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X-Men ’97 S1 is giving us everything
X-Men ’97 season 1 was worth the almost 30-year wait. I became a superhero nerd from watching X-Men when I was a kid in the 90s. This continuation of the series, almost 30 years later was one of the best things I and my guest Perry Constantine has seen. Listen to why in this episode.
Perry Constantine
Born and raised in the Chicagoland area, Percival Constantine grew up on a fairly consistent diet of superhero comics, action movies, video games, and TV shows. At the age of ten, he first began writing and has never really stopped.
Percival has been working in publishing since 2005 in various capacities–author, editor, formatter, letterer–and has written books, short stories, comics, and more. He has a Bachelor of Arts in English and Mass Media from Northeastern Illinois University and a Master of Arts in English and Screenwriting from Southern New Hampshire University.
Currently, Percival lives in southern Japan where he continues to work on new projects and also teaches literature, writing, and film.
Books/graphic novels mentioned on the podcast:
- Urban Fantasy – Dark Crossroads Books
- Comics
Want to contact him?
Website: https://percivalconstantine.com
Superhero Cinephiles – a podcast about superheroes in media hosted by Perry Constantine. Listen wherever you get your podcasts! https://superherocinephiles.com
Topics Discussed (Click to jump to transcript’s section) :
- First thoughts from X-Men 92 to the new X-Men 97
- Cyclops gets a glow-up?
- Animation style changes from original
- Nightcrawler as a character: Animated and live
- Storm and Gambit
- This dialogue was never kid-friendly
- Not a reboot, but a great continuation
- The week to week format and X-Men frenzy
- EPISODE FIVE (!)
- Rogue’s origins in episode 5
- Last episode sneak
- We need more Punk Storm
- Storm’s comic history
- The politics of X-Men
- Where will the X-Men story go?
- The biggest theme of X-Men: racism
- Easter Eggs
- Goodreads Rating for the season
- What is Perry doing next?
Where to find books from the podcast:
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Episode Transcript
Y. M. Nelson: Howdy nerdy romantics! I am so excited about today’s episode. It is just something that I’ve been ever since I heard about this TV series. I knew I had to do an episode about it and I’m so glad to have with me today, Perry Constantine. And I’m not gonna say he’s our nerdy romantic comic expert, but at the moment, yes, he is.
So today we are talking about X-Men 97. It’s an animated series, and it follows the X-Men animated series of the 90s, hence why it’s called 97.
And we’re going to talk about the title. We’re going to talk about nostalgia. We’re going to talk about a whole lot of things on this episode. And I’m excited about all of it.
So, stay tuned.
This is the Nerdy Romantics Podcast and I’m your host, YM Nelson.
Y. M. Nelson: All right, Perry, how are you doing today?
Perry: I’m doing okay.
I am doing very well, and I am very excited to talk about this with you last time I was on, I told you, you have got to watch this show, because I knew you were a fan of the original.
Y. M. Nelson: Yes, yes, and I’m so glad that you reminded me about this show, because I will say, That and yeah, I’m just going to get right into it.
How I first heard about X-Men 97 is I follow black nerd comedy, Andre, I follow him on Twitter. On Instagram and on YouTube, just about everywhere. He is online. And he mentioned he had an Instagram post that talked about this series coming out. And I, when I saw that post, I was just like, oh, my gosh, I’ve got to watch this.
I really have to watch this. I was so psyched, but I was in the middle of a semester. So, I had all 3 of my jobs going and I put it on the back burner. And then Perry, when you were talking to me about this, after the last episode that we recorded which, you know, talked about our superhero movies. I just got giddy about it all over again.
And probably about, I would say a couple of weeks after that, I just started watching. And I am in awe. Perry, you’ve got to tell tell me how you found out about this. What were you thinking? What was going through your mind before you started watching?
[00:03:21] First thoughts from X-Men 92 to the new X-Men 97
Perry: So, I mean, I, I grew up with X-Men 92, right? That is one of the things that and Batman, the animated series were like my gateway drugs into comic books.
After watching the series, I started getting into the X-Men comics and it just all kind of snowballed from there, which is how I became the comic book expert on this show, and it all really starts with X-Men 92. A few years ago, I had rewatched it when it came on Disney plus. And to be honest, it did not age well. Like it, I really started to see some of the seams in it. The animation is kind of jerky. The first season, especially it was very obvious. They were just kind of winging it because they kept breaking all the continuity, they established in the first season later on and. And so, it, it doesn’t hold up very well.
So, when they announced that they were going to do a sequel series to it, my first thought was, ah, I like that series kind of ran course. I don’t know what else there is to get. What I was really hoping for was either maybe a completely new series or about maybe 10 years ago, there was a, there was an animated series called Wolverine and the X-Men, which only lasted one season, but was amazing.
So, I would have ended on a cliffhanger too. So, I really kind of wanted to see a sequel to that. So I was, you know, not pessimistic, but not really enthusiastic going into this the first, but then I saw the trailer and when I saw the trailer, I’m like, oh, okay, this has got my attention.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.
Perry: And then that first episode, because I was watching it week to week on Disney and I watched that first episode, and I’m like, alright, well, let’s see how it is, and I tell you, from the moment those first chords started of the intro, it’s like I was, it’s like I was nine years old again.
It It was amazing. And then I saw that first episode and it loomed me the hell away. I was not expecting it to be as good as it was. And then after that, it just got, and for most, I’m just like, okay, I know where this is going. I can see the beats coming. Cause I’m familiar with all the comics and they pulled a lot from the comics here.
So, I’m like, okay, there’s that, there’s that, there’s that, there’s that. And I figured like, I’m enjoying this, but it’s not going to surprise me. And then episode five.
Y. M. Nelson: Oh boy. Episode five. We’re going to talk about that. Yes.
Perry: Yeah,
Y. M. Nelson: it was major. But. You know, you are saying a lot of the same things that were going through my mind when I first started watching.
You know, it, for me, it was, it really was like I was being Transported back in time to when I first started watching this and it’s interesting to Perry, because that’s kind of how I got started into the whole superhero thing. Now, I never made it in the comic books. I’ll say,
Perry: I’ll get you one of these days.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, you’re going to get me, you’re going to get me. I I’m telling you, I, I’ll, you know, I actually this is a total side story, but this is very, very, very, very coincidental. So last weekend I went to Soda City Comic Con, which is in Columbia, South Carolina. And I. I went this was my first Comic Con that I actually went to.
I’m, I’m so, I can’t believe I’m saying that, but yes, this is the first Comic Con that I’ve actually gone to. And it just so happens that at that Comic Con was part of the X-Men 97 cast. The voice actors. Yes, I am just like, I was just like blown away because, you know, as we’re going to talk about in a, in a little bit this is, it’s not just the intro music that, you know, is giving nostalgia.
Some of the actors voiced the original and they are back. In X-Men 97. In fact, a lot of them are and, I got to see them, and it was just a whole like eye opening experience for me being at a comic con, but also realizing that there is this huge community of fans and I mean, this is a smaller comic con.
This is nothing like San Diego, you know, this is a smaller comic con, but they are just as. I don’t want to say rabid because that sounds so negative, but they are just as enthusiastic about this show as I was. And so to hear you say, yes, you know, I was like, I was transported, I felt all these things. I had all the feels, you know it’s just, it’s so, you know, it’s all very full circle.
