Your Unpopular/Controversial Opinions on the X-Universe

[From The Shadows]

I liked him there as well in the episode or two that highlighted him. I never liked WATXM, but Kurt was one of the only highlights for me. In contrast, I can't remember anything about Kitty except her crushing on Bobby. And they didn't seem to know what to do with Rogue besides trying to copy her dynamic with Wolverine from the movies but making it even less compelling.

Yeah, Kitty didn't do much. The crushing on Bobby thing probably came from the films. There was sort of a Rogue/Bobby/Kitty triangle going on. Since it was before they became a couple in the comics for that brief period. And yeah, I thought of the movies too when it came to how Rogue was acting.

[NK1988]

I liked him there as well in the episode or two that highlighted him. I never liked WATXM, but Kurt was one of the only highlights for me. In contrast, I can't remember anything about Kitty except her crushing on Bobby. And they didn't seem to know what to do with Rogue besides trying to copy her dynamic with Wolverine from the movies but making it even less compelling.

I've never seen the show before this was posted on the X-Men subreddit:
https://youtu.be/kkeT4zT_2WU?t=603

As a new comics reader, this makes me think of his line about pawns in Last Stand, to say nothing of abandoning depowered Mystique. Just wondering if this portrayal also inspired by the Fox movies.

In Evo, he did some pretty shady ****, some of which I feel the writers themselves overlooked. But this is a whole other level than just framing Angel to make humans hate him.

When I was reading Uncanny #150, I was extremely curious to see my first Comics Magneto. (it was on a suggested classics reding list for Krakoa) Was he virtuous leader or power-hungry? Righteous warrior or mad with vengeance?

I like how it looked like he was being "exposed" as the latter as he kept being thwarted and frustrated by the X-Men, right until he was overcome with fury and ready to kill a mutant child. But then he recoils in horror at what he almost did.

In a way, my ead on Magneto is similar to Wolverine, a man straddling two natures who constantly war for control of him. It's the human and the bestial with Logan, but for Mags it's the desire to do good warring with bitterness and anger.

And then there's this Magneto who seems to just be kind of a prick, right down to the voice-acting given to him.

[whitecrown]

Yeah, Kitty didn't do much. The crushing on Bobby thing probably came from the films. There was sort of a Rogue/Bobby/Kitty triangle going on. Since it was before they became a couple in the comics for that brief period. And yeah, I thought of the movies too when it came to how Rogue was acting.

The movies and the Ultimate Universe as well. The Rogue/Bobby/Kitty love triangle was a thing in both those mediums. Thankfully WATXM spared us the love triangle but it felt weird to have Colossus around (another character who I don't remember every doing anything) and no connection with Kitty. I never understood the love people have for WATXM because 90% of the characters were wasted between Rogue, Kitty, Colossus, Storm, Psylocke, and Iceman. Some, like Jean and Angel were underutilized and only being set up for S2 to get relevant story material.

[From The Shadows]

The movies and the Ultimate Universe as well. The Rogue/Bobby/Kitty love triangle was a thing in both those mediums. Thankfully WATXM spared us the love triangle but it felt weird to have Colossus around (another character who I don't remember every doing anything) and no connection with Kitty. I never understood the love people have for WATXM because 90% of the characters were wasted between Rogue, Kitty, Colossus, Storm, Psylocke, and Iceman. Some, like Jean and Angel were underutilized and only being set up for S2 to get relevant story material.

I agree a lot of characters were left hanging. And it seems Kurt was the only one outside of Wolverine doing anything. But it was my hope that if the show continued that other characters would get the spotlight. I think with Colossus it would have been too controversial Kitty being a teenager and all. It was my impression that this Bobby was Kitty's age.

[whitecrown]

I've never seen the show before this was posted on the X-Men subreddit:
https://youtu.be/kkeT4zT_2WU?t=603

As a new comics reader, this makes me think of his line about pawns in Last Stand, to say nothing of abandoning depowered Mystique. Just wondering if this portrayal also inspired by the Fox movies.

In Evo, he did some pretty shady ****, some of which I feel the writers themselves overlooked. But this is a whole other level than just framing Angel to make humans hate him.

