X-Men '97: The Animated Series

[nx01a]

Captain America? Marvel just can't help themselves can they? I don't have anything against the Avengers, I just don't need them taking up precious screen time from the X-men.

If Scott chews them out for not speaking up for or defending mutants, I'm here for it! And if Wanda and Pietro are Avengers now?!

[Zoks]

Captain America? Marvel just can't help themselves can they? I don't have anything against the Avengers, I just don't need them taking up precious screen time from the X-men.

Captain America and Wolverine are old friends in this universe, so having him show up to back up the Mutants would be doing the series justice. He doesn't have to be a recurring character, just remind everyone that he stands with the Mutants.

[NK1988]

EDIT:
Somebody beat me to it.

[Sin Nick]

Also, the plot with the Acolytes and Magneto... Colossus used to BE an Acolyte!

But... this show has completely ditched the Acolytes.... Which is very strange to me.

We're only 5 episodes in tho, we don't know what they have planned. Maybe they'll be hunting for Fabian Cortez(since he tried to kill them) next time we see them only to find out his body is now possessed by Apocalypse.

[superjosh]

They should spin Wolverine out into his own show. Then everyone gets what they want.

Anything other than this for the love of god lol. He's already going to be featured in their tentpole movie this summer.

But yeah, I would wish that they'd use their resources on branching out in a new direction. Excalibur could be the new GotG! X-Force would be a great, darker series. Wolverine can go there! X-Factor as a government sanctioned team would be super interesting.

[Frontier]

I'd love it if they brought back David Hayter from the 90's Spidey show .

[Refrax5]

"How many fan favorites can we bring back only to quickly kill off in one episode?"

Are Callisto and Moira really fan favorites, especially in the context of this show? Most of the characters that died weren't especially big presences in the series and are fine in the comics. I agree with Beau, though, that if you're trying to echo real life tragedies, it seems pretty hollow if nobody we know or care about actually dies, doesn't it?

[The Big G]

Captain America? Marvel just can't help themselves can they? I don't have anything against the Avengers, I just don't need them taking up precious screen time from the X-men.

Well he WAS in that one Flashback episode in Season 5...so the precedent is there

[Grunty]

Are Callisto and Moira really fan favorites, especially in the context of this show? Most of the characters that died weren't especially big presences in the series and are fine in the comics. I agree with Beau, though, that if you're trying to echo real life tragedies, it seems pretty hollow if nobody we know or care about actually dies, doesn't it?

Does it still work if most of the people who know/remember these characters enough to care are comic fans/readers who have long ago become desensitized to their death?

[Mutant God]

They should spin Wolverine out into his own show. Then everyone gets what they want.

Wolverine: The Animated Series
In every episode theres a special guest appearance from another Marvel franchise: Nick Fury, Deadpool, Captain America, Luke Cage, Hulk, Spider-Men

[Frontier]

Are Callisto and Moira really fan favorites, especially in the context of this show? Most of the characters that died weren't especially big presences in the series and are fine in the comics. I agree with Beau, though, that if you're trying to echo real life tragedies, it seems pretty hollow if nobody we know or care about actually dies, doesn't it?

I mean, I appreciate them and I know comic fans do (maybe more Callisto than Moira).

I was happy to get an actual normal Moira again, short-lived as it was.

Though I'm also against killing off a lot of characters in general like this. I get what he was going for, but ultimately I would rather see more of these characters than just kill them off like this.

This actually oddly reminds me of the Skybound Transformers series.

[Refrax5]

I mean, I appreciate them and I know comic fans do (maybe more Callisto than Moira).

I was happy to get an actual normal Moira again, short-lived as it was.

Though I'm also against killing off a lot of characters in general like this. I get what he was going for, but ultimately I would rather see more of these characters than just kill them off like this.

This actually oddly reminds me of the Skybound Transformers series.

Yeah, but they're alive and well in the comics. They're dead in this particular continuity, but it's not like they were much more than guest stars or cameos in this series. I would get it if they had slaughtered the main versions of these characters, but for a self-contained, finite series they were barely a part of anyway, I guess I don't really see the issue.

I also think dismissing it as being some callous shock value is unfair when we know why it was done this way and what it's meant to represent. I feel like the entire episode would lose any impact if we didn't have recognizable fatalities. It would just completely neuter the story and its purpose if they spared any and all recognizable characters.

