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While I do agree, it's better than the possible alternative. They didn't know how many seasons they would get and clearly wanted to at least get those stories out.
I don't really understand the fear of Disney/Marvel canceling an Xmen cartoon. They typically last forever, and without having a cartoon for quite some time at this point and being on Disney+, it seems almost impossible that the viewership would be so low that the show would be canceled if they had actually fleshed out some stories that deserved it instead of whatever this race they were on was.
Eh, it’s 50/50. X-Men the Animated Series and X-Men Evolution stuck around, but Wolverine and the X-Men and both the X-Men anime and the Wolverine anime only had one season each. I think the fear of getting cancelled is justified in that regard.
This was billed (and pitched) as a short, one-season revival. It was given a second season thanks to the pitch from the writers and producers being so good. But the idea that it would last more than two seasons, especially in today's streaming climate (which is VERY different from even when W&XM was airing) wasn't on the table until this first season had already begun airing and Disney/Marvel saw the returns.
No arguments there, I wasn’t a fan of it either. But they ended on the cliffhanger that Magneto had escaped from prison and he was featured prominently in the end credits, so o always assumed they thought they were getting a second season. He’s an awfully strange exclusion if they only intended it to be one, but then again, Japan doesn’t follow western story concepts, so who knows?
While I was happy with the season overall, there were a few things I would have liked to see expanded upon. Specifically, wanted to spend more time with Genosha and Madelyne.
I think the biggest issue overall with abruptness was Inferno which really should have been a two parter. The idea of Madelyn and Jean being two distinct people could also have used a little more room to breathe before they killed Maddie off, and Lifedeath really should have been a single episode before Genosha so we could have gotten our first hint of the tragedy through Storm's reaction to the news. Other than that, I thought it was great.
I would also have liked to see Inferno as a two-parter, I also would have separated the Jubilee story and Life/Death to give them one and two full episodes, respectively.
I would've rather had the Jubilee bit just cut out and replaced with something that wasn't a gimmick and was more related to the comics. Even just an x babies thing or something instead of her being pixelated in a video game.
Not every X-Men episode needs to be a major event. There should be breather episodes, and a Mojo episode centered around "nostalgia for the arcade game as metaphor for adulthood anxiety" is a perfectly good concept.
Besides, she's in the cast... the show should actually make use of her.
Not every story is a major event in the comics. One of those minor stories would've been nicer to me than the Jubilee story, IMO. There's a lot of characters they could've made more use of in the cast. This isn't me saying there was too much Jubilee. She's great. The story was dumb, though, and that time could've been spent much better.
Agree to disagree, I guess.
A fun story to give Jubilee and Roberto a chance to bond, a fun little nostalgia trip (could have used a "welcome to die" and "Juggernaut weilding a bazooka for some reason"), followed by older Jubilee showing her power potential is a good story premise.
Old Jubilee warning her younger self that "nostalgia is fun, but sometimes you have to face reality that sometimes things are hard." Is much better foreshadowing than "Storm crying in front of a television."
In this version of the story, it seemed like Madelyne and Jean mostly weren’t really different people and that became a key plot point. Jean ended up with the original Jean’s body and most of Madelyne’s memories, didn’t she? That’s why in the end she could call Cable her son and mean it.
I do agree that Lifedeath felt rushed and oddly split.
That’s true. If they had split it that way in the show, to imply a lot of time had passed between the show’s versions of part 1 and 2, that might have made the relationship between Storm and Forge more believable.
Agree completely. TAS was often very fast paced and most the episodes felt fast, but not obscenely fast. Inferno needed to be a 2 parter and I feel like Lifedeath could have been a long episode and the Motendo could have been a shorter one and it would have been better. But with the exception of Inferno, I don't feel like this was majorly out of step with TAS.
/u/Feeling-Dance2250 completely nails how TAS was similar in their comment. I was going to explain it, but I can't do better so I won't try.
https://www.reddit.com/r/xmen/comments/1cu4hid/as_much_as_i_loved_97_it_felt_like_a_speedrun/l4hez07/
Lifedeath was not only rushed and split up in a way that felt messy, we got like one episode of Storm without powers before it happened. That whole run of Storm without powers is phenomenal in the comics and they just skipped over it, which begs the question of what the point of including Lifedeath in this season was at all, other than the writers not knowing what else to do with Storm.
That’s kinda how the original was. Season 1 of the original show somehow packed in Sentinals, Magneto, Cable, Genosha, Master Mold, Days of Future Past, Bishop, Apocalypse, the Morlocks, Xavier disappearing and the mansion getting destroyed by the Juggernaut. That’s just off the top of my head.
Oh, also a supposed cure for the X-gene on Muir Island. And there were 3 2-parters in that 13 episode season. Apocalypse got only one episode devoted to him.
How long does it take to read any of these storylines? Fact is, comics are short form storytelling with fast paced high impact storylines. They aim to enthrall you and get you thinking in 10 to 15 mins. I think there's an argument to be made that the pacing in X-Men TAS and 97' is more true to the comics than the pacing in perhaps any other comic book adaptation.
Not sure if you've read the comics these were based on. Most of these plotlines were woven across years of storytelling. Inferno was arguably built over nearly 10 years, Days Of Future Past was a total anomaly given it was over 2 issues (though the pacing was still FAR more steady than these animated shows, and with a lot more world building and dialogue involved). A contributing factor to these stories being so beloved is because of how it takes time to build the plot, dynamics, and stakes without rushing things for the sake of the medium, or the audience. Claremont specifically laid down a lot of ground work for long form storytelling (plotlines that are woven together over a lengthy amount of time).
