The SDCC announcement of The X-men’97 has me camping in front of my small screen even though the show is not released until the fall of 2023.
I am waiting impatiently for X-men’97 because I was one of the biggest fans, in my mind at least, of the X-men animated TV series ever. Up until I met like-minded fans on the Interwebs who loved the show as much as I do, if not more. And the show’s success did not go unnoticed.
Origins of the X-men’97 TV Show
The Hungarian show called Linda claimed the iconic X-men theme song was ripped from theirs. It is also how you know your show has made it big.
Before the TV show aired, we only had Spiderman and his Amazing Friends featuring the X-men as a guest in one of the episodes. It was epic because we saw Cyclops, Wolverine and Angel all together.
Of course, the voice acting didn’t actually match how I read them in my mind but they were alive on my screen. And then we had the pilot of the failed series Pryde of The X-men.
By the time I saw it, I was already so spoiled by technologies like 720p and 1080p that I just couldn’t get into the TV show. Fun Fact: The director of this show said in an interview that Wolverine was forced to have an Australian accent because the executives thought Crocodile Dundee was a really popular movie at the time.
As I mentioned in my previous article New Marvel Animated Series, What If Season 2 and X-men ’97 Announced at SDCC, the classic X-men animated series will make a triumphant return with a few minor changes to the team.
The new teams consist of The X-men of the future consisting of Sunspot, Nightcrawler, Forge / Genesis, Cable, and Caliban.
The X-men’97 team consists of Jean Grey, Cyclops, Beast, Gambit, Jubilee, Beast, Rogue, and Storm (with her almost classic Mohawk look). Magneto is possibly part of the team as well. He is running the School for Gifted Youngsters in the absence of Professor Xavier.
And the enemy team consists of Mr Sinister, White Queen / Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, and Callisto. And someone in a red dress, I think, and I speculate here, that that is Valerie Cooper.
The X-men animated series was highly successful on Saturday morning and even rivaled the all-time classic Batman: The Animated Series. The show filmed classics such as The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past but left many classics untouched. Like the era of Magneto after Professor Xavier left. Magneto acted as the Headmaster of The Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters.
Essential X-men comics stories the revived show should adapt
So with that in mind, I started to think of what stories would be best to adapt for the X-men’97 series to continue. With the new headmaster Magneto, we have a whole new dynamic for the team seems there will be distrust among the X-men about their new leadership.
Here are my suggestions for X-men’97.
X-men: Inferno for X-men’97
In X-men Inferno, a storyline that was teased for almost a decade finally came to fruition. None other than Madeline Pryor, who came into Cyclops’ life after Jean Grey died in The Dark Phoenix Saga, and looked exactly like Jean albeit with a different haircut turned out to be one of the X-men’s most dangerous foes.
Madeline Pryor was teased through panels in various X-men comics but while readers thought it was just a background figure to fill up space it turned out to be way more. When Scott and Madeline meet up, he is still mourning the loss of Jean. Due to her physical resemblance and her mannerisms like Jean Grey, he quickly fell in love with her.
Many adventures later, including run-ins with Loki, the Reavers, and Madeline and Scott getting a divorce. Scott could never let go of Jean and when Madeline found out that Scott only married her because of her physical resemblance to Jean, it was the final straw.
Madeline slept with Scott’s brother Alex because she thought Scott was dead. Then it really starts. With The Dark Phoenix Force looking for a new host because Jean’s body in the ocean rejects it, they find Madeline. It turns out that Madeline is a clone of Jean, created by none other than Mr. Sinister. Major plot twist, close to Luke I am your father. And this storyline was kept under wraps for almost a decade by writer Chris Claremont.
As Madeline finds out that she is just a clone of Jean Grey, she descends to madness. She fights off The X-men who are aided by X-factor and but even with all her psionic might and magic from the magical Limbo dimension, Madeline falters and dies in the arms of Jean Grey. Upon death, the Phoenix Force returns to her original host, Jean Grey.
