X-Men: Evolution is one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons of all time! It really shows the growth in the quality of animated series from the crude beginnings of the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and even 90s. The animation was incredible, the writing sophisticated, and the voice cast top-notch.
The series was created as a companion to the live-action X-Men movie and debuted on Kids WB in the fall of November 2000, after the film had opened to great success that summer. However, the show didn’t adapt the movie and wasn’t set in the same continuity, although it did borrow a few elements from it. Two examples were the depictions of Rogue and Sabretooth, who more closely resembled the characters in the film than the then-current comics.
This was one of the first comic book cartoon series, however, that didn’t attempt to directly adapt the comics, as there had already been the 90s X-Men cartoon that had mostly covered that. This show deviated a great deal by recasting most of the cast as teenagers attending high school– as the X-Men had been depicted in the earlier comics.
Initially, that threw audiences for a loop and the show was met with mixed reactions. And like most programs, it started out very episodic with mostly standalone episodes, although some plot threads ran through the entire first season. The serialized storylines became even more prominent as the show went on, bringing a greater sense of maturity. The high school elements were also gradually deemphasized with more attention paid to the superheroic elements.
Unlike in the comics, the X-Men lived at the Xavier Institute but attended the public Bayville High School with average human teens as well as the Brotherhood, who weren’t the terrorist they are in the comics, but rather outcasts. The school’s principal was Raven Darkhölme, a.k.a. Mystique (voiced by Colleen Wheeler). She was later succeeded by Edward Kelly (Dale Wilson), who, in the comics, is known as Robert Edward Kelly and goes by Robert, and is an anti-mutant US Senator.
Prof. X (David Kaye), Wolverine (Scott McNeil), and Storm (Kristen Williamson) were adults and mentors to the fledgling X-Men team– Cyclops/Scott Summers (Kirby Morrow), Jean Grey (Venus Terzo), Nightcrawler/Kurt Wagner (Brad Swaile), and Shadowcat/Kitty Pryde (Maggie Blue O’Hara). Rogue (Meghan Black) eventually joined after a brief stint with the Brotherhood. The team was also joined by an original African American member, Spyke/Evan Daniels (Neil Denis), Storm’s nephew, who possesses powers similar to the comic book mutant Marrow.
While the show, in general, received a mixed reaction when it launched, many grew to love it over time. However, Spyke never won viewers over and was eventually written out in the third season, although he made guest appearances later.
Beast/Hank McCoy (Michael Kopsa) joined the cast in Season 2 as a teacher at Bayville High who leaves after he mutates into his familiar blue form, becoming another mentor at the Xavier Institute.
Mystique organized the Brotherhood on behalf of Magneto. While she oversaw them, these juvenile delinquents lived mostly unsupervised on their own. The group originally consisted of Avalanche/Lance Alvers (Christopher Grey), Toad/Todd Tolansky (Noel Fisher), Blob/Fred Dukes (Michael Dobson), and Quicksilver/Pietro Maximoff (Magneto’s son, voiced by (Richard Ian Cox). Rogue briefly allied herself with them in S1. They were later joined by Wanda Maximoff (Kelly Sheridan), Pietro’s mentally troubled twin sister, and Boom Boom/Tabitha Smith (Megan Leitch), who started out as a member of the “New Mutants.”
With this younger cast, various romantic subplots were woven throughout. Scott was in love with Jean, as he is in the comics, but initially, she had another boyfriend, the popular jock Duncan Matthews. Meanwhile, Scott is oblivious to the fact that Rogue has a crush on him. Elsewhere, Lance had a thing for Kitty, who seems to like him back, but the fact that they are on opposing sides kept them apart.
