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Anyone remember X-Men Evolution?

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Hellwarden

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Show's Opening
(Not so much late to the party, so much as going back to the old stomping grounds.)

So I should preference my opinion with something that probably definitely colors my opinion of this show. I'm not the biggest fan of comics in general. I haven't been to see a superhero movie since the first Avengers film. It's not that I dislike them, I just don't feel drawn to them.

I am however a big fan of animation, and when X-men evolution was on tv, it was always near other shows that I watched. So I did watch X-men Evolution, and promptly forgot about it after it ended. But I ran across it recently on youtube. (You can actually watch the entire series legit, on Marvel's youtube page.) And I rewatched a lot of it.

And to be honest, I don't think it has held up that well. Where as a few other superhero shows of the time, such as Batman Beyond mixed up the formula a bit, X-men Evolution played it pretty safe. The heroes and villains, their powers, and whose side they were on was all pretty similar to the comics as far as I know. (Why the hell does Cyclops just not carry around multiple pairs of sunglasses if he literally needs them to not kill anyone?)

The only real difference now is that the X-men and the Brotherhood are in school. They did alter a few things that people might like. Rogue is a punk goth chick now...who I do get the sense that maybe the animators perhaps enjoyed animating a bit too much...

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This has context. I swear.

If that gif didn't tell you, for people who are supposed to be outcasts and symbolize the oppressed, boy are they all pretty. And boy do they spend a lot of time on Cyclops and Jean Grey. The prettiest and the most talented X-men.
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Do these two strike you as the people who would be viewed as outcasts for their powers? Really?

Season 1 deals with Magneto being a dick. Season 2 deals with more than a couple villains, and introduces Sentinels. Which to be honest, don't look very threatening despite nearly taking down the entire team....

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It isn't till season 3 that the show finally feels like it actually grows into itself. We move beyond the main tier X-men and focus more on the actual, you know, outcasts. The characters actually deal with being viewed as different. Backstories that have been hinted at are finally dived into. Season 4, which is only nine episodes, deals with Apocalypse. But it's kinda bit too late.

You may have notice that I haven't mentioned the fighting at all, and the reason for that is that X-men Evolution really doesn't have a lot of it. For people who possess supposedly dangerous powers, very little time is spent actually showing mutants fighting each other. Most times the X-men are saving people. I do appreciate the scenes where the X-men do save people...

But on the other hand, watch this...fight between Wolverine and Omega Red. You only have to watch like a minute. Bare in mind this happens in the final season of the show.

....Fucking Storm Troopers could have made a kill there Omega Red! I get that it's a show that can't show much violence, but Wolverine's fights are often hilarious to watch as a result. He's always punching or kicking, and ignoring his claws entirely.

So, I'm curious however. Do you guys remember the show fondly at all? Am I just missing something?
 
Much like Beast Wars compared to G1 Transformers, it's a follow-up that people never gave the respect it deserved because of nostalgia. Evolution has better writing than the 90s Fox X-Men series, but the latter is a lot of folks' first introduction to these characters or first time they saw them off the comic page, so it's precious.

Evolution was great, aside from the original characters they made for it.
 
Everyone on the x-men are always pretty. ALWAYS.

I have good memories of the show ... The apocalypse arc is good, some designs are awesome and the animation is never bad. And I like goth rogue and it is like the only x-men show NOT focused on Wolverine so that is a plus
 
Platy said:
Everyone on the x-men are always pretty. ALWAYS.

I have good memories of the show ... The apocalypse arc is good, some designs are awesome and the animation is never bad. And I like goth rogue and it is like the only x-men show NOT focused on Wolverine so that is a plus
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As someone who has always thought Wolverine is a pretty overrated character, I will agree with this. (Save for the X-Men Origins: Wolverine game that is fucking amazing.)

Evolution does avoid that terrible Cyclops Jean Wolverine love triangle that I always hated.
 
Evolution was great, especially from season 3 onward.

There were some flaws (mainly contained in the first two seasons - Walk on the Wild Side was an incrediubly bad episode, and Spyke was a weak addition to the team, only coming to his own when he left to join the Morlocks)

It was better than the 90s series in almost every way aside from fan service, and didn't turn my favorite X-Man (Nightcrawler) into a dour monk, so bonus points there.


I remember in the day people getting angry at it for having an "Anime" look, which I thought was a pretty uninformed criticism. It has more visual DNA in Disney feature animation than anything to come out of Japan.
 
I liked X-Men Evolution. While the first two seasons were a little slow at buildup, the rest of the show more than made up for that.


Platy said:
Everyone on the x-men are always pretty. ALWAYS.

I have good memories of the show ... The apocalypse arc is good, some designs are awesome and the animation is never bad. And I like goth rogue and it is like the only x-men show NOT focused on Wolverine so that is a plus
Click to expand...

I was kinda surprised at that looking back at the series. Aside from getting a few episodes focused on him to an extent, Wolverine was a minor character in that show.
 
