Wolverine & The X Men (New Show!)

[Loveshack]

Anybody here seen Wolverine and the X Men yet?

It's fairly good.  They seem to have sort of hodgepodged stuff from several different incarnations into one cartoon.  They have the Sentinels. Magneto is peddling Genosha as a mutant safe haven. Senator Kelly is there peddling his Mutant Registration Act.  Toad and the rest of the Brotherhood are on there, but they all look like their '70s incarnations with the exception of Toad, who looks like the frog mutant version he is in the Ultimate continuity.  Also, I've never been a fan of Quicksilver in green.  Angel is on there in his red Defenders uniform.

The continuity is a little bit of the movie and a little bit of the comic.  Jean and Prof. X are missing (dead?).  Cyclops can't lead anymore because of his angst.  The X Men are disbanded at the start of the series, but Wolverine reunites them and the roster pretty much plays out like it is in the comics right now, except Beast isn't a cat-man and Rogue is a teenager like she was in the movies.

Entertaining though.  I like the animation style because it doesn't look like it was drawn in a sweatshop in Korea and the characters aren't horribly re-imagined like emo Riddler on "The Batman" or something.  I was never a huge fan of the early '90s cartoon, partly because I was too young to understand it, (you pretty much had to have read the comics for years to get the stories), and partly because it was based on the X-Men from the early '90s.  You know, the Dark Age of comics.  A time of holo-foil covers and big poofy superheroine hair.  Plus it was WAAAY too cerebral.  When you're 9, you don't want to watch convoluted plots that rival Battlestar Galactica.  Even watching it now, I find myself repulsed by the art, though the stories have grown on me.

I thought they couldn't make it more watchable than X Men: Evolution, but that's dead and gone now.  Basically, this show is sort of like the best of Evolution and the '90s series with the vibe of the unused "Pryde of the X-Men" pilot.  Me likey.

[Swash]

I was never a huge fan of the early '90s cartoon, partly because I was too young to understand it, (you pretty much had to have read the comics for years to get the stories)

Sorry, but I have to contest that one.  I saw the 90s cartoon before I ever heard of the comic.  The cartoon is what got me started on comics in the first place.  First episode was basically "Girl has weird power that blows up electronic stuff, she gets attacked in the mall by a giant robot and rescued by a bunch of people who have powers too so she suddenly finds acceptance and joins them on all kinds of adventures."

I think it was more you just had to be the right age to get suckered in by it, identifying with something there.  Either thinking she was hot or wishing you could find acceptance or whatever.

Me, I wanted to be like Gambit.

[Loveshack]

Me, I wanted to be like Gambit.

Now you can fulfill your childhood dream.

Yeah, I may have been a tad on the young side to appreciate it.  Again though, it was based on the comic from the Dark Age of Comics, and there was something about the art style that seemed a little rough.  I don't know what exactly, but when they started that Spider-Man cartoon a few seasons later, they had fixed whatever the problem was, and when X Men crossed over onto Spider-Man, (Fantastic Four or Iron Man for that matter), they looked polished and awesome.  (Silver Surfer was a fluke, and we must never mention it again.  It never happened.  IT.  NEVER.  HAPPENED.)

Still, X-Men paved the way for all those shows, and since it was the granddaddy of them all, and the one that the creative teams had to cut their teeth on before they could do any of those great followups, then I suppose I should cut them some slack.  Me?  I was always partial to Spider-Man.

I'm not saying that EVERY episode of X-Men was terrible, but here's what I remember of the series, which was my first exposure to X-Men.

