TV Review: X-men: Evolution Season 1

The Lowdown: A re-imagining of the popular comic and film franchise, X-men, where the title characters are de-aged into teenagers in a high-school setting.

The Review: To begin, I'm a huge fan of the X-men's 90's Animated Series, I grew up watching it as a little grade-schooler, and have rewatched episodes throughout my high-school and college years. I just finished a 5-month rewatch of the entire series from beginning to end about a month ago. It hit me that I never really watched the Evolution series. Also with a third series, Wolverine and the X-men, making waves, I decided to contiue my trek through the animated X-verse.

Evolution season one is an odd ball. First of all, most animated films and tv series tend to have children in mind, but the creators also understand that many parents and family members will be watching the series, so they attempt to make it fun for those adult family members as well. Well season one, is kid's fluff. It's themes rarely hint at something deeper than high-school drama and much of the first season is mired in dull repetition, and the desire to get as many introductions out of the way as possible. Speaking of the introductions, the first 5 or 6 episodes have the same formula of introduce two new characters, have them come into conflict over something ridiculous, have one join the good team (The X-men, YAY!) and have one join the bad team (The Brotherhood, BOOO!), rinse, wash, and repeat. The single time they throw a twist into this is with the Rogue character, and not surprising, it is one of the better arcs and storylines of the season, providing some of the better episodes, but still decidedly not great episodes, of the season (for example, Rogue Recruit and Turn of the Rogue).

Ok, so the first half is formulaic, what about the second half? Does it get better? Yes the second half is better, but not by much. Although the formula of introducing characters is no longer there, the repetition of the same baddies vs. the same goodies every episode is still there. Also the plot lines aren't good at all, and a couple are downright boring and uninteresting (Spykecam, Survival of the Fittest). Of course there are a couple of bright spots in the second half as well, the episode dealing with Nightcrawler's lineage is rather good, and the episode dealing with Wolverine is the only real gem in a downright boring season.

Speaking of character driven episodes, it's a very different team than the 90's animated series, Cyclops, Jean Grey are still around, with new characters Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, and a character created for this series, Spyke joining the pack as young teenagers. There are few adult characters in this team including, Charles Xavier (of course!), Storm, and everyone's favorite, Wolverine. Thank goodness, they didn't go the incredibly idiotic route of making Wolverine a teenager.










DOH! STUPID MANGA!







Anyways, the characters is really where the evolution series excels over the original 90's Animated Characters, the characters don't feel like caricatures of the comic book series, they feel like true organic characters. This really helped by the better animation, the 90's animated series always had a static animation style, while it was retro and kind of cool because it looked like a moving comic book, it really wasn't that great in terms of animation.

Speaking of the characters, the teenage characters take center stage here, dealing with pretty typical teenage problems along with their powers. Rogue gets a huge update in terms of look as she becomes more of a goth, or rocker chick. It really does work for the character they try to portray in this series though. Kitty becomes a valley girl, who talks, like, you know, like, she chills at the beach all time, you know, like, suntan. Believe me it grates early on, but the voice actress does pull back a bit after the series goes on making Kitty a better character, instead of just a stereotype, you know. Anyways, Jean and Scott get a huge boost in terms of character, again, they're both more real and feel like real characters. Jean is still boring, but at least her nice-girl nature comes out more (in the pretty good episode Mutan Crush). Cyclops, Cyke (Scott) is also more fluid showing both the terse leader and a little more loose. The biggest problem with the cast is that Nightcrawler has essentially become comedic relief for the series. Sure Nightcrawler was goofy at times, but this was over the top, and actually far better suited for a character like Bobby Drake, Iceman. So far, I loathe this version of Nightcrawler and Spyke...well...Spyke can stick it. You see what I did there. I like that the characters are more fluid and emotional and can be developed, I just don't like how immature some of them are and how the writers never took advantage of the character development that could be made. Ultimately, the characters were plainly split up into good guys and bad guys, even Magneto whose whole motivation in the comics is to be in a way right, just using the wrong methods, was really seen as just a baddy who is a master manipulator.

Overall: The first season is pretty dreadful to get through, but it certainly isn't all bad. The creators struggle to find their footing in creating a proper balance between loyalty to the heart of the X-men comics plots and being creative and taking risks in their reimagining. I've heard it does get better, so I'll be sticking with it. Hopefully you stick along with me.

** out of *****