I’m feeling all very full circle moment right now. Yeah, you know, but. You know, getting back to the whole nostalgia and everything of that it, you’re right, it’s not just, you know, you hear that those notes of the, the intro song and you’re like, Oh my gosh. I think I’ve been transported, but then right along with that, you see the intro video, you know, you see the animation, you see the whole intro and it’s basically like the same thing.
It’s the same, you know, it’s, you know, of course, there’s like a couple of different characters or, you know you know, here and there, you know, in the intro, but it’s basically the same intro, you know, they just, there’s the
[00:09:29] Cyclops gets a glow-up?
Perry: same. Yeah. Yeah. They updated with, although I gotta say one thing that’s all kind of bugged me about the intro, both the original and the new one. How come when Cyclops gets his spotlight title card moment, he’s the only one who never wears his costume? Right!
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, what is that about? I’ve always wondered.
Perry: why, because they, they, they show Wolverine, he transforms into his costume, but yes. Cyclops, he just never wears the costume in his title card sequence. Always, I always found that kind of weird.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, he doesn’t, it’s just, yeah. It’s just, it’s almost like, and two, you know, because he’s on that, Okay. You know, Hill or whatever. He just looks like he’s having a moment. You know, he’s looks like he’s having a crisis moment. Everybody else is in full on. We’re ready to fight. And he looks like he’s in crisis. You know, it’s so weird, but he is in crisis a lot. I guess one
Perry: of the things I was speaking of Cyclops, though, one of the things that And I think turned off a lot of people to his character was the, his depiction in that 92 series, cause he was always kind of like, no, this uptight boy scout and, and the nineties come and, you know, to their, in their defense, he was kind of like that in the nineties comics too.
And he was kind of you know. Of a boring character in both the comics and in this show, and then it wasn’t until later when I kind of dove into the comics and read more about him and saw stuff like Grant Morrison did with him or Josh Whedon, and then I’m just kind of like, oh, wow, Cyclops is actually a badass.
And then this show, it really turned the page on him, and it made him a lot more like the Cyclops I love from the comics.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, you know, I will say this show raised my respect for him because I was totally, you know, if there, you know, if there is a love triangle, okay, for all of y’all Twilight folks, y’all do not know a love triangle.
This is a love triangle. Wolverine, Jean Grey, and Cyclops, that is the soap opera of the century sometimes. But I was always on Wolverine’s side, even though I knew that was not gonna happen. Cause Wolverine just can’t, yeah, he just can’t. No, but and so I had a little bit of to, I say all that to say, I look down on, you know, Scott Summers.
I’m just like, you’re just, yeah, no. Like, no, I, you’re just weak. I don’t, I don’t like you, you know, I just had, yeah, feelings about him, but seeing him in this, Series, you know, or in this, well, yeah, in this series I found a new respect for him and especially like him as a dad, you know, and, and they go through all those family things, you know, the family stuff that they go through.
I mean, yeah, it shows this shows him in such a good light.
Perry: And that opening intro of him when he bursts into the Friends of Humanity headquarters and he’s, you know, he’s blasting to cushion his fall. He’s blasting to like slide across the room. They showed his powers in an amazing way.
Y. M. Nelson: You know, and it’s, it’s not just they, you know, they show his powers, but it’s also like one of those fight sequences for those of you who just got into the whole, you know, fight sequence superhero thing with the MCU and you, you had those moments with those fight scenes where they’re fighting and they’re being all badass, but then at the same time, they’re making quips. They’re like, okay, son, I got this move out the way, you know, kind of thing. I mean, he had all of that going in that first sequence.
I was like, this is really okay. Cyclops. All right, we got you. All right. I see where you’re going with this.
[00:13:38] Animation style changes from original
Perry: And one of the things about the animation style, because the original It was really heavily based on Jim Lee’s art style, which, you know, if you ever seen Jim Lee’s art in the comic books, it’s like this kind of like hyper detailed kind of style, which doesn’t translate very animation because, so that’s why if you watch the, those old episodes, it’s very kind of jerky.
There are all these shadows on them that don’t quite fit very well. Yes. And here they went with a with a much more simplified style, that’s much more suited to animation. And I think that’s one of the things too, that makes those fight scenes flow so much better is the animation is much better suited to it.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. It’s okay. Now that makes total sense because as I, you know, obviously. I went back and I at least watched a few episodes. I haven’t gone through a lot of those episodes. I’m just so blown away by 97. I’m just like, oh, my, you know, but, but now going back through and seeing a few more of those episodes, it’s almost like.
When you see the original episodes, you’re looking at basically comic books on screen, but here I feel like I’m looking at actual animations, you know, versus comic book on screen. So
Perry: yeah, I think that’s one of the things that made Batman the animated series kind of withstand the test of time a little bit better is because that animation is just smooth as butter.
So when you look at something like this, and it’s obvious they’re taking more of a key, a cue from that kind of style and like the more kind of anime influence stuff where it’s focused on.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah,
Perry: we got to keep these drawings kind of simple so that the animation can flow nicely.
Y. M. Nelson: Right, right. I, yeah, I totally see that. All of that makes sense now. That makes sense to somebody who’s kind of got the untrained eye, you still can tell the difference, you know, and also kind of going back to what you were saying about, you know, how, you know, you heard this is coming out. You went back or or you went back before you heard this was coming out.
You went back and you saw some of the older some of the older episodes and. And looking at them visually, they do kind of take you out of the whole, like, why was I watching this again? You’re kind of like, what? But then at the same time, you have to think, in the 90s, they did not have HGTV, you know, HDTV, like they do, you know, now. It’s just the same thing.
Perry: No HD, no 4K, none of that stuff. Yeah, it was very different. I mean a lot of stuff told you, look at the Batman or the DC stuff from back then or some of the later animation stuff from like the early two thousands. That holds up a little bit better. ’cause I think they started leaning on a more anime style, more folk on that.
But besides that, they all. Also done a few little, like, minor cosmetic changes with some of the characters. Like I really like what they did with Bishop, for example. Because if you go back and you watch, it feels like Bishop is a completely different character from the one in the original.
Because he was, he was kind of irritating in the original, in the original series. Like, FOR THE FUTURE!
Y. M. Nelson: Right! Yeah,
Perry: he’s just, he’s got the, he’s got the shortcut with like the short dreads and everything. And he’s got this, he’s got this like cool laid back persona and I really dug Bishop in this series and I’m kind of disappointed that he, he exited so soon.
Y. M. Nelson: Well, you know, yeah, I, I’m kind of disappointed that he exited so soon as well.
But you know, I just happened to watch the last episode again very, very recently, as in like an hour ago. And I’m like if they have a season two of this, it looks like he’s gonna get some more air time.
Perry: Oh,
yeah,
Y. M. Nelson: yeah. Yeah.
[00:17:42] Nightcrawler as a character: Animated and live
Perry: A favorite was after episode 5 when I’m watching that episode 6, and the opening credits start, and you’ve got Nightcrawler there in the opening credits, and Nightcrawler is, like, one of my favorite X-Men, so I flipped out when I saw that.
