X-Men '97: The Animated Series (Disney+)

[Agent Z]

There's something ironic about Jean being voiced by Jennifer Hale. Maybe it's because I first knew her as the voice of Felicia Hardy in Spider-Man: TAS (who is basically the Spider-Man equivalent of Emma Frost). Then again, Hale also voiced MJ in Spider-Man Unlimited.

Also, when did Maddie get magical powers?

[Adam Allen]

Also, when did Maddie get magical powers?

One of the details that got lost in the condensed cartoon version of the story. I liked the episode, but really thought it was weird to see "Inferno" having nothing to do with Illyana, when it was (in the comics) the culmination/continuation of a years-long character arc for her, that dominated the New Mutants title and in Inferno crossed over to all the Marvel titles at the time. Most of the heroes dealing with magical/demon-possession stuff during the crossover had it happen more or less out of the blue (like I recall the Daredevil and Power Pack Inferno issues).

Maddie's becoming the Goblin Queen wasn't quite as out of the blue, as Claremont was writing both titles (X-Men and New Mutants) this whole time, and was looking for a way to resolve the problem of Jean having been brought back and Scott being used in X-Factor, which ruined the happy retirement he'd wanted for Cyclops, and made him look like a jerk for abandoning his wife and infant child. So he made Maddie a clone created by Sinister, and because Sinister allied with the demons from Limbo (who had turned on Illyana, who they'd served since she defeated Belasco) in their plan to open a gateway permanently to earth, magic/demon possession was used to turn her evil, unlock her previously non-existent powers (Maddie had initally just been a human who happened to look like Jean) and in Inferno have her basically fridged, leaving baby Nathan with Scott and Jean over in X-Factor.

Rushed as the story was to get squeezed into one episode ... and while the Illyana Easter Egg I guess was nice, it was also kind of jarring to see her versions pop up in randomly in this story, when her struggle with and ultimately becoming Darkchild in Inferno was the central story to the whole crossover, in the comics ... I really liked this version better for both Scott and Maddie. In the comics, both were kind of screwed by editorial/real-world decisions that made the characters look bad, where this version could avoid having Scott abandon his family and Maddie treated like a problematic dangling subplot, done away with through the problematic tropes of woman-turned-evil-by-power, evil-from-spurned-love, and killed-off-for-male-character's-story-arc.

Baby Cable was actually with X-Factor for a bit before being shipped off to the future (not with Bishop) in the comics. Their losing him immediately this way is also I think less insult to Maddie. And while Nate Grey eventually brought her back to life in the comics, that was years later. This version, where she is not killed but is allowed to choose to go and live her own life, is again much better. (Even if folks might prefer to have had her stick around for the romantic-triangle-drama.) Yeah, her randomly deciding her names are Maddie Pryor and Goblin Queen don't have any context in the cartoon, but meh. Same as all of the magic and demon possession ... I guess they tried to make it make sense by playing up Sinister's monstrous/demonic appearance, and having his lab appear more like Frankenstein's than modern science. I guess we were meant to infer the magic/demon stuff was his influence, but yeah, made less sense in context here than in the comics.

Still liked the way the characters were all treated better in this version, so willing to give a pass for all the random. Plus, supposed to be a kid's cartoon, so not like realism is the goal. Giving the series an A+ so far, personally.

[Frontier]

There's something ironic about Jean being voiced by Jennifer Hale. Maybe it's because I first knew her as the voice of Felicia Hardy in Spider-Man: TAS (who is basically the Spider-Man equivalent of Emma Frost). Then again, Hale also voiced MJ in Spider-Man Unlimited.

Also, when did Maddie get magical powers?

To be fair she's been voicing Jean pretty consistently since Wolverine and the X-Men (she was even in Marvel vs Capcom!)

[Catlady in training]

I'm a Scott and Jean fan so seeing Logan out of the picture would make me happy. But I'd warn fans not to get any real hopes up for a Wolverine and Morph relationship beyond a close friendship and an unrequited love from Morph. Marvel and especially the Marvel Studios side isn't as progressive, and they like to portray when it comes to sexuality.

Morph being non-binary they'll say Morph's a shapeshifter of course they're non-binary. Morph having feelings for Logan why not Morph can be any gender and their love wouldn't be binary just like them. But Logan never even with Morph as a female they'd never do it because they'd never want to imply Logan is bisexual. If Logan is Bi here, then why not in the future live action films? They'd get backlash for not doing it and they're not going to do it to the guy they built the X brand around. Simply because they don't want to piss off middle America, the Middle East, China, or Russia when releasing the future X-Films. Look at the Marvels Carol and Valkyrie were supposed to be ex-lovers, but you wouldn't know by what they put out.

