The X Men cartoon

[yojoebro82]

I'm just watching the 90s X Men cartoon and being reminded about how good it is.

 

Among other things, I just watched the Nightcrawler episode and was really blown away. The episode makes multiple reference to God, the Lord, and Heaven. There's a Bible in it. And the real kicker: Wolverine PRAYING in a CHURCH!!!

 

I don't care if you believe in God or not, this whole episode was bold in that it originally aired on network TV as a Saturday morning kid's cartoon! Would cartoons nowadays even THINK of going there? Not a chance! Would they even be permitted to? Saddly, no, probably not. Props all around to not being afraid to put religion in a kid's show.

 

Besides that, for those who look at superhero movies and cry for closer attention to "source material", the X Men 'toon works in more source material than probably any superhero movie that has yet to be made. And makes it different and exciting!

 

X-Men. Probably the last good cartoon ever made.

[Lady Jaye]

Easily one of the best cartoons ever!! The first episodes were off, didn't follow comic continuity that well, but I still liked 'em!!

 

Never liked Morph though, such a whiny character!!!

 

Oh and I hate the Nasty Boys, so I didn't like the fact that Sinister used them in the cartoon instead of the Marauders!!!

[Eric]

The animation wasn't always top-notch, but X-Men was definitely head and shoulders above a lot of the other animated series.

 

This was my only complaint about the show: the quality of the animation. Even as a kid, the lackluster quality bothered me. Otherwise it was a great show and one of my favorite cartoons of all time.

 

Sadly, I think the quality of the animation is what has kept me from buying the DVDs. I might end up getting them eventually, though.

[Belmont13]

I own 3 of the DVDs only missing 2 the animation was a bit lacking at first but like the series it got better as it went on. This is still my favorite Marvel animated series second place being the spidey series around that time. The voices were top notch and it fit the characters appropriately Gambit was cool, Cyclops was Cyclops and Wolverine was as annoying as always good characterization; I agree about Morph he was pretty whiny like he didn't know there was a risk playing superhero. I always looked forward to the next episode and which character would appear next, I still smile with geeky joy when I watch the episode with X-factor one of my favorite episodes Cyclops and Havok facing each other:"Nice Uniform,pal". Awesome stuff. Talking about it now I want to get the 2 dvds I'm missing lol.

[Belmont13]

I own 3 of the DVDs only missing 2 the animation was a bit lacking at first but like the series it got better as it went on. This is still my favorite Marvel animated series second place being the spidey series around that time. The voices were top notch and it fit the characters appropriately Gambit was cool, Cyclops was Cyclops and Wolverine was as annoying as always good characterization; I agree about Morph he was pretty whiny like he didn't know there was a risk playing superhero. I always looked forward to the next episode and which character would appear next, I still smile with geeky joy when I watch the episode with X-factor one of my favorite episodes Cyclops and Havok facing each other:"Nice Uniform,pal". Awesome stuff. Talking about it now I want to get the 2 dvds I'm missing lol.

Dude, Morph was NOT whiney. He died! He was resurected by Sinister, brainwashed, and got back to the mansion just in time to find he had been replaced by the single most annoying character in comicbook history (Allyson Court really nailed Jubilee's brattitude).

 

I'd whine to.

 

Good point Jubilee was kind of annoying I watched the episodes recently and even her powers are crappy.

[RockthePlank]

The XMen cartoon is bar far the greatest FoxKids show, hands down. The voice acting was great, to this day my brothers and I still have little quotes from the show we say. Wolverine's voice was PERFECT IMHO. The animation was just awesome too, it was like watching an animated comic book. Don't get me wrong, Batman TAS and Spiderman were always among my favorites, but while Batman's visual style of the city and the background's were perfect, the animation of the people was very cartoony to me, like anyone could draw it, it's almost like the people lacked visual depth. Same can be said for Spiderman (I always hated the CGI city that was shown when he was swinging from building to building) The characters, visually, felt flat (see the episode that featured the Xmen crossover to see what I mean). The XMen cartoon looked like they just walked out of a comic book.

 

These cartoons are what really got me into comics, I mean I knew about Batman and Spiderman before (Xmen were new to me), but I didn't know much about them at all. I am glad to have those three shows (and The Tick) running at such a young, influential time in my life.

 

BTW, for writing, I would say BTAS wins out. Simply put, my dad would watch it with me and it could hold his interested where as he could care less about X-Men.

[Eric]

Spider-Man was really good, too. I liked how many characters it incorporated. It also ventured pretty far from where the story first started. They did their own Secret Wars episodes and everything. Lots of guest appearances, both heroes and villains. X-Men was better for including comic book continuity, but Spider-Man was a great show, too. Better animation, too (more consistent).

[RockthePlank]

Better animation, too (more consistent).

