X-Men ’97 was able to achieve one more thing that live-action Marvel failed to do, First, of course, was making Cyclops as a character cool again. Second, was the fact that the animated offering from Marvel Studios’ new wing, Marvel Animation, was able to do Avengers: Age of Ultron right.
According to YouTuber DoomBlazer, who has been a credible voice for the community, the plots of the first season of X-Men ’97 and Avengers: Age of Ultron are not that different from each other. Both properties deal with the issue of artificial intelligence one way or the other, but that is not where the similarities of the stories end.
Bastion and Ultron have similar visions for humanity
As DoomBlazer points out, Bastion and Ultron are similar characters, with similar motivations, and similar end goals. At the same time, Bastion attacks the mutant population in X-Men ’97. Ultron’s targets are the Avengers, and largely any enhanced being for that matter. Both these characters want humanity to evolve in opposition to a class of enhanced human beings (mutants in the case of Bastion and The Avengers in the case of Ultron).
As pointed out by DoomBlazer:
Bastion literally has the same goals as MCU Ultron, but he is literally better.
However, in the case of the X-Men, Bastion’s motivations were given a lot more time to marinate in the minds of the viewers, and the character’s conflict with the X-Men was a lot more deep-rooted and well-established as compared to Ultron and The Avengers. While Ultron felt like a small-scale villain, Bastion had the makings of a genuine threat, given that he actually did usher in an age that was a dystopian future for the mutants. Not to mention other parts of the plot that were similar, such as turning a city into a meteor.
The X-Men handled the situation much better than the Avengers
The X-Men as a team handled Bastion’s threat a lot better than what the Avengers did with Ultron. Not only were the X-Men able to thwart Bastion as a threat, but they were also able to get rid of other threats that rose in the wake of Bastion’s war, such as Magneto and Asteroid M. On the other hand, the Avengers did thwart Ultron but failed to save the world from the rest of the consequences of their actions.
Age Of Ultron definitely had its merits and functions as a brilliant superhero film. However, X-Men ’97 dealt with the same plot and made sure that all the plotlines had their time to shine. Of course, the show had a lot more time to deal with the same plot, allowing Beau DeMayo to flesh the show out, but it stands without saying that the characters were better dealt with in every manner, with a succinct ending.
