I'm actually pleased that my love/hate for this cartoon still holds true today, only moreso. Amazon Prime has these cartoons available for free, and Kay express an interest in watching them. How could I refuse?
So to start with the awful. It's 1992, and the X-costumes are all into the whole Image / Rob Liefeld / Jim Lee / pop music scene. Thus, lots of belts and straps and gear pockets wrapped around arms and thighs. Also, many jackets, usually with the collars turned way up. And the hair — oh, Lordy, the hair. Also, the masks that wrap around the lower face, but leave the hair flowing freely.
Those were strange times, my friends.
The other part of the awful is that this was a Saban production which had animation production values somewhere between mediocre and "oh my God, have you consulted your attorneys?" What makes it nearly forgivable (if all the more obvious) is that they go big with all the animation attempts — people move in all dimensions, all sorts of things are going on, perspectives shift, camera angles are challenging — it's all done horribly, but with audacity that you have to give it an A- for effort.
The good, though, is what makes it work. Within the bounds of acceptability for Saturday morning cartoons, this X-Men cartoon hews amazingly closely to actual canonical events in the X-comics. People are in the current costumes. Story arcs and big events make their way to the cartoon. A panoply of villains (and heroes) make appearances, from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, to Cable and Domino and all that crowd, to Omega Red, to Bishop, to the Days of Future Past, to the Rise and Fall of the Phoenix, to the Starjammers, to the Hellfire Club, to … well, just about anyone showing up in the X-comics in that era.
And it contains one of the most awesome animated X-sequences ever, as Magneto, down inside of a ship, must protect himself against non-ferrous Sentinels. Seriously kick-ass here.
It's so badly executed, but such good material, I have to give it a passing grade.
(A good parallel review: http://www.zakiscorner.com/2012/12/nostalgia-theater-x-men-crappy-cartoon.html )
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Wow….
Yeah, I really hated that series, and it mostly had to do with Jubilee, Gambit and how Rogue was portrayed.
Watch X-Men: Evolution, a far superior cartoon series. Better Rogue, better Red Witch, Better everything and no Jubilee or Gambit.
Do you get the feeling that I really hate Jubilee and Gambit?
Everyone hates Gambit. Except Katherine, apparently, who is upset that everyone beats up on him.
I, for one, have never had much patience for Gambit. He epitomizes the unnecessarily complex backstory character that Chris Claremont eventually succumbed to. Jubilee was just generally annoying, in and out of cartoon.
But both were key characters in the X-Men comics of the time. And for all its horrific flaws, this cartoon does mine unabashedly the X-canon of the 80s and 90s for story material. Plus they were willing to (offscreen) kill a protagonist in the first or second episode, so that was somewhat impressive.
So I love it as a comics geek, even while frequently cringing.
“X-Men: Evolution” was a good cartoon, too. Not quite as fond of it as some, as the “X-teens” were sometimes irksome in their teen angsty drama. But teh animation is much better and the story lines much more sophisticated.
this was probably one of my top 3 cartoons as a kid…LOVED IT
I'd totally watch this again. Will have to get my son on board.
Watching it fresh with your kid is definitely the way to go.
Having no grounding in the actual comic, I also like Gambit. I think it is safe to say that everyone hates Jubilee including or especially the kids in the audience she was suppose to connect with. In an odd train of thought I see her as being the opposite of Wesley Crusher. Neither portrayal of juveniles is engaging.
Yeah, I’ll confess, @Margie, that Gambit comes across as the suave Cajun rogue, and he has a fun power set.
I found his backstory (which the cartoon does eventually go into, somewhat) way annoying and convoluted, his on/off relationship with Rogue irksome, and outfit dated almost from the time it was introduced.