Since the announcement of X-men 97, I was conflicted – it was a treasured series that got its untimely demise, but then how after more than a decade, how can they continue and hook us back in without clashing with the now well established MCU?
So first up, Marvel confirmed that while it stays inside the current multiverse saga, it is not in the main MCU timeline. This I think gave a lot of fans a sigh of relief as that means the story can go all hardcore without worrying about continuity and logic issue with the life action or even the What If series.
With most of the original voice actors reprising their roles, X-men 97 gave a sense a familiarity back to the audience. That goes the same way with the art style, although the resolution has definitely been pumped up. The improvement in animation technology had allowed the production teams to do things that in the past they didn’t, but what is important is that all that were done without compromising the most important aspects of all – story telling.
The story of X-men 97 picked up where it was left off during the last season in 96. The X-men needed to reform and redefine its purpose, while the views of mutants by general humans hadn’t changed much. This put stresses to current dynamics and relationships, while the new threat lurked and took over.
It is hard to talk about the story without giving out too many spoilers, as the show is full of Easter Eggs and cameos that fans were expecting and caught by surprise. However, the theme still hadn’t changed – how can you continue to protect the human race when a part of the human race is trying to erase you off the face of the world? And how far would these people be willing to go to achieve that end?
To be honest with you, if I were one of the X-men, I don’t know how I could live another day without major PTSD. As Magneto put it in one of the episodes – how many mutant bones are we willing to lay before us to protect a species that is willing to do anything to eradicate us? That is one of the major subjects being explored in the show.
In the action department, better technology means we can have more flashy combos from the team that could actually be flashy. Apart from what we saw from the trailer, there were a lot more creative uses and combos of the X-men team when facing their adversaries. And also, we were able to see scenes directly adapted from old comic panels in their full animated 4K glory, which got my jaws dropped to the floor.
X-men has always been the most interesting property for me among all Marvel comics because it relentlessly deals with the serious subject matter of prejudice and hate – and most of the time unwarranted and unfound prejudice and hate. I felt related to them as I witnessed everything happening around me growing up in this society of ours. The life action movies dealt with that lightly but as a popular media for all, it still treads the lines lightly and carefully. However, with the animation, they really put that them right out there at the forefront. This is why I always felt that the animation series is more superior – and at times harder hitting than the films.
With Deadpool and Wolverine coming up in two months, and Ms Marvel confirmed as the main MCU’s first mutant character (Wanda and Pietro were never really confirmed as mutants in the MCU), it is just a matter of time that the mutants and X-men will be running around in the main MCU. How they would do is still an unknown, but for the time being we have a great animation series we can enjoy.
X-men 97 is now streaming in full on Disney+.
