These last two years as I’ve been getting more into comics, I’ve been watching some of the shows that have been created over the past few decades. Commonly praised are the Marvel shows of the 1990s. I’ve since watched all of the Marvel shows and I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the following in upcoming articles: X-Men, Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Avengers: United They Stand, Silver Surfer, and Spider-Man Unlimited.
X-Men
This is the first show that I watched and I thought it was pretty good. The show starts off strong with a solid first and second season. The first season is decent and does a pretty good job of introducing the main cast of characters. The main villains are Magneto, a metal-controlling mutant who believes there’s no way to peacefully bring humans and mutants together, and The Sentinels, who are giant robots designed to destroy mutants. It does have a fantastic season finale called “Days of Future Past”, where a mutant from the year 2061 named Bishop goes back in time to ensure the apocalypse doesn’t happen. This story is also based on a comic of the same name.
Season two is a big step up as this season has a story throughout. The main villain of this season is Mr. Sinister, a scientist who experiments on mutants. It even has a big plot twist, where one of the X-Men members named Morph, who died in season one, was brought back to life and is now working for Mr. Sinister. He does get redeemed in the end and seeks help with his trauma afterwards. This season also fleshes out a lot of the characters as some of them get their own backstory episodes.
Season three starts strong with a five-part episode called “The Phoenix Saga”, an adaptation of one of the most iconic Marvel comics. It’s about a magic spirit called the Phoenix Force entering Jean Grey, giving her uncontrollable powers. It ends with her sacrificing herself by flying into a star to kill herself and the Phoenix Force. It does have a follow-up story called “Dark Phoenix”, where it is revealed that Jean survived and the Phoenix Force has fully taken over her and is now causing havoc. An alien race called the Shi’ar also tries to destroy her as they think she’s too dangerous. The Phoenix Force eventually agrees to leave Jean and then Jean finally returns to the mansion. The rest of the season is kind of all over the place, but gives a lot more depth to Cyclops and explains his backstory and family. This season was okay; there is just too much happening.
Season four is just as scattered, if not moreso, than the third season. It’s impossible to say who the main villain is as there are just so many one-off episodes. The closest I can identify would be Apocalypse, who has a four-part season finale where he tries to get all of the telepathic mutants to eradicate humanity. This season did have a decent amount of appearances for Nightcrawler, who is one of my favorite X-Men characters. I think this was better than the third season because even though it was also very scattered, Nightcrawler was a big highlight.
Season 5 was definitely the weakest of the show, along with being the shortest season. The animation also changes, so some of the characters look a bit different, which I wasn’t a big fan of. Yet again, this season has no story. The one-off episodes aren’t even very good, it’s just a long streak of mediocrity. The last two episodes were okay, as they explained Mr. Sinister’s backstory and saw the death of Professor X, which was an effective scene. The show ultimately, but unfortunately, ended on a cliffhanger, which angered fans for 27 years.
Luckily, the show has returned with the premiere of X-Men ‘97 just recently on March 20th. It picks up right where the original left off and many of the original cast and crew have returned. X-Men ‘97 will be getting its own review once the show has finished, so stay tuned!
Overall, this show has a pretty good lineup for the X-Men, including Wolverine, a regenerating mutant with metal claws, Jean Grey a.k.a. Phoenix, who has telepathic and telekinetic powers, Cyclops, who shoots lasers from his eyes, Storm, who controls weather, Rogue, who can siphon energy, Gambit, who can shoot energy into things to make them explode, Beast, who is a scientist who accidentally turned himself into a blue cat-like man, Jubilee, who can shoot fireworks from her hands, and Professor X, who can communicate telepathically. The show sometimes has other Marvel characters make guest appearances including Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Angel a.k.a. Archangel, Iceman, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Cannonball, Dazzler, Multiple Man, Polaris, Longshot, and Havok It also had several villains including Magneto, The Sentinels, Mojo, Spiral, Mr, Sinister, High Evolutionary, Dark Phoenix, Blob, Apocalypse, Red Skull, Purple Man, Juggernaut, Pyro, Avalanche, Psylocke, Emma Frost a.k.a. White Queen, and Immortus.
My favorite characters were Gambit, Nightcrawler, and Rogue. A lot of Gambit’s scenes involve him attempting to hit on Rogue, which doesn’t always work and often annoys Rogue, although she does have a soft spot for him. Nightcrawler is a blue elf-like mutant who is the son of Mystique. His interactions with Rogue were also very interesting as they are technically siblings, with Rogue being Mystique’s adopted daughter.
Overall, this is a show that I would recommend. It’s fun to watch, or even good to just have on in the background.
