X-Men '97

Unlike me crawling back into Criticker after spending years in a regeneration chamber, the return of this series was an incredibly welcome sight. Seemingly tailor-made for my inner comicbook kid, X97 balances the action-packed fun of the original series with more serious storylines from the X-comics that came out afterwards. Filled to the brim with Stuff Happening, its main drawback is not letting things breathe. But mannn, every time the theme song started up my smile was visible from space. :3

Based on just the first 9 eps: wow. I was reluctant to watch a childhood-sentiment series because that's often when I find out the cartoon is still aimed at kids, while I've grown old(er). X-Men '97 however just picks up where it left off 27 years ago, except with a maturity level aimed at the 40somethings who watched it originally. So much happens, characters even die. My only gripe is the pacing! It's like they're trying to cram 27 years worth of stories into just 1 season.

Oddly enough, I enjoyed this more that the original series from '92. The cadence of the voice acting is a bit more modern. The animation style is akin to the original, but with improved backgrounds and action. Most importantly the writing has taken a step up from episodic to serialized, and in doing so made the story more compelling. Xavier still comes across as a dick, and the X-men rarely have a good reasoning against the villains.

Problems with some stories not getting the time they needed to truly be explored. Things moving too fast to really be as powerful as the stories and characters were in the comics. Great ending and I think how stories that were disjointed from each other in the comics were weaved together and how much some characters had time to shine makes up for a lot. I love the original X-Men series and the comics and think this is a really good adaptation of the comic and a continuation of the series.

I kept thinking it was a parody and that we would wake up from it. But no, the stupid catchphrases keep coming, and coming and coming

Well, it was a great idea to do a continuation to the classic series and it starts with a good dynamic. Then it moves away from what makes the original series great, which is the character interactions and focuses too much on an over-arching Sentinel story; which is honestly not that interesting. The animation quality is really high, but they subcontracted it to Korean animation studios and there are times that mangaish-action and interaction style didn't mesh with the nature of the series

It’s lovely to see these versions of these characters again. The animation, character design, voice work are all really great. Narratively it’s a bit too choppy, but overall a really satisfying experience.

I went into this not expecting that much, as I was actually a little bored when watching the original X-men series to prepare for this, but I was pleasantly surprised! This show is way better than the original series, and is some of the best X-men storytelling I've seen. I was drawn in every week. I can't wait for the next season!

This was a very uneven show.

Preposterously great animation and visual storytelling. Absurdly stupid writing. I just pretend the villains are actually heros. Kinda watching my own version of the show in my head but using their visuals. Have to recommend it.

Season 1: 85

Started off meh, got better, kinda fumbled in the middle, but had a decent ending for season 1. Season 2 I'll probably still watch. I'm just happy to see Nightcrawler and Morph again tbh.

Better than all the X-Men movies (combined?). Beautiful, moving, epic.

It's pretty inconsistent in that a number of characters feel pretty pointless and certain narratives are very bleh. Morph is a lame excuse for references and I just did not care for the use of Mojo or how it used Lifedeath as a way to write off Storm temporarily. I also wish they'd do more with the academy and make it an actual school which brought with it a lot of interesting stuff to X-Men stories. But when it lands it's damn good, especially with the Genosha and Rouge stuff.