Y. M. Nelson: I bet you did. Yeah.
Perry: And he was a, he was a character that I didn’t really know much about Nightcrawler in the comics at first, because he wasn’t part of the X-Men when I was reading back in the 90s.
So. And when I saw him on the animated series, he was just kind of like he’s, you know, he’s very preachy, this monk kind of character. He’s always talking about like God’s love and all that. And you know, me being an atheist, I was like, all right, whatever. But then I read him in the comics and he’s, he’s.
He’s basically like the marvel Earl Flynn, like he’s very charming. He’s very kind of he’s, he’s he’s like a pirate at heart basically. And, and so when I watch him back in that original series, I’m just like, they don’t really do a good job with him in that episode he appeared in. And then when he appeared in this, it’s like they decided, oh, we’re making a much more like the nightcrawler in the comics because he was charming.
He was smooth. He was, yeah. He was, he had that whole swashbuckling personality, and that scene with him and Wolverine when the, the friend, when the Sentinels attack, was probably the best fight the entire series.
Y. M. Nelson: Right. Oh gosh. Totally like amazing. He’s like, okay six. No nine. I’m like I mean if they’re fighting and it’s yes It it’s just yeah, that scene was totally amazing and it gives a little more it was a little more of a, a round character to, to Nightcrawler.
I’ve always seen him be, you know, I’ve always seen him be totally that secondary character, even in the X-Men like movies. And I mean, he’s like one of the first ones you see in the X-Men movie and why are they treating him like a secondary character? Right? But here you, I think I learned more about his character by watching this series than I have from watching anything else with him in it.
Because, this is the, we’ve,
Perry: yeah, yeah, it’s a huge, and yeah, the Pride of the X-Men pilot, which was Marvel’s first attempt at doing a X-Men animated series, he was in that, he was in obviously X2, played by Alan Cummings, and then he was in X-Men Apocalypse, and Dark X played by I can’t remember the guy’s name, Cody, Corey, or Smith McKee, or something like, I can’t remember the guy’s name, I’m sorry, but very, like– Alan Cummings did a great job, but he was real. The script didn’t do him a whole lot of favors, and then what they did with him in Apocalypse and in Dark Phoenix was just insulting.
And then he was also in Wolverine and the X-Men, the animated series, and he was pretty good in that, and X-Men Evolution, eh, it was okay, that, but it was more focused on like, kind of like, You know, teenage Nightcrawler, so it was a little bit more of an exaggerated portrayal. But this one, hand down, in these few episodes he’s been in, they captured, from like that first scene he’s in, in Genosha, they captured him perfectly.
Yeah,
Y. M. Nelson: yeah. I mean, yeah. This is, this is a really, a really good portrayal of him. You know, you mentioned Apocalypse, and you know we’re gonna have to come back to Apocalypse because that’s another. That’s another whole can of worms. But that’s also another place where I, you know, I feel like they really, you know, the characters.
Oh, my gosh. Why did they do this to to those characters? But but anyway
[00:21:30] Storm and Gambit
Y. M. Nelson: I do want to kind of talk a couple about a couple more about some different some other characters. So my. Well, I’ll say I have two favorites. When I first started watching X-Men in the 90s two favorites came out. And my first favorite is obviously Storm because I see, you know, because representation.
And two, I mean, she was, you know, she was just like badass. I mean, she is controlling the weather, the weather people, you know, I just, I thought, okay, yeah, this is apropos. Yeah. But the other character that, you know, really stood out to me that I really, when I heard that X-Men was actually coming to screen you know, to the theater screens was Gambit.
Gambit, total crush on Gambit. I mean, and he was just, you know, I mean, just, I just loved his character. And and then when X-Men, the, when the first X-Men movie came out to see Rogue having this crush on Wolverine, it just threw me off. And of course Gambit actually doesn’t show up until what’s the movie?
Perry: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Y. M. Nelson: Yes. Right. So and of course, of course, everybody that was in that movie seemed to want to bury that movie. You know, Ryan Reynolds has jokes about it for days. I mean, it’s just, you know, yeah. But, you know,
Perry: have you seen Deadpool and Wolverine yet?
Y. M. Nelson: I have not seen it yet, and I’m just like, oh my gosh, I’ve gotta see this movie, I’ve gotta see this movie, but I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t know
Perry: if it’s been, I don’t know if it can’t appear, if it’s been spoiled for you yet or not, but I think you’ll be very happy.
Y. M. Nelson: Okay. No, I haven’t, I haven’t been I don’t think I’ve been too spoiled. I’ve been sort of spoiled a little bit. But I’ve been trying to stay, you know, trying to stay away until I can watch it.
You know, try not to be spoiled, but you know I’ve also just kind of been in a little bit of a funk. So I do need that to kind of, I know it’s going to be a lot of laughs, so I can’t wait for that.
[00:23:56] This dialogue was never kid-friendly
Y. M. Nelson: You know, another thing that’s a lot of laughs is you know, just the character dialogue in here is, in X-Men 97 is amazing.
And it is one of the things that I really remember from the 90s, really loving because the dialogue is, It’s this is not a kid’s animation . It is, you know, kids can watch it. Yes, but adults are going to get so much out of this. I mean, it’s, it’s a little bit elevated, you know, it’s not just, you know, Hey, this is a fluffy kids, you know, kind of whatever.
It’s almost, it could almost hold its own a little bit side by side with some of the, some of the soap operas and some of the. The action dramas of the 80s and 90s, like the A Team and, you know Remington Steele and all those kinds of things. I mean, it, I just, I love the dialogue. I love the quips. I love all of it.
And I feel like, to a certain extent, you know, X-Men, the animated series, You know, did the sarcasm and the sarcastic quips 1st, they did it before the M. C. U. and Iron Man started doing it, you know, and they, they’ve done it. Well, I, I’m just, and I’m still in awe that that still comes out, you know, that there’s, there’s quips.
There’s, you know, these characters are, you know, alive. To me and a way that I wasn’t sure if they were going to hold up because like I was trying to say kind of a little bit before I, I did watch a few of the episodes before and I was like, part of the reason was why, why did I like this? You know, that was part of kind of how I was feeling.
Why did I like this in the 90s? Because I remember who I was in the 90s. I was like This is this was a little bit, you know different for me and then Wolverine starts making his sarcastic jokes and people start, you know You know saying all sarcastic things and rogue with her With herself. I mean, I think you know if you could curse in a cartoon She would probably do it and wolverine would probably do it.
But You It, it, it then reminded me of kind of why I liked it, you know, back in the day was because of the, yeah, I
Perry: think I saw too, I think there’s a, there’s a massive improvement on it in this series because, you know, we’re watching the, the old episodes, you know, There’s, there’s good dialogue in there, don’t get me wrong, but there’s also a lot of like, kind of like, overwrought expository dialogue, and that comes a lot from the, the influence of the comics at the time, and a lot of them was influenced by the comics that Chris Claremont wrote in the 80s, so, and he, Claremont does a lot of things great, dialogue, he’s always kind of an overwrought on, so that kind of, That didn’t translate so well into the original series, but this one, they, they cut, they took a much more modern approach and the dialogue, the dialogue here slaps, like it is really good, it is on point, and it is It, this whole series, just a mask, like how to do, because, you know, these, this is a trend with, you know, media in the past, like, you know, what, 10, 15 years or so is to go back and bring back these old series that have been canceled or dormant and it’s, it’s, let’s be honest.
