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He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: X-men Evolution season 1 ::
by William the Bloody
Ah, the X-men cartoon. Remember Pryde of the X-men? No? Well, it was an X-men special from the late 80s. Wolverine spoke with an Australian accent (called people "Dingo" instead of "Bub") and they had the most generic voice artist cast ever (Kath Soucci as Kitty Pryde and Frank "generic voice king" Welker as Toad. Bleh!!). Now put that out of your mind.
X-men: Evolution is the new generation of X-toon. The X-men are teens again (for better teen audience appeal) and they go to a local high school rather than being secluded at the Xavier Institute full time. The Institute begins with Jean Grey and Scott Summers and Storm as an adult teacher/advisor along with Professor Xavier. This being a first season, we get nice introductions to the characters, mostly as they are being recruited by either Xavier (re: the good guys) or Mystique (re: the bad guys). As the season progresses, we are introduced to more and more characters as they are recruited for the mutant abilities one by one. Xavier's recruitment intentions are to teach the youngsters how to properly control and use their abilities so that mutants and mankind may coexist peacefully. Mystique's intentions are unclear, and all we know is that she wants to keep mutants out of Xavier's hands and into her own. Her ultimate goal is only revealed in the season finale two-parter.
So, basically what we have here are two conflicting groups of teenagers with super-powers, who go to same high school in the small town of Bayville, somewhere in New York state. The principal of Bayville High is Mystique in disguise (she's a shape-shifter). The good guys all live at the Xavier Institute and practice their powers there. It is as yet unknown where the bad guys live.
The Good: I can really get on board with the art style and character design revamps for this series. Their costumes are sleek and simple, but hearken enough back to comics to appease me. The animation is also really quite good. The are some episodes where it seems they kick the animation up a notch and its even better. I like the attention that the animators put into Nightcrawler when he's using his image inducer to look normal, in that they remember to keep his pinky and ring finger together along with his middle and index fingers, since in reality he only has two fingers and a thumb. This show benefits from an original music score for every episode! No recycled music clips! Hurray!! The voice actors couldn't be better! The teens sound young and each have a unique sound. Toad's voice has some real character to it. I was really pleased with Nightcrawler and Rouge's accents as well. They did a great job. The SR-77 Blackbird jet is a superb idea. I love how Quicksilver even talks fast since his power is super speed and all. It was an "interesting" idea to make Avalanche look like the character Richter from the comics. I guess Avalanche's design was too old looking or something, but since they basically had the same power anyway, it works. They could hardly have picked a better X-line-up in my eyes, either: Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, and Rogue were my favorites from the comics (if only they'd get Colossus in there...).
The Bad: Certain things just don't make sense. Like in the second episode where they recruit Kitty Pryde. The X-men seem to make a big effort to get Kitty, but very little to get Avalanche. It doesn't make sense to me why they'd care more about one mutant than another. The same with the Spyke and Quicksilver episode. Okay, Spyke is Storm's nephew, so he gets special attention, but no attempt was made to even try rehabilitating Quicksilver. And speaking of Spyke, my god how I loathe him. Yes, yes I'm a comic book continuity loyalist, okay? I'm fine with them creating a character JUST for the show, but he was too much of a Marrow rip-off to be original. And do you know what the show creators had to say in the special features when they found out? "Oops!" Do at least a little research, eh? And STILL on Spyke, Storm having a nephew makes no sense whatsoever, if you know her origin from the comics. How could she possibly have a sister? Storm was orphaned at a young age while her parents were in Africa and the city they were in was besieged. Storm grew up a pickpocket on the streets of Cairo until she decided to "find herself" and ended up a Goddess to a tribe, since she could control weather. How would a sister fit in there? Was she left in the States? I don't get it. Now onto continuity. I know the creators of the show wanted to stay away from Rogue absorbing the physicality of another mutant's powers, but if you guys do it once (she absorbed Sabretooth's hairiness), you have to do it every time! Meaning, when she touched Nightcrawler, she should have turned blue and hairy, since that's part of his being a mutant. Frank Welker does make his pathetic appearance as a voice on the show, but only as cat noises.
Alright, comics snobbery aside, this is a fine animated series, benefiting from good animation, original music, and terrific voice talent. Occasionally, the writing let's me down, but this IS a youth-targeted cartoon, here AND a first season to boot. Yes, I do have high standards when it comes to a comic book based animated series, but for what it is:
A-
