While it’s been off the air for more than 20 years at this point, X-Men: The Animated Series remains one of the most popular and enduring incarnations of the franchise. That series was the gateway into the world of for countless Marvel fans, and for many of them, it remains the standard by which all other X-Men projects are judged.
The iconic cartoon is now the source of a retrospective book dubbed X-Men: The Art and Making of the Animated Series, written by executive producer Eric Lewald and series writer Julia Lewald. In advance of their appearance at NYCC 2020, IGN was able to chat with the Lewalds via email and discuss the enduring appeal of the very first ongoing X-Men cartoon.
Check out the slideshow gallery below for an exclusive preview of the book, and then read on to see what they had to say:
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The Forgotten X-Men Cartoon
While X-Men: The Animated Series is the first ongoing TV project to star the merry mutants, fans may remember it wasn’t the first time Marvel attempted to give the team their own show. Three years earlier, in 1989, Marvel aired a standalone pilot episode called “Pryde of the X-Men.” Compared to the contemporary look and feel of X-Men: The Animated Series, Pryde of the X-Men was more inspired by the classic Chris Claremont/John Byrne era of Uncanny X-Men in terms of look, cast and tone. The plan was to follow up that pilot with a full series, but that obviously never happened (though Konami’s popular X-Men arcade game was based directly on that episode).
The Lewalds discussed why Pryde of the X-Men failed to gain traction with viewers and why it took a return to the drawing board for the characters to find their footing on TV. According to them, it was less a matter of the creative talent involved than the higher-ups at Fox not having faith in the concept back in 1989.
“Many of the same creative artists (Will Meugniot, Larry Houston, Rick Hoberg) were central to the making of both Pryde of the X-Men and our X-Men animated series,” they said. “Pryde was designed beautifully. The key difference was the executives making decisions. In our show, Fox Kids TV, led by Margaret Loesch and Sidney Iwanter, had final say. They wanted great human stories, confident that related sales would follow. The writing staff shared their vision – no agenda other than creating the most dramatic animated TV we could write.”
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Choosing the Cast
The cast of X-Men: The Animated Series is certainly iconic, even though that exact team roster had never existed in the comics. The cast is also unusual in that it remained (mostly) fixed across all five seasons, whereas the team is constantly evolving and gaining new members in the comics.
“The original core cast – Cyclops, Rogue, Storm, Jubilee, Wolverine, and Gambit – was a group decision among Marvel Comics, Fox TV, and the creative staff,” the Lewalds said. “Jubilee and Gambit were new characters that Marvel wanted to push. The other four were more established.”
“Amazingly, Jean, Xavier, and Beast were considered secondary, ‘use if we want to,’” they added. “That is why Beast was stuck in prison at first – we started out thinking of him as an occasional character. But as Eric and Mark Edens fashioned the first season of 13 stories, Jean, Xavier, and Beast kept ‘asserting themselves.’ They found it hard to tell a compelling X-Men story without their founder, father-figure, and spokesperson, Xavier. Jean seemed to have a unique relationship with everyone else on the team. Beast was simply great fun to write for. So we ended up with nine instead of six. Ten, actually, if you include Morph.”
As for why the roster remained fixed, that comes down to the differing needs of an animated series versus a monthly comic book.
“Fluid casts tend not to work for TV,” the Lewalds said. “Guest characters, yes. It was fun showcasing Colossus, Iceman, or Nightcrawler in a few episodes. But audiences don’t want any of the six ‘Friends’ characters to change, even after 250 episodes. We did have one episode where no X-Men appeared – the historical ‘origin of Sinister’ story starring Xavier’s grandfather.”
Staying Faithful to the Comics
Along with fellow Fox Kids show Batman: The Animated Series, X-Men helped set a new standard for superhero storytelling on TV. In many ways, the series is extremely faithful to the comics, drawing upon many classic X-Men tales and featuring dramatic, serialized storylines where even major characters are sometimes allowed to die.
At the same time, the series was ultimately still aimed at children, and hindsight makes it clear how many elements were designed to accommodate the strict standards and practices of Saturday morning cartoons. Case in point – the frequent robot enemies in place of living humans, the use of non-lethal lasers over traditional guns, and Wolverine’s colorful non-curses (“You egg-suckin’ piece of gutter trash!”). The pair say it was difficult at times to strike a balance between remaining true to the source material and reflecting the realities of all-ages animation.
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“It was certainly a challenge,” the Lewalds said. “The books at the time were ferocious, R-rated, fight-fests among super-beings. Children’s broadcast television had traditionally been incredibly restrictive – no hitting each other, no blood, no realistic weapons, nothing remotely sexual, don’t even mention death.”
“We were lucky in that Fox Kids TV had final say and that three executives there (Margaret, Sidney, and BS&P “censor” Avery Coburn) not only knew and loved the books, they loved intense character stories as well,” they continued. “[Margaret] let us kill Morph. She let us have Wolverine spend an episode struggling with his sense of God. As writers have learned to in the past (banned literature, motion picture codes), we worked to be true to the spirit of the source material. We tried to maintain the drama with emotional intensity. People scream each other’s names a lot. But in the end, the best stories are about the characters, not the violence.”
The Marvel Cameos
X-Men not only featured a massive cast of mutant heroes and villains, it was also notable for exposing many young viewers to the larger Marvel Universe. The episodes are littered with cameos and references to ancillary mutant teams like X-Force and other Marvel properties like Spider-Man, The Avengers and even The Punisher (or “The Assassin,” as he was known here). X-Men eventually paved the way for a full-fledged superhero universe on Fox, with Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer all getting cartoons of their own. Several X-Men even guest-starred in an episode of Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
The Lewalds said that while they wished they could have featured these non-X-Men characters in more substantial roles, more often than not it simply wasn’t possible.
“We weren’t able to for certain characters, but Larry Houston would draw Spider-Man’s wrist, or Dr. Strange, or Deadpool, or Black Panther, and not name them,” they said. “This got past legal scrutiny. If he wrote ‘Spider-Man’s wrist’ on the storyboard, they would notice and make him cut it. The irony is, of course, that the audience loved the cameos, which made Marvel’s first hit show even more of a success. And then from the writers’ point of view, we already had nine or 10 recurring characters, plus guest villains, guest old friends, family and former lovers. We didn’t have enough time in 22-minute stories to get to know all we wanted to about the folks we had.”
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Will There Be a Season 6?
With so many beloved animated shows being revived lately, from Clone High to Beavis and Butthead to Invader Zim, many X-fans have been holding out hope for a continuation of X-Men: The Animated Series. We already got a taste of what that might be like with Marvel’s short-lived X-Men ’92 comic, and producer/director Larry Houston stoked rumors of a revival series when he revealed he’s held talks with Marvel on the subject.
Unfortunately, those talks don’t seem to have led to any concrete plans to resurrect X-Men. Or, if they have, the Lewalds are unaware of it.
“In our corner of animated TV in the 1990s, plans for further seasons were never in the control of the creative staff, and the writing and design work was completed months before the hand-animated episodes were done,” they told IGN. “When we finished writing and drawing the fifth year of X-Men, we were all off working on new shows before the first episode of Season 5 aired. Since then, hundreds of fans, at Comic Cons, online, and on podcasts have asked if we had or have an idea for a Season 6. The rumor is purely fan wishful thinking, never pushed by us. While we would LOVE to do another season, that decision is in others’ hands.”
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X-Men: The Art and Making of the Animated Series is published by Abrams Books and will hit stores on Tuesday, October 13.
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“Between the Panels” is a monthly column from Jesse Schedeen that focuses on the world of comics. You can see more of his thoughts on comics and pop culture by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.
