| X-Men: The Animated Series | X-Men: Evolution | X-Men Movies |
My impression is that nobody liked this series; I hope I am wrong?
I'm not suggesting this show is flawless. It is very telling that I have ZERO episodes from Season 1 in my "BEST..." Watch Order. The premise of this show is ABSOLUTELY ridiculous, but the later seasons mitigate most of that.
"BEST..."
This is what the title says: the best episodes of the show. Will it make any sense if you watch just these? Absolutely not.
"COHERENT..."
This is my real Watch Order. I couldn't remove ALL the episodes I wanted to and I kinda regret it. Season 1 is a bit of a slog of character introductions and a horrible season finale, season 2 is better, but it still feels like a mistake. It is Season 3 and 4, where I didn't cut many episodes, that this show shines.
I should offer a trigger warning: a female character with mental instability is NOT well treated by institutions or family.
I'll break it down per season in the SPOILER section below.
Enjoy.
BEST...Season 1: ... ... 03: Rogue Recruit 04: Mutant Crush ... 06: Middleverse 07: Turn of the Rogue 10: Shadowed Past ... ... Season 2: ... ... ... ... ... 07: On Angels Wings ... 10: Mindbender 11: Operation Rebirth ... 15: The Hex Factor 16: Day of Reckoning, part 1 17: Day of Reckoning, part 2 Season 3: 01: Day of Recovery 02: The Stuff of Heroes ... ... 05: Blind Alley ... ... 08: Self Possessed ... 10: X23 11: Dark Horizons, part 1 12: Dark Horizons, part 2 Season 4: 01: Impact ... 04: Sins Of The Son 05: Uprising 06: Cajun Spice ... 08: Ascension: Part 1 09: Ascension: Part 2 Episode Count: 24 |
COHERENT...Season 1: 01: Strategy X 02: The X-Impulse 03: Rogue Recruit 04: Mutant Crush 05: Speed and Spyke 06: Middleverse 07: Turn of the Rogue 10: Shadowed Past 12: The Cauldron: Part 1 13: The Cauldron: Part 2 Season 2: 01: Growing Pains 02: Power Surge 03: Bada-Bing Bada-Boom 04: Fun and Games 05: Beast of Bayville 07: On Angels Wings 09: Joyride 10: Mindbender 11: Operation Rebirth 13: Shadow Dance 15: The Hex Factor 16: Day of Reckoning, part 1 17: Day of Reckoning, part 2 Season 3: 01: Day of Recovery 02: The Stuff of Heroes 03: Mainstream 04: The Stuff of Villains 05: Blind Alley 06: X-Treme Measures 07: The Toad, the Witch, and the Wardrobe 08: Self Possessed 09: Under Lock and Key 11: X23 12: Dark Horizons, part 1 13: Dark Horizons, part 2 Season 4: 01: Impact 03: Target X 04: Sins Of The Son 05: Uprising 06: Cajun Spice 07: Ghost of a Chance 08: Ascension: Part 1 09: Ascension: Part 2 Episode Count: 43 |
- Season 1 -
I have to deal with the premise of this show. You know what ZERO fans have ever asked for:
" Let's do a high-school drama where Xavier and Magneto agree to make Mystique the principle of a High-School and we'll fill the school with young X-Men students as well as the Brotherhood of Mutants members... teen drama ensues! "
Nobody was asking for that. Xaviers institute is a SCHOOL where X-Men go to SCHOOL, because it is STUPID to put untrained mutants into the general population of a high-school. Putting them in school with the Brotherhood is crazy-land! Not only does Xavier never explain why he didn't tell the kids about Mystique, but nobody even asks: "What the hell were you thinking in the first place?". The entire premise of the X-Men is to STOP the disasters from Season 1 and Season 2 from happening.
For the most part Season 1 is all character introduction, and the show does fine by most of the X-Men characters. If you didn't like Cyclops before, this show is NOT going to change your opinion; Storm and Wolverine are the only adult X-Men here; Jean Grey is usually the "adult in the room" for some reason; Kitty Pryde is fine; Nightcrawler is amazingly goofy, but still clearly Nightcrawler; and finally Rogue, as a lonely goth girl, she is probably the best adapted character (though why Rogue would wear skin bearing crop tops is beyond me). The X-Men as teenagers is a good idea, but the rest of the premise was a mistake.
The less that is said about the season finale is the better. I'm sorry I couldn't cut it.
- Season 2 -
We also get to see the New Mutants this season, as an even younger group of junior X-Men (Boom Boom, Iceman, Magma, Jubilee, Cannonball, Multiple, Berzerker, Wolfsbane, and Sunspot). It does give the show quite a larger cast to play with, but also helps to make the Xavier Institute feel more like a school, especially with an adult Beast around.
Mostly I just skipped a bunch of weaker one-off episodes. I wasn't sure about "Walk on the Wild Side", but my daughter asked me to remove it, so no heavily gendered "girls night out" episode which felt too male-gazey to begin with.
As the Brotherhood and the X-Men continued to conflict and with the new principle being Edward Kelly, it was obvious that everything is going to go to pot.
This season basically starts the ball rolling on the main plot of the show: how the various groups (X-Men, Brotherhood of Mutants, Magneto's followers, Kelly's mutant haters, and eventually Apocalypse) all come into increasing larger conflict.
- Season 3 -
I like to think of this as the course correction. It might have been the plan from the beginning, but Season 3 blows away the initial premise, and good riddance.
Season 3 tells a far more traditional "X-Men" story, and that does help hold the show together much better. Here I only skipped one episode, which was kinda ridiculous filler anyway.
Regarding my earlier trigger warning, Scarlet Witch is NOT treated well. The show's treatment of her mental instability is questionable, and Magneto's stripping her of her memory and agency is not given as much weight as it it should have gotten.
- Season 4 -
In season 4 this show finds itself. I do wonder how many people never got past the first three seasons to see the final one. I dropped one episode, but I wasn't able to cut any deeper.
If only the X-Men: Apocalypse movie was half as good as this season.