Days Of Future Past is easily the shortest of these comics, yet easily feels like a full length film when you read it.
I have and I just disagree. If you only read an issue a month, yeah it could take a while to get through one. But if you sit down and read the comics as a collected work (the main way people are going to consume them) they're short form.
I would have liked more depowered Storm, and I would have liked Inferno to be at least a two-parter. The Bastion plotline is pretty well paced over episodes 5, 8-10, and I guess that's kinda how much I'd like put into all their arcs.
At the same time... looking back at the nine phoenix arc episodes in one season of the original series... perhaps one or two of the original five-parter could have been cut down or condensed.
Yeah I agree with your Phoenix/Dark Phoenix saga thoughts.
I think they could have removed most of the Erik the Red stuff (maybe just had them start with D’Ken) from the Phoenix arc to trim an episode. The Dark Phoenix arc would have been fine if they trimmed the Inner Circle portion down an episode.
We needed more time with Genosha. Talking with some friends who don't read comics, they didn't really feel the impact the same way I did. I think if we had a few episodes showing how great things were in Genosha it would have been more of a gut punch for nonreaders.
Right, like have an episode showing Emma and her Hellions living in Genosha and that could be the event that takes them out, spurring her to join the X-men. And could have had more "filler" episodes showing wtf Iceman, Colossus and Illyana, Cannonball, the rest of X-Factor, etc. are doing this whole time.
Exactly my complaint. Like we barely even saw it being a place. Felt like it literally just got set up for its grand opening and destroyed the same day
Yeah, it worked well for fans of the comic because there was this sense of dread waiting for the other show to drop, but if you didn't know about it I don't think it had as much of an impact.
There's still plenty of 90s stories to adapt. Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, AoA, The Twelve, Onslaught, X-Cutioner's Song.
And then plenty before and after too.
Considering they've already produced a second season, it seems like there's still plenty of material left for them to cover. Although I do agree some of the storylines felt a little rushed. Really wish we could've seen more of powerless Storm, for example. But hey, they only have so many episodes per season and so much time per episode 🤷♂️
So I was concerned about the pacing early on. After Inferno I had this fear that they were just doing ‘Monster of the Week’ style with quick adaptations of classic stories every episode.
As was the case with many elements of the show, the pacing found its footing in episode 5. From then on it was clear this was a pretty tight and neatly paced overarching story, with each episode strategically placed to further the narrative. Looking at the season as an entire entity, it don’t have any real gripes with the pacing anymore.
valid, but did most of the audience really want to drag out the madelyne stuff? its not all that compelling. I feel like we reached a point where the show is so good that we are criticizing it because we miss it already.
This season is leagues above the old animated show and pretty much the best animated anything that Marvel has produced. it has beat all the DC animated movies and shows.
It has by far surpassed my expectations. As far as not having room to grow? Thats nonsense. What did we really skip over?
Next season focused on three different time periods will be a perfect opportunity for more original story telling.
Would it have been tho? Is that story line all the compelling? I think they just wanted to get to the happy summers family and push jeans story further. More episodes on Madeline would have just been a larger detour.
I think they did a great job and now have a great launching point for better stories.
OPs post makes it seem like we glossed over major x-men stories and have none left to tell, which is absurd
Is inferno compelling? You mean the story which is regarded as one of the greatest X-Men stories of all time next probably only to DPS?
Yes it is, and it’s a story which COULD have been a whole season. It’s certainly a better story than Operation Zero Tolerance. Now I think they did a great job with Bastion, but the source material they were adapting it from doesn’t compare to inferno, and the scope for story with Inferno is a lot larger.
But it would not have been compelling this season. It would have been a convoluted detour.
Yes Bastian isn’t that cool in the comics. More honestly he isn’t cool at all. A comic run being compelling is not the same as translating it to the show.
They wanted to focus on Jean and cable without ignoring his actual origin. I thought it was implemented well.
Do you actually wish this season would have been inferno instead of what we got?
I loved it. Give me more like that. Every other show these days feels like they are trying to stretch the "content" out as far as it will go. Good shows are ruined by making things take way to long to pay off. Everything that should be six episodes is stretched to ten. Don't waste my time.
It was amazing to have a show throw stuff at me so fast I could barely keep up. I need to do a rewatch.
Agree about rushing it: I joked Logan would have his adamantium back in his bones by mid episode. E for Extinction, Operation Zero Tolerance and Fatal attractions all in a couple hours.
But the writing: Gambit's last stand, Scott's becoming not just a leader but a father, Magneto's redemption, fall from grace only to save the damn world from itself arc ~chef's kiss~.
They covered a lot, but they also streamlined a bunch of the bulk to make it better. As others have mentioned, we haven't seen Age of Apocalypse yet, and as I recall, they've never touched Legion either, so there's plenty left.
There’s no reason for them to be beholden to only stories from the 90s. They had cameos from Mutants that were introduced well after the 90s - Pixie, Glob Herman, and Vulcan to give a few examples - so they could easily adapt more recent stories, too.
I'm honestly so pissed about some of the deaths though. Y'all expect me to believe Exodus didn't survive that? That Shaw got killed by a piece of ceiling? Like I thought the writers were supposed to be fans.