It’s not always good. I mean, a lot of times it, it falls flat on its face. I mean, you had the rest of development season four was just awful. And some of them too, they just don’t, they don’t work as well when you go back to it, but this one, it, it perfectly reaches that original feel was, and then it elevates it, right, it doesn’t get mired in the nostalgia of it, there is nostalgia, it’s, it’s nostalgia bait from the, from, at the beginning, but once you get in, they’re off to the races and they’re doing a lot of different things with
[00:28:26] Not a reboot, but a great continuation
Y. M. Nelson: Right, yeah, and so that is what I think makes this sing, is that it is not a do over.
It is it is a continuation. Let’s take what you loved from the 90s series and let’s create something that you will still love in 2024. But also, if you are totally new to this, let’s keep your interest piqued because again, like You know, some of the, some of our younger generations are going to look, you know, for three seconds at something, make a judgment and then move on.
Right. But this has you hooked. And it’s not because it’s just because it’s baked in nostalgia. That’s what got me. But what’s going to get the younger generations is not what’s gonna and keep the younger generations is not. Necessarily just rehashing that’s what I don’t like about, you know, what they’ve been doing with some of these reboot kind of things.
It’s been that just what it is. Just what I’ve said a reboot. Like, how many times how many iterations of Ghostbusters are we going to have like, come on? You know, but with this, it is, let’s pick up the, the first thing that they did that, that was genius, in my opinion, is pick this up right where we left off.
So, basically, it’s just like, the storyline picks up right where it’s left off. So, not only do you get this totally new series, but you also get the connection to the series that it was. So, you’re gonna get people going back and watching. Not just us for nostalgia, but people who are just getting into this right now.
You’re gonna get them going back and watching, and, trying to figure out, okay, what does this character have to do with this? And what does this character have to do with that? And, you know, what about these sentinels? And what about this? You know, you’re going to get all of that, right? But then, but then the other genius thing that they did was up the ante, which is basically what you’re saying.
It’s kind of up the ante. This storyline. Now, they did some Part 1’s, Part 2’s, Part 3 kind of things, but it was more episodic in the old days, and I believe you were saying to me before we started recording, and I didn’t even realize this, but but yeah, they, they did a Season 1, and then they trashed everything, kind of, and then they just kind of, they just kind of cobbled together, yeah. So, I’m like,
Perry: because they actually, they didn’t actually know that they were going to get more than a season and didn’t actually like I had heard of you with some of the, the people who worked on the originals show and they were saying, and this is going back a few years now, so I might be misremembering things, but I remember them saying that they had, they didn’t have like a catered writing team for it.
So, it was just kind of like they were kind of playing jazz that whole first season. And. When they get into the later seasons and they get into some of the character flashback stuff, that’s why you have weird things like, you know, in season one, Rogue has no, Rogue, Pyro, and Avalanche have no idea who each other is.
Rogue has no idea that Mystique is her father mother. And then later on, you get a flashback episode where Rogue is training with Pyro and Avalanche. So, you had Ice, you had Angel in the first season, who seemed to have no knowledge of the X-Men, but then in later seasons, he appears in flashbacks with the original X-Men, so it’s, it was really kind of confusing as a kid, it’s like, wait a minute, how, how do these things work together?
[00:32:38] The week-to-week format and X-Men frenzy
Y. M. Nelson: Right. But here in this, in this series, or in this season of this series, they have upped their game by creating a story that basically you can, even though they did put it out week to week to week, you can basically binge watch this. So, they were writing for today, and I think that’s. They got a good one, two punch here with that. And I think that’s kind of what makes this better than some of the other reboot kind of things that we’re seeing and some of the rehashing of and bringing out, you know, old characters and things that we’ve seen Lately, and but yeah, what were you gonna say something?
Perry: I think the episode wasn’t say the episodic structure the week-to-week release. You’re right. It is You know, it’s very, it’s very bingeable this series. Like you can sit down, watch it in a weekend, no problem. But one of the things that they did really well too, was breaking it up into those weekly installments because created this, I mean, I don’t know if you’re on Threads at all, but on Threads, while this was airing weekly, it was the best place to be if you were an X-Men fan, because it was just like, everybody was talking about this on Threads every week.
You know, people were all, you know, excited about it and they’re all, it was, it was like the most fun I’ve had on social media, probably ever. It was, it was a wonderful, it was just, and it was pure positivity and joy. It wasn’t people ranting and stuff like that. It was just talking about how much they love and, you know, question about what might be coming next and all that stuff. And it was, it was, it was fun.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. And you know, you’re saying that I got on threads after this went out, but, but the, the way that you’re saying that is kind of how people were on Twitter when Scandal was on. You know, showing week to week everybody was live tweeting, when that was a thing, they were live tweeting Scandal, like nobody’s business. It was, yeah, it was kind of a good, it was frenzied, but a good frenzy.
Perry: Yeah.
Y. M. Nelson: If that makes sense.
[00:35:04] EPISODE FIVE (!)
Perry: I was, I was live threading, I guess you would say, during ep five. And you’re pulling stuff like this and this and this from the comics that next thread was, and then I got to that moment. I’m my next thread was Holy shit.
Y. M. Nelson: And that was it. That was like,
Perry: Oh
Y. M. Nelson: gosh. Yeah. I mean, episode five, let’s get into it. Let’s get into it. Episode five, episode five for me. Was when I have been binging this pretty much, you know, like I I just, you know, was just sitting and watching for, you know, I will watch like, you know, a few episodes with but I was pretty much binging until episode 5.
And then at episode five, I was like, what? Now remember what I said about who my two favorite characters were? Remember what one of those char– who one of those characters were?
So, I’m just sitting there. With my mouth open and crying at this animated thing, right? Crying, but I shouldn’t say at this animated thing because I cry at a lot of animated stuff. But I’m just like, I thought this was a superhero show. And I am sitting here crying like we just, like this was, you know, Terms of Endearment or something. I was just like, I was almost to the point of bawling. And at that moment, I said, okay, I, I have to stop watching. So, I stopped watching for like a couple of weeks. And then I came back.
Perry: Oh wow, you really took a minute.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, I did. Part of it was, you know, work stuff. So, that always does it. But, but the other part of it was, I did need to take a minute. Because I was like, what in the world? I, I was just like, OMG. Oh, I couldn’t wrap my mind around what I had seen, and it took me a minute.
But then I came back to it, and I was like, why did I stop watching this? I love this show. I was like, I know I had an emotional moment, but I love this show. And I came back, and I just started binging it again, but I did need to take a moment. And I think, I think. Everybody needed to take a moment. It’s so funny because I was because I was at Comic Con They of course they were saying talking about episode 5 and everybody’s like episode 5, you know, and everybody has that moment or whatever. But for me, I think that’s when X-Men kind of …it it just got real for me. Not that it wasn’t real before, but it just got really real, that episode.
