration makes it sound like she never came back and how she's not in the subsequent clip where we see her grown up peers leading the team) and that Cyclops and Rogue later became a couple sometime after that. No indication, assuming that scenario is true, that it was going to be depicted "onscreen" or just be part of the lore of how things would go outside the scope of the series.

For what it may or may not also be worth, Frank Paur, the guy who basically suggested that Cyclops and Rogue did get together in the end, was the director of the episode in question.

My take on it all is that I don't see it as binding canon (not stated on the show, and Cyclops and Rogue standing together with others doesn't read as "in a relationship" at face value, unlike if they'd been the only ones with wedding rings or holding hands or something) and it is certainly possible that Paur was just throwing out an idea or his own personal headcanon to give people who wanted to see them together the support to imagine that they did. On the other hand, the fact that someone involved with the show in an official capacity was the source for the information and, taken at face value, seems relatively straight forward (it's pretty obvious what he's hinting at and all that) kinda makes it more than just a fan theory and at least something to asterisk on the conversation.

As I noted earlier on the thread, while I'm not dogmatic about it being the truth, I do like the idea that they did get together as adults, since I was rooting for them and I think it makes for interesting new lens to process how the show unfolded on rewatch. On the other hand, even if the theory isn't true, it still works pretty well as an unrequited attraction on Rogue's part, so I can't really complain about the writing.

(Also, as far as I recall, Gambit wasn't in the show after that New Orleans episode, so I'm not sure that has any bearing on the theory.)

While I wish we had gotten a season 5. Season 4 was a good wrap up ending that tied all the loose ends with all the characters in the right place.

Agreed; the closure was satisfactory.

[ed2962]

Why exactly did she never get one, despite being the most prominent female superhero?

There's been several live action shows pitched but they never went anywhere.

There was that one direct to DVD Wonder Woman feature ( 2009), but it under performed. Rumor is after that, WB decided to focus on mostly Batman and Superman material. They did do another one a couple of years ago.

[Godzilla2099]

- Green Lantern only getting one season

- Beware the Batman got cut off too soon

- Masters of the Universe 2002 ended too soon

- Thundercats 2011 ended too soon

- The ending of Transformers Prime: I'd have borderline kill for a Megatron Spinoff

- Genndy Tartakovsky should have wrote the entire Star Wars Prequel. His 2003 Clone Wars was by far the best