When I was reading Uncanny #150, I was extremely curious to see my first Comics Magneto. (it was on a suggested classics reding list for Krakoa) Was he virtuous leader or power-hungry? Righteous warrior or mad with vengeance?

I like how it looked like he was being "exposed" as the latter as he kept being thwarted and frustrated by the X-Men, right until he was overcome with fury and ready to kill a mutant child. But then he recoils in horror at what he almost did.

In a way, my ead on Magneto is similar to Wolverine, a man straddling two natures who constantly war for control of him. It's the human and the bestial with Logan, but for Mags it's the desire to do good warring with bitterness and anger.

And then there's this Magneto who seems to just be kind of a prick, right down to the voice-acting given to him.

WATXM was the first show created after the movies. Evolution had debuted before the first movie came out or was in production at the same time, but the showrunners confirmed that after S1, they were told to incorporate more elements from the movie to cash-in on its popularity. The introduction of the New Mutants was done specifically so that the X-Mansion would seem like a school bustling with kids the way it's portrayed in the movie. Mystique being transformed into an upgraded version came from an attempt to emulate her movie design (although they weren't allowed to go full nude) and I think Wolverine's costume change to his Ultimate costume was also done to make him more resemble his movie counterpart in the black leather.

There's definitely a lot of influence from the movies on WATXM. Jean's short hair seemed to come from Famke's haircut in X2. The Scott/Jean/Logan dynamic seemed very reminiscent of their love triangle from the films with Jean seeming to favor Logan. Scott moping around after Jean's death seemed to come straight from the opening of X3. The emphasis on Wolverine was another factor overall since many people joke the films should have been called Wolverine and the X-Men. With Xavier and Jean gone, and Scott non-responsive, Wolverine having to take over to lead put him in the exact same position that he was in X3. I haven't seen the show in ages so I'm sure there are more parallels that I can't remember. Rogue wanting to follow Wolverine definitely also came from the movies.

Good catch about Magneto's line in the video compared to his portrayal in X3 with being willing to abandon Mystique. Even Wolverine points out how he's a sanctimonious hypocrite in the first movie with how he talks about being willing to do so much for mutantkind but he's instead ready to sacrifice Rogue to the machine instead of sacrificing himself.

I did rewatches of the 90s show and Evolution last summer. One thing I noticed was that Magneto came across as more noble in TAS. He never seemed like a full-fledged villain or outright malicious especially when S2 came with the subplot of Xavier and Magneto being stuck in the Savage Land. You could tell they were old friends and deeply respected each other. In Evolution, Magneto was treated like a shadowy behind the scenes villain with little redeeming qualities. Wasn't he implied to be responsible for Mystique abandoning Nightcrawler in some spooky castle/lab setting? Magneto was willing to do actual harm to the X-Men and I never bought that he and Xavier were close friends in this show. Him working alongside the X-Men to stop Apocalypse by the end felt more a means of self-preservation than genuine respect for the team. His actions with gaslighting Wanda and brainwashing her to forget her years of emotional abuse and trauma also felt very icky.

UXM #150 was the first issue where Magneto's redemption arc had started. In the 60s, he was basically a Doctor Doom knockoff, basically genocidal with outlandish schemes and over the top reactions to any slights. He was constantly beating around the obsequious Toad, his only loyal minion, and willing to pimp out Wanda to Namor to get Namor to join the Brotherhood. There's a reason he referred to his Brotherhood as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

Claremont and Byrne started to make him more nuanced starting with UXM #112-113, when we first get the hint that he had lost his wife and never gotten over it. But it wasn't until #150 that we first learn that Magneto was a Holocaust survivor and he realizes he's becoming as bad as the enemy he hated when he nearly killed Kitty. Ironically enough, in a world where Jean Grey hadn't been killed off in UXM #137, we may never have gotten this sympathetic Magneto. Had Jean lived but been depowered, her self-sacrifice moment would have come in #150's original plan which was for Magneto to offer to restore her mutant powers with a machine he built (another aspect of his 60s supervillain schemes that he could always whip up a machine like a mad scientist). Jean would be tempted but ultimately would refuse so her heroic moment would be turning Magneto's offer down instead of killing herself on the moon like we eventually got.

