The first two episodes of Marvel’s X-Men ’97 dropped on Disney+ a few hours ago and the episodes have managed to impress new audiences as well as the fans of the original. The original X-Men: The Animated Show was released in 1992 and lasted until 1997. The new series picks up from where the original left off. It is interesting to learn that the original series almost never happened due to the Hollywood studios’ lack of confidence in the project.
Marvel Studios announced the reboot of the old series back in November 2021, under the banner of Marvel Animation. The series will explore the X-Men characters including Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, Gambit, Beast, Jubilee, and Morph.
Studios Had Zero Faith In The Original X-Men: The Animated Series
X-Men: The Animated Series debuted as part of Fox Kids Saturday cartoons, which included other classic series like Power Rangers and Batman: The Animated Series. The series featured a group of mutants fighting villains and protecting the world, despite being shunned for their mutant powers. The series took inspiration from Marvel Comics storylines like The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past.
The new series was envisioned by several admirers of the original series and some of the returning cast and crew of the original series. X-Men ’97 brought most of the original cast back including Lenore Zann, who played Rogue. When the X-Men ’97 team shared their experience in a recent interview with EW, Zann recalled the development of the original series.
Zann shared that the cast and crew of X-Men, including director Larry Houston, had no idea about how the audiences would receive the series. Zann recalled that Houston approached several Hollywood studios with his pitch for an animated series. It was really difficult for the director to find studios since they largely lacked faith in an animated series that featured a bunch of superheroes, who were not quite popular outside the comic book fandom. Zann shared with EW:
“When we first did the show, we had absolutely no idea how it would be received. Let’s look at those times. I often hear Larry Houston, the original director, talking about when he was trying to pitch it to studios in Hollywood at the time. He couldn’t find studios that were interested in doing the show because they said, ‘Well, who wants to watch an animated series about superheroes?’ Fast forward, and obviously they’ve changed their tunes.”
The series recently lost its showrunner Beau DeMayo, who almost finished the works for the second season. While the reason behind his exit is not revealed yet by the studio or DeMayo, several rumors run abuzz on the internet. DeMayo shared in his interview with EW that the MCU and the billion-dollar superhero genre exist today because of shows like X-Men.
X-Men ’97 Is A Fun Throwback To The Original Series
While two episodes of the series opened on Disney+ for the audience, three episodes were sent to critics for their reviews, which have been largely positive. According to THR, the series is “a fun throwback to those pre-MCU days”. One of the notable positives of the series was that the viewers didn’t have to freshen up their memories of the original series. This was a major concern since the showrunner earlier announced that X-Men ’97 was a continuation of the old series.
Variety shared that the series offers a bridge between the past and present. While IGN shared that the series represented “the best kind of nostalgic exercise”, Empire wrote in their review that the show is “as sharp, shiny, and frankly frickin’ cool as Wolvie’s adamantium claws”. The series premiere achieved a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes. As of writing, the Tomatometer score is 100% while the audience score is not far behind at 93%.
X-Men ’97 episodes 1 & 2 are streaming on Disney+, while further episodes will hit the streaming platform every Wednesday.