Perry: So, one of the things I loved about that was it basically put the whole Wolverine, Jean, Cyclops love triangle to bed, right? And yes, yeah. Jean is, she has all this confusion after she’s been cloned, she doesn’t, she doesn’t know where her memories end and Madeline’s begins, their memories are all messed up here and jumbled together, and when did this switch happen?
And she’s confessing this confusion she has to Wolverine, and she kisses him. And he pulls back, and he says, you have to talk to Scott.
Y. M. Nelson: Right.
Perry: And it comes directly out of a Grant Morrison comic run, because there was a similar
situation where you’re feeling confused after Scott been possessed by Apocalypse long story, but, and, and so she kisses him and then pulls away and he says, we both know the deal.
It would never work with us. And 1 of the things I love about that, I think this series gets across that the original series did not is that Scott and Logan, they have very different approaches to things, but they respect the ever-loving hell out of each other.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, yeah, and I agree. I agree. And it totally gets that across here. And you’re right. It doesn’t necessarily do that in the 90s comic at all. It’s more about, you know, who Wolverine hating on everything. that Scott’s–
Perry: Right,
Y. M. Nelson: or Logan hatin’ on everything that Scott’s doing and making fun of him to see that’s the other thing is the making fun is just, amped. So, if you’re making fun of somebody, it’s like, do you really respect this person? You know, right. But yeah, you’re right it that that scene does it!
[00:40:26] Rogue’s origins in episode 5
Y. M. Nelson: You know one other thing I will say too about episode five is You learn a lot about who Rogue is, where Rogue has really come from, what her connection to Magneto is about, if you, if you don’t read the comics, okay. I’m not sure how much of that is, is, is close to the comics. Perry?
Perry: It’s very close. Yeah, it’s very close. And so, another thing that I loved was they switched the love triangle focus from Scott, Gene, and Logan to Rogue, Gambit, and Magneto.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. So, it’s like, oh, no. Is this where we’re going with this? But also, you know, what it shows for me is it shows that the first X-Men was even more wrong than what I previously thought, right? So, because they didn’t even get that, you know, but then also she’s, she’s pretty much a child, you know, so showing, you know, the way that’s cast, I mean, you know.
Perry: Yeah. That’s the other thing is,
Y. M. Nelson: is really too old for her.
Perry: Right, right. And it’s also when the original show came out, like they had, they had done a, ’cause the Logan Gambit stuff or the Logan Magneto stuff actually happened before Logan Gambit even met in the comics. So it was, she had been in a member of the X-Men.
Right. And so had Magneto been, and they they both ended up in the Savage Land together, and they had gotten very close. They hadn’t really consummated or anything like that, but there was like hints of something happening there between them. And later on in the comics, when Magneto turned villainous again, there was still some hints of stuff that there’s like some romantic tension between the two of them.
But what really kind of drove it home was two things is that there was the, there was a storyline in the, in the nineties called Age of Apocalypse, where the entire timeline was changed. And it was this entire new reality where Xavier had died years before he had a chance to form the X-Men. And that basically led to Apocalypse being able to take over North America almost unchallenged because there were no X-Men around to stop him.
And Magneto and created the X-Men in Xavier’s Marie and him and Rogue got married and had a kid in that. And, and then when they, after that storyline was done, they had this younger version of Magneto who appeared in the comics and they kind of like, we’re setting up a Gambit- Magneto- Rogue love triangle in the comics for a brief time.
Turned out he was a clone of Magneto, and it’s comic book stuff, all that kind of stuff. But so, it’s, it’s one of those storylines that’s always been kind of like teased around the edges in the comics. They did a little bit with it in about like 10 years ago in the comics too. I feel like it’s really.
They really did it justice in this series, and they really kind of explored what that relationship would be like.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. Yes, just yes to that. Also, it gives us a little something. It gives us a little more soap opry stuff to think about.
[00:43:44] Last episode sneak
Y. M. Nelson: But it also gives us a little kind of, now that you are talking about the comics and you mention the kind of different comic line with Apocalypse, you know, you’re kind of saying a little bit of what’s going on in that last episode, too, if you, you know, maybe, yeah, I’m wondering if that’s true. That’s where they’re gonna go with that, isn’t it?
Perry: I’m not sure, it’s, I mean, yeah, it’s gonna be very interesting, because they go back in time, and they see the young Apocalypse, so.
Y. M. Nelson: Mm hmm.
Perry: Looks like he might be pulling some stuff from the Rise of Apocalypse story, where it went over his origins. I’m very curious what comic you’re reading from, from this. It was clear, because the, the end of 92, it ends with Xavier going off into space. Magneto has helped out the X-Men to help Xavier go out into space, so. Right. I think that we were going for, like, the, the mid 80s vibe when Magneto had taken over the school, and he was a member of the X-Men, and that we would probably go into some stuff with Inferno and Madeline Pryor, so all that stuff made sense to me.
And they mixed in some other stuff here and there. The Genosha destruction came from the Grant Morrison one. Prince and Bastion, that came from the the storyline in the mid late 90s. The Magneto, you know, basically declaring war on humanity, that came from the Fatal Attraction story, and then they had the, the moment where he pulls the adamantium from Wolverine’s body, also straight out of the comics, too.
Y. M. Nelson: Oh. Okay,
Perry: They’re doing a really cool job of pulling from all these eras and fitting it together in a way that actually made a whole lot of sense. I mean, the, the Madeline Pryor storyline was kind of a mess because the writer’s original intention for that was not that she was going to be a clone of Jean.
It’s just she was going to be a human woman who happened to resemble Jean, and Scott was going to marry her, have a kid, and then retire. And that was kind of like the idea, and then, other writer pitched this idea of bringing the original X-Men back together, resurrecting Jean Grey. And so, then they kind of frankensteined this all together.
In just three episodes, they condensed, like, I don’t know, five years of stories into just three half hour episodes.
Y. M. Nelson: Really?
Perry: They did a damn good job with it. Yeah. Yeah,
Y. M. Nelson: They did. It’s very, it’s very cohesive. The only thing that, you know, and this is just me being me, you know, the only thing I’m thinking is, can, if Madeline Pryor is a clone of Jean, is Madeline Pryor, could she also be Phoenix? Or is Phoenix just for Jean Grey? Right?
Perry: So, in the comics, the Phoenix Force is, has like an affinity for Jean Grey, but it’s also, it’s also been used by other people, like Rachel Summers Jean and Scott’s daughter from the future, she had the Phoenix Force at one point.
Y. M. Nelson: Okay.
Perry: Recently in the Avengers comics Echo, also had her own Marvel TV show, she had the Phoenix Force for a brief time.
There was also the Avengers vs. X-Men crossover, where the Phoenix Force was split among five X-Men, so it was Cyclops, Emma Frost, Colossus Magic, and Namor all shared the Phoenix Force. So, the Phoenix Force can be used by many different people, but it does seem to have an affinity for, for G Men.
Y. M. Nelson: Oh, okay. That’s how that works. And that’s also why she said the Phoenix Force has left me at the, you know, in episode 9 or 10. I don’t know, but yeah.
Perry: And actually, in the original comics, there was a retcon that said that the Phoenix Force didn’t actually possess Jean. It basically just Jean’s image. And so, when the phoenix force died in a dark phoenix, it wasn’t actually Jean who died.