In the second season, the X-Men welcomed a new group of younger characters, the New Mutants– Bobby Drake/Iceman (Andrew Francis), Samuel Guthrie/Cannonball (Bill Switzer), Amara Aquilla/Magma (Alexandra Carter), Jubilation Lee/Jubilee (Chiara Zanni), Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane (Chantal Strand), Jamie Madrox/Multiple (David A. Kaye), Ray Carter/Berzerker (Tony Sampson), and Roberto Da Costa/Sunspot (Michael Coleman). Most of them were minor background characters, but Bobby Drake eventually ended up being, essentially, a full-blown X-Man, while, as mentioned, Boom Boom eventually switched sides to the Brotherhood. Of the rest, only Amara/Sunspot played a somewhat larger role.
As usual, Magneto (Christopher Judge) was the show’s main villain. After the Brotherhood proved to be both incompetent and not-that-evil, he formed a new team, the Acolytes which included Sabretooth (Michael Donovan), Gambit (Alessandro Juliani), Colossus (Michael Adamthwaite), Pyro (Trevor Devall), and on occasion, Mastermind (Campbell Lane).
Other villains included Apocalypse (David Kaye), Mesmero (Ron Halder), Juggernaut (Paul Dobson), Bolivar Trask (John Novak), and his creations, The Sentinels.
While other characters from the comics like Angel and Forge also popped up, X-Men: Evolution made a big contribution to the comics with the introduction of X-23, a teenage female clone of Wolverine who was added to the comics and even adopted the title of Wolverine for a while, and who appeared in the film Logan as portrayed by Dafne Keen.
X-Men: Evolution was created by Marty Isenberg, Robert N. Skir, and David Wise, with Greg Johnson serving as the primary writer. The show was produced by Film Roman and Marvel Studios.
Perhaps because X-Men: Evolution deviated so much from the comics, or because the first season was so episodic and simplistic, the show struggled with many tuning out after the first few episodes. Their loss. It only got better from there and it continued for two more great seasons filled with twists and turns and lots of emotional depth and growth for many characters, developing a devoted cult following.
But it doesn’t seem that the ratings were there. Keep in mind, this is around the time that Saturday morning cartoons were starting to fade away overall. (It can’t have helped that the accompanying Toy Biz action figures flopped.) The fourth and final season consisted of only nine episodes, but that at least allowed the creators to wrap up all major plot threads. The last episode even offered glimpses into the future which included Rogue flying the way that she did in the comics but didn’t in the movies or on this series. It also teased the Dark Phoenix Saga, which would have been the main storyline of Season 5 if it had gotten made. Ultimately, the series lasted for 52 episodes.
It did receive two Daytime Emmy Awards for Sound Mixing in 2001 and Sound Editing in 2003 and was nominated for other honors. Even though the toy line didn’t sell well, the Beast action figure won the Best Cover Award for Best Animated Action Figure.
X-Men: Evolution may or may not have inspired another, more successful cartoon– Teen Titans. The tones of the two shows were initially very different, but they remind me of one another because they both started pretty simplistic and episodic, but became richer and emotionally deeper over time with the introduction of longer, more dramatic storylines that spanned entire seasons. And of course, both featured teenage superheroes.
I’m not saying that the creators of Teen Titans, which debuted in 2003, knocked off X-Men: Evolution. But both shows have a lot of similarities and if you like one, you may like the other.
X-Men: Evolution did receive something of a follow-up, Wolverine and the X-Men, which was also created by Craig Kyle, Chris Yost, Steven E. Gordon, Greg Johnson, and Boyd Kirkland. This is not *officially* a continuation of X-Men: Evolution. Wolverine and the X-Men aired on Nickelodeon, but was not a success and ended after just one season, ending on a tragic cliffhanger which set up the uber-popular “Age of Apocalypse” storyline from the comics. How amazing would that have been?
Once again, if you liked X-Men: Evolution, you might also enjoy Wolverine and the X-Men and fortunately, both are readily available to stream on Disney+.
At the end of the day, X-Men: Evolution didn’t make the same impression as the 2000s X-Men cartoon, but by 2000, there was so much programming available everywhere that it was nearly impossible for a new cartoon to become a sensation the way shows in the 90s did.
But if you are open to alternate interpretations of beloved comic book characters and have never seen this series, I heartily recommend it!
Were you a fan of X-Men: Evolution? Comment below!
