Marvel Animation’s X-Men ‘97 Discussion Thread.

Thank you! I couldn't place why he sounded so familiar, but James' imdb page was no help.

 

Spoiler

I thought of that, too. Maybe they've decided that Spider-Man isn't canon to X-Men, which you could argue makes sense because they appeared on his show but he never appeared on the old X-Men show, so the X-Men in his universe might just be a similar team but not the same one, multiversally speaking.

The writers might also have just not known about Cap in Spider-man, or decided that in the time gap between X-Men and X-Men '97 that Cap got out of the time trap (permanently this time) and became an active hero. But whatever the case he's definitely been active for awhile, because Rogue was not surprised to see him.

Cap also mentions his team, which I'm assuming is a version of The Avengers. It would be hilarious if this ended up being the Avengers: United They Stand team, aka the Power Ranger Avengers.

 

Were the people at Gambit's funeral characters from the comics or previous show? Some looked familiar.

 

I think they were from the Gambit backstory episode back in season 2 of the previous show.

 

That's why he sounded so familiar.
This was a terrific follow up to Remember It.
Captain America showing up was a surprise, I didn't expect to see any non-X-Men characters show up.
I was pretty shocked Rogue actually dropped Trask off the building, I didn't expect to see one of our heroes go that far. It was understandable why she did, but it was still shocking. I know he came back as the human/Sentinel, but she didn't know that was going to happen.

OK, I was wondering if we were supposed to know who he was, they treated it like a big shocking reveal.

 

I think they were his former Thieves' Guild comrades from the episode that delved into his past. One downside of this being treated as the sixth season of the original show is that it sometimes brings back characters without reintroducing or explaining them. Although to be fair, the original series threw in a ton of background cameos of unexplained characters that meant nothing to me when I originally watched the show without having read the comics. That very thing was emulated here in the Genosha scenes with various unidentified mutants helping out or being treated.

It's a bit out of left field, and it's problematical from a continuity standpoint. "Old Soldiers" from February '97, the fourth-to-last episode, flashed back to Wolverine meeting Cap during WWII and implied that he was considered dead as of 1997. Meanwhile, we know that X-Men shared continuity with the Spider-Man series, which established that Cap was trapped in a dimensional vortex (its version of him being frozen in ice) as of its final season -- which aired in 1997-8 and thus should be taking place contemporaneously with X-Men '97.

Unless maybe it's a version of the 1950s "commie smasher" Cap that was retconned as an impostor. That could explain why he's out of character in his unwillingness on political grounds to stand up for what's right.

Although we've seen evidence before that this show is ignoring that continuity link with Spider-Man. In the premiere, there was a glimpse of a Daily Bugle front page with an article attributed to Eddie Brock, who was also trapped in a dimensional vortex at this point in SM:TAS's continuity, and who was fired from the Bugle in the very first episode of the series. Come to that, I'm pretty sure the continuity links between the shows were only one way -- the X-Men appeared in SM:TAS, but there was only ever a brief glimpse or two of Spidey in XM:TAS. It's conceivable that the X-Men who teamed up with Spidey were just extremely similar alternate-reality doppelgangers/variants of these guys.

Yeah, I was uneasy with them going there. But, well, Rogue is a reformed villain, so I can't say it's really out of character. And I suppose she could rationalize it on the grounds that Trask was trying to kill himself anyway, so she just "let" him. Though that doesn't really make it any better.

 

Huh. They really are doing Operation Zero Tolerance and Bastion. This should be interesting.

Potential spoilers based on comic storylines...

Spoiler

Of note, and obviously pending changes in the adaptation, Bastion actually IS a returning villain from the original show. He just didn't look, or act, like this back then. They give away the game when Rogue makes contact with Gyrich, in the energy flashes around her face. Bastion is the next evolution of Nimrod, the future Sentinel.

Very curious how the show is going to explain his evolution, since it involved some weird occult nonsense in the comics (the Siege Perilous).

Loved Nightcrawler here. He basically got abandoned in the OG show (I think he only showed up the once?), but this perfectly captured the character in just a few small moments.

So, we're thinking a brainwashed Magneto doing naughty things to gin up anti-mutant hysteria and enable Bastion, yes? Or maybe as a plant to lead the mutants into war, but following Bastion's designs? It all feels very Palpatine, which is a good vibe for Bastion. Wonder if they'll adapt Planet X from Morrison's run in the same way they've done E is for Extinction here.

 

I was surprised nobody else stepped in to save him. Why didn't Nightcrawler do anything?

 

I'm not sure if the show remembers this, but I remember from the comics that Nightcrawler's teleports conserve momentum -- if he's standing still when he bamfs, he'll be standing still when he arrives, and if he's falling fast when he bamfs, he'll have the same downward velocity when he materializes. So his power isn't really all that useful for catching a falling person, unless he reacts quickly enough to catch them in the first couple of seconds before they gain much speed.

I was expecting Jean to try to catch Trask telekinetically, but I think everyone was too surprised by Rogue's action to react in time.

 

the woman with Black and White hair at the funeral is one of the members of Alpha Flight according to New Rockstars ( they said it was confirmed but didn’t give a source)

Bastion has also appeared in every episode so far except episode 3

 

The woman with the black and white hair at the funeral is almost certainly Questa, making her first appearance in animated form. She is a member of the New Orleans Assassin's Guild who first showed up in a Rogue mini-series in the 90s.

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Questa_(Earth-616)

I saw someone identify this character online and it makes a lot more sense to me then for it to be Aurora, the only Alpha Flight member that kind of resembles the woman in the episode.

 

Makes more sense to me too. Gambit might have appeared in the two episodes that the Flight did, but he's never had any significant personal interactions with them that I'm aware of.

Now, if it had been Wolverine's funeral then an Alphan or two appearing would have made sense.

 

Uh he's Cajan and Aurora is Acadian. So...French!!!

 

I suppose, but that's a still a bit of a reach and his connections with the other option are more on point.

 

It's a joke.

 

Scott flips the script on the 2000 movie's infamous

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"Yellow Spandex" quip.

 

Much of the show came from a 'terrible' fanfiction spec script Beau DeMayo wrote in the 2000s as a sequel to the first X-Men movie

“Marvel needs to come to their senses”: X-Men ‘97 is Based on Beau DeMayo’s Unused Script for a Sequel to Hugh Jackman’s X-Men Movie That’s Blowing Everyone’s Mind

 

I have to wonder how bad what he did was if Marvel won't say anything about it?

 

Why would it have to be exceptionally bad, or even his fault? It's not like studios normally discuss why they let creators go. As a rule, they'd rather focus on promoting the positive. That's just business as usual.