Rent X-Men: Series 1: Vol.1 (1992)

X-Men: Series 1: Vol.1 review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

There’s something to be said of Marvel Comics trying to adapt their most profoundly poignant of superhero ensembles to the small screen for a small audience. Marvel Comics cartoons in the 1980s were pretty limited to various iterations of Spider-Man and the studio behind those cartoons pretty much resorted to paycheck-ensuring shows like Muppet Babies and failed movie property adaptations such as Robocop. In fact, Marvel at one point siphoned off funds from a Robocop episode in order to pitch a pilot of X-Men. While the pilot didn’t exactly go far, it did prove that an X-Men cartoon as possible. And by 1992, Marvel moved ahead on adapting the comic book for a run on Fox Kids.

The good news about this animated version of X-Men is that it doesn’t shy away from being more honest and apt in portraying the comics. Aspects of discrimination, grief, and individualism are given air and a serious tone. The first episode follows Jubilee, a teenage mutant who struggles with her powers to create fireworks. She can’t make friends, her parents fear her, and a government organization of robot-producing bad guys wants to capture her for experiments. It’s only thanks to the X-Men that she is able to be saved from such tortures.

The first few episodes do a great job not only introducing the world through the eyes of Jubilee but also introducing the characters with their own conflicts. The love triangle of Wolverine, Cyclops, and Jean Gray becomes quite apparent and the early loss of the mutant Morph sets the tone that not every mission will be one that mutants will return from. As the show progresses, we get to see Magneto more as the civil rights figure that equates to Malcolm X with Professor Xavier obviously taking more of the Martin Luther King approach. Their feuds for acceptance really make the show more than just the mindless hero/villain arcs of previous Marvel Comics cartoons.

That being said, the show really is quite rough around the edges in its first season. For starters, the pacing is ridiculously fast. I get the feeling that a lot of the stories being pitched should’ve been two-parters considering how quickly the show cuts away from scenes and how fast the dialogue is spoken. I can only fathom that the staff was worried this show wouldn’t go far and that they wanted to tell as much of the X-Men stories as possible before the plug was pulled. Thankfully, X-Men was airing around the same time as Batman: The Animated Series, a show that even adults were starting to dig for being a more mature superhero show that could resonate across demographics. As such, X-Men would go on for five seasons, though they rarely eased up on this rushed format, even favoring it for the Spider-Man animated series.

Technically, the show does look magnificent. It retains a lot of the bold outlines of the comic books, favoring darker shadows and even some strong details in the look of the characters. The soundtrack is a perfectly moody synth that communicates the seriousness yet drive of the show, best showcased in the catchy opening song.

You can still see a bit of the Saturday morning handcuffs in this show, as with the Sentinels which seems so clumsy and easy to kill that they’re hardly a threat. The good news is that most of the thematic elements are present and the most appealing aspects of the X-Men comic book make it into this show. That’s more than can be said for most superhero series of the 1960s-1980s. X-Men came into the 1990s with arms swinging proudly.