Representation of diversity has become a massive subject in the entertainment industry in the last few decades. However, the situation was quite different in the early 2000s when the audience used to not bat an eye over these things.
Despite the audience not caring about representation back in the day, Marvel subtly tried to sneak in hints of a few characters being gay in X-Men: Evolution.
The animator of X-Men: Evolution opens up about LGBTQ+ representation in the series
X-Men is one of Marvel’s most popular superhero teams. The team arguably comes 2nd in popularity right after The Avengers as the latter has gained a lot of admiration and acclaim since their live-action adaptation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Over the years, Marvel has made many animated and live-action series and movies to explore multiple storylines related to the iconic superhero team. One such series was X-Men: Evolution which featured some of the most spectacular characters from the franchise.
In the comics, many iconic characters like Mystique, Daken, Colossus, and many others have been shown as bisexual or gay. And, in Marvel’s animated series, X-Men: Evolution, the creators tried to sneak in subtle hints of the same. One of the animators of the show, Steven E. Gordon once took to his blog and answered a few questions about the series. He revealed how the team tried to sneak in hints of Mystique being gay in the series. He wrote,
“As far as who was Gay or not we subtly tried to indicate that Mystique was living at one time with Destiny and raising a child (Rogue). We also tried to indicate that Risty was Gay (Mystique in disguise) and she was flirting with Rogue – which actually leads to a very weird situation on it’s own merit.”
Steven E. Gordon even went on to mention how they thought even Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler might also have been gay, something which was never shown in the series. He wrote,
“Some of us also kind of felt Kurt might be Gay, but that was never addressed in any way on the show.”
However, Kurt Wagner was never shown as a gay character in the comics. If anything, the character was shown as a big homophobe in Ultimate X-Men #7 when he left the X-Men after finding out that Colossus is gay.
Steven E. Gordon picks his favorite characters from X-Men: Evolution
Although the creators of the show try to stay as close as possible to the source material, we’ve seen them times deviating multiple times. For instance, the showrunners of X-Men: Evolution created the character of Laura Kinney aka X-23 who was introduced in the show first and later made her debut in the comics.
The creators of X-Men: Evolution also made some interesting changes to a few characters from the comics as Steven E. Gordon revealed in his blog. He wrote,
“My favorite characters were Rogue, BoomBoom, and Wanda. Mainly because I think the new concepts we created for them were so unique and different then the comics. My favorite to draw would probably be the easiest to draw…Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Todd.”
X-Men: Evolution showed the majority of the characters as teenagers, unlike most movies and series that show the characters in their adulthood. The premise of the show was the superheroes learning to control their powers.
Although the series largely received positive reviews from fans, some critics mentioned how a few episodes could be cut right out from the series and the storyline would not be affected.
All seasons of X-Men: Evolution are currently streaming on Disney+.