It was someone else healing. So, it was this, weird kind of like. Comics, they get weird.
[00:48:04] We need more Punk Storm
Perry: But I do want to, I do want to say one of the disappointing aspects of this show is we didn’t see more of punk Storm, but this was a whole storyline in the comics where storm was powerless. And she led the X-Men without powers.
And this was like her punk era in the mid-eighties. And it was like the most bad ass storm has ever been was when she had no powers.
Y. M. Nelson: Well, was she because I noticed they did a whole redesign. Was she designed, was she drawn like that in that comic? How she, yeah. How she looks on the series?
Perry: I kind of did this. It’s funny, and it’s backwards evolution of mine, because in the original series, she had the design from the 90s comics with the white outfit and all this, but in the comics, the kind of like, black suit. Outfit she wears at the end series, that was her original costume. And then she went from that into the punk look, and then from that into the the white look so they kind of did it in reverse here.
Y. M. Nelson: Okay, so, you kind of cut out a little bit. So, you were saying that the black suit is older than the white
Perry: Yes, yeah, the black suit that she wears at the end of Season 1 here, that is her original costume in the comics. And, from there in the comics, she evolved into the, the punk suit, and then the punk suit, eventually she went to long hair again, but with just a standard full body black suit, and then she went into the white suit in the early 90s. So, they kind of did the reverse of it here where she starts off with the white suit, then she goes to the punk look briefly, and then she goes to her original black costume.
[00:49:51] Storm’s comic history
Y. M. Nelson: Okay. So now while we’re talking about Storm, I would love to know, because of course with Storm, I know at some point in the comics, she was married to Black Panther, T’Challa Black Panther.
Perry: Yeah.
Y. M. Nelson: And, of course, we see her here with Forge, who’s part of the X Force, right?
Perry: X – so he, he was originally part of X-Men, yeah, and then later he joined X Factor, and then he’s kind of in between, like, the X-Men here and there on the edges. Now he’s a member of X force in the current comics, if I’m not mistaken.
But he kind of started off just like here where he was working designing weapons for the government. So that that comes from the comics. And then, if you remember in the original animated series, he was leading X factor in the Iceman episode with. And so that, that also came from the comics, was him leading X Factor. And so yeah, the Black Panther stuff, that only came about in the mid aughts, I want to say, early 2010s. But she was with Forge, like Forge was like her first love interest in the comics.
Y. M. Nelson: Oh, okay. I totally didn’t know that. So, so this really did take basically from This is basically all the comics put together and done very well.
Perry: This is yeah, this is basically Chris Claremont’s greatest hits from the 80s anything they didn’t touch on in the original 92 series which pulled from a lot of Claremont stuff, they they did here. Like the first half of it, it’s from 80s comics, and then the second half, they pull from a mix of, like, 90s and early aughts comics.
Y. M. Nelson: This is just it is, there’s so much here. It’s so rich, and now I understand why it’s so rich. Because it has a lot of stuff to pull from. You know, it’s, it’s almost like, you could study this.
You know, as a writer, I don’t, I don’t know how you feel about it of course, as a writer but to me as a writer, I could just sit, and I could just study this. There’s good character study things you can do here, there’s good story structure that you can study here is, there’s just so much that you can learn just from this season and how and how they put it all together. And the fact that they’ve kind of gone through all these comic book lines. I’m just thinking about the stacks of comic books that they would have to go through.
[00:52:37] The politics of X-Men
Perry: there’s a lot here. I mean, but also, they they push the politics of it even further than the comics have really done, I think, in a lot of ways, like, the, the episode with Xavier and the Shiar, when, you know, they’re telling him to, like, renounce his memories and all that, and then he pulls them all into the Astral Plane, and he, takes them to school about, the, the horrors and the evils of colonization and imperialism, which was something that had never happened in the comics.
And it, looking at that, I’d always, the whole Shiar stuff always felt a little old. Odd to me, it never quite fit to the X-Men the way I thought it should, and I could never really articulate why until I saw that episode. It’s like, oh, obviously, the X-Men are all about coexistence and, and all the stuff, and imperialism is like the complete opposite of that.
It’s subjugation. So why would the X-Men be buddy buddy with this imperialist, aggressive empire?
Y. M. Nelson: Right. Yeah,
Perry: And that episode perfectly illustrated that, and I and I was so– ‘Cuz that episode, I was kind of ‘ehh ever after remember it. This is kind of a letdown it feels. I’m not so interested in Xavier and the Shiar, but when it got to that end part, I’m like, oh. Now I’m in.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, it pulls it all back together. I’m totally with you there too because in kind of the beginning of that I was like, what’s really going on here? I’m like, do, do we really need this? It almost felt like it was a diversion from the story. Like they were just going back to say. Hey, here’s what’s happened to, you know, Professor X, cause you know he’s not really dead. You know so here’s what’s going on with him. And I’m like, why are we learning about this?
But it, it’s like a, a kind of a foil. It almost, you know, gives you kind of a foil at that point. Like, when they start pulling everything together at the end of that episode you get this, this feeling like, you’re mirroring something here.
You’re showing us something that maybe we are, right? The, like you’re saying, the politics are being pushed here.
But I want to add to that to say that the politics I think are being pushed because of, again, this is the genius of writing this or of creating this in this time. This is why this, if it was just a reboot, or if it was just a rehash, it wouldn’t do it.
But in this time, especially like in America with all the division that’s going on with all of the laws that are taking us back to a time where we look like that society, that Shiar society, it’s taking us kind of back that way. And actually showing that in contrast to, you know, what was supposed to be a lovely time on Genosha and what was supposed to be, the U. N. going forward with mutants and coexistence and all of that kind of stuff, what was supposed to be happening and showing that no, we’re really actually not as far as we think we are, the sense that I get out of it and that’s why, this works better than just a rehash because it is speaking I think to the times that we’re in right now, you know,
Perry: absolutely. And yeah, 1 of the things that. Drove me nuts about the the discourse around this show was they made the X-Men woke.
Bitch please, the X-Men have always been woke as hell. Like I grew up in a conservative family. My grandfather adored Ronald Reagan. Nobody ever questioned conservative values. He was the patriarch. Nobody questioned that at all.
X-Men made me a progressive. I’m a progressive because of the X-Men, right? Because I did not get that at all from my home life.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, I mean. Well, again, X-Men is written in a different time, but when the 90s show came on, you, you kind of have to think about, like, what was kind of going on then. People thought that, oh, yeah, we’re, in a time where we’re, all getting together and we’ve, we’ve gotten past the whatever in the 80s and, and we’re all kind of coming together and and it’s like, are you kidding me?
Perry: It was smokescreen. Yeah. Yeah. Complete smokescreen.
Y. M. Nelson: It’s like, it’s like get real, you know, get real. This is not what you think it is. And, you know, to have that shown in that way. And that’s one thing about X-Men that I’ve always kind of gravitated towards and One of the big themes of just any, anything X-Men, but especially this X-Men animated series, is to point out the the flaws around race and the I guess the wokeness that we need to be as a society. It kind of points that out in an obvious, but not obvious way. Right.