Bucky is partly based off Arnie Roth in the MCU, and they still refused to go there with him even with "Stucky" fans.

They're always going to put potential money over their claimed values.

Morph can have feeling for their bestie but it will likely be one sided. Logan is still pining for Jean.

Yeah, I don't expect them to go there with a relationship, just a crush from Morph's side probably. Wolverine is one of those characters that must remain straight, because every macho guy who fantasizes about being like him would lose their mind (at least that's what they probably think). Plus, they have to milk that love triangle with Jean as much as they can and then some.

[Nate Grey]

Not bad. I like that they're using Morph as a way to have cameos of prior mutants. Curious how they'll do Apocalypse if they decide to get to him (specifically his voice, John Colicos was awesome may have RIP).

[MisterTorgo]

I gotta say, as someone who watched a few episodes of the original 'toon in real time back then and didn't like it at all, I'm surprised by how much I'm enjoying this new show. It feels, to me, like the notes they tried to hit back then but couldn't for whatever reason are being hit better here, so far.

Can't wait for the rest of the season.

[Frontier]

Not bad. I like that they're using Morph as a way to have cameos of prior mutants. Curious how they'll do Apocalypse if they decide to get to him (specifically his voice, John Colicos was awesome may have RIP).

David Kaye did a great job in X-Men: Evolution.

[sunofdarkchild]

One of the details that got lost in the condensed cartoon version of the story. I liked the episode, but really thought it was weird to see "Inferno" having nothing to do with Illyana, when it was (in the comics) the culmination/continuation of a years-long character arc for her, that dominated the New Mutants title and in Inferno crossed over to all the Marvel titles at the time. Most of the heroes dealing with magical/demon-possession stuff during the crossover had it happen more or less out of the blue (like I recall the Daredevil and Power Pack Inferno issues).

Maddie's becoming the Goblin Queen wasn't quite as out of the blue, as Claremont was writing both titles (X-Men and New Mutants) this whole time, and was looking for a way to resolve the problem of Jean having been brought back and Scott being used in X-Factor, which ruined the happy retirement he'd wanted for Cyclops, and made him look like a jerk for abandoning his wife and infant child. So he made Maddie a clone created by Sinister, and because Sinister allied with the demons from Limbo (who had turned on Illyana, who they'd served since she defeated Belasco) in their plan to open a gateway permanently to earth, magic/demon possession was used to turn her evil, unlock her previously non-existent powers (Maddie had initally just been a human who happened to look like Jean) and in Inferno have her basically fridged, leaving baby Nathan with Scott and Jean over in X-Factor.

Rushed as the story was to get squeezed into one episode ... and while the Illyana Easter Egg I guess was nice, it was also kind of jarring to see her versions pop up in randomly in this story, when her struggle with and ultimately becoming Darkchild in Inferno was the central story to the whole crossover, in the comics ... I really liked this version better for both Scott and Maddie. In the comics, both were kind of screwed by editorial/real-world decisions that made the characters look bad, where this version could avoid having Scott abandon his family and Maddie treated like a problematic dangling subplot, done away with through the problematic tropes of woman-turned-evil-by-power, evil-from-spurned-love, and killed-off-for-male-character's-story-arc.

Baby Cable was actually with X-Factor for a bit before being shipped off to the future (not with Bishop) in the comics. Their losing him immediately this way is also I think less insult to Maddie. And while Nate Grey eventually brought her back to life in the comics, that was years later. This version, where she is not killed but is allowed to choose to go and live her own life, is again much better. (Even if folks might prefer to have had her stick around for the romantic-triangle-drama.) Yeah, her randomly deciding her names are Maddie Pryor and Goblin Queen don't have any context in the cartoon, but meh. Same as all of the magic and demon possession ... I guess they tried to make it make sense by playing up Sinister's monstrous/demonic appearance, and having his lab appear more like Frankenstein's than modern science. I guess we were meant to infer the magic/demon stuff was his influence, but yeah, made less sense in context here than in the comics.

Still liked the way the characters were all treated better in this version, so willing to give a pass for all the random. Plus, supposed to be a kid's cartoon, so not like realism is the goal. Giving the series an A+ so far, personally.

The thing is, the culmination of Illyana's story wasn't actually all that important to Inferno. Even though it was supposed to be the culmination of everything Claremont had been building up for her since she was first taken to Limbo in Uncanny 160, that element of the story was limited to just the New Mutants issues and the whole Limbo rebellion was little more than the setup for the Maddie story that was the focus of both Uncanny and X-Factor. If it had been as important as the Maddie story, it would have at least crossed over with Uncanny and the X-Men would have been there to witness Illyana's sacrifice instead of only Colossus even being aware anything was going on with her.

