’X-Men ‘97’ premiere review: Marvel Animation nailed it

X-Men ‘97’s premiere posits a specific question, even if it doesn’t mean to: can Marvel shortcut its animation studio to iconic status? By trading on the clout of what is arguably the best Marvel animated series (so long as you pretend Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes doesn’t exist), Marvel does get to cheat its way to a built-in nostalgic fan base but that isn’t all that X-Men ‘97 is looking to inherit. The original X-Men cartoon that was more than a sick Ron Wasserman guitar lick and purpose built action figure bodies. ‘97’s efforts to pick up where it left off understand that better than many who will tune in looking for those surface level memories. Of course, Marvel is more than happy to give people those too. 

X-Men ‘97 isn’t a reboot, it’s a sequel

The X-Men ‘97 premiere picks up right after the original’s finale. The team continues to operate as they always have. In fact, it’s almost to a T how much of the first episode is like the original’s first episode —introducing the team saving a teenage mutant is like coming home. This is ultimately the trick — while the X-Men are putting up a strong face for both their allies and enemies alike, the team is still reeling from the hate crime perpetrated on Charles Xavier. 

Cyclops (Ray Chase) has self-selected himself as the inheritor of Xavier’s will, despite being unconvinced he can handle the task. His stress pushes up against the other members of the team who are looking to either move on or to at least live a little. He and Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale) have a child on the way and Jean thinks it may be time to let someone else carry the torch. Both premiere episodes are strong ensemble pieces that give each fan favorite a new plot thread and hang up, but Cyclops is most certainly the throughline. 

The power of ensemble

Even with the centering of Scott “Chief of the Fun Police” Summers, the ensemble has range in their new stories. Wolverine’s (Cal Dodd) pining for Jean has evolved into a fear of abandonment overall, which manifests even more edge than normal. Jubilee (Holly Chou) begins a flirtation with new cast member Roberto Da Costa (Gui Agustini), who will likely appear again. Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith) is the nastiest curveball when taking a bullet for Magneto (Matthew Waterson), who has a chance at redemption. 

Not all new things are golden, though. Rogue (Lenore Zann) gets a new mystery backstory with Magneto that is creepy as all hell and is here to give Gambit (A.J. LoCasio) something to be mad about. Bishop (Issac Robinson-Smith) and Beast (George Buza) are just hanging out despite being the two most morally complex characters of the bunch in the comics. Then there’s Morph (JP Karliak), the first new team addition in this version, who isn’t new to the narrative but gets a lot more to do. 

Morph is weird, honestly. This isn’t because of their nonbinary identity, much ballyhooed because it’s viewed as “woke” inclusion that doesn’t even come up in the episodes. Instead, Morph spends their time being a bro with Wolverine and mocking the other teammates. Their introduction involves them taking the form of Xavier to roast Cyclops, which does include a scorcher of a dig, but is pretty tone deaf to the others in the room. They do the same later by taking on Jean’s pregnant body to taunt Wolverine. There’s history here that helps explain Morph’s demeanor but where other X-Men get a chance to tell the camera what their deal is, Morph doesn’t. 

The part where I complain about Marvel Animation

What Morph does get over their teammates though is a new design. Theirs and other new characters like Roberto betray the weakness of Marvel’s internal animation priorities: emulation. Much like What If, X-Men ‘97 is mostly leveraging design sensibilities that they themselves didn’t develop. Of course, X-Men ‘97 uses the iconic character design of the original but that design is running through the pseudo-3D house style from What If. That style has always left an uncanny valley feeling and while X-Men dodges the worst of it by merit of replicating animation, it doesn’t do so completely. Animation can be stiff at times, particularly in scenes that are definitely trying to ape the original’s style. 

As a result, X-Men ‘97 shines brightest when it doesn’t look like its predecessor. Action scenes, especially a sequence that sees Cyclops softening a fall from thousands of feet with his laser, are far more dynamic than anything the original could hope to achieve. Choreography is particularly noteworthy, giving areas a sense of scale as the X-Men do things like fight back bigots storming the UN or fighting scrapped Sentinels. Despite still looking like action figures, the characters aren’t slamming together like them. 

The X-Men are really two things

There’s less of these action scenes than one could expect. That’s because the X-Men ‘97 premiere is Marvel Animation showing it gets the real reason the X-Men The Animated Series works. Much of the original series pulls from the mid ‘70’s to early ‘90’s eras of the comics. That means that the show is equal parts the most potent education on how bigotry happens that kids could get and the most soap opera nonsense TV could ask for. 

X-Men ‘97 puts its all into both of these aspects. Serious topics like Jean’s worries about how to tell her child about what the world is like for mutants is handled with the appropriate tone and sympathy a topic should be given what mutants represent. There is balance with those topics against pitch perfect soapy drama, primarily deployed in these two episode’s final moments. Episode 2’s big swerve was the best way to leave off the week and demonstrates why shows absolutely should be giving viewers the time to discuss, even if fans of this property are very likely going to clock immediately what is going on. 

Magneto, how does he work?

However, X-Men ‘97 also has a special secret weapon. Unlike the original series, ‘97 does not need to follow normal broadcast standards and procedures. That means the allegory gets to be even louder and the series gets to really use Magento to his fullest. Magneto has always been a compelling character, in large part to the reality of his argument. “Magneto was right” has gone from an Internet forum observation to canon in some corners of the source material, and now the most iconic version of this series gets to join the fun. 

In the absence of Xavier, Magneto is willed everything the man had and as a result is burdened with trying to carry on that legacy. However, he’s not about to fully admit he was wrong because he’s not, completely. Episode 2 of the premiere gives Magneto multiple opportunities to share his point of view in far more detail than the broadcast series, and it’s delivered extremely well by Waterson. It’s not lost on me at all that there just so happens to have a Holocaust survivor explaining how “protection” for one is “extermination” for another on the floor of the United Nations in 2024. Compared to similar attempts to capture serious topics, Magneto’s entire script in the premiere puts the rest of the Marvel Studios line up to shame. 

Copying homework, but actually changing it

The X-Men ‘97 premiere could have easily been like other Marvel Studio recent efforts. Using cultural osmosis to reference back to adaptations it didn’t even create via multiversal nonsense has done some numbers but clearly has diminishing returns. Instead, ‘97 doesn’t gesture back at a thing you liked when you were seven, it does the work to understand the underlying quality of that thing. These two episodes are easily the strongest Disney + premiere for the brand since WandaVision. This time though, it really does seem like it will stick the landing. 

X-Men ‘97 drops new episodes every Wednesday on Disney +.

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Images courtesy of Marvel Studios/Disney