Wolverine & The X-Men (cartoon)

[Captain Craig]

I've just started watching this and have finished the first disc of 9 episodes. I must say that I'm quite pleased with what I've seen so far.

The premises seems to take the Days of Future Past story line and expound upon it in order for this series to work. Which makes it an interesting possible primer for anyone wanting to get their feet wet with this mythos prior to next summers film of the same name. True the '90's animated series did a great multi episode stint on it as well.

For those who've not seen it the set up is that someone attacks the school, centered on Charles location, and he vanishes along with Jean. This causes the school and X-Men to disband. Scott essentially is sulking and in no shape to lead, in distress over Jean. Storm goes back to Africa, Rogue joins up with the Brotherhood, Shadowcat is going to go to Genosha(head up by Magneto), Bobby/Iceman returns home to Boston and Kurt/Nightcrawler is off doing his own thing.

Wolverine feels things have to be set right. Charles must be found if he's not dead, which Beast gives reason for him not to be. In the first 3 eps they start to get the team back. There are standalone episodes that feature Gambit( a fav episode), Storm, Nightcrawler and a few with Rogue on the wrong side. The Hulk episode was a nice diversion from the storyline for one episode as well. Emma Frost joins up and using Cerebro is able to locate Charles, but not Jean for some reason. Charles is on....Genosha?? Wolverine and his team take off half cocked off course and Magneto explains that Charles strangely appeared on the shores of Genosha in the coma state you see him.

Charles, awakened 20yrs in the future finds that Senator Kelly, Trask and the Mutant Response Division have turned the world into a war zone. Charles, using a Cerebro there in the future, sends messages back through time to Logan giving him instructions on how to undo this future so it doesn't come to pass.

Was wondering what the general opinions on this series was, seeing as it only went one 26 episode season. Was it terminated for the same reason as Spectacular Spiderman? The Disney purchase of Marvel, ratings or other?

 

[Hound of UIster]

I thought SSM was terminated by Sony because they traded the cartoon rights away.

 

[RoJoHen]

I thought it was great! Easily my favorite X-Men cartoon since the 90s FOX show. I wish it had continued.

 

[kirk55555]

I just got the season a few days ago from amazon. I'm on the last disc, and its an awesome show. The story is great, the voice acting is great, and the animation is great. The only bad thing is it only lasted one season. Its probably one of the best Marvel cartoons ever (alongside the 90's X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons and Avengers EMH), and its much better than the ones currently running (Avengers Assemble, Ultimate Spider-Man and Hulk - Agents of SMASH).

 

[Ethros]

I thought it was great! Easily my favorite X-Men cartoon since the 90s FOX show. I wish it had continued.

Same here, the last few episodes are awesome.

 

[Reverend]

I thought it was great! Easily my favorite X-Men cartoon since the 90s FOX show. I wish it had continued.

Same here, the last few episodes are awesome.

Not that I disagree, but besides this one, hasn't there only been one other X-Men cartoon ('X-Men Evolution') since the 90's show? I'm just saying that's a pretty shallow pool you're drawing from there.

Still, yes, 'Wolverine & The X-Men' was easily the superior show of the two and it's a shame it wasn't allowed to continue. Indeed, if I weren't blinded by childhood nostalgia I'd go so far as to say it was the best ever...out of al three of them...plus a TV special...and does that live action rip off show from the late 90's count?

 

[kirk55555]

I'm confused about the 90s rip off show. Are you talking about the Generation X TV movie? That was an adaptation of a marvel comic featuring mutants and related to the X-Men, so it wasn't a rip off (it did suck, but to me is so bad its entertaining, seeing Emma frost use her powers to open a real portal to physically go into the dream world still makes me laugh, and Matt Frewer is an awesomely goofy crazy villain). The comic wasn't a rip off either(more of a spin off, I guess) and I actually enjoyed the comic, it was much better than the tV movie. It did have mutant kids being taught by Emma Frost and banshee, but in comics thats not really a rip off, any more than Green Lantern Corps is a rip off of Green Lantern or Uncanny Avengers is a rip off of avengers, its just another book in the X-men franchise. That said, knowing the 90's there could be more crappy live action stuff like x-men that I'm not aware of.

As for the 90's X-men animated series, I think it stil lholds up as a great show. It has its flaws, like some if the more extreme censorship that existed at the time (I'm pretty sure that the old X-men and Spider-Man cartoons couldn't even say the word kill, while W&TXM uses it whenever it wants, even if Wolverine is still not allowed to stab people) but it has a lot of good stories and the characters are still entertaining (although Jubilee is probably still a character most either won't care about or will just dislike). X-men evolution I've only seen a few episodes of, but it was bland, had pretty terrible costume (and sometimes character) designs, and had a pretty lame Wolverine voice actor, too. The voice actor thing isn't quite fair because Steve Blum has set a bar that I don't think anyone will pass, like Kevin Conroy with Batman or Mark Hamil with Joker, but the 90's Wolverine is still pretty good, probably the second best after Blum. That said, compared to the one shot cartoon from the 70's (Pryde of the X-men) that had Wolverine with an Australian accent, Evolution's Wolverine wasn't terrible, just lame compared to the guys who voiced him before and after.

 

[Chris3123]

I'm confused about the 90s rip off show. Are you talking about the Generation X TV movie?

