If Marvel Studios is counting on mutants to breathe life back into their universe and ensure another decade of stories, they must remember one important thing: A lot has already been said about the X-Men. When Jon Favreau took over the character of Tony Stark/Iron Man only comic book readers and a few others knew about him. To tell the truth, there wasn’t much enthusiasm around a character who had been considered minor until then. It was all to be built.
The Children of the Atom were among the first exponents of the golden age of superheroes in cinema. With Spider-Man by Sam Raimi, the X-Men by Brian Singer had made it clear where we could go. In those first sets, a player also served young assistant producer named Kevin Feige. To complete an ideal “circle of cinematographic life”, the prospect of a return of film has emerged on the horizon in recent years X-Men to refresh the plots at Marvel Studios that the multiverse has crippled a bit. To bring new faces – to already well-known characters – and start all over again to expand the universe with a different perspective.
There is a problem, however. The nostalgia operation that goes by the name of X-Men ’97 it turned out to be much more ambitious than one might expect. An animated series that doesn’t play comfortably but, indeed, he uses the freedom guaranteed by his marginality with respect to the universe to experiment more than has ever been done with those characters. All of this is exciting to see in the series, but whoever has to deal with transporting mutants in live action will have a tough nut to crack.
Is there originality after X-Men ’97?
One rule of creativity is to never hold back. That is, we must not leave ideas unexpressed while waiting to exploit them further in the hope that the franchise will grow. Each film is important in itself and should contain all the insights needed to do something good. What he did Beau DeMayo it was really about putting as many ideas as possible into each episode. Both small intuitions, such as the journey into 8-bit video games, and journeys into the interiority of the characters and larger upheavals of balance. Episode 5, the attack on Genosha, was one of the most creative acts we have seen in an audiovisual product related to mutants. Who would have expected this from an animated series?
X-Men ’97 is demonstrating, by systematically eliminating names to which we attribute the status of absolute protagonists, that The X-Men they don’t have to have a fixed leader. That each character can have their moment of glory and an interesting plot. They can afford it precisely because they are mutants. Characters who are wounded, conflicted and fighting with themselves. It’s the theme of outcasts. Of those who are on the margins of society but feel so powerful that they become its center. They’re scary, that’s the point.
The series marks a splendid return to the origins of thinking about mutants, the one from the first books. It makes him embody “the foreigner” par excellence. Writing the team of mutants this way really brought the franchise back to life. The foundations from which the characters start still have a lot to say. Just that X-Men ’97 he’s doing all this quickly: he’s running from one storyline to the next trying everything. The attack a few episodes ago against the mutant nation of Genosha was 9/11 X-Men. A moment that narratively changes the entire relationship with humans. Something never attempted in cinema in this way, with this dramatic intensity (although very important in comics). A point of no return that turns the series upside down.
Any X-Men can be a protagonist
X-Men ’97 brings some good news for Marvel Studios. First of all it shows that they too can do good things with animation. The absence of Charles Xavier in the first episodes then demonstrated that these stories don’t need the usual suspects to work. Even a superstar like Wolverine can afford to remain marginal.
What a great writing job on Magneto, much better than what we have seen in the films so far! The character has freed himself from the limitations of a villain. If anything, he is a political opponent of Xavier. One that pursues a very similar goal, through radically different means. His being a leader, together with Cyclops, has refreshed the internal dynamics of the group in exactly the way the films coming in the future will have to do. A preview of what’s to come or an idea developed ahead of time into a fringe product?
Marvel Studios will have to relaunch the mutants by finding new perspectives from which to tell their rise. The positive fact is that, thanks to the incredible number of characters, they have ample room for maneuver to make up the team. Many of them, if written properly, can carry a film on their shoulders. X-Men ’97 has shown that the wisdom with which the team’s roster is chosen will count a lot.
The “problem” of synthesis
X-Men ’97 it does a lot in a little. It has the ability to go in depth in just 30 minutes and to change theme, situation, atmosphere, from episode to episode. Each episode seems like a shortened version of stories that could have covered an entire film or even a saga.
The speed with which Beau DeMayo moves on mature themes such as the anxieties of motherhood, tolerance between peoples, the fear of feeling different, risks making every other resumption of the discussion seem redundant and rhetorical, but above all already seen.
The attack on Genosha was the fundamental step from 90s nostalgia to a modern narrative style (where shock is part of the experience). The limit of X-Men ’97 it is now, paradoxically, precisely in ’97. The series is now independent from its past, walking free with new ideas and new atmospheres. Without fear of killing the most beloved characters and with the infinite possibilities that animation offers in filming the most spectacular and colossal action.
So much in so little. A show that aims to always raise further, to use all its cards available, to leave no stone unturned in order to count. A very different approach than to the overly cautious What if…?. The potential there has never been fully achieved. Here, however, every episode, even the least successful, follows the intention of not caring about prudence and experimenting.
The question is: at the end of these two seasons (provided they continue with this quality), adding to the good things done by the previous films, what new things will remain to be told about the characters? Marvel Studios didn’t have a past to respect at the beginning. The legacy of X-Men instead, it is increasingly becoming an excellence to maintain and truly difficult to match. X-Men ’97 could be a big problem for the MCU. Or perhaps, on the contrary, it is precisely the product that was needed to raise the bar in the ambitions of what can be done in the future. Is this the sign of a studio that has finally returned to challenging itself?
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