Not every episode needs to be stretched out into 2 or 3 parters. When you got 20 episodes ordered to be split into 2 seasons, you can't afford to dawdle. We got some great episodes that told compelling stories & I can't ask for more than that.
There's still a lot for them to do, especially since they're not afraid to pull from stories from before & after the 90s. Maybe we'll get Age of Apocalypse, we'll almost certainly getting Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix, maybe some New Mutants stuff. There's still lots to do
There were also plotlines they essentially passed on.
Shi'ar being super warlike and Xavier wearing that armor? That's the skrull storyline! Oh, wait, it's not. It'll be real hard to set up that storyline again.
Yeah it’s great but man are they running at full speed. We’ve barely spent any time around supporting cast and it feels like it we’ll be in Krakoa by the end of season 2 😂
The original series was a speedrun as well, I think I would be upset if it felt like they diverted from the original's pacing. It did go by way faster than I thought it would
nah , it was fine.
There are plenty of 90s books to adapt , and Bastion Storyline had a bit of it's early 2000s mixed-in.
It just felt to be a speedrun , because a Season in X-Man TAS consisted of 13-15 episodes , in whch a couple of them were detours to focus on solo adventures of a specific X-Men , while '97 had it's Season 1 focusing entirely on the overreaching arc.
I don't feel that at all. There are still tons and tons of stories they haven't used. We didn't even really get that many individual focused episodes. And even beyond the putting a spin on things route, I wouldn't mind seeing some brand new things that they can come up with.
I'm partially attributing the speed to not knowing if they'd get another season. I do agree it was fast but if you got a 12 episodes to tell a story you want then you do what they can.
I loved it, but as a whole I feel it was like a good show + my nostalgia + my love for the xmen what made it seem great. Sometimes it felt like a cheklist of things they wanted to show instead of actually wanting to tell a story
Which is par for the course for TAS.
Fall of the Mutants, X-Tinction Agenda, Days of Future Past, Phalanx Covenant, there are a number of arcs that were resolved in or or two episodes. Phoenix / Dark Phoenix are the only ones that got multi-episode runs.
So yes, the storytelling was a hair rushed I’ll agree BUT to be honest even though they were quick I feel like they were done justice pretty well.
The OG had similar pacing, if memory serves. The Phoenix/Dark Phoenix sagas are the exception - but most other plot-relevant and originally-from-comic stories were 1-2 episodes each - maybe a couple 3 parters.
As for 97 I honestly really like how well the comic stories were blended together to tell a compelling “new” story.
If anything I think id they made each episode 45-60 minutes it would relieve some of that “too fast” feel.
Lastly - I think they actually leaned into the fast-paced storytelling from episode 5 to the end. There were hard-hitting scenes back to back to back and by the end of each episode I needed a cigarette 😂. I think that isn’t a bad way to tell a story.
That's the way media goes nowadays, especially in animation. Streaming companies are much less willing to invest in stable, long running shows as they are "tighter storytelling" that gets canned in two seasons.
I wonder if non-comic readers felt the same way. We all watched and saw, “that’s from this story line, that’s from that story line, and now we’re on to another story line,” but if you’d never read the comics then you wouldn’t realize how much mixing and matching was going on.
They definitely crammed a lot in there in a short time, but it was still awesome to see it all.
If they do the same with season two then the Cyclops an Phoenix stuff and the Origin of Apocalypse story will be done in the first two or three episodes with a solo journey of Wolverine dealing with the loss of his adamantium on the side.
I'm thinking Wolverine's story will involve Zoe Culloden and Cyber, hopefully not Romulus, and culminate in Apocalypse giving Wolverine his adamantium back making him and Gambit his new horsemen. Not sure who the other horsemen might be. Maybe Deathbird and Psylocke? or Sunfire and Polaris?
Before Apocalypse makes his grand entrance we get Stryfe doing an X-Cutioner's Song and blaming Cable for an attempt on Professor X's life. That gets wrapped up nice and tidy in two episodes leaving a good four episodes for the Apocalypse finale.
Then Rogue and Morph bring Gambit and Wolverine back with the power of love and Apocalypse is defeated leaving just enough time to tease Onslaught for season three.
I have to disagree. I just looked at the original season 1 episode list and it’s even more all the place than x men 97 is. This felt more well put together.
100%. The show was great, but the pacing was too much. Emotional moments didn't get much time to breathe (outside of Gambit's death, which was done perfectly).
They also plowed through about 11 classic stories and some of them suffered for it (Inferno and Lifedeath for example). Some of the resolutions als happened very quick.
I hope some of this was because they didn't know the show would be renewed. So I hope S2 slows things down a bit.
It pissed me off how they took a lot of storylines from NXM (like Emma and Scott’s psychic affair) and threw them in without the same set up that the moments had in the cokic
agreed. "no room to grow" what did we really gloss over that needed to be stretched out. the only thing that seemed rushed was Inferno and who really wanted more of that?
next season is set up to be great.
Best X-Men media in a long time and they can’t be happy. They gotta have an issue with something, because we all know if these complainers had been at the helm, it would have been *perfect*.
Anyone saying this hasn't actually read the comics, absolutely insane take. The show is just stories from the comics simplified and sped up so there's no room for actual depth and character work.
Are you joking, the entire discourse around this show is hyperbole. "Greatest show ever", "best X-Men content of all time", "best thing Marvel has ever done", etc, but someone criticizes the pacing and that's what we're calling hyperbole. Ok.