[whitecrown]

I agree a lot of characters were left hanging. And it seems Kurt was the only one outside of Wolverine doing anything. But it was my hope that if the show continued that other characters would get the spotlight. I think with Colossus it would have been too controversial Kitty being a teenager and all. It was my impression that this Bobby was Kitty's age.

The showrunners must have liked Kurt because he was the only other character to get a spotlight. I can see why you consider him to be the best onscreen portrayal of Kurt and he would probably rank that way for me too if the show was longer and he had more screentime.

I don't know, based on the show's title and how S1 went, I don't know if I would believe that future seasons would fix the core issues. Especially since another problem was that the split timeline between going back to the present and future meant that you had to develop two different casts from two different timelines. We know S2 was supposed to focus on AoA and introduce Sunfire and evil Cyclops and Havok so I imagine there's only so much they could do with the original cast.

I wonder how old Colossus was supposed to be in the show. For the longest time, I never realized that Colossus was supposed to be the youngest of the All-New, All-Different X-Men in the comics because of his height and overall physicality. It didn't dawn on me until much later that he was really a teen.

[NK1988]

WATXM was the first show created after the movies. Evolution had debuted before the first movie came out or was in production at the same time, but the showrunners confirmed that after S1, they were told to incorporate more elements from the movie to cash-in on its popularity. The introduction of the New Mutants was done specifically so that the X-Mansion would seem like a school bustling with kids the way it's portrayed in the movie. Mystique being transformed into an upgraded version came from an attempt to emulate her movie design (although they weren't allowed to go full nude) and I think Wolverine's costume change to his Ultimate costume was also done to make him more resemble his movie counterpart in the black leather.

There's definitely a lot of influence from the movies on WATXM. Jean's short hair seemed to come from Famke's haircut in X2. The Scott/Jean/Logan dynamic seemed very reminiscent of their love triangle from the films with Jean seeming to favor Logan. Scott moping around after Jean's death seemed to come straight from the opening of X3. The emphasis on Wolverine was another factor overall since many people joke the films should have been called Wolverine and the X-Men. With Xavier and Jean gone, and Scott non-responsive, Wolverine having to take over to lead put him in the exact same position that he was in X3. I haven't seen the show in ages so I'm sure there are more parallels that I can't remember. Rogue wanting to follow Wolverine definitely also came from the movies.

Good catch about Magneto's line in the video compared to his portrayal in X3 with being willing to abandon Mystique. Even Wolverine points out how he's a sanctimonious hypocrite in the first movie with how he talks about being willing to do so much for mutantkind but he's instead ready to sacrifice Rogue to the machine instead of sacrificing himself.

I did rewatches of the 90s show and Evolution last summer. One thing I noticed was that Magneto came across as more noble in TAS. He never seemed like a full-fledged villain or outright malicious especially when S2 came with the subplot of Xavier and Magneto being stuck in the Savage Land. You could tell they were old friends and deeply respected each other. In Evolution, Magneto was treated like a shadowy behind the scenes villain with little redeeming qualities. Wasn't he implied to be responsible for Mystique abandoning Nightcrawler in some spooky castle/lab setting? Magneto was willing to do actual harm to the X-Men and I never bought that he and Xavier were close friends in this show. Him working alongside the X-Men to stop Apocalypse by the end felt more a means of self-preservation than genuine respect for the team. His actions with gaslighting Wanda and brainwashing her to forget her years of emotional abuse and trauma also felt very icky.

UXM #150 was the first issue where Magneto's redemption arc had started. In the 60s, he was basically a Doctor Doom knockoff, basically genocidal with outlandish schemes and over the top reactions to any slights. He was constantly beating around the obsequious Toad, his only loyal minion, and willing to pimp out Wanda to Namor to get Namor to join the Brotherhood. There's a reason he referred to his Brotherhood as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

Claremont and Byrne started to make him more nuanced starting with UXM #112-113, when we first get the hint that he had lost his wife and never gotten over it. But it wasn't until #150 that we first learn that Magneto was a Holocaust survivor and he realizes he's becoming as bad as the enemy he hated when he nearly killed Kitty. Ironically enough, in a world where Jean Grey hadn't been killed off in UXM #137, we may never have gotten this sympathetic Magneto. Had Jean lived but been depowered, her self-sacrifice moment would have come in #150's original plan which was for Magneto to offer to restore her mutant powers with a machine he built (another aspect of his 60s supervillain schemes that he could always whip up a machine like a mad scientist). Jean would be tempted but ultimately would refuse so her heroic moment would be turning Magneto's offer down instead of killing herself on the moon like we eventually got.