He might be referring to Mutant X, though it ran from 2001-2004, not the 90s.

 

[Silvercrest]

I thought it was great! Easily my favorite X-Men cartoon since the 90s FOX show. I wish it had continued.

Same here, the last few episodes are awesome.

Not that I disagree, but besides this one, hasn't there only been one other X-Men cartoon ('X-Men Evolution') since the 90's show? I'm just saying that's a pretty shallow pool you're drawing from there.

There's also "Pryde of the X-Men" ... or maybe that's the TV special you were referring to.

I've seen bits and pieces of an anime that features Wolverine and some of the X-Men, but I don't know the name or anything else.

 

[Christopher]

I've seen bits and pieces of an anime that features Wolverine and some of the X-Men, but I don't know the name or anything else.

There's one 12-episode series called Wolverine Anime and one called X-Men Anime, parts of a larger project called Marvel Anime, which also includes Iron Man and Blade series -- although technically none of their onscreen titles actually includes the "Anime" part. There's also a DVD movie called Iron Man: Rise of Technovore. They're collaborations of Marvel and the Japanese studio Madhouse, written and directed by Japanese creators but with Warren Ellis overseeing the stories. The English dub of X-Men Anime reuses a few Wolverine and the X-Men cast members including Steve Blum as Wolverine, Fred Tatasciore as Beast, and Jennifer Hale as Jean. Although Milo Ventimiglia plays Wolverine in his solo series and in the Iron Man and Blade series (of course he's in all of them). The dub of the Iron Man series (though not the movie) features the debut of Adrian Pasdar as Tony Stark, a role he's reprised in the current Disney XD Marvel animated universe.

I'm halfway through X-Men Anime on Netflix (each series is on two DVDs), but I haven't seen the others yet. It's not bad for the most part, although in a way it feels like a rehash of Wolverine and the X-Men -- it opens with Jean's apparent death, then picks up months later with the team reassembling and Scott being all bitter and angry, and then Emma Frost shows up and gradually earns the team's trust. And the way they handle Storm is ridiculous. She uses her powers effectively only when it doesn't matter to the story; whenever the team goes into action, she becomes much weaker in ways that contradict what we saw earlier. First we see her effortlessly freeze a boatload of pirates while on a tropical cruise; later we see her get winded from creating a smaller wall of ice in winter conditions where it should be far easier. In a quiet scene at the mansion, she makes a light snowfall become a blizzard and then makes it go away entirely, but later on the X-Men are trudging through a blizzard and she doesn't do a damn thing. Essentially the only consistent superpower they give Storm is the ability to make her clothing cling impossibly closely to her breasts.

 

[Reverend]

I'm confused about the 90s rip off show. Are you talking about the Generation X TV movie?

He might be referring to Mutant X, though it ran from 2001-2004, not the 90s.

Yeah that's what I meant.

Same here, the last few episodes are awesome.

Not that I disagree, but besides this one, hasn't there only been one other X-Men cartoon ('X-Men Evolution') since the 90's show? I'm just saying that's a pretty shallow pool you're drawing from there.

There's also "Pryde of the X-Men" ... or maybe that's the TV special you were referring to.

Also correct.

 

[Chensams]

I loved the show, really wish it continued especially since it ends on a cliffhanger. I tried to watch the anime stuff but really couldn't get into it.

 

[Anwar]

I liked X-Men Evolution better, mainly because Wolverine was more a background character and it gave the other chars more chances to do stuff. That, and what Wolverine and the X-men did to Cyclops was pretty embarrassing.

 

[Captain Craig]

I loved the show, really wish it continued especially since it ends on a cliffhanger. I tried to watch the anime stuff but really couldn't get into it.

Dang it, this is going to end on a cliffhanger.

I watched a few more episodes last night. The one where Emma probes Logan's mind and he gets flashes of possibly killing a man and orphaning a little girl. Turns out it was Sabretooth and the man wasn't killed but brought in and he's Maverick. I'm rusty a bit on some X-Men lore, did Maverick have a daughter, does she become an X-Man at some point?
The episode where Scott goes off half-cocked after Sinister having had a run in with Harpoon on the streets. An incident which really peeved off Logan. I thought the easter egg in that episode was great. As Scott brings Harpoon into the mansion family room Bobby is playing a video game. He's playing an Iron Man video game!! Nice.

Next was a follow-up Nightcrawler episode with the mutants on board the freighter ship Avalon as it reaches Genosha. Where we are introduced to Scarlet Witch and also indeed find out Magneto is not quite as benevolent as his PR would like others to think. Episode ends with a transitional segment at a hospital with a red head waking from a coma who can't remember who she is.


Someone mentioned a few posts back about the cartoon X-Men: Evolution. I looked into that one and they apparently did a S1 & S3 set, S2 seems to only have it broken up into 2-sets and S4 is solicited with no release imminent. I've been interested to watch this one also but will not until it's all released, preferably as a series set but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Ethros]

It's really a cliffhanger though, more like a tease for Season 2 that we're now obvs never gonna get.

 

[Captain Craig]

Well I finished it up and as a season arc it was for sure a well thought out and executed show. Seeing the tease for what was the set up for, I suppose, the season 2 arc would've been interesting with Apocalypse and Scott at his side. Really a shame this series didn't last a few seasons.

 

[JD]

I really enjoyed W&tXM when I watched it a year or two ago.