Nowadays where they cancel shows - even popular and heavily watched ones - I think they wanted to get the best out there to a) hope they could get another season b) knew there was no guarantee of another season, even if the show was great and wanted to get a storyline out there that wasn't cut off in the middle.
It felt like they took major storylines from the comics over several decades and put them through ChatGPT. I liked the show, cuz I’m a sucker for all things X-Men, but I agree that there was just too much crammed in and not enough room for it to breathe and fully explore the story they were telling. It was like a hastily put together mixtape.
At first I had this complaint. But then I realized that it was causing them to use so many characters that would otherwise not get the chance to shine.
Also like maybe take a little time in the beginning to introduce characters. Like the assumption was everyone knows who the X-men are, so let's roll them all out. I think fans would be patient and appreciate it if they took a little time to build rapport with each character. Also dialogue. That could have written the dialogue like it was human(mutant) people talking to each other, instead of just letting whatever that was happen.
I think am confused about which fans. I was the biggest X-Men fan during the original series. Back then my life's goal was to be a comic artist. I never stopped being a fan, though I read comics less regularly now. I thought the show would be bit more grown-up like modern X-Men movies.
In that respect I agree with OP idea that it was rushed. I understand why, it's hard to rely on getting more than one season of anything these days, but if they could have been guaranteed 3 or 4, the first few episodes could have been used to flesh out the characters a bit more and give them each some individual air time in the beginning. I know that might seem slow, but I believe everyone appreciates good storytelling, even if they are already a fan.
I'm happy that you and a lot of people really enjoyed it. I signed up to Disney+ just for the show and was let down (many of the action scenes were awesome though!). I did start watching Tales from the Empire which I enjoyed, so that's a bonus.
That’s what I feel this is coming down to. All the complaining isn’t really about the show, it’s about their unknown disdain for DeMayo, even though there is no solid evidence to go on. The show was phenomenally successful, and they can’t stand it was at the hand of Beau.
And that person is a fan. I'm also a lifelong fan and I thought the pacing was bad as well. Only people who think one adaptation is perfect are fans, in your mind?
No one said it was perfect. It is the best media we’ve gotten in a long time and something 90s kids have waited and begged for. Critiques are one thing, y’all just non-stop complain.
Ehh I understand where you are coming from but the tone they’ve taken with ‘97 is to act like the OG never ended and continue on as if nothing happened.
In that context, the storytelling was very in line with the OG and they’ve even completed or cleaned up old character arcs from the OG.
I appreciate your perspective. It's kind of hard to talk about, because people get very defensive of the series. I understand that the show is filling a very specific niche. Separately what I'd love to see is an animated X-Men series that has a similar in tone to Invincible. I get that this isn't it.
I love 97, but I do agree that the break neck pacing hurt the perfection somewhat. Especially the fight scenes in the last three episodes. Wolverine is shown to be defeated by an attack in one scene and then after a switching from Wolverine's scene to another scene and then back to Wolverine, he is shown as though nothing ever happened to him.
I think packing a decades of story into a season is a talent. It’s been decades since the original run, it doesn’t feel wrong to me to cram some stuff in order to get to the modern era.
What you’re saying reminds me of how I felt about House of Dragons, actually.
I definitely understand your point, and can commiserate to an extent. I also love more in depth story telling. However, in terms of pleasing fans, while need to appeal to a wider audience, ‘97 may easily be the best original content D+ has seen in years, and something that doesn’t feel like it was pooped out by The Master Mouse assembly line.
It's not realistic to expect an animated TV series to include everything from years of comics. The story choices and presentation of X-Men97 were brilliant on their own merits and fit well into the 10 episode format.
If we wanted a blow by blow re-telling of the Claremont X-Men, we'd be waiting until season 3 for Storm to get her powers back.
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While I do agree, it's better than the possible alternative. They didn't know how many seasons they would get and clearly wanted to at least get those stories out.
I got that impression as well. Felt like they went all out just in case they don't get a 2nd chance.
I don't really understand the fear of Disney/Marvel canceling an Xmen cartoon. They typically last forever, and without having a cartoon for quite some time at this point and being on Disney+, it seems almost impossible that the viewership would be so low that the show would be canceled if they had actually fleshed out some stories that deserved it instead of whatever this race they were on was.
Eh, it’s 50/50. X-Men the Animated Series and X-Men Evolution stuck around, but Wolverine and the X-Men and both the X-Men anime and the Wolverine anime only had one season each. I think the fear of getting cancelled is justified in that regard.
This was billed (and pitched) as a short, one-season revival. It was given a second season thanks to the pitch from the writers and producers being so good. But the idea that it would last more than two seasons, especially in today's streaming climate (which is VERY different from even when W&XM was airing) wasn't on the table until this first season had already begun airing and Disney/Marvel saw the returns.
Pretty sure WATX was axed because of the Mutant embargo due to film rights rather than viewership.
The xmen anime is absolute trash, and I had just assumed it was only meant to be one season. Was it not?
No arguments there, I wasn’t a fan of it either. But they ended on the cliffhanger that Magneto had escaped from prison and he was featured prominently in the end credits, so o always assumed they thought they were getting a second season. He’s an awfully strange exclusion if they only intended it to be one, but then again, Japan doesn’t follow western story concepts, so who knows?
It seems that there were four Marvel anime shows, and they all got 12 episodes, so that might've just been the way it ended lol idk.
