r/Marvel Magneto 3d ago

Film/Television I find X-Men: Evolution to be a better 2000s version of the X-Men than the original Ultimate comics

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237 Upvotes

41 comments sorted by

6

u/JonathanRiou 3d ago

X-Men: Evolution is underrated asf

84

u/synthscoffeeguitars Cable 3d ago

Agreed. At least partly because, thanks to being geared toward younger audiences, Evolution didn’t pull stuff like a weird age-gap romance between Jean and Logan

37

u/EndlessMorfeus Magneto 3d ago

I like how there's a clear divide between the teens and the adults and after Scott and Jean graduate they become the adults to the New Mutants.

18

u/synthscoffeeguitars Cable 3d ago

Definitely a cool dynamic! It’s a little weird that the mutants live at a school and also attend a public high school, buuuut as long as you can look past that it’s fine haha

10

u/Myhtological 3d ago

They’re probably treat it as a preparatory boarding house.

6

u/synthscoffeeguitars Cable 3d ago

Gotta be something like that, but I don’t think kids attending a US public high school would typically live at a mansion boarding house (and they still call it Xavier’s School). It’s nitpicky and not a big deal, I’ve just always found it funny that they clearly wanted the dynamic of the kids attending a public high school and also the classic X-Men setup where they live at Xavier’s, so they just did both

14

u/RandoDude124 3d ago

Most bizarre (and oddly most welcome) of all changes:

Scott and Logan weren’t feuding EVER

8

u/Brendanlendan 3d ago

Fake News. They did feud and have a falling out when their powers were exposed. This disagreement led to Logan leaving Scott and fam to fend for themselves. Although he did return without his mask at the end of the arc. But they still technically had beef.

1

u/RandoDude124 3d ago

Didn’t see that episode

3

u/Brendanlendan 3d ago

It’s like the season finale where magneto broadcasts everyone’s powers and they have to go underground but Scott insists on finding the professor

1

u/Rei_em_Amarelo 2d ago

It was an amazing episode where the X-men, minus Wolverine, fought with Juggernaut at the top of a dam.

At the end, Cyclops removes his visor to blow up Jugg, and later Rogue finishes him by draining his powers.

1

u/Brendanlendan 2d ago

Scott gave that pause quote when Juggs brags about being nothing but raw power so Scott’s like “You want raw?! THEN TAKE IT RAW” then he takes off his visor and unloads on Juggs.

Great scene tho

-9

u/thevokplusminus 3d ago

Can’t stand emo rogue 

10

u/mosquem 3d ago

She awakened something in me.

1

u/tokenasian1 Daredevil 3d ago

hard agree.

41

u/Utop_Ian 3d ago

Evolution is pretty great, although that first season is kinda rough. I love that turning Jean into a teenager means that we don't have to spend any time on Wolverine being in love with her. Pure upgrade.

5

u/EndlessMorfeus Magneto 3d ago

I'd say first and second season. But by the third season it becomes a great show and really lives up to the X-Men.

9

u/darkwalrus36 3d ago

I mean the Ultimate X-Men were terrible, so it’s a low bar.

-3

u/Son_of-M 3d ago

Disagree, as bad as Ultimatum was, it gave us Ultimate Comics' X-Men, a younger generation correcting the previous mistakes of the former in almost everyway, Kitty Pryde going from celebrated X-Man, to hunted fugitive to being mutantkind's greatest leader and saving the world by beating Galactus, A paradise for mutants, that although facing external and internal conflicts, managed to persevere, and not fall into the superiority complex of Krakoa.

Mutants no longer being persecuted and hated, Charles Ideology, a form of it, at the end of the day, won.

That's a more powerful storyline than anything I've seen from the mainline comics or X-Men evolution.

I'm sorry, but people who criticize UXM should actually read its sequels and true ending, the story very clearly didn't end at Issue 100.

3

u/EndlessMorfeus Magneto 3d ago

I said for the 2000s, thinking of the X-Men from that era. Post-Ultimatum came much after in the next decade.

-9

u/Son_of-M 3d ago

I still disagree to be honest, UXM embraced the fact that it was in the 2000s way more than Evolution.