The whole "THEY'RE ALL TEENAGERS" angle was pretty eye-roll-worthy and on-the-nose (particularly for Scott and Jean), but there were some cool storylines for some of their characters. They had X-23 which was pretty cool, their version of Apocalypse wasn't this nonsensical bullshit character that just popped up out of nowhere like in the 90's show, but was rather this cool occult thing that was built up to over time.

Their general character design also had a really cool look. Very modern, but still had some flair to it.

It also had the best Wolverine of the three cartoons. He wasn't a fucking whino like the 90's cartoon, but also everything wasn't all about him like in Wolverine and the X-Men. He was this cool loner badass who was tight with Xavier, went on the missions the other X-Men couldn't, but was also a teacher. He was a total hard-ass, but still a teacher.

Also... their Rogue was very much 13-year old me's 'type'. *cough*
 
I never got into it since it felt like it was always changing schedule and/or it seemed like it didn't have good prospects for coming back for another season. But it might have been that I was getting too old for saturday morning cartoons at the time.

Looking it up, I guess it was around for 52 episodes. Surprising. I might catch up someday.
 
The only issue I remember having with the show was what happened to Spyke. He was cool before he became all morlocky.
 
I just barely remember X-Men Evolution; don't remember the storyline or characters much at all. I enjoyed it mostly because Nightcrawler was a prominent character--he's the best of the X-Men, for sure.

The high fidelity/anime-ish artstyle is still great... and the way some of the noses look still bothers me.
 
I think it holds up pretty well. I'm usually against the Highschool days vibe but it was done really well here. It also allowed the characters to start out imperfect and made way for some great character development.

Wolverine was also a badass here and properly so. I loved that this show designed his claws as mini katanas instead of just metal picks
 
Grizzlyjin said:
Much like Beast Wars compared to G1 Transformers, it's a follow-up that people never gave the respect it deserved because of nostalgia. Evolution has better writing than the 90s Fox X-Men series, but the latter is a lot of folks' first introduction to these characters or first time they saw them off the comic page, so it's precious.

Evolution was great, aside from the original characters they made for it.
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Lol i never gave it a chance for exactly this reason. I loved Rogue from the 1990s show and hated her redesign in evolution and that just put me off of the series completely back in the day.

always loved beast wars though...
 
All I remember from Evolution is when Nightcrawler kept going into this Hell dimension and was freaking out.

Still, it was a staple of my childhood.
 
I actually liked the show, even if the first couple seasons were iffy in quality. If only they could have continued and gotten to the arcs they teased at the very end of the finale. It would have been interesting to see their version of DoFP.
 
I enjoyed it. I thought it was kind of weird that everyone started off in high school because I grew up with the 90s cartoon. I'm surprise how much a minor character Wolervine was.
 
Shaanyboi said:
I had no idea she was from the cartoon. Crazy.
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Yep, along with Spyke & Dr. Deborah Risman, X-23 was an original character created for the show. However, unlike Spyke and Dr. Risman, X-23 became very popular & was soon incorporated into the Marvel Comic Book cannon, while Dr. Risman was replaced with a similar character in the comics & Spyke had been forgotten.

Come to think of it, Spyke's abilities are very similar to Marrow, and it makes me wonder if it would've been redundant to have two mutants with identical powers in the comics.
 
Yes, I do remember it. Wasn't a fan of the show or the stupid high school drama shit. But all the same it used to be a guilty pleasure of mine, but it was never any good really.

Also, I love Scott McNeil, but he was a terrible, terrible choice for Wolverine.


Hellwarden said:
But on the other hand, watch this...fight between Wolverine and Omega Red. You only have to watch like a minute. Bare in mind this happens in the final season of the show.
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What the hell was that?
 
Oh god I forgot about Nightcrawler. They made him to be the most annoying character on the show.
 
Watched the first season. It was okay. Some interesting and cool takes on the existing characters, but ultimately I felt like it was just okay. It did give us X-23 though, so that's neat.

Oblivion said:
Oh god I forgot about Nightcrawler. They made him to be the most annoying character on the show.
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I believe that award goes to Kitty Pryde (which saddens me to the very core of my being).
 
You know I didn't watch this show much because I wasn't stoked on them deviating from the set up and age range of the characters of 90s cartoon, but I'd really be happy with any x-men cartoon in this day and age.
 
I really liked it, I grew up with this cartoon version of xmen than the 90s version.

The characters were pretty interesting
Had a cool opening and I loved how they made acopylypse all badass Egyptian looking And tied loose ends in each characters arc near the end. Also bonus points for not having wolverine the focus and no mention of his weird as fuck relationship with Jean from the movies.
 
Only episode that got stuck with me was the "Middleverse" episode. The episode where Nightcrawl got stuck in a parallel dimension and meet this dude that was stuck there for 20 years.

the idea scared me as a kid.
The show itself was pretty enjoyable but nothing that I came back too rewatch.
 
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