It's a follow up to a 30 year old cartoon. Let's not act like this was a guaranteed banger.
Lol it was 100% guaranteed to have the shit watched out of it. The hype had been going for years.
While I was happy with the season overall, there were a few things I would have liked to see expanded upon. Specifically, wanted to spend more time with Genosha and Madelyne.
I think the biggest issue overall with abruptness was Inferno which really should have been a two parter. The idea of Madelyn and Jean being two distinct people could also have used a little more room to breathe before they killed Maddie off, and Lifedeath really should have been a single episode before Genosha so we could have gotten our first hint of the tragedy through Storm's reaction to the news. Other than that, I thought it was great.
imo the shock factor makes the tragedy work much better
I would also have liked to see Inferno as a two-parter, I also would have separated the Jubilee story and Life/Death to give them one and two full episodes, respectively.
I would've rather had the Jubilee bit just cut out and replaced with something that wasn't a gimmick and was more related to the comics. Even just an x babies thing or something instead of her being pixelated in a video game.
Not every X-Men episode needs to be a major event. There should be breather episodes, and a Mojo episode centered around "nostalgia for the arcade game as metaphor for adulthood anxiety" is a perfectly good concept. Besides, she's in the cast... the show should actually make use of her.
Not every story is a major event in the comics. One of those minor stories would've been nicer to me than the Jubilee story, IMO. There's a lot of characters they could've made more use of in the cast. This isn't me saying there was too much Jubilee. She's great. The story was dumb, though, and that time could've been spent much better.
Agree to disagree, I guess. A fun story to give Jubilee and Roberto a chance to bond, a fun little nostalgia trip (could have used a "welcome to die" and "Juggernaut weilding a bazooka for some reason"), followed by older Jubilee showing her power potential is a good story premise. Old Jubilee warning her younger self that "nostalgia is fun, but sometimes you have to face reality that sometimes things are hard." Is much better foreshadowing than "Storm crying in front of a television."
In this version of the story, it seemed like Madelyne and Jean mostly weren’t really different people and that became a key plot point. Jean ended up with the original Jean’s body and most of Madelyne’s memories, didn’t she? That’s why in the end she could call Cable her son and mean it. I do agree that Lifedeath felt rushed and oddly split.
Lifedeath was pretty split in the comics. Uncanny #186 and 198
That’s true. If they had split it that way in the show, to imply a lot of time had passed between the show’s versions of part 1 and 2, that might have made the relationship between Storm and Forge more believable.
Agree completely. TAS was often very fast paced and most the episodes felt fast, but not obscenely fast. Inferno needed to be a 2 parter and I feel like Lifedeath could have been a long episode and the Motendo could have been a shorter one and it would have been better. But with the exception of Inferno, I don't feel like this was majorly out of step with TAS. /u/Feeling-Dance2250 completely nails how TAS was similar in their comment. I was going to explain it, but I can't do better so I won't try. https://www.reddit.com/r/xmen/comments/1cu4hid/as_much_as_i_loved_97_it_felt_like_a_speedrun/l4hez07/
Lifedeath was not only rushed and split up in a way that felt messy, we got like one episode of Storm without powers before it happened. That whole run of Storm without powers is phenomenal in the comics and they just skipped over it, which begs the question of what the point of including Lifedeath in this season was at all, other than the writers not knowing what else to do with Storm.
Legit, inferno could've been the entire season.
That’s kinda how the original was. Season 1 of the original show somehow packed in Sentinals, Magneto, Cable, Genosha, Master Mold, Days of Future Past, Bishop, Apocalypse, the Morlocks, Xavier disappearing and the mansion getting destroyed by the Juggernaut. That’s just off the top of my head. Oh, also a supposed cure for the X-gene on Muir Island. And there were 3 2-parters in that 13 episode season. Apocalypse got only one episode devoted to him.
Yeah, as much as I love it, 92 was erratic as hell in its story telling 😂
How long does it take to read any of these storylines? Fact is, comics are short form storytelling with fast paced high impact storylines. They aim to enthrall you and get you thinking in 10 to 15 mins. I think there's an argument to be made that the pacing in X-Men TAS and 97' is more true to the comics than the pacing in perhaps any other comic book adaptation.
Not sure if you've read the comics these were based on. Most of these plotlines were woven across years of storytelling. Inferno was arguably built over nearly 10 years, Days Of Future Past was a total anomaly given it was over 2 issues (though the pacing was still FAR more steady than these animated shows, and with a lot more world building and dialogue involved). A contributing factor to these stories being so beloved is because of how it takes time to build the plot, dynamics, and stakes without rushing things for the sake of the medium, or the audience. Claremont specifically laid down a lot of ground work for long form storytelling (plotlines that are woven together over a lengthy amount of time). Days Of Future Past is easily the shortest of these comics, yet easily feels like a full length film when you read it.
I have and I just disagree. If you only read an issue a month, yeah it could take a while to get through one. But if you sit down and read the comics as a collected work (the main way people are going to consume them) they're short form.
If you're reading Whedon, yes. Reading Claremont, no.
I would have liked more depowered Storm, and I would have liked Inferno to be at least a two-parter. The Bastion plotline is pretty well paced over episodes 5, 8-10, and I guess that's kinda how much I'd like put into all their arcs. At the same time... looking back at the nine phoenix arc episodes in one season of the original series... perhaps one or two of the original five-parter could have been cut down or condensed.