Why was Jubilee white?
Morph had the coolest power (I think he turned into Deadpool at one point), and they offed him in the pilot episode!
Beast spent roughly 80% of the series in jail reading old books while hanging from the ceiling.  Then he'd paraphrase something academic to apply it to the non-incarcerated X Men's predicament in that episode.
I thought Rogue was pronounced "Rog-ew" (I was 9.)
I couldn't figure out what benefit Jubilee was to the team.  (My guess is that's why they got rid of her in the comic and saddled Banshee and White Queen with her unhelpful self.)
Wolverine was awesome.
I could never figure out why Wolverine wore his hair in a bizarre style the looked like the shape of his mask, why Beast had the same haircut, and why no one seemed to notice either of those things.
Cyclops spent an inordinate amount of time yelling the line, "JEEEEANNNN, NOOOOOOOO!!!"
I didn't understand why Professor X didn't just use a normal wheelchair instead of a hovering one.  I assumed it had a toilet in it.
To this day, I have NO FLIPPING IDEA what was going on in the Phoenix Saga.  NOT.  A.  CLUE.  Now, I know what the Phoenix Saga is, and I understood it when I saw X3, ::shudder::, but the cartoon version?  Lots of weird monologue by Jean that sounds like Uatu on acid, mixed with lovey-dovey stuff towards Cyclops.  I think in the span of about five minutes at the end, she must have said "Scott" like 40 times.  The only redeeming part of the Phoenix Saga was the montage of other Marvel heroes that you see about halfway through, including a two-second shot of Spidey's hand shooting webs and stuff.
I really liked the Nightcrawler episode, (the first one), if only because I liked the message of forgiveness of others and of one's self that it had.  It was heavy stuff, but it was well-conveyed.
Mojo's voice sounded like Bobcat Goldthwait and Pee-Wee Herman noisily fornicating.  It was a poor casting choice.  In retrospect, I think they could have done much better with Jim Cummings, or that guy who voiced Sher Kahn on Tale Spin, (whoever he is, I know he died recently).
If Magneto is a holocaust survivor, he'd be in his mid-60s at the youngest at the time of the show.  why is he ripped as all get-out with a young face?  Prof. X looked his age, why not Magneto?
I assume now that this had something to do with charging them with explosive energy, but how could anyone who isn't Kwai Chang Kain throw a playing card with any kind of force, distance, or accuracy?  You just know on at least one occasion, Gambit must have tried to throw a card at someone only to have it stop about two inches past his hand and then flutter to the ground at his feet, forcing him to run for cover.

EDIT: As useless as Jubilee was, I liked the character, and I was a fan of Generation X when I got a little older, and Hasbro needs to make a Marvel Legends Jim Lee-style Jubilee RIGHT NOW.

EDIT: I'd settle for Boom Boom.

[Swash]

I actually used to practice throwing cards.  I got pretty good at it.  Used to play the old "toss cards into a hat" game from a few metres away.

Went looking on youtube for demos and there's a guy that claims several things:
People call him Jesus.
He likes to make fruit salad using playing cards to cut up the fruit from a few metres away.
The "assistant chef" in the video is anything but a hooker.

He cheats badly.  He steps forward about a metre, only throwing the card from maybe a metre away, though to be fair the cards do cut through a banana and an inch thick slice of watermelon without slowing down much.

I've seen a stage magician capable of throwing cards well into the audience with no apparent effort (he was my inspiration to learn how to throw) but I can't remember his name.

Totally agree with you on Morph.  He did turn up again later as a pawn of Apocalypse, disguising himself as Rogue and kissing Gambit to trick him into going up and kissing the REAL Rogue, consquently knocking himself out and giving her the ability to explode cups every time she had a cup of coffee.

Also, Deadpool is without a doubt the coolest Marvel character ever.

[Loveshack]

Totally agree with you on Morph.  He did turn up again later as a pawn of Apocalypse, disguising himself as Rogue and kissing Gambit to trick him into going up and kissing the REAL Rogue, consquently knocking himself out and giving her the ability to explode cups every time she had a cup of coffee.

I remember that episode.  I didn't, thankfully, remember Morph kissing Gambit while disguised as Rogue.  How did something that borderline gay air on a children's show?  That's like something out of baaad fanfic.  Also, I thought it was Mr. Sinister who masterminded that plan.  Something about putting a bug in Morph's brain.  I just remember Morph screaming A LOT in that episode, and it being really different from his normal voice.  That was a problem with that show.  Professor X did the same thing in some episode where some alien force zapped Professor X while he was in Cerebro, and he proceeded to screech in an incredibly shrill voice, "AAAIIIEEE!!! P-POWER...INC-CREDIBLE POWER...AAAIIIEEE!!!"  It's just REALLY bad voice acting.

EDIT: Okay, I thought that sounded a bit too much for a Saturday morning cartoon show, so here's the REAL clip, with no Gambit/Morph fanfic.  Even if it was the real Rogue, how would her powers affect Gambit by touching the side of his hat...cowl...thing?[/url]

Also, Deadpool is without a doubt the coolest Marvel character ever.

Cooler than Gambit?

[Swash]

Man am I glad my memory was faulty.

But yes, Deadpool is cooler than Gambit.