TV Review: X-men Evolution Season 2

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: Here I am back at it again with more X-men Evolution. Since the first season kiddied up the X-men concept and castrated the complexity of the X-men world and it's characters, it left me wary on how the show would progress. Would it continue in it's cutesy direction that only a pre-teen could love or would it grow a pair of balls and satisfy the child, the teen, and the adult audience?

Well, in short, X-men: Evolution season 2 is a huge, gigantic step in the right direction. Unfortunately, it takes most of the season to make that step. It's understandable, and was a good decision to slow burn the dark tonal shift. This shift plays into one of the major themes of the season, HIDDEN IDENTITIES. In the Evolution world, mutants are largely hidden and most of the X-men can hide amongst the regulars. There's quite a few episodes that play into the non-exposure of mutants and it's one of Beast's struggles during this season. By the time the season comes to it's excellent conclusion (the last three episodes), you can see all the little nuances tying together.

But before I get ahead of myself, heck I almost jumped into my hopes and impressions for season 3, let me jump back to the beginning of the second season. The whole season takes on a fresh slate feel. Although the Brotherhood and X-men fight (again!) in the early episodes, it doesn't seem as stale. Why, you may ask? Because this time around it's not just about recruitment, and heck they only fight once (motivated by the main theme mentioned earlier) in the early part of the season, most of the rest is just petty arguments. It makes sense, because of the age group of these mutants, they're less likely to be involved in constant super hero team clashes. It didn't mesh well in the season before, and the season before made it occur in almost every single episode.

Also, from the very beginning, Xavier's school has a larger population of mutant students, making it seem like an actual school instead of a superhero bootcamp. There are a ton new mutants that often take supporting roles in many of the characters. Some are takes on the classic New Mutant series (Cannonball, Magma), one is a classic X-character (Iceman) and my favorites are takes on the X-factor team (Rahne/Wolfsbane and Madrox/Multiple Man). There's others that make constant cameos and this is one thing that really livens up and freshens up the series from the get-go.

Another reason why this season is better is simply the writing is crisper, this time around the high-school concept is only a backdrop instead of consuming the series every episode. The stakes are often larger, although small-scale enough for teenager mutants to deal with, and the adults take more important roles throughout but are less dictating and more subdued in their manipulation (speaking specifically of Mystique and Magneto). The children also engage in very high-school things, they act like teenage kids, they have crushes, they often engage in pranks, and they are underdeveloped in their ability to handle emotion. The romantic subplots become another huge theme and also are better parts of the series, they really add little nuances, and slowly develop like real relationships. The chemistry between the character is much more spot on and the fight sequences have improved as well. (As an aside: For animate, Nothing has been able to top the amazing fight choreography of the Spectacular Spider-man series, WOOO!)

Of course the season is fantastic, it's still got kiddified plots, but they're handled much better than before. Outside of a few dud episodes, the season is solidly above average, sometimes good, but not anywhere near great or fantastic. Some plots are still rather boring, and the series is rather tied to the high-school concept limiting the depth and complexity that the plots can have. But when the series hits its stride near the end of the season it really hits its stride. Those last 3 episodes (Hex Factor, Day of Reckoning Part 1-2) are the best three episodes of the season (along with On Angel's Wings). And frankly the ending of the season makes you glad you stuck around because the tone of the show completely changes to a more mature, dark feel.

OVERALL: It's a solid season that's a rather fun adaptation, but still can be rather dull at points. Lots of bonus points for the pre-finale episode and finale two-parter. It's a barnburner that makes you excited for things to come.

** 3/4 out of *****