For some reason, after Disney’s takeover of Fox and everything that it entailed, Marvel Studios has chosen to dip its toes into the X-Men universe not with a splash — conventional wisdom would’ve suggested a $200 million movie — but by teasing the core fanbase with a dose of nostalgia. Titled X-Men ’97, the new animated series serves as a revival-slash-sequel to the immensely popular show that ran for five seasons between 1992 and 1997, and a potential launchpad for Marvel’s reboot of the live-action movies, which will begin with this year’s Deadpool & Wolverine.
X-Men ’97 picks up after where the original series ended over 25 years ago but doesn’t really expect anybody to have done the homework in advance. All we need to know is that Professor Charles Xavier has ‘died’, leaving his protege Cyclops and Jean Grey — who are expecting a baby together — as the de facto heads of the X-Men. But things aren’t as heated as they used to be, with the world having warmed to the idea of mutants, even though the bigotry against them hasn’t exactly abated. Society is, after all, recovering from a recent insurrection of sorts.
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In the first episode, the X-Men are alerted about some stray Sentinel tech — think of it as an analogy for the weapons of mass destruction that George W Bush invaded Iraq for — landing in the lap of a nefarious organisation. The episode ends with a grand surprise featuring one of the most popular comic book characters in history, but not in the context that anybody would’ve anticipated. It would be rude to ruin the surprise here, although there’s very little about X-Men ’97 that warrants this level of caution, despite Disney’s strict rider about spoilers.
The series is too episodic to generate any sort of long-term interest, and the writers’ insistence on creating self-contained narratives — a structural nod to old-school animated shows, no doubt — feels more distracting than anything else. The show effectively sets up multiple storylines in rapid succession — a famous old foe returns, Cyclops and Jean toy with the idea of leaving the X-Men, the gang is faced with a metaphysical threat — while also delivering on all the mutant action that fans might expect.
The style can best be described as a modern update on the rather unremarkable animation of the ’90s show — they’ve smoothened the edges and ironed over the creases, without sacrificing the era’s 2D charms. While memorable for other reasons, the original X-Men series was always aesthetically inferior to the more expressionistic Batman: The Animated Series, which was also braver on a thematic level. But for all its brief flirtations with heftier ideas, X-Men ’97 is mainly targeted at children, and not quite the generation of millennials that grew up on the original show. These ideas — inclusivity, minority rights, LGBTQIA politics — were more delicately examined in the films, whose legacy has unfortunately been tarnished by the disgraced director Bryan Singer.
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Nevertheless, there’s undemanding fun to be had with X-Men ’97 — at 30 minutes long, the episodes are breezily paced, and the voice acting has a certain spark. The iconic theme song is back; in fact, they let it play out over two full minutes. But it still isn’t clear where the series is headed, if they’re going to retain this episodic structure or flesh out an overarching narrative. X-Men ’97 will air weekly in India on Disney+ Hotstar.
X-Men ’97
Creator – Beau DeMayo
Cast – Ray Chase, Jennifer Hale, Alison Sealy-Smith, Cal Dodd, George Buza
Rating – 2.5/5
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