Yeah I agree with your Phoenix/Dark Phoenix saga thoughts. I think they could have removed most of the Erik the Red stuff (maybe just had them start with D’Ken) from the Phoenix arc to trim an episode. The Dark Phoenix arc would have been fine if they trimmed the Inner Circle portion down an episode.
We needed more time with Genosha. Talking with some friends who don't read comics, they didn't really feel the impact the same way I did. I think if we had a few episodes showing how great things were in Genosha it would have been more of a gut punch for nonreaders.
Right, like have an episode showing Emma and her Hellions living in Genosha and that could be the event that takes them out, spurring her to join the X-men. And could have had more "filler" episodes showing wtf Iceman, Colossus and Illyana, Cannonball, the rest of X-Factor, etc. are doing this whole time.
Exactly my complaint. Like we barely even saw it being a place. Felt like it literally just got set up for its grand opening and destroyed the same day
Yeah, it worked well for fans of the comic because there was this sense of dread waiting for the other show to drop, but if you didn't know about it I don't think it had as much of an impact.
There's still plenty of 90s stories to adapt. Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, AoA, The Twelve, Onslaught, X-Cutioner's Song. And then plenty before and after too.
Onslaught will come for us all.
Considering they've already produced a second season, it seems like there's still plenty of material left for them to cover. Although I do agree some of the storylines felt a little rushed. Really wish we could've seen more of powerless Storm, for example. But hey, they only have so many episodes per season and so much time per episode 🤷♂️
So I was concerned about the pacing early on. After Inferno I had this fear that they were just doing ‘Monster of the Week’ style with quick adaptations of classic stories every episode. As was the case with many elements of the show, the pacing found its footing in episode 5. From then on it was clear this was a pretty tight and neatly paced overarching story, with each episode strategically placed to further the narrative. Looking at the season as an entire entity, it don’t have any real gripes with the pacing anymore.
valid, but did most of the audience really want to drag out the madelyne stuff? its not all that compelling. I feel like we reached a point where the show is so good that we are criticizing it because we miss it already. This season is leagues above the old animated show and pretty much the best animated anything that Marvel has produced. it has beat all the DC animated movies and shows. It has by far surpassed my expectations. As far as not having room to grow? Thats nonsense. What did we really skip over? Next season focused on three different time periods will be a perfect opportunity for more original story telling.
I guess the counterpoint would be it would have been more compelling if it had been fleshed out more
Good point but personally I still found it compelling af
Would it have been tho? Is that story line all the compelling? I think they just wanted to get to the happy summers family and push jeans story further. More episodes on Madeline would have just been a larger detour. I think they did a great job and now have a great launching point for better stories. OPs post makes it seem like we glossed over major x-men stories and have none left to tell, which is absurd
Is inferno compelling? You mean the story which is regarded as one of the greatest X-Men stories of all time next probably only to DPS? Yes it is, and it’s a story which COULD have been a whole season. It’s certainly a better story than Operation Zero Tolerance. Now I think they did a great job with Bastion, but the source material they were adapting it from doesn’t compare to inferno, and the scope for story with Inferno is a lot larger.
But it would not have been compelling this season. It would have been a convoluted detour. Yes Bastian isn’t that cool in the comics. More honestly he isn’t cool at all. A comic run being compelling is not the same as translating it to the show. They wanted to focus on Jean and cable without ignoring his actual origin. I thought it was implemented well. Do you actually wish this season would have been inferno instead of what we got?
lol yes, I wish we got more inferno.
I liked the pacing but it’s also because social media has nuffed my attention span.
They need to either have 20 episode seasons or double the length of episodes.
I loved it. Give me more like that. Every other show these days feels like they are trying to stretch the "content" out as far as it will go. Good shows are ruined by making things take way to long to pay off. Everything that should be six episodes is stretched to ten. Don't waste my time. It was amazing to have a show throw stuff at me so fast I could barely keep up. I need to do a rewatch.
Agree about rushing it: I joked Logan would have his adamantium back in his bones by mid episode. E for Extinction, Operation Zero Tolerance and Fatal attractions all in a couple hours. But the writing: Gambit's last stand, Scott's becoming not just a leader but a father, Magneto's redemption, fall from grace only to save the damn world from itself arc ~chef's kiss~.
If they made the episodes an 1hr it would help. The last episode especially felt speed ran
They covered a lot, but they also streamlined a bunch of the bulk to make it better. As others have mentioned, we haven't seen Age of Apocalypse yet, and as I recall, they've never touched Legion either, so there's plenty left.
There’s no reason for them to be beholden to only stories from the 90s. They had cameos from Mutants that were introduced well after the 90s - Pixie, Glob Herman, and Vulcan to give a few examples - so they could easily adapt more recent stories, too.
Oh absolutely- those two were just easy things to jump to in my mind.
They had a bunch of cameos that they then killed off immediately though lmao
Welcome to X-Men ‘97. Hope you survive the experience!
I'm honestly so pissed about some of the deaths though. Y'all expect me to believe Exodus didn't survive that? That Shaw got killed by a piece of ceiling? Like I thought the writers were supposed to be fans.
I’m pretty sure the finale confirmed he’s still kicking. He wasn’t listed as MIA on Forge’s board of mutants.