Indeed, you recall correctly about Evo Magneto, Mystique, and Kurt


I love Evolution dearly - it might be my favorite comic-based cartoon series ever - but I think they waffled a lot on who was more evil, Mystique or Magneto. We have stuff like the above, implying Magneto did some kind of experiment on a baby without Mystique's knowledge or consent and she only lost Kurt because she was trying to rescue him.

But later on, in the episode with Captain America where Magneto is using the "machine" which made Steve into Cap to keep himself alive, he taunts Kurt by saying "are you that much like your mother?" when Kurt is ready to sort of kill him by destroying the machine. You could pass this off as just a bad guy BSing but Mags then also spares Kurt and Wolverine, ostensibly because Wolverine saved Magneto as a child from a concentration camp. (he was a young man in WW2 in the comics, I believe?)) As such, I think Magneto speaks with the consent of the writers when he places Mystique as so lowly as to kill a helpless old man.

And the real kicker - my single most disliked moment in Evolution - is the ending of the series finale. Horsemen Magneto and Mystique are freed and reunited with their respective two children. Mystique's kids reject her, she's just too evil for them, but Pietro and Wanda lovingly escort their father away. Only...Wanda is only doing this, like you noted, because Magneto had her brainwashed. So it's like the writers are saying "Magneto is better than Mystique, hence his children still love him," but they forget this is a total lie built on Magneto doing something more evil to his kids than Evo Mystique ever did to her children.

And I appreciate the very thorough reply on comic Magneto's history. Thank you.

[whitecrown]

Indeed, you recall correctly about Evo Magneto, Mystique, and Kurt


I love Evolution dearly - it might be my favorite comic-based cartoon series ever - but I think they waffled a lot on who was more evil, Mystique or Magneto. We have stuff like the above, implying Magneto did some kind of experiment on a baby without Mystique's knowledge or consent and she only lost Kurt because she was trying to rescue him.

But later on, in the episode with Captain America where Magneto is using the "machine" which made Steve into Cap to keep himself alive, he taunts Kurt by saying "are you that much like your mother?" when Kurt is ready to sort of kill him by destroying the machine. You could pass this off as just a bad guy BSing but Mags then also spares Kurt and Wolverine, ostensibly because Wolverine saved Magneto as a child from a concentration camp. (he was a young man in WW2 in the comics, I believe?)) As such, I think Magneto speaks with the consent of the writers when he places Mystique as so lowly as to kill a helpless old man.

And the real kicker - my single most disliked moment in Evolution - is the ending of the series finale. Horsemen Magneto and Mystique are freed and reunited with their respective two children. Mystique's kids reject her, she's just too evil for them, but Pietro and Wanda lovingly escort their father away. Only...Wanda is only doing this, like you noted, because Magneto had her brainwashed. So it's like the writers are saying "Magneto is better than Mystique, hence his children still love him," but they forget this is a total lie built on Magneto doing something more evil to his kids than Evo Mystique ever did to hr children.

And I appreciate the very thorough reply on comic Magneto's history. Thank you.

Thanks for confirming with the video. I remember I found that scene very unsettling the first time I saw it as a kid and on my rewatch, it really made me aware of how outright villainous this Magneto seems to be with experimenting on children. Considering his anti-Nazi background, it comes across as especially indicative that he's become exactly what he once feared and hated most. I don't think the show ever cleared up what Magneto was doing exactly with baby Kurt and Mystique.