Perry: And I think too, the, the changes they made to Bastion In the comics, Bastion was just kind of like he didn’t have much of a personality. He was just like kind of a standard evil, super villain type of guy was just kind of like this cold, calculating villain. But here they make him like charming in a way. And he’s like, you know, he’s funny.
He’s got this, you know, charisma to him. And I think that was smart because they really kind of show the allure of fascism to a lot of people and how it can be misleading in that way. And I thought that was a really good, that was a really good way of getting on what we’re seeing right now in many countries around the world.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you’re right about that. And also, kind of, the backstory of how, you know, he became who he is is something that, you see kind of this is how, a lot of people who hate kind of grow into this right? They’re, other already, or they feel thy’re other already, and so they grow into somebody who hates because they have been singled out to a certain extent.
Perry: Exactly.
Y. M. Nelson: And and then to hear how he created his army is also, hitting home. It’s the only way I can really say that, because, he mentioned, we are, getting these humans, because these humans have been laid off by some mutant who can do 7 times the work that they can, because they’re 7 times as strong. So, you know, so basically, you know, this whole, you know, fear of being replaced has created this, you know racist army.
He’s created this racist army, who are basically also mutants at this point. But but it’s a, it’s a lot of. It really did hit home, I think, or it really does kind of show what’s going on, at least, in American society right now.
The reason why there’s a lot of, let’s go back to the 1800s, is because people fear that they are, being replaced because they see more people who look more like America on TV and they’re like, oh, my gosh, we’re about to be replaced. And, you know, it nonsensical. But at the same time, when you combine it with, you know, A leader who has the charm that Bastion has, like you’re saying, and the charisma that he has, and the ability to speak to them. Right? Because again, this army is kind of controlled by him.
So, if you kind of think about it, it is really mirroring a lot of kind of what’s going on right now, which is A scary, but B, now we can, we kinda see. You kinda get a picture of how people can be lured in this way, right, and how people can
[01:01:45] Where will the X-Men story go?
Perry: So, I’m very curious to see where they’re going to go from this because they’ve it’s already been greenlit for seasons 2 and 3.
Y. M. Nelson: So, oh, it has. Okay.
Perry: Yeah. In fact, they greenlit season 2 before season 1 even came out. That’s how confident they were in. In what they were saying, and season 2, I know they’re going to be pulling some from the Grant Morrison run, because they already said that they’re going to be bringing the costumes from that Frank Lee designed for the Grant Morrison comic books, which are like these black leather Costume wore with these big yellow X’s on the jacket.
So that’s going to be coming in in in season two. So too, I love that they went back to the, their classic costumes for the end of this series. Cyclops, Wolverine, Jean Grey, they’re wearing these kind of like classic X-Men outfits.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, and it’s, and it’s funny too, because, I always have Easter eggs. That was the one thing I actually wanted to, wanted to mention.
And one of the Easter eggs was that they made a joke about, cause I think they were giving, I think it was Sunspot. They were giving him his costume and they were like and, and they were saying,
Perry: Oh, it was a cape.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, so they’re like, so what were you expecting black leather? And, that was a, it was a nod to the first X-Men movie, you know, where they said, so what did you want spandex? Yeah. I was like, oh my gosh, this is just full of stuff!
[01:03:21] The biggest theme of X-Men: racism
Y. M. Nelson: But one thing I noticed that it was full of in the last three episodes, Tolerances: Extinctions, part one, two, and three, those episodes were, just pure genius.
They just, they just had a lot of they, they had a lot of thematic things because we saw the Summers family fighting the bad guy together. We saw the explanation about why, I can’t remember what her name is, but why she let Magneto go.
I don’t know, I don’t know how this necessarily hit you Perry, but for me the first thing I thought of when she said, “it’s surprising that, all this, bloodshed happened on Genosha 1 thing struck me was that nobody was surprised. None of the mutants were surprised.” And I immediately thought of the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder because on social media, a lot of the Gen X, us, I’ll say us Gen Xers, I’m a Gen Xer and older were not surprised by what happened. Because of the constant, the racism over the years and what that does, and the brutality and everything like that and that didn’t surprise us.
But for a lot of the younger generation, especially Gen Z, they were the ones who really were the ones who mobilized, right? Because they were surprised, and they were angry, and they were on Twitter talking about it. And the Black Lives Matter movement started. And it, and they were surprised because they are, you know, the younger generation who hasn’t gone through that cycle of racist oppression and systematic oppression.
They hadn’t. They, they thought they were free of it. Right?
Perry: Well, I was gonna say did you ever see Hasan Minhaj’s Homecoming King comedy special?
Y. M. Nelson: No, I haven’t so I’m gonna have to
Perry: It’s really good and it’s really good. It’s on Netflix, I believe.
Y. M. Nelson: Okay good
Perry: And at one point talking about 9-11 and because he was a teenager, he was in high school when 9-11 happened and he’s talking about and his father was an immigrant. He was born in America though.
Hasan was and his father was an immigrant and they had someone attack their house because, he’s Muslim from India, his family, and they had some people attack his house after 9- 11 and they like, I think they threw like a brick in his car or something like that. I don’t remember what it was exactly something like that.
And his father just very quietly, comes out and sweeps up the glass very quickly and goes inside. And then Hassam, menina, he was talking to his father, and he is like, why? Why are you accepting this, right? Why are you just, you know, not doing anything about this?
And his father said, you know, these things happen. This is the price we paid to be here. And he talked in his special how the immigrant tax, and he says. You come to a country, you kind of feel like, you know, here’s the, here’s the price you pay to be an American, right? You’re gonna have to put up with some racism. You’re gonna have to put up with some discrimination, and you just have to take it is the idea that like a lot of 1st generation immigrants feel.
But him being someone who was born in America, he’s like, no, I’m yeah. An American citizen, I have rights.
And, it kind of makes me think too, it’s, it’s not exactly 1 to 1 translation, but it does feel like a similar idea where your generations, they had to put up with a lot more of the More overt forms of racism, and so the younger generations, when they’re confronted with it, all of a sudden, after years of just, you know, microaggressions, and the kind of like, thinly veiled racism, the dog whistling, and now they’re confronted with flaw and overt racism, they’re like, hold on, wait a second, this is not right.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Sorry. I, you know, I don’t have the words because I’m feeling the feelings. That’s also part of, what makes X-Men for me, what makes that makes, you know, the X-Men a little bit more, you know, I feel a little bit differently watching it, you know, I feel, you know, versus watching something that has, you know, something Avengers or, you know, like, A DC comic series, you know, it’s, it’s a whole different, I feel it on a personal level that I don’t on with any other superhero kind of thing.
And it’s really brought out in those last that those last 3 episodes there. It just kind of all comes together.
[01:08:36] Easter Eggs
Y. M. Nelson: But what I really wanted to say kind of before we left things is. That I was talking about before is the amount of Easter eggs here. And obviously this is part of the Marvel universe, even though if you’re coming into it being a watcher versus a comic book- nerd, I’m gonna say cause we love our comic book nerds.
