The 90s sure were a strange time, but it was the only time where you could get decent animated adaptations of beloved superhero franchises. Airing in 1992, the same year as the legendary Batman: The Animated Series, X-men was Marvel’s first successful attempt to adapt a superhero franchise on television. Being the lovechild of Fox Kids and the very inconsistent Southern Korean animation studio AKOM, the show faced many challenges during the production but managed to get high ratings and is considered Marvel’s best animated tv-show. After the hit 2000’s X-men film the series re-aired multiple times (and that’s how a 90’s baby like me got to watch it for the first time). And to be honest it was the shit. Before anyone gave a fuck about the Avengers, The X-Men were the cool kids on the block and they were fighting racism right in the face. Quite literally.
The show is set in a universe where mutants exist, and most of humanity are right-wing extremists for some reason. So, Doctor Xavier and his team of X-men carry out the difficult task of defeating evil villains that try to destroy Earth with one hand, while trying to show to the world that mutants and normal people can co-exist peacefully with other. You can’t make that shit up. I mean they fucked up 90% of the time but still, it was the coolest thing you could watch on a Sunday morning. Who cares about Batman, that shit is for emo kids. We got Wolverine, Gambit, the Beast goddammit.
The show was embraced by the comic community since it showcased many popular storylines (that later got the shitty film adaptations we all love to hate) such as Days of the Future Past and the Phoenix Saga and some killer cameos (Doctor Strange, Deadpool, Cable etc). And they killed it my dudes. You think Hugh Jackman is cool? Try again sweetie. Cathal J. Dodd. No idea who that guy is? According to imdb he is part of the Canadian team of voice actors that Fox Kids hired to save costs. But what matters is that he created the coolest, meanest, most careless, gothic, yellow spandex wearing Wolverine ever. For real though, the costumes they wore looked more like the cheap cosplay costumes they use in porn parody videos (so I’ve heard).
There’s nothing really wrong with the show (except Jubilee, fuck Jubilee). Even though I might have exaggerated a bit about how cool it is, it’s a really good and progressive cartoon. It combined colorful animation with some of Marvel’s more mature plotlines that both children and comic fans could appreciate and was the influence for many cartoons that followed, superhero related or not. Just listen to the theme song and let it take you back to the miserable carefree Tuesday evenings of your childhood.
Big Money, Big Women, Big Fun. 