I guess what I don't care for about the Spiderman animation was the color pallet. It's all very soft colors, I would have prefered something in a little more tone with XMen. Don't get me wrong, I do love me some Spiderman and I really wish it was available on DVD. I did love all the guest appearences that took place, seemed like more then the Xmen had.

[I AM SCI-FI]

I can't understand why so many don't like the animation, unless it's merely about the fluidity of the number of frames per second. How the characters and background is rendered is more detailed than the many cartoons of today. I hate the cartoonishness, and lack of detail, of shows like X-Men: Evolution, Wolverine and the X-Men, Justice League Unlimited, The Batman, The Amazing/Spectacular Spider-Man, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Teen Titans, etc.

X-Men was rendered really close to the styles they were rendered in the comics at the time.

I thought X-Men had better animation than the Spider-Man series that was out at the same time. Like RockthePlank mentioned, the color palate was offputting. Plus, the backgrounds were just lacking, especially, when he was swinging.

Now, the animation in the last six episodes, that Saban funded, was horrible. I'll give you that.

Overall, this series still holds up to today. Plus, this series was the most faithful to the source material, compared to all the other comic book cartoon series. Yes, they took liberties, but not nearly as much as the others.

[RockthePlank]

Didn't the last episode of Spiderman have that scene with Stan Lee? If so, that is the BEST way to go out.

[yojoebro82]

I have no problem with the X-Men animation. No better or worse than a lot of the 80s GI Joe and Transformers animation. Just different. A lot of more recent superhero attempts that were mentioned above seemed like they tried to be manga and failed, with their super-stylized features and proportions. To me it just ends up looking cheap.

 

As mentioned, the voice acting was spot on. When I read the X-Men comics in the 90's I imagined the characters sounding like they do in the 'toon. ("De name's Gambit, remember it!") Just watched their version of the Dark Phoenix saga and cracked up while Wolverine was clawing his way through Hellfire troopers (another faithful adaptation). He goes and quotes Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry while facing one of them down. It was great!

[RockthePlank]

"De name's Gambit, remember it!"

 

I heard that same voice...

[I AM SCI-FI]

"De name's Gambit, remember it!"

 

I heard that same voice...

When I read the comics I always project the voices from this cartoon series in my head.

[revsears]

"De name's Gambit, remember it!"

 

I heard that same voice...

When I read the comics I always project the voices from this cartoon series in my head.

 

 

I still read it in that voice and it's been years since i have seen any episoides. I'm confused way the dvds were released the way they were and i'll still never understand why they chose to end it, there were so many more places to go. Wolverine, while being slightly too prominent, at least wasn't the star or overly elavated and I think that's what makes it the best animated x-toon. I really enjoyed the show and i really want to buy it to rewatch!

 

The nightcrawler episode referenced above was one of my favorites (for obvious reasons ) but it was very bold for them. JLA did similiar when Hawkgirl was faced with Solomon Grundy dying and not knowing what to say because she didn't believe in any kind of afterlife. But since i'm a little biased i like x-men's take better!

[Flounnderr]

I would go on talking about politics and comics but we cann't do that here anymore, thanks JayC.

 

The X Men cartoons were ok, the couple things i hated was the music, and the dark shadow tones. The other thing i hated was the long storyarches that would reach for multiple episodes. I always felt that i was getting cheated cause i had to watch like 3 weeks straight to get the story and I had other things to do from week to week.

 

I would give them credit for really using the wealth of charachters, I would have liked it better if they had been closer to comic continuity. I was only like 10 when they came out and i remember immediately hating the first episode b/c i knew that the original team was not there.

[DSmith]

The X-Men cartoon was a defining era of my life. It was 1992, so I was 9 years old, and it premiered the day I got my bunk bed delivered (lol, and I'm an only child, so it was a treat of a purchase for my parents to buy that because I wanted it so much). I fell in love with the comics, always grew up with the X-Men, had all the figures (desperately hunted down that Storm with the light-up chest), and the cartoon lived up to everything I wanted.

 

It's the cartoon that is the standard by which I have judged every superhero cartoon (and even movie!) since. I refused to watch a full episode of X-Men: Evolution. I later purchased Wolverine and the X-Men on dvd, and enjoyed it, but boy did it make me miss the original X-Men cartoon even more. I thoroughly enjoy the current Avengers cartoon, and story-wise, because it's at least following some timeline with the membership of the Avengers, it's scoring MORE points with me than X-Men did. It was always really weird for me to see season 1 where the X-Men are meeting Warren Worthington and he's transformed into Archangel, but then watch season 4 or 5 where Professor X has a flashback to the original team and there's Angel flying around like he has a long history with the team. I don't mind you screwing with the timeline once, but remember what you messed with and stay consistent within the reality you've established, don't volley back and forth.