I found Mystique the more compelling villain because she got a lot more screentime and was able to regularly interact with the X-Men on basis of being their principal. Magneto might have been her boss but he was kept in the dark for so long and seemed to lack any redeeming qualities. In terms of who was more sympathetic, Mystique, villainous and cutthroat as she was, at least had Nightcrawler and Rogue to justify her actions. Magneto seemed barely a father to Quicksilver and more like an abuser of Wanda than anything else. I wasn't sure if the show was trying to paint him as a tragic father who was forced to lock Wanda away because he couldn't help her and fell apart after her mother died, but it didn't come across that way to me. More like he couldn't use her so he discarded her and Pietro would get the same treatment if he crossed any lines.

I remember the WWII episode you mentioned so that's a good point that Magneto might have some principles over Mystique. But I think it can also be argued that anyone who can treat their loved ones so callously like Magneto does, is hard to relate to or root for. Mystique's motivations are at least fleshed out, whether it's protecting her children (since she never purposefully tries to harm them from what I remember) or getting revenge like on Scott, even if he was probably in the right for abandoning her.

The ending irks me for the same reason you listed. I felt bad for Mystique. I was never a huge fan of Evo Rogue and if I remember correctly, in S4 when Mystique is turned to stone, Rogue at one point even tries to smash her to bits and this freaks out Kurt since he's only recently learned she's his mother. So I was already annoyed at Rogue for that because I didn't think she had the right to kill Mystique, but both her kids abandoning her at the end seemed unfair even if she wasn't completely deserving. With Magneto, what Mastermind did to Wanda always felt very rapey to me, by brainwashing her into being a loving and dutiful daughter. There's even a part where Toad also feels it's gross until Pietro reminds him that this new brainwashed Wanda will be more likely to love Toad back, in which case he dismisses his conflicted feelings. So I don't know if the show was trying to convey that Magneto was in the right because Wanda was deeply troubled and this was the only treatment that would "fix" her, but I never felt that at all. I was rooting for her to break out and destroy him once and for all and most Magnetos from other adaptations I generally like, so that's a problem.

You're welcome about the comic history. Talking about Evolution again makes me want to rewatch it. It's not comic accurate in the sense that the 90s show was but I enjoyed it as a fresh take on the X-Men where I was pleased with about 90% of the character reinventions.

[Kurolegacy]

I’m not a fan of Ewing pairing Storm up with Craig Marshall. Not only does it reek of pairing an established character up with an OC which rarely ends well but I don’t find him to be particularly memorable to the point that I find myself forgetting what exactly he’s done in X-Men Red to make him so compelling. Overall, he’s kind of a bland character who feels more like a rebound romance.

[Zero Hunter]

The biggest problem with the X-line today, and honestly since MDay is the editors constant need to bunch all the mutants up in their own little mutant ghetto. First it was the Mansion then Utopia then Krakoa. The books worked better in the old days when all the team were out doing there own things. X-Force, Excaliber, Gen X, X-Factor they all had there own set teams and did there own thing and a lot of times didn't even crossover with the X-Men proper for years. It just makes the book better than having everyone going in and out of one location and seeing each other all the time. Get back to the days when the mutants were spread out and didn't always agree with each other on everything and had conflicting views.

[Nicoclaws]

I’m not a fan of Ewing pairing Storm up with Craig Marshall. Not only does it reek of pairing an established character up with an OC which rarely ends well but I don’t find him to be particularly memorable to the point that I find myself forgetting what exactly he’s done in X-Men Red to make him so compelling. Overall, he’s kind of a bland character who feels more like a rebound romance.

I liked him better than Slipstream, and I think Ewing allowed himself that romance because people seemed to react very positively to the two panels he was on.

[Android 17]

Super hot take on my end: but I never liked Evolution and found it too much of a deviation.

Granted it took cues from the movies and I get it's about the X-Men as teenagers, but why have them live at school and go to a separate high school? Why didn't Storm have any development beyond being the older one? Why was Rogue perpetually the victim in that show? Why was Wolverine hogging all the screen time? I have so many questions about the choices of that show, but after recently rewatching it, my disdain for it still remains.

[whitecrown]

Super hot take on my end: but I never liked Evolution and found it too much of a deviation.

Granted it took cues from the movies and I get it's about the X-Men as teenagers, but why have them live at school and go to a separate high school? Why didn't Storm have any development beyond being the older one? Why was Rogue perpetually the victim in that show? Why was Wolverine hogging all the screen time? I have so many questions about the choices of that show, but after recently rewatching it, my disdain for it still remains.

