X-Men ’97 Found A Hidden Way To Incorporate The Original Series’ DNA

Highlights

X-Men ’97 impresses original show fans with faithful revival and Disney money improving quality.
Director Castorena consults with OG team, retains original aesthetic while updating visuals for HD.
Marvel’s success with X-Men ’97 contrasts with DC’s decision not to follow trend, focusing on quality over nostalgia.

X-Men ‘97 has received almost universal praise that has even come from the notoriously hard to please 90s kids that exalted the original show, and a recent interview with the originators of that series reveals one major reason why this is the case.

X-Men ‘97 is a continuation of the highly well-regarded X-Men: The Animated Series from the 1990s which stopped airing in 1997, giving the new series its name. There was a lot of speculation and anxiety about whether this was a true-to-the-bone revival or an MCU project that would more closely align with the rest of Marvel’s Disney+ fare, with believers on both sides doubting it would live up to the now. However, the show’s debut was a massive success, with the instant and sustained good reception given to X-Men ‘97 raising questions about other animated shows deserving of revival.

Avengers: Secret Wars Rumored To Have A Big Connection To Venom

Avengers: Secret Wars is rumored to answer a big question involving Tom Hardy’s Venom that fans have waited years to see resolved.

While the show’s directors have highlighted the influence of anime on X-Men ‘97, the show’s biggest inspiration is definitely still X-Men: The Animated Series, and not just as a spiritual predecessor. In a recent feature from Variety concerning everything from the start of the revival process to the Morph backlash, the original series director Larry Houston commented on how the revival series had not only managed to capture the spirit of the show from the 90s but also how the new team managed to take what was already established and improve it. “When we did our show, we did the best we could with the money we had. But this current show, they’ve got Disney money,” Houston noted to the publication. “Disney money makes stuff really good.” Executive producer on the revival and Marvel Studios’ head of streaming, television, and animation Brad Winderbaum also offered a great look into how the revival kept things faithful by using the villain Mister Sinister as an example.

Part of the design of the show was to reconstruct people’s memory of it. When we designed Mister Sinister for the new series, we tried to emulate the designs, textures, and backgrounds as much as possible. He had all these tendrils coming out of his back, so they could never move him a lot. As we’re making the show today, we’ve got the ability to move him all over the place, but we had to put artificial limiters on ourselves to make it feel like he was the same Sinister from the OG show.

Winderbaum spearheaded the show’s consideration in the early days of the MCU on Disney+ as a longtime fan of the show, and new director Jake Castorena got the job after pitching a revival series that would be “fresh, but familiar.” Fans can certainly attest to this mantra being lived up to, as the show’s impressive visuals truly feel like a 90s show upscaled for HD screens to give the best of both worlds. The team behind ‘97’s animation created a custom filter to bring their modern animations more in line with the ’90s footage and even set constraints in place to stop modern technology and techniques from taking the visuals too far off course.

The dedication and authenticity of the team behind the revival might have been questioned before release, but now it’s in indefensible position. Houston confirmed to Cariety that Castorena consulted with him extensively, getting tools of the trade for the new show from the original and even going so far as to utilize some 30-year old storyboards that hadn’t made it to the original show. This intentional and painstaking retention of the original feel and aesthetic coupled with the amazingly updated visual fidelity and colors has been instrumental in the revival show’s instant popularity. The fittingly mature storylines, such as the episode 5 events that required the fired showrunner to break his silence on the show to elaborate on, also go a long way in catering to and satisfying the now adult OG fans of the series.

Despite the clear success of Marvel’s revival, competitor DC’s head honcho James Gunn has declined to give any of their show the X-Men ‘97 treatment, despite the company arguably having the stronger animated library and a strong case to be made for a return on many of them. His reasoning for not chasing a trend is certainly valid, so fans will have to wait and hope that new offerings like Creature Commandoes live up to the quality of the likes of the original X-Men and Batman: The Animated Series.

The ongoing first season of X-Men ‘97 is currently available to stream on Disney+, with the final episode set to air on May 15th.

X-Men ’97

The animated X-Men team returns in the Disney Plus reboot, X-Men ’97. With Professor X gone, Cyclops, Wolverine, Jean Grey, and the rest of the mutants find themselves under the leadership of Magneto and facing a new threat. X-Men ’97 is the first project under the newly created Marvel Animation banner.

Release Date: March 20, 2024
Cast: Jennifer Hale , Ray Chase , Cal Dodd , Lenore Zann , George Buza
Seasons: 1
Studio: Marvel Animation
Creator: Beau DeMayo
Number of Episodes: 10
Streaming Service(s): Disney Plus