It was so unimportant that they couldn't even bother to have Belasco appear despite Claremont clearly setting up that the culmination of Illyana's story would be a final battle with Belasco. He wrote it outright multiple times in the Magik miniseries and New Mutants. Instead they created a brand-new demon in N'Astrih who took Belasco's place in Illyana's final story but could also have a focus on Madelyne, whereas Belasco would be completely focused on Illyana. It also seems that the writer of New Mutants at the time forgot Illyana's origin and thought she killed Belasco, and by then Bob Harris was the X-Men's editor, and he wanted to get rid of Illyana as quickly as possible because he was on a crusade to destroy everything related to magic in the X-Men franchise and couldn't be bothered to do the editor's job on a subject and character he hated.

Basically, Inferno was a mismash of the X-Men writers trying to fix the problems created by Cyclops running out on his wife and baby when they stupidly brought Jean Grey back while also inelegeantly ending the Magik and Limbo plotlines at the same time and not bothering to do so in a manner that actually pays off Illyana's story in a manner consistent with what had been set up or which gave it the weight it deserved due to an editor who hated her and a writer who forgot her origin.

It's not that much of a surprise the entire Magik plot was left out of 97's adaptation of Inferno when said plot was so badly handled and so shockingly unimportant in the original story. Illyana's return in 2007 was the story her death in 1989 should have been in the first place just by virtue of the fact that the 2007 story actually remembered that she merely banished Belasco instead of killing him and had her face him again.

[PhantomBoom]

I'm a Scott and Jean fan so seeing Logan out of the picture would make me happy. But I'd warn fans not to get any real hopes up for a Wolverine and Morph relationship beyond a close friendship and an unrequited love from Morph. Marvel and especially the Marvel Studios side isn't as progressive, and they like to portray when it comes to sexuality.

Morph being non-binary they'll say Morph's a shapeshifter of course they're non-binary. Morph having feelings for Logan why not Morph can be any gender and their love wouldn't be binary just like them. But Logan never even with Morph as a female they'd never do it because they'd never want to imply Logan is bisexual. If Logan is Bi here, then why not in the future live action films? They'd get backlash for not doing it and they're not going to do it to the guy they built the X brand around. Simply because they don't want to piss off middle America, the Middle East, China, or Russia when releasing the future X-Films. Look at the Marvels Carol and Valkyrie were supposed to be ex-lovers, but you wouldn't know by what they put out.

Bucky is partly based off Arnie Roth in the MCU, and they still refused to go there with him even with "Stucky" fans.

They're always going to put potential money over their claimed values.

These examples you're trying to use don't even make sense here.

Morph at the very least they're actually hinting at stuff with them and Logan, meanwhile this thing with Carol and Valkyrie is just not true, I even looked it up and the closest I can find is some Twitter account that posts rumours and leaks saying it but nothing actually official.

And "Stucky" is literally another fan ship, why would it be made official? It's something that happens in all fan communities for media where two males have a strong bond or connection with each other, should Supernatural have made their male leads(who are brothers by the way) hook up because shipping them is popular among the fanbase? I mean heck by this logic all MCU movies and projects should center around Darcy and have all the male characters(particularly Loki) falling for her because that's a popular thing in the MCU fandom for whatever reason.

Meanwhile there was an MCU movie featuring an actual gay character, who is married, has a son even kissed his husband on-screen, but I guess Phastos doesn't warrant a mention but all these things that were never actually hinted at in the movies do.

[Frontier]

The thing is, the culmination of Illyana's story wasn't actually all that important to Inferno. Even though it was supposed to be the culmination of everything Claremont had been building up for her since she was first taken to Limbo in Uncanny 160, that element of the story was limited to just the New Mutants issues and the whole Limbo rebellion was little more than the setup for the Maddie story that was the focus of both Uncanny and X-Factor. If it had been as important as the Maddie story, it would have at least crossed over with Uncanny and the X-Men would have been there to witness Illyana's sacrifice instead of only Colossus even being aware anything was going on with her.

It was so unimportant that they couldn't even bother to have Belasco appear despite Claremont clearly setting up that the culmination of Illyana's story would be a final battle with Belasco. He wrote it outright multiple times in the Magik miniseries and New Mutants. Instead they created a brand-new demon in N'Astrih who took Belasco's place in Illyana's final story but could also have a focus on Madelyne, whereas Belasco would be completely focused on Illyana. It also seems that the writer of New Mutants at the time forgot Illyana's origin and thought she killed Belasco, and by then Bob Harris was the X-Men's editor, and he wanted to get rid of Illyana as quickly as possible because he was on a crusade to destroy everything related to magic in the X-Men franchise and couldn't be bothered to do the editor's job on a subject and character he hated.