 

But totally agree that the voice cast was amazing, they really found their groove with Animation and color (season 2 was great, season 3 got really dark with the Lady Deathstrike 2-parter, the color contrast and dark shading was too extreme, but I loved what they did with the green lighting from the soul-sucking monster. Some great color work in there, but the basics, the everyday lights and darks were harsh). They did some great emotional storytelling, great tension, great adventure. I still remember how dramatic season 1's finale was, where people were getting up from the table one-by-one to go after the Sentinels, and Magneto swore they were all fools... but he showed up to help save Professor X anyway. They had great humor. Posed great questions. Great cameos. The Age of Apocalypse arc was a great episode for me, just for the cameos, not so much for the time-hopping and repetition and too much Bishop and Fitzroy. Loved the Phalanx episodes, cause you got to see such random, less-prominent characters driving the story. I mean, Beast, Forge, Warlock, Banshee/Moira, Amelia Voght, Quicksilver... it was all so random! But pretty true to the comics in essence, just no Generation X tie-in or Sabretooth or Emma Frost. I don't need to even talk about the Beyond Good and Evil 4-parter which roped in every character under the sun to fight Apocalypse, which was SO GOOD that I thought it HAD to be the series finale because I had no idea how the show could be any better than those 4 episodes. The show ended with a real whimper comparatively to that episode arc.

 

So many good memories from that show. You're making me want to dig the dvds out and start from scratch. But I'll wait until I've collected more Marvel Universe figures so I can start setting them up during the episodes, have my full episode cast in front of me...

[ARES]

As a lifelong child of the atom... I didn't like the X Men cartoon at all, it lacked the sense of family? I hated hoy Storm always sounded like Maya Angelou, and how nasal they made Prof. X! Don't even get me started on the cel shaded animation style, makes you wonder why they abandoned it for Spider Man?!

[yojoebro82]

The other thing i hated was the long storyarches that would reach for multiple episodes.

 

Stories like the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix Sagas needed to go on for that long because they're epic stories. Heck, I was just thinking the other day how X-Men: the Last Stand really cheated that story, crammed into one movie that shared a plotline with the "mutant cure". Heck, if done right, they could have made a movie trilogy out of that storyline!

[yojoebro82]

You're making me want to dig the dvds out and start from scratch. But I'll wait until I've collected more Marvel Universe figures so I can start setting them up during the episodes, have my full episode cast in front of me...

 

Well I'm already there, they're called Marvel Legends Got my Cyclops, Wolverine, Beast, Rogue, Gambit, and white Storm all on display right now! @peace@

[Rockzilla]

Cartoons in the 90s were really good. I can't sit through half the crap that passes as cartoons on tv today.

 

Modern cartoons use such cheap ugly animation and they are overly pc and lack the overall maximum grit from the comics.

[revsears]

The other thing i hated was the long storyarches that would reach for multiple episodes.

 

Stories like the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix Sagas needed to go on for that long because they're epic stories. Heck, I was just thinking the other day how X-Men: the Last Stand really cheated that story, crammed into one movie that shared a plotline with the "mutant cure". Heck, if done right, they could have made a movie trilogy out of that storyline!

 

 

agreed, good stories take time and that was one of my favorite aspects about the x-men toon and one of the few areas i thought Batman TAS lacked. Yeah we had a few two -parters i think, but no epics.

 

The series wasn't perfect, I didn't like Xaiver in it, as a kid I didn't really buy into him fully in till i read the comics. However they nailed so many other characters so perfectly that I can't see them in any other way than TAS.

[apocalypse484]

I really like the show. I thought it was good for what it was. I was about 10 when it first can out though.

[RockthePlank]

Anyone else see they added this to netflix recently? I have seasons 1-3, so Ive been catching up on 4. Also, for anyone who hasnt seen the avengers cartoon, they added that as well, I've been enjoying that as well.

[Doom Saber]

The good thing with xmen is thatthe animators went back an improve some the scenes, if not, an entire ep. I remember that there was a wbit that compared th original scenes with improve ones. As for pidman, I think the problem with the animation is that it was one of the first catoons to be done digitally, so the color were off and you can make out of some serious pixelations - it was before HDTV were madde.

 

I forgot why they cancelled xmen -I remember reading it somewhere yeas ago- but I think it was because of low ratings, timeslot, or the company going to either a new art studio or new writers/animators. The last season was done on a lower budget if I am not mistaken, with a few voices being replaced like Gambits. The animation and new character designs wasn't as great since they were using that black blue technique that the other marvel shows were using at the time. The story was different as well - they were less arker; one ep had jubilee telling kids about robin hood where she used the xmen characters as the characters. The last season, If I am not mistaken, wasn't seen by a lot o people because o it's odd timeslot.

[Lady Jaye]

Thanks for the heads up Rock, just caught episode 4 last night!!! Gonna watch em all!!!