The X-Men movie universe is officially dead. The culprit? A corporate merger. Fans have likely mourned the demise of this superhero franchise, which has been on life support for years, as Disney swept away its remaining projects like “Dark Phoenix” and “The New Mutants” in preparation for a Marvel Cinematic Universe reboot. But for those yearning for a proper farewell to the Fox era, the closing credits of “Deadpool & Wolverine” offer a poignant send-off. This irreverent film unexpectedly turns sentimental, showcasing behind-the-scenes footage set to Green Day’s poignant “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).”
However, there’s no need to mourn the X-Men. As one era ends, another begins. Or rather, re-begins. Months before “Deadpool & Wolverine” desecrated the corpse of an X-Man, Disney resurrected an entire team of them—the superheroes who charged into battle with a synth-heavy war cry in the iconic 1990s Fox cartoon. In terms of doing justice to these characters, “Deadpool & Wolverine” pales in comparison to the year’s other X-Men-related smash hit, the Disney+ throwback, “X-Men ’97.”
Make no mistake, this small-screen sequel is fueled by fan service, just like its big-screen counterpart. Picking up right where the original animated series left off, as if no time had passed since its final episode in 1997, “X-Men ’97” remains deeply faithful to the spirit of its basic-cable predecessor. While slightly slicker and more polished, the animation echoes the vibrant, bold colors of the earlier show. The voice cast has been almost entirely reassembled, creating a full aural flashback. If the same old score doesn’t send shivers down your spine during the opening titles, chances are you didn’t spend your Saturday mornings glued to the globe- and time-jumping adventures of Xavier’s gifted youngsters. In other words, “X-Men ’97” blatantly aims to capture the attention of not just young viewers but also their millennial and Gen X parents.
However, the show is much more than nostalgia bait. As you watch it churn through a frankly absurd amount of plot over 10 episodes, you start to wonder if any adaptation has better captured the full essence of the X-Men—the way the comics, at their best, weave together an allegory of prejudice and alienation into a sprawling melodrama with a Tolstoy-sized cast of characters and a bottomless reservoir of thrilling science-fiction developments. This isn’t to say the show strives for the exact experience of reading the comics. Perhaps even more than the ’90s cartoon, this relaunch races through stories at a pace that would leave Quicksilver winded. Giant crossovers that spanned months—like “Inferno,” the kooky, convoluted, yearlong X-Men-versus-Hell Spawn event launched in 1988—are dispatched in a half hour flat. Other episodes combine multiple plotlines, merging, for example, Magneto’s trial with an attack by the enhanced-human terrorists of the Friends for Humanity. A more conservative show could stretch these story arcs across an entire season, but “X-Men ’97” condenses them into miniature versions. It’s like speed reading a stack of back issues.
While you could call the storytelling rushed, there’s a lot of fun in how much the show attempts to cram into one TV season. “X-Men ’97” plays like an enthusiastic remix of X-Men lore, blending elements from different arcs of the comic. The show splits the quintessential Storm story “Lifedeath” in two, eccentrically pairing its first half with a Jubilee one-off that evokes both “Scott Pilgrim” and the old X-Men arcade beat ’em up. Meanwhile, no fewer than three major crossover events are blended together for the three-part season finale. It’s as if the creative team, led by Beau DeMayo, operated under the assumption they’d never get another chance at the X-Men, so they might as well throw everything but the kitchen sink into the mix. This refreshing approach is the polar opposite of a Netflix show where nothing happens for eight episodes.
You better believe Surf Dracula surfs, early and often. Clones, demons, intergalactic empires, time-traveling robots, spirit animals, a parallel dimension ruled by a Trumpian reality-TV executive—you get it all in “X-Men ’97.” Watching the show highlights how narrow a conception of this world and its characters the X-Men film franchise presented. Despite lasting for a quarter-century—and setting aside outliers like “Logan” or “Deadpool”—the series kept repeating itself. The fights always looked the same: good mutants trading blasts with bad mutants in the woods or a quiet suburban backdrop. Sometimes the plot recycling was literal. Did we really need two adaptations of “The Dark Phoenix Saga” from the same screenwriter? And time and again, we were presented with variations of the same conflict between Xavier and Magneto, as if that was the only X-Men story worth telling.
Magneto and Xavier both appear in “X-Men ’97,” of course, but their relationship sets the stage for the season without defining it. Nor does the show feel like “Wolverine & Friends”—that is, a starring vehicle for the most famous mutant that tosses the other X-Men a few lines. This is a true ensemble series, carving out narrative space for many characters. Storm enjoys a sensitive, smoldering romance. Cyclops gets tangled in a love triangle with two versions of Jean Grey. The two later have a conversation with their adult son, Cable, that genuinely (if by accident) recalls “All of Us Strangers.” Rogue grapples with grief. Beast struggles with guilt over covering for unscrupulous journalists. At its heart, X-Men has always been a soap opera. “X-Men ’97” unabashedly embraces that, finding room for interpersonal drama even as the larger plot races forward.
The series also boasts some of the best action scenes in its genre—further evidence, after the “Spider-Verse” movies, that animation might be the ideal medium for comic-book adaptations. The new series reaches its peak, dramatically and in terms of set pieces, with “Remember It,” which shifts from aristocratic mutant politics to a lengthy battle against giant, robotic sentinels. This action sequence is thrillingly kinetic and a bleak realization of the genocidal impulses the X-Men—as characters and symbols—have always opposed. We also get some of the coolest Gambit action ever put to screen. With apologies to Channing Tatum, this is the year’s mic-drop moment for the Ragin’ Cajun.
You could call “Remember It” the event of the series, but the truth is that just about every episode of “X-Men ’97” is an event. There’s no filler. The thing about the X-Men comic is that it was never just one thing. Yes, there were issues where mutants fought other mutants, and other issues where they fought hateful humans. That’s the bedrock stuff of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s seminal team book. But the premise was malleable; it could accommodate all manner of sci-fi weirdness. “X-Men ’97” is deeply attuned to that aspect of its source material. It gives you the full scope of what X-Men can be—the whole universe of comic-book lunacy it can traverse—without losing its utility as a moving civil-rights metaphor. The movies never made room for any of that. Good riddance indeed.
“X-Men ’97” is now streaming on Disney+.