Basically, Inferno was a mismash of the X-Men writers trying to fix the problems created by Cyclops running out on his wife and baby when they stupidly brought Jean Grey back while also inelegeantly ending the Magik and Limbo plotlines at the same time and not bothering to do so in a manner that actually pays off Illyana's story in a manner consistent with what had been set up or which gave it the weight it deserved due to an editor who hated her and a writer who forgot her origin.

It's not that much of a surprise the entire Magik plot was left out of 97's adaptation of Inferno when said plot was so badly handled and so shockingly unimportant in the original story. Illyana's return in 2007 was the story her death in 1989 should have been in the first place just by virtue of the fact that the 2007 story actually remembered that she merely banished Belasco instead of killing him and had her face him again.

I think it's just really weird Morph transformed into a comic-accurate Magik when that was never a thing in the show.

[sunofdarkchild]

I think it's just really weird Morph transformed into a comic-accurate Magik when that was never a thing in the show.

That's also true and raises so many questions.

I really want them to do an episode that's devoted to retelling the original Magik miniseries. Once that has a single faithful adaption there won't be a need to do it a second time and the problem the New Mutants movie stupidly created by not having Limbo be the place she was kidnapped to and learned sorcery in but a place she created with her imagination won't recur. In the movie she's just a reality warper with no possible way to have any magical powers, and we're expected to just accept that a little kid would create hell as her happy place and not a land of ponies. They literally took the magic out of Magik, and the cartoon could have been the place to rectify that serious mistake.

If Marvel was really smart they'd make a full-fledged animated movie out of the Magik miniseries using the Spider-Verse techniques to make Limbo come to life, but they aren't that smart.

[phonogram12]

I gotta say, as someone who watched a few episodes of the original 'toon in real time back then and didn't like it at all, I'm surprised by how much I'm enjoying this new show. It feels, to me, like the notes they tried to hit back then but couldn't for whatever reason are being hit better here, so far.

Can't wait for the rest of the season.

I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I just thought the original series was just...fine, I guess? IMO, '97 improves on the original at least three fold. From the animation, character design, plots, dialogue...it pretty much puts all the criticisms of this show before it even came out and before anyone had even seen it not only to rest, but buried six feet under.

[kcekada]

I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I just thought the original series was just...fine, I guess?

Probably depends on your age when watching the original. If you were a kid, you were likely more invested in it -- and didn't recognize its flaws. One of my biggest problems with it -- which was later duplicated in the films was that they presented the Jim Lee era X-Men as the original team. Aside from that, it was fine as you said. Not really aimed at adults like Batman: TAS was. I cringed at the episode where Wolverine was fighting Sabre-Tooth -- the growling was particularly amateurish. But they did a solid job depicting Dark Phoenix Saga. I just wish they would have showed some stories set in the past during the black/gold costumes, the Thomas/Adams era, and the Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne era.

[Tien Long]

Anybody else catch today's episode? It was interesting as it was basically two episodes in one. The video game motif of the first part made me smile. There were subtle shout outs to all of the X-Men video games from the 90s, whether they were arcade, Sega Genesis, or SNES. Liked how this highlighted Jubilee and hinted at new ways of her using her powers. Finally spoilers:

having Alyson McCourt come in to play old Jubilee was such a treat. Seeing young and old Jubilee together really was a nice tribute

end of spoilers

As for part two, well, all I can say is I can see why some fans were up in arms when Storm and T'Challa got married. I knew there was a relationship between Storm and Forge, but I sensed its importance when I finally watched it.

My only gripe? Things just seemed to happen suddenly in both parts. These things threw me off.

Aside from that, this was another great episode.

[Hypestyle]

Anybody else catch today's episode? It was interesting as it was basically two episodes in one. The video game motif of the first part made me smile. There were subtle shout outs to all of the X-Men video games from the 90s, whether they were arcade, Sega Genesis, or SNES. Liked how this highlighted Jubilee and hinted at new ways of her using her powers. Finally spoilers:

having Alyson McCourt come in to play old Jubilee was such a treat. Seeing young and old Jubilee together really was a nice tribute

end of spoilers

As for part two, well, all I can say is I can see why some fans were up in arms when Storm and T'Challa got married. I knew there was a relationship between Storm and Forge, but I sensed its importance when I finally watched it.

My only gripe? Things just seemed to happen suddenly in both parts. These things threw me off.

Aside from that, this was another great episode.

good episode overall