Wolverine and the X-Men

[Mr Light]

So thanks to my newly upgraded cable package I have finally gotten to see some episodes of Wolverine and the X-Men. After year(s?) of waiting I finally got to see the latest animated incarnation of the X-Men!

I'm a little disappointed, unfortunately. It's not BAD per se, it's just kinda there. Of course it doesn't help that I'm seeing random episodes from the beginning and end of the series out of order. Even so I think the 90s X-Men series had better stories, even if the animation was horrible. Not that this show has great animation it's just alright.

I particularly didn't care for the stories where they're in a post-apocalyptic future ruled by Sentinels. I also don't really care for the premise about the human soldiers primarily hunting them. I'd rather see them fighting evil mutants in multi-colored spandex.

Now I did see the final episode which ended with a teaser for them doing the Age of Apocalypse. Again with the post-apocalyptic future stuff? Still, it's better than Sentinels. I did like the AoA comics.

What do you guys think about the show?

 

[Chris3123]

I liked it. It wasn't super-amazing, and it wasn't quite as good as the 90s cartoon, but it was ok. I certainly liked it better than Evolution.

The main premise was kinda bold, I think. Having Professor X out of commission and Jean missing from the beginning, Cyclops off and on with the team, and Wolverine in charge. They tried something different, and I commend them for that.

What have you seen so far?

 

[StarTrek1701]

I want to see the show but dont know the time, channel or reruns schedule. Is it on HULU yet?

 

[od0_ital]

I caught the first half dozen episodes, or so...it was alright, not great. I'm waitin' for the season sets on DVD to catch up

 

[Mr Light]

I've basically seen the pilot, Wolverine vs Hulk, and the final stretch of episodes starting with Rover the Sentinel. I didn't care very much for Evolution either. I'm rewatching it off and on now and my opinion stays. At least the animation is nice. And I remember the last two seasons being a lot better.

 

[Christopher]

It's a mixed bag. It's more sophisticated and adult in its storytelling than X-Men Evolution, and it's produced by some of the same people, but its animation is not nearly as good. XME consistently had some of the finest animation I've ever seen on television.

 

[RoJoHen]

I'm personally just getting tired of emo teenager Rogue. I much prefer the Rogue from the 90s FOX cartoon where she already had her Ms. Marvel powers.

Otherwise, I didn't mind what I saw. I think I watched the first 8 episodes or so (that's all that had been posted online so far), and it was fine, but it certainly didn't leave me craving more.

 

[Anwar]

I liked Evolution more, there's just something lacking in the soul of WatX. But I'll keep watching when S2 starts.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

I lost track of the show, they'd run a new episode, then next week they'd be rerunning the pilot ep again.

I like most of what they did. I find the 90's cartoon hard to rewatch.

I don't think Rogue should have Ms. Marvel's powers.

Some ideas and characters should not crossover into other incarnations.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Doesn't anyone just read comic books anymore?

 

[byron lomax]

I agree that the series is generally enjoyable, if not spectacular. The second-best of the current Marvel cartoons. I'll tune in when it's back.

 

[Christopher]

I liked Evolution more, there's just something lacking in the soul of WatX. But I'll keep watching when S2 starts.

Evolution was mostly boring in its first two seasons -- great to look at, but nothing much really happened. It didn't really get interesting until the existence of mutants went public at the end of season 2. After that, it finally became X-Men rather than a generic show about superpowered teens going to high school and trying to hide their powers.

Although one thing that was cool about it throughout was that it avoided defining good guys and bad guys simplistically. The Brotherhood weren't really villains, more just rivals. The allegiances and lines kept shifting, people switched sides, and sometimes the Brotherhood characters earned our identification and sympathy as much as the X-Men. It was a much more realistic way of handling it -- not clear-cut black hats and white hats, but multifaceted people just making different choices in different situations.

I wish that WXM could've been a direct continuation of XME. XME got darker and more intense every year, and WXM is kind of at the same level of darkness that XME might've reached by now if it had continued. That would've rendered a number of story arcs in WXM untenable, like its treatment of Mystique, but overall I think it wouldn't have been too different.

As for S2, I'll probably have to wait for the DVDs. I dropped the cable tier that included Nicktoons because I realized I only watched three shows out of all those channels I was paying for, and it just wasn't worth it.

 

[Anwar]

Well, I did like how Evolution was similar to the early comics with the population NOT knowing about mutants. They even had the same storyline of Bolivar Trask outing mutants and attacking them with the first sentinel! That was a nice spin on an old story.

Most X-Men shows have the world already aware of mutants and hating them, EVO had the world before they knew and what the X-Men did to keep them from knowing and then organically showed the revelation and how this affected the cast.

 

[Christopher]

^Maybe so, but it was still boring for most of the first two seasons. The first season was particularly tedious, because they spent half of it just introducing characters one or two at a time. Too much time spent setting up the board. You could've cut the first eight episodes down to four or five without losing anything meaningful.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

I think WATXM has the best animation of all the X-Men animateds to date. Smoother than 90s X-Men and more realistic than the somewhat stylized Evo.

