That X-Men ‘97 season finale was quite the sucker punch for fans invested in Marvel Animation’s revived classic series
It really is turning out to be the year of the sinister baby, what with Immaculate, The First Omen, and now Evil’s bundle of terrifying joy bursting out into
Adaptation is always a challenge—but it’s a particularly daunting one in the case of comic books, where a new medium has to reckon with translating sagas told across years of issues and continuity fluxes. For the most part, X-Men ‘97's latest episode navigates this task the best it can, but the sacrifices it makes…
X-Men ‘97's love-letter continuation of the original X-Men animated series is not just a chance to revisit the world left behind by this particular take on Marvel mutantdom, but incorporate more ideas and interpretations of the metaphor mutantkind has provided across decades of comics.
If you’re not familiar with them before asking, you might be surprised if an X-Men comic reader declares Hank McCoy—the fuzzball genius Beast—one of the most evil characters in the franchise.
It’s fitting that the X-Men as an idea are as similarly cyclical as one of the franchise’s most iconic figures. “Hear me, X-Men! No longer am I the woman you knew! I am Fire and Life incarnate!” cries Jean Grey, now the Phoenix, in X-Men #101, beginning a cycle of fated death and rebirth for her similar to the one…