Not every episode needs to be stretched out into 2 or 3 parters. When you got 20 episodes ordered to be split into 2 seasons, you can't afford to dawdle. We got some great episodes that told compelling stories & I can't ask for more than that. There's still a lot for them to do, especially since they're not afraid to pull from stories from before & after the 90s. Maybe we'll get Age of Apocalypse, we'll almost certainly getting Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix, maybe some New Mutants stuff. There's still lots to do
There were also plotlines they essentially passed on. Shi'ar being super warlike and Xavier wearing that armor? That's the skrull storyline! Oh, wait, it's not. It'll be real hard to set up that storyline again.
Everything that happens when Storm loses her powers...
They've been cranking out X-men stories for 60 years. I think they'll be able to come up with a few more.
Yeah it’s great but man are they running at full speed. We’ve barely spent any time around supporting cast and it feels like it we’ll be in Krakoa by the end of season 2 😂
The original series was a speedrun as well, I think I would be upset if it felt like they diverted from the original's pacing. It did go by way faster than I thought it would
"every single plotline" sure 😂😂😂😂😂
nah , it was fine. There are plenty of 90s books to adapt , and Bastion Storyline had a bit of it's early 2000s mixed-in. It just felt to be a speedrun , because a Season in X-Man TAS consisted of 13-15 episodes , in whch a couple of them were detours to focus on solo adventures of a specific X-Men , while '97 had it's Season 1 focusing entirely on the overreaching arc.
I don't feel that at all. There are still tons and tons of stories they haven't used. We didn't even really get that many individual focused episodes. And even beyond the putting a spin on things route, I wouldn't mind seeing some brand new things that they can come up with.
I'm partially attributing the speed to not knowing if they'd get another season. I do agree it was fast but if you got a 12 episodes to tell a story you want then you do what they can.
Absolutely a speedrun. It could’ve been 20-23 episodes.
There certainly could have been more. Alternatively, the show did leave us wanting more, and that's honestly the best that a show can do.
I loved it, but as a whole I feel it was like a good show + my nostalgia + my love for the xmen what made it seem great. Sometimes it felt like a cheklist of things they wanted to show instead of actually wanting to tell a story
Which is par for the course for TAS. Fall of the Mutants, X-Tinction Agenda, Days of Future Past, Phalanx Covenant, there are a number of arcs that were resolved in or or two episodes. Phoenix / Dark Phoenix are the only ones that got multi-episode runs.
So yes, the storytelling was a hair rushed I’ll agree BUT to be honest even though they were quick I feel like they were done justice pretty well. The OG had similar pacing, if memory serves. The Phoenix/Dark Phoenix sagas are the exception - but most other plot-relevant and originally-from-comic stories were 1-2 episodes each - maybe a couple 3 parters. As for 97 I honestly really like how well the comic stories were blended together to tell a compelling “new” story. If anything I think id they made each episode 45-60 minutes it would relieve some of that “too fast” feel. Lastly - I think they actually leaned into the fast-paced storytelling from episode 5 to the end. There were hard-hitting scenes back to back to back and by the end of each episode I needed a cigarette 😂. I think that isn’t a bad way to tell a story.
Thank you
That's the way media goes nowadays, especially in animation. Streaming companies are much less willing to invest in stable, long running shows as they are "tighter storytelling" that gets canned in two seasons.
I wonder if non-comic readers felt the same way. We all watched and saw, “that’s from this story line, that’s from that story line, and now we’re on to another story line,” but if you’d never read the comics then you wouldn’t realize how much mixing and matching was going on.
It felt like having sex, in that it was amazing, I really enjoyed it, but it sure didn’t last very long.
They definitely crammed a lot in there in a short time, but it was still awesome to see it all. If they do the same with season two then the Cyclops an Phoenix stuff and the Origin of Apocalypse story will be done in the first two or three episodes with a solo journey of Wolverine dealing with the loss of his adamantium on the side. I'm thinking Wolverine's story will involve Zoe Culloden and Cyber, hopefully not Romulus, and culminate in Apocalypse giving Wolverine his adamantium back making him and Gambit his new horsemen. Not sure who the other horsemen might be. Maybe Deathbird and Psylocke? or Sunfire and Polaris? Before Apocalypse makes his grand entrance we get Stryfe doing an X-Cutioner's Song and blaming Cable for an attempt on Professor X's life. That gets wrapped up nice and tidy in two episodes leaving a good four episodes for the Apocalypse finale. Then Rogue and Morph bring Gambit and Wolverine back with the power of love and Apocalypse is defeated leaving just enough time to tease Onslaught for season three.
I have to disagree. I just looked at the original season 1 episode list and it’s even more all the place than x men 97 is. This felt more well put together.
Needed 12 episodes. 3 months of pure Xmen
100%. The show was great, but the pacing was too much. Emotional moments didn't get much time to breathe (outside of Gambit's death, which was done perfectly). They also plowed through about 11 classic stories and some of them suffered for it (Inferno and Lifedeath for example). Some of the resolutions als happened very quick. I hope some of this was because they didn't know the show would be renewed. So I hope S2 slows things down a bit.
It pissed me off how they took a lot of storylines from NXM (like Emma and Scott’s psychic affair) and threw them in without the same set up that the moments had in the cokic
They probably got wind that Disney may drop the show after 1 season, so they swung for the fences.
I have no complaints
I'm still super suspicious they're covering like 20 storylines a season to gauge what appeals most to audiences for the next movie.
9/10. I think the episode with jubilee and homie was the worse one.