Was Wolverine really hogging the screentime? I felt his presence was rather toned down in the show compared to other media. In fact, X-23 was introduced specifically because kids liked the teen characters more than the adult ones so they needed a teen version of Wolverine.

I agree with you about Rogue and Storm. I know Rogue was the popular character from the show but it's my least favorite version of her and I couldn't stand her. If you pick her out from S4 and then pick her out from S1, you'll see her character hasn't changed at all. She's still perpetually miserable and blaming the world for her problems. There was no development with her at all and I got tired of that, to the point that I would tune out during her scenes because I knew I wasn't missing anything.

Storm seemed almost like an afterthought. Sometimes I would forget she was even on the team. The problem with making her the only other adult besides Wolverine is that Wolverine is Wolverine so he's in no danger of being forgotten, but Storm doesn't have his level of popularity so in a show mainly about teens directed at kids, she easily falls aside. She had little development and I noticed she lacked connections with any of the X-Men characters minus Spyke. And Spyke himself wasn't even that popular because I think he was written out specifically because there wasn't enough audience interest in him. Once Spyke was gone, Storm had no X-Men characters she had any close connections with. They didn't feature her and Jean as close friends, and she and Wolverine weren't even depicted as being close despite being the two main adults on the team.

[Android 17]

Was Wolverine really hogging the screentime? I felt his presence was rather toned down in the show compared to other media. In fact, X-23 was introduced specifically because kids liked the teen characters more than the adult ones so they needed a teen version of Wolverine.

I agree with you about Rogue and Storm. I know Rogue was the popular character from the show but it's my least favorite version of her and I couldn't stand her. If you pick her out from S4 and then pick her out from S1, you'll see her character hasn't changed at all. She's still perpetually miserable and blaming the world for her problems. There was no development with her at all and I got tired of that, to the point that I would tune out during her scenes because I knew I wasn't missing anything.

Storm seemed almost like an afterthought. Sometimes I would forget she was even on the team. The problem with making her the only other adult besides Wolverine is that Wolverine is Wolverine so he's in no danger of being forgotten, but Storm doesn't have his level of popularity so in a show mainly about teens directed at kids, she easily falls aside. She had little development and I noticed she lacked connections with any of the X-Men characters minus Spyke. And Spyke himself wasn't even that popular because I think he was written out specifically because there wasn't enough audience interest in him. Once Spyke was gone, Storm had no X-Men characters she had any close connections with. They didn't feature her and Jean as close friends, and she and Wolverine weren't even depicted as being close despite being the two main adults on the team.

It's like they found certain ways to keep including Wolverine in places. He could be fixing up his motorcycle or something and he's having a conversation with Scott, he's there giving advice or asking Kitty to pass him the breakfast sausages. Then on top of that he's always in the foreground too.

But yes, outside of Spyke all Storm did was fly around and shoot lightning. Then with Rogue, while I did like the creative ways they used her absorbing power, I just hated how whiny and sullen she always was. I also found Kurt annoying on my rewatch lol.

Evolution just wasn't my cup of tea.

[whitecrown]

It's like they found certain ways to keep including Wolverine in places. He could be fixing up his motorcycle or something and he's having a conversation with Scott, he's there giving advice or asking Kitty to pass him the breakfast sausages. Then on top of that he's always in the foreground too.

But yes, outside of Spyke all Storm did was fly around and shoot lightning. Then with Rogue, while I did like the creative ways they used her absorbing power, I just hated how whiny and sullen she always was. I also found Kurt annoying on my rewatch lol.

Evolution just wasn't my cup of tea.

That's probably true with Wolverine. I guess I noticed it less because even if he was popping in, there weren't that many episodes that focused on him and he was usually absent from all the teen drama that dominated the show.

The 2000s was the law of diminishing results for Storm. In terms of the movies, the shows, and the comics, she pretty much lost it all. I think only in video games was she given decent treatment.

I think Kurt and Kitty were a breath of fresh air for me after Rogue's constant angst. They actually became my two favs from the show probably for that reason.