You don’t realize that you are in the Marvel Universe but seeing all these cameos of other characters from other comic book lines, like Spider Man and Daredevil and Iron Man, and I believe I saw Bastion talking to Dr. Doom. Which, and again, I know this came out before the San Diego Comic Con, but me watching it after the announcement at the San Diego Comic Con and seeing Dr. Doom, I was like, was that a little foreshadowing there?
But there’s so many other, you know, comic, you know character appearances that you don’t normally think of when you’re thinking of X-Men. You know.
Perry: There’s this entire shared continuity of all these different Marvel 90s shows that came out. Like Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, Silver Surfer, and of course, you know, Spider Man, the four most famous of those, which actually did have a crossover with the X-Men back in the 90s. And, in fact, the, the Spider Man we see there, and I think it’s in the those last three episodes, we see Peter and Mary Jane from their looks, the end of Spider Man ’94. So, there’s stuff in there.
And they said too, that in the, in the next season, I think they’re going to have more crossovers. They’re going to more firmly establish that universe. So, it’s going to be really interesting to see what they have because it’s, it’s full on nineties influence. So, it’s really cool because that’s when I got into comics was these shows.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. I’m going to say for me, it started off with X-Men and I’ve said this in I believe in my first episode, this is why Nerdy Romantics Podcast exists. It exists because it’s. In the 90s, I was a full-on nerd, but I was also a full on, I loved romance novels and things like that. And X-Men, the animated series, was one of those influences.
But also, with that, X-Men got me started watching other superhero animated series. And You know, one of the ones that I liked that I don’t think started off as a comic, it started off as a cartoon, was Spider Man and His Amazing Friends. That was one of the ones I was kinda into. And
Perry: Yeah, Firestar.
Y. M. Nelson: Yes, Firestar was my girl!
Perry: And funny enough, she ended up, her first in the comics was through the X-Men comics.
Y. M. Nelson: Oh, wow. That’s so awesome! I love it. I love the connections. And two, it’s also to me showing that I think we’re going to get a lot more connections than what we’ve had. Like, now that Disney pretty much owns just about all of the characters. Now, I don’t think they totally own Spider- do they totally own Spider Man yet?
Perry: Spider Man? No. Spider Man, the movie- yes, Spider Man’s movie rights are still owned by Sony, and so they have an agreement with Marvel to do the Tom Holland movies, but that’s why Sony can do, like, Venom and Morbius and Madame Web and all that kind of stuff, but, but the Spider Man movies, those are being done in cooperation with, with Marvel, but everything else Disney owns, so they have all the X-Men stuff, they have, they have the TV rights to Spider Man, as I believe.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, yeah, cause they do have the old Spider Man I think the one that you’re talking about, that comic, not Spider Man and his Amazing Friends, but the one that you were talking about. No, that was the,
Perry: the 94, yeah.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, they have that. They have so many cartoons that it’s just, and, I didn’t realize this until today. I said, okay, I put all of these on my, I put all of these in my watch list. I’m like, okay, I really want to go back to the 90s. Evidently,
Perry: They’re, they’re kind of hit and miss. I think X-Men is probably the best of the bunch with them. The second season of Iron Man was pretty decent. I remember liking Incredible Hulk, but I haven’t watched that in a while.
And I think Silver Surfer was actually pretty good too. Fantastic Four was kind of the worst of the bunch. It was apparently like universally reviled. So much so that they even made fun of it in the comics.
Y. M. Nelson: Oh, wow. Well, for some reason, they can’t, get that right on screen. They can’t get that right in animation. But those characters are good characters. I don’t know why they can’t get that right. I don’t understand.
Perry: They haven’t had anyone who really understands the comic book. I mean, seeing the new movie they have coming out, it looks like they’re finally right with that though.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. That’s yeah. I agree.
[01:13:50] Goodreads Rating for the season
Y. M. Nelson: So obviously this is kind of a love fest going on here. But we will do a rating for this one star to five-star rating, so you know, one, we didn’t like it, two, it was okay, three stars, we liked it, four stars, we really liked it, and five stars, it was amazing. So, Perry, what about you?
Perry: Can we go above 5? Because my God, like, I don’t know if 5 even does it. It’s so good.
Y. M. Nelson: It’s so- I’m totally I’m gonna agree with you on the star rating. It’s just so good. There’s just so much in here. And, you know, we’ve been talking for over an hour, y’all, but we’ve, like, barely scratched the surface, I feel like, in some respects.
Because there’s so much here, and I can’t wait for the next, I guess the next two seasons. I’m so happy about this. I’m so excited about this. But Perry, it was a total joy talking with you about X-Men ’97.
First off, I am glad that you talked me into doing a podcast episode about it, even though I think I knew in the back of my mind I was probably going to do one. But I’m glad you asked, hey, are you gonna do a podcast episode? Because I had to talk about this with somebody, not just talking about it on the podcast.
Perry: I’m surprised that you hadn’t seen it because back in when we first met, when you came on my show, you would tell me how, how much 90s X,.
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, exactly. And, when I heard about it, I was like, I thought I was just going to jump right in. But life got in the way.
Perry: That always happens,
[01:15:38] What’s next for Perry?
Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, it does. It does. But Perry what do you have going on in writer world? What, what’s, what’s going on with you? Let us know what’s out maybe now, or what you have coming out if you have something coming out soon, and also for anybody new where we can find you.
Perry: Sure, well, I am I’m in a weird place right now at the time of recording because I have started releasing a Power Rangers style superhero serial called Omega Nights, and I’ve been publishing that through the ReamStories.com platform, but that platform’s had some issues at the time of this recording, so I’m not sure if I’m going to stay there, but if you go to percivalconstantine.com, you can sign up for that- my mailing list, and you can get all the updates about that about where it’s going to end up and I’ll be posting it on the news on the website there.
And if you want to hear me talk more about superheroes, I’ve got a podcast called Superhero Cinephiles, which you’ve been on before. And we talked about superhero romance, and that’s superherocinephiles.Com and all the podcast platforms.
And if you like Japanese movies, I also have a podcast where I discuss Japanese films. That’s called Japan on film, which is Japanonfilm.com . And you can just go to PercivalConstantine.com to find my hub for basically everything.
Y. M. Nelson: Sounds great. So, Perry, you know, I got to have you on for the next superhero, whatever it is.
I will say, though I am halfway through Season 3 of Superman and Lois, which we’ve talked about on the podcast here,
Perry: that’s a good one!
Y. M. Nelson: Kind of, I kind of think I want to talk about that with you, because that is a good one.
Perry: I, you know, I’m always down to talk about Superman and Lois.
Y. M. Nelson: Yes. All right. So that may be in a future episode. So, if you are not subscribed, you got to subscribe so you can hear it. Thanks, Perry, for coming on and talking with me about X-Men 97.
Perry: Thank you.
Y. M. Nelson: Hi, want to get show notes from this and future episodes in your inbox? Then subscribe to Nerdy Romantics newsletter. At Nerdy Romantics podcast.com/subscribe, nerdy romantics newsletter not only has show notes, but nerdy and romantic wrecks and sneak peeks and exclusives of my spice, nerdy romances and love, love stories.
I love talking sci fi, superheroes, fantasy, and romance books, movies, and shows with my friends. So, share this podcast with your nerdy romantic friends. Thanks for listening and for watching.
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