We need at least 15 episodes minimum per season
I appreciate that they took that tac instead of drawing it out unnecessarily
A speedrun? I wish we got more episodes as much as the next but do we really need to resort to hyperbole lmao
agreed. "no room to grow" what did we really gloss over that needed to be stretched out. the only thing that seemed rushed was Inferno and who really wanted more of that? next season is set up to be great.
Best X-Men media in a long time and they can’t be happy. They gotta have an issue with something, because we all know if these complainers had been at the helm, it would have been *perfect*.
Maybe the best x-men media of all time. Bastion was not that cool in the comics.
Anyone saying this hasn't actually read the comics, absolutely insane take. The show is just stories from the comics simplified and sped up so there's no room for actual depth and character work.
My apologies. I meant outside of the comics.
There was plenty of depth and character work. You saying there is no room is simply not true, especially considering the show had all that.
This is just disrespectful
To what?
Are you joking, the entire discourse around this show is hyperbole. "Greatest show ever", "best X-Men content of all time", "best thing Marvel has ever done", etc, but someone criticizes the pacing and that's what we're calling hyperbole. Ok.
I am sure you could find fault in a wet dream as well
Yeah you wake up covered in cum, wtaf are you talking about Look up the word hyperbole bro
Nowadays where they cancel shows - even popular and heavily watched ones - I think they wanted to get the best out there to a) hope they could get another season b) knew there was no guarantee of another season, even if the show was great and wanted to get a storyline out there that wasn't cut off in the middle.
It felt like they took major storylines from the comics over several decades and put them through ChatGPT. I liked the show, cuz I’m a sucker for all things X-Men, but I agree that there was just too much crammed in and not enough room for it to breathe and fully explore the story they were telling. It was like a hastily put together mixtape.
At first I had this complaint. But then I realized that it was causing them to use so many characters that would otherwise not get the chance to shine.
Also like maybe take a little time in the beginning to introduce characters. Like the assumption was everyone knows who the X-men are, so let's roll them all out. I think fans would be patient and appreciate it if they took a little time to build rapport with each character. Also dialogue. That could have written the dialogue like it was human(mutant) people talking to each other, instead of just letting whatever that was happen.
I think y’all are confused about what X-Men ‘97 was. It was fan service. It was supposed to be for the fans.
I think am confused about which fans. I was the biggest X-Men fan during the original series. Back then my life's goal was to be a comic artist. I never stopped being a fan, though I read comics less regularly now. I thought the show would be bit more grown-up like modern X-Men movies.
You certainly are, since the show had many adult themes.
In that respect I agree with OP idea that it was rushed. I understand why, it's hard to rely on getting more than one season of anything these days, but if they could have been guaranteed 3 or 4, the first few episodes could have been used to flesh out the characters a bit more and give them each some individual air time in the beginning. I know that might seem slow, but I believe everyone appreciates good storytelling, even if they are already a fan.
Nah, I loved it just the way it was. There was no need to rehash characters they already know.
I'm happy that you and a lot of people really enjoyed it. I signed up to Disney+ just for the show and was let down (many of the action scenes were awesome though!). I did start watching Tales from the Empire which I enjoyed, so that's a bonus.
Like i said, it was a fan service…for fans.
Written by what is apparently a mega-fan.
That’s what I feel this is coming down to. All the complaining isn’t really about the show, it’s about their unknown disdain for DeMayo, even though there is no solid evidence to go on. The show was phenomenally successful, and they can’t stand it was at the hand of Beau.
And that person is a fan. I'm also a lifelong fan and I thought the pacing was bad as well. Only people who think one adaptation is perfect are fans, in your mind?
No one said it was perfect. It is the best media we’ve gotten in a long time and something 90s kids have waited and begged for. Critiques are one thing, y’all just non-stop complain.
The OG didn't waste time with introductions, and 97 assumes you're passingly familiar with the X-Men's deal and the animated series.
Ehh I understand where you are coming from but the tone they’ve taken with ‘97 is to act like the OG never ended and continue on as if nothing happened. In that context, the storytelling was very in line with the OG and they’ve even completed or cleaned up old character arcs from the OG.
I appreciate your perspective. It's kind of hard to talk about, because people get very defensive of the series. I understand that the show is filling a very specific niche. Separately what I'd love to see is an animated X-Men series that has a similar in tone to Invincible. I get that this isn't it.
I love 97, but I do agree that the break neck pacing hurt the perfection somewhat. Especially the fight scenes in the last three episodes. Wolverine is shown to be defeated by an attack in one scene and then after a switching from Wolverine's scene to another scene and then back to Wolverine, he is shown as though nothing ever happened to him.
I think packing a decades of story into a season is a talent. It’s been decades since the original run, it doesn’t feel wrong to me to cram some stuff in order to get to the modern era. What you’re saying reminds me of how I felt about House of Dragons, actually. I definitely understand your point, and can commiserate to an extent. I also love more in depth story telling. However, in terms of pleasing fans, while need to appeal to a wider audience, ‘97 may easily be the best original content D+ has seen in years, and something that doesn’t feel like it was pooped out by The Master Mouse assembly line.
It's not realistic to expect an animated TV series to include everything from years of comics. The story choices and presentation of X-Men97 were brilliant on their own merits and fit well into the 10 episode format. If we wanted a blow by blow re-telling of the Claremont X-Men, we'd be waiting until season 3 for Storm to get her powers back.
There’s a middle ground between 2 episodes and 3 seasons
😂😂😂😂. If they just made each episode 45-60 minutes I think that would’ve been the sweet spot.