Like the dude said, real people, amazing people, get their stories cut short when these things happen.

[Zoks]

Yeah, but they're alive and well in the comics. They're dead in this particular continuity, but it's not like they were much more than guest stars or cameos in this series. I would get it if they had slaughtered the main versions of these characters, but for a self-contained, finite series they were barely a part of anyway, I guess I don't really see the issue.

I also think dismissing it as being some callous shock value is unfair when we know why it was done this way and what it's meant to represent. I feel like the entire episode would lose any impact if we didn't have recognizable fatalities. It would just completely neuter the story and its purpose if they spared any and all recognizable characters.

Like the dude said, real people, amazing people, get their stories cut short when these things happen.

Those two weren't there to be fan favorites. The Morlocks were there for the narrative because Magneto wanted to lecture the X-Men for leaving them in the sewers instead of sending them to where they would be welcome, and Moira was the token normal human on their council. Their deaths are meant to mean something for the narrative to progress. It's why Shaw also died, but we haven't seen Emma's death. Emma's story (either as a villain or as a hero) can move from here in future episodes.

Speaking of future episodes, looking at the titles in the comics Iceman came back to the team because of this event. Maybe he'll show up, and he'll bring what's left of X-Factor with him, since he was involved with the X-Factor plot in the original series.

[Frontier]

Yeah, but they're alive and well in the comics. They're dead in this particular continuity, but it's not like they were much more than guest stars or cameos in this series. I would get it if they had slaughtered the main versions of these characters, but for a self-contained, finite series they were barely a part of anyway, I guess I don't really see the issue.

I also think dismissing it as being some callous shock value is unfair when we know why it was done this way and what it's meant to represent. I feel like the entire episode would lose any impact if we didn't have recognizable fatalities. It would just completely neuter the story and its purpose if they spared any and all recognizable characters.

Like the dude said, real people, amazing people, get their stories cut short when these things happen.

I mean, for a given definition of "alive" when it comes to Moira...and definitely not depicted well.

I think they added something by their existence and the kind of characters and perspective they added to the series and universe.

Again, I get what Beau was going for, and it was depicted as effectively viscerally and brutally as possible, I just tend to err on the side of keeping characters alive.

[Refrax5]

Does it still work if most of the people who know/remember these characters enough to care are comic fans/readers who have long ago become desensitized to their death?

Apparently, since people are still upset about what happened. I think the larger impact was obviously in losing Gambit or in watching Leech believing to the last second Magneto or Callisto would save him or even, for me, the very real worry that Nightcrawler was about to die. I was really saddened by Cyclops' death in X3 despite him being alive and well in the comics. There was a cheer in my theater when he appeared at the end of DOFP. So I think there's an impact, yeah. There's an impact to Wolverine getting fried in the comic version of DOFP or Magneto waiting for the world to end with his family in Age of Apocalypse, even though they aren't the main versions.

I think the merit of alternate takes like those or a self-contained TV show like this is that they're finite and you can kill off characters permanently and do things you can't really do in a comic book with an endless ongoing narrative.

Seeing the animated series version of Banshee die isn't a massive heartbreak, no, but the audience having some level of familiarity gives it more oomph than just random anonymous civilians. It also added to the tension because you began to wonder if anybody other than the main cast was safe....and then it turned out not even they were.

I generally don't like characters getting killed off wholesale because it usually lacks the impact the creator is going for, but judging by the response to this episode and how much it affected people, I think it did have the proper emotional impact. I'm not even especially attached to Gambit and I was pretty moved by his death. I've said that it's probably the character's finest hour in any medium, in my book.

I just dont think this is something sleazy or cheap like Ultimatum. There's an obvious craft and heart to this and it carries real world meaning. The point of watching familiar faces die in this event is so that the victims aren't faceless. Like in real life, victims of mass casualty events are real people that are loved have stories.

It very clearly impacted people. It impacted me, who's been reading comics for decades. It's not really about the deaths but how they were handled and the meaning and context around them. And I think the episode would have lost much of that meaning if nobody we recognized got killed.

If it didn't work for you, okay. But it seems like it really hit home for a lot of us, so they obviously did something right.