Storywise WATXM is more mature than Evo and has a stronger through-line than 90s (which was more an anthology of "greatest X-men stories" more or less). The dialogue is also better written and more natural sounding.

The voice cast for WATXM is great. Even background characters are given a unique voice, as opposed to having one of the leads "fill in", as Evo sometimes did. The 90s show's cast was too "stage-y" in delivering their lines. Not natural sounding at all.

 

[Christopher]

I think WATXM has the best animation of all the X-Men animateds to date. Smoother than 90s X-Men and more realistic than the somewhat stylized Evo.

Evolution had absolutely gorgeous animation. I'm not talking about the design style, but the actual animation, the movement and performance. It was incredibly fluid, vivid, beautiful work, animated by Madhouse and DR Movie, some of the best animation houses in the business. WXM's animation is visibly cheaper, less fluid and more limited.

As for realism, I don't find it very realistic that virtually all the women in WXM have D cups or bigger.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

I think WATXM has the best animation of all the X-Men animateds to date. Smoother than 90s X-Men and more realistic than the somewhat stylized Evo.

Evolution had absolutely gorgeous animation. I'm not talking about the design style, but the actual animation, the movement and performance. It was incredibly fluid, vivid, beautiful work, animated by Madhouse and DR Movie, some of the best animation houses in the business. WXM's animation is visibly cheaper, less fluid and more limited.

I don't see how you can get that at all. The animation of WATXM is VERY fluid, easily the equal to Evo, and even more impressive because the detail of the designs makes it harder to animate properly.

Nor can I see where you have cause to call it "cheap". WATXM has a rich color pallate full of subtle shades, where as Evo was very bright and primary and limited.

As for realism, I don't find it very realistic that virtually all the women in WXM have D cups or bigger.

1) Wrong. One word: Kitty Another word: Polaris Even among the others, there are subtle differences. Wanda is "bigger" than Domino who is "bigger" than Emma. I'd place Domino and Emma as the upper half of C, not D in any event.

2) Even if 1 was not true, generous bust size in an adult woman is a style convention of the genre. Agrue a "design" flaw, if you must (not that it's a flaw), but it's not a sign of poor animation.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I guess it's all subjective, I prefer the look of Evo myself and do think the animation is more fluid. I think the "camera work" might be a bit better as well.

I haven't been able to put my finger on what exactly makes it so but I don't like that modern look that you see like on Yu-Gi-Oh or the new Turtles toon. It looks really "flat" somehow to me and harsh.

 

[Christopher]

I don't see how you can get that at all. The animation of WATXM is VERY fluid, easily the equal to Evo, and even more impressive because the detail of the designs makes it harder to animate properly.

Doesn't look that way to me at all.

Nor can I see where you have cause to call it "cheap".

It has more limited movement, which strikes me as the likely result of having less time and money to do it.

As for realism, I don't find it very realistic that virtually all the women in WXM have D cups or bigger.

1) Wrong. One word: Kitty Another word: Polaris

Exactly my point. I said "virtually all," not "all." If you can only name two exceptions out of the entire cast, that is virtually all.

Even among the others, there are subtle differences. Wanda is "bigger" than Domino who is "bigger" than Emma. I'd place Domino and Emma as the upper half of C, not D in any event.

So? I didn't say they were all the same size, I said they were all D or bigger. Everything you said after "wrong" is simply a different way of putting the same thing I said.

And Domino a mere C? Hardly. Domino looks closer to a DD cup to me. Or at least a D cup. (Links are work-safe.)

2) Even if 1 was not true, generous bust size in an adult woman is a style convention of the genre. Agrue a "design" flaw, if you must (not that it's a flaw), but it's not a sign of poor animation.

I didn't say it was poor animation. Animation means movement, not design. What I said was that it's not realistic. In real life, most women have B or C cups.

I guess it's all subjective, I prefer the look of Evo myself and do think the animation is more fluid. I think the "camera work" might be a bit better as well.

Indeed. XME really did excellent work in that regard.

I haven't been able to put my finger on what exactly makes it so but I don't like that modern look that you see like on Yu-Gi-Oh or the new Turtles toon. It looks really "flat" somehow to me and harsh.

Well, these days, 2D animation is done on computers rather than with cel animation. The initial pencil drawings are still done by hand, but instead of being copied onto cels and hand-inked and painted, they're scanned and are then inked, colored, and animated digitally. So maybe what you're reacting to is the difference in appearance and color palette between cel animation and 2D digital animation.

 

[RoJoHen]

I lost track of the show, they'd run a new episode, then next week they'd be rerunning the pilot ep again.

I like most of what they did. I find the 90's cartoon hard to rewatch.

I don't think Rogue should have Ms. Marvel's powers.

Some ideas and characters should not crossover into other incarnations.

Well, I've been rewatching the 90s cartoon on DVD, and I've been loving every minute of it. Not hard to watch at all!

I'm just getting tired of mopey teenage Rogue.

Doesn't anyone just read comic books anymore?

I never did, and I see no reason to start now.