This story had everything. A great build-up. A major plot twist. Good overcoming evil. Intrigues, manipulation, failed marriages and uniting two teams before merging into one. X-Factor and The X-men merged after this.
For a Saturday morning cartoon that is intended for children, you have to tone it down. But themes like divorce, adoption (Madeline and Scott had a child named Nathan who would later turn out to be Cable) and mental health issues should not be avoided. Even if it is just a cartoon.
Children can be taught that way without being pushy. This is, in a nutshell, the greatness of the Marvel Universe: Making controversial and delicate topics open for discussion. But all in all, this is a great addition for X-men’97.
Adapt Onslaught for X-men’97
Onslaught is another major storyline that needs to be adapted for X-men’97. In Onslaught we watch Professor X fight his archnemesis Magneto. And Professor X does something that he has never done before in his life: He incapacitated the mind of Magneto. Putting Magneto basically in a permanent state of a coma. And everybody gets to go home. Or so you think!
It turns out that Magneto’s darkest parts of his subconscious mind has slipped into the mind of Professor X. And it planted a seed into something that would be the end of The X-men. But can you imagine this in X-men’97?
We watch Cain Marko, The Juggernaut, get beat up by a harnessed entity that bears the colors of Magneto’s classic costume but with a bigger helmet. The Juggernaut is almost unstoppable but the entity is toying with Juggernaut like he is nothing.
As months progress and Xavier’s behavior is becoming more reserved and erratic, his students become suspicious and when Jean Grey talks to Cain Marko and finds out who the entity named Onslaught is, he manifests himself and takes down the X-men one by one using their strengths and weaknesses against them. Onslaught is none other than Professor Xavier himself with a little bit of Magneto.
The book itself has major revelations that were teased for a couple of years. For instance, the time-traveling mutant Bishop who is from a dystopian future where The X-men were betrayed by an insider, finds out who betrayed the X-men. While holding the card-throwing mutant Gambit responsible, it turns out to be Professor Xavier as Onslaught who betrays his own norms and values and thus everything The X-men stand for.
Eventually, The X-men with the help of the Fantastic Four and The Avengers neutralize Onslaught but shortly after that they are transferred to a pocket dimension by the most powerful mutant; Franklin Richards.
That storyline led to a major reboot in the Marvel Universe called Heroes Reborn and the comics were drawn by a lot of artists who left Marvel to form Image Comics like Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, and Jim Lee.
But yes, The Onslaught Saga is hugely popular among X-men fans and should definitely be on the list for X-men’97.
Why have I picked these stories
The answer to that is quite easy: I loved them and I want others to enjoy them too. I mean who wouldn’t want to see a cartoon version of the best comics that spawned in the late 90s and early 2000s.
In the late 1990s there was a shift in comicbook storytelling and art. Most of the 1990s the stories relied on flashy art with a lot of muscles. For instance Cyclops looked like he worked out 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
He was so completely buffed and it looked great. Same goes for the women. The women looked like they ripped apart Jane Fonda’s fitness videos and put them on an infinite loop and those flashy visuals resulted in lots of tough talk but little follow up and thus substance.
In the stories I just proposed to be on the small screen, we see that the storytelling has shifted from tough talk to actually leading to substance. Also all the stories were a prelude from one crossover to the other.
For instance, Deadly Genesis led to War of Kings where Vulcan overthrows the Shi’ar empire and crowns himself Emperor. He even took down the mighty Imperial Shi’ar guard. Who knows, maybe the writers of The X-m,en’97 will do the same by doing a seasonal arc.
But then again, the concept they had in the 1990s was amazing too. Three parters for stories like Days of Future past with Bishop taking over the role of Kitty Pryde and a very original way of incorporating Cable and Forge. Or what of the future of Bishop. A very dystopian future with the X-men all gone because of sentinels.
Other storylines that the X-men’97 TV shows that were instant classics were their take on The Dark Phoenix Saga and One Man’s Worth.
