When I was a kid, I remember watching my very first episode of X-Men: The Animated Series and being absolutely amazed by how cool it was. I was just a little kid so I don’t think I even knew what the X-Men were at the time. I was excited to hear about X-Men ’97 hitting Disney+ and even rewatched the majority of the original series to prepare. Which has aged worse than I thought.
For those who don’t know or don’t remember, Charles Xavier actually dies at the end of the original animated series, being assassinated by one of the biggest anti-mutant activists trying to influence politics.
Which leaves the X-Men in disarray as without Professor X, they don’t have a true legitimate leader. While Cyclops seems to be the obvious choice, some members (such as Wolverine) will not respect Scott Summers even remotely the same as Charles Xavier.
But in a shocking twist of events, Magneto shows up to Xavier Academy with the last will and testament of Charles Xavier. Letting everybody know that everything that Charles Xavier owned (including the school) now belongs to him. But with another curveball, Magneto for once actually looks like he’s attempting to honor his late friend’s wishes and intends to lead the X-Men the best he can to achieve Charles’ dream.
A lot of enemies pop up for the X-Men in this new series and many of them are from the original incarnation of the show. While I won’t spoil the biggest baddie, he was actually created in the comics in 1996 so he ironically wouldn’t really have time to pop up in the original series back in the 1990s.
Most of the heroes are the same with a few additions, but I was very surprised how little Wolverine matters to the story. I guess the idea was to give other characters a focus, since we’ve been watching Hugh Jackman be Wolverine for 25 years.
X-Men 97 is 10 episodes long and most of them are actually pretty darn good. Unlike the original series, all these episodes were made for quality rather than filler. It’s not entirely perfect but it has a good story, interesting twists, heartbreaks, and beautiful animations which makes this revival series awesome. Disney and Marvel had a rocky few years recently, but this is definitely one of the gems.