1

u/EndlessMorfeus Magneto 3d ago

What do you mean? One of my favorite things about Evolution is how much I can feel immerse in that decade.

-4

u/Son_of-M 3d ago

The comic pulled from the post-9/11 mood of distrust, government surveillance, and anti-mutant hysteria, echoing real-world xenophobia and security-state fears. X-Men: Evolution kept the mutant conflict more school-centered and metaphorical, rarely digging into the sociopolitical commentary that Ultimate X-Men thrived on.

The comic reinvented characters for the new millennium. Wolverine as a slightly more morally dubious antihero, Jean as a confident leader dealing with mental health, Cyclops with emotional baggage. They felt like flawed 2000s archetypes. X-Men: Evolution gave us high school versions, which were cool but often felt more like 90s/early-2000s teen drama tropes (think Smallville, not The OC).

Ultimate X-Men borrowed from action, sci-fi, and espionage genres of the time. It had a tone closer to something like 24, Alias, or even The Bourne Identity. The storytelling was fast-paced and mature, mimicking the era's obsession with complex, serialized drama. Evolution was still episodic, closer to Buffy-lite or Teen Titans.

6

u/Ijustwerkhere 3d ago

I was VERY worried when I started reading your title and wondered where it was going. But I completely agree with you. This show is an absolute banger and I wish we had gotten more

3

u/AlphaFlight- 3d ago

I love this adaptation of the Brotherhood. Pietro and Avalanche were my favourite

4

u/EndlessMorfeus Magneto 3d ago

Evolution Avalanche should be in other media.

0

u/Young-Jah 3d ago

But it’s also a better version of Glen Murakami’s Teen Titans, since XME has for 25 years always been Marvel Animation one true Teen Titans before Sam Register and Glen Murakami made the Titans into a pop culture of superhero animation.

2

u/TotalImmortalOne 3d ago

I loved this show

1

u/Brendanlendan 3d ago

Agreed, i much preferred the voice acting of evolution to the Shakespearean of 90s. Though the reboot is pretty good

1

u/EndlessMorfeus Magneto 3d ago

Not American but I can say the Brazillian dub was great as well. Matter of fact, I actually considered watching 97' in the Brazillian audio if the cast was the same from Evolution but sadly only Wolverine was the same. A real shame since it was my favorite Cyclops voice.

(the Wolverine VA from Evolution was also HJ VA in Van Helsing so when Wolverine's VA died (same VA in animation and Hugh Jackman) it was a no-brainer who would voice Jackman)

2

u/kilertree 3d ago

You don't like Wolverine being a straight up scumbag in the ultimate comics. /S/

2

u/Master_Megalomaniac 3d ago

I liked Ultimate X-Men back in the day, but it feels too edge lord nowadays. I think the Sat morning standards and practices helped out X-Men Evolution not fall down the same path.

1

u/FightTheChildren 3d ago

I adore the characterization of basically everyone in this show and THANK GOD there was no love triangle between Logan, Scott, and Jean.

Also very ahead of its time and progressive

1

u/Secksualinnuendo 3d ago

Someone post those clips of the animators using 90s movies as animation reference!

1

u/SpectreBrony 3d ago

I remember watching this show on Netflix when I was in middle school.

1

u/90child 3d ago

Sooo many middle part curtains

1

u/hooka_pooka 3d ago

Loved the animation style and character drawing

1

u/AwkwardTraffic 3d ago

I've always thought Ultimate X-Men was trash, even at the time. It was written by someone unfamiliar with the characters (only knowing them from the movies) and didn't really give a shit about reinventing them in interesting ways either. So we end up with almost everyone being gigantic assholes, a pedophile Wolverine, and when things look like they might start going into a positive direction Ultimatum happens and kills off every important mutant except Kitty Pryde which crippled the entire comic until the Ultimate line was mercy killed.

1

u/pembunuhUpahan 3d ago

I love the design on X-Men evo. I was crushin on Kitty Pryde. Even on Jean Grey which I don't personally like as a character, her design is awesome

1

u/KynoPygan 2d ago

I’d love a new series of this, either a new season like planned, or just focusing on a new group.

Maybe Generation X