X-Men Evolution

edited 13th Feb '13 7:29:47 PM by WorldTurtle

Okay I went back and re-watched a few episodes: Kitty is stated to be a freshman in Middleverse.

Rogue mentions having three Finals in Shadowed Past. However was there a time skip? Since in the next episodes…

Grim Reminder: Kitty’s writing to her parents about “how the day was starting out like all the other school days.”

At the start of Cauldron Scott says, “Let the weekend begin” as he’s jumping out of his car. Also Jean calls after him saying he’s forgetting his Homework.

Rogue, Spyke, Kitty, and Kurt going to the beach was to make up for not being able to go to Hawaii (they went on a road trip without permission)

No mention of Summer Vacation at least from what I could find.

edited 13th Feb '13 8:14:46 PM by WorldTurtle

They are very young, which makes their characterisation even more fascinating - they're dealing with all the problems of both being a teenager and being a minority, in a fundamentally racist society, with all the added burdens of being superheroes.

I know we do get that in the comics, but it's more obvious in the show, what with all the talk of being freshmen.

You know I get the fear/distrust people would have of Mutants (teens already do stupid stuff without adding super powers to the mix), but hating them for having their powers? I mean really isn't that like a dream come true? What person hasn't wanted some sort of super power since they were a little kid?

Of course IIRC the news showed pictures of the Danger Room in Stuff of Heroes right? It wouldn't be hard for people to draw the conclusion that the X-Men could be some sort of super human army training in secret at the Institute to take over the world or something from that right? So the reactions made sense. There would be a sense of "betrayal" on some level to add to that.

A human having powers: Dream come true. I imagine Stature from the normal Marvel universe would be very popular at Bayville - cool, human, and can change shape.

However, a new species, publicised as being evil, and a terrorist organisation with powers? That's less of a dream come true for the average population, more a nightmare.

Deleted: Never mind my friend told me not to worry about this anymore.

edited 22nd Feb '13 6:57:41 PM by WorldTurtle

If you didn't worry about messing with continuity, and gave Kurt a different dad, you could have azazeal. And of course, he'd be Kurt's rival - a serious pessimistic jerk, who clearly lacks the sense of adventure that Nightcrawler has.

Just an idea, of course.

I think I've got the time line down.

Season 1 from Episode 1 to Shadowed Past covered roughly a school semester. Since the first episode began at a Football Game and Shadowed Past mentioned Finals. (Kitty is said to be a Freshman in Middleverse). Comments in Grim Reminder (from Kitty about it being another school day) and later Cauldron (from Scott and Jean-something about 'weekend homework') indicate we skipped over Summer Vacation. (Not that Season 1 wasn't already filled with time skips in-between the various "recruitment" episodes.)

Season 2 begins Scott and Jean's Senior Year. If the info I looked up about New York High School Sport Seasons was accurate then we should be starting Season 2 late October given it was the Soccer Championship game in "Growing Pains".

In "Power Surge" Bayville Fall Track started (which should run from November to February). "Bada-Bing Bada-Boom" mention last month's fire so we should be in November by this point.

"On Angel Wings" took place during the Holiday Break.

After that were back in school, "Walk On the Wild Side" Jean mentions the SHD isn't till next month. Also the Track Team is mentioned by Kitty and Tabitha. Now from what I can find the Sadie Hawkins Dance in RL happens in either November and February-I assume the events of "Shadow Dance" was in February.)

The events of Season Three cover the remainder of February, March, April, May, all the way up to June 28 with "Dark Horizons". (IIRC Kitty got her learner's permit in X-Treme Measures meaning she's turn 16.)

Does this all look about right?

edited 23rd Feb '13 6:53:16 PM by WorldTurtle

I kind of forgot how much I liked this show and I like some of the changes they made more and more the more I learn about the X-men universe. Also, I kind of loved the little bit of Ship Tease they did with Wolverine and Storm. It did help kind of make Evolution feel like it's own world since I can't see that working with any other version of Wolverine since he was much more loyal and directly tied to the X-men in this version as well as making Rogue and Jean both too young to be potential love interests.

In the comics, Storm was a teenager when she joined the Giant-Sized X-Men (Soon to go back to being Uncanny), so it definitely wouldn't have worked there.

No she wasn't.

No, all of them were firmly adults save Colossus. Banshee was the only one who stuck out as older than the others as Wolverine didn't have a face for a while.

edited 3rd May '13 12:21:21 PM by C0mraid

No, I'm pretty sure she was. Her and the other three new characters were teenagers/young adults, while Sunfire, Banshee, and Wolverine were all a bit older.

For someone who's view of the X-men has been almost completely through adaption the idea of Storm "joining" the X-men (except maybe through flashback) is an odd one, I usually think of her as much more integral part of the team the founding members Angel and Iceman.

Storm didn't join until the 70's. All the founding X-Men except Cyclops got kidnapped by Krakoa the Living Island, so Professor X went to recruit 4 new young mutants, along with calling in favors from everyone who owed him one, like Sunfire and Banshee. And Wolverine, for some reason.

I also liked the fact X-Men: Evolution did its own thing and not be a straight adaption of the comics.

edited 2nd May '13 8:24:17 AM by WorldTurtle

The free play with the ages and joining order was very much a good thing. An older Storm and younger Cyclops seemed like a weird, weird idea at first, but it worked very well.

I was re-watching X-Men Evolution and when I got to "Joyride" a question popped up: how is it a place with two telepaths (Xavier and Jean), at least three people with enhanced sense of smell (Wolverine Beast, and Wolfsbane), and with a hi-tech security system on top of it all. How is it Lance still got the blame for the new mutants joyride in the X-Van?

I know possibly a Plot-Hole to be sure Status Quo is God remains in effect, but still... I know the Brotherhood are the "bad guys" and while I personally do not like bullies. If you take away the costumes and powers they're just a bunch of kids with problems, but one of the contributing factors to bullying is inaction-in other words doing nothing and letting the problem persist-and technically that is what the X-Men did.

EDIT: well okay not the "X-Men" themselves, but the writers of the show if you want to be accurate.

edited 2nd May '13 10:57:36 PM by WorldTurtle

Well for one thing the telepaths are kind of operating under the idea that the mind is kind of private and Xavier would consider it a bit unethical probably to go around mind reading as an interrogation technique.

The flip side to that is that they let the Lance take the blame since it was clear he didn't feel like he belonged and wasn't ready to really switch sides yet.

Lance only took the blame after the blackbird incident, we never actually saw what happen after that X-Van (Scott and Wolverine just look at him before we cut away to the next scene).

I do agree with your point about respecting the privacy of the mind, but still Wolverine who was there has the "super nose" + their security system.

edited 3rd May '13 8:42:27 AM by WorldTurtle

@ Maxwellevis: I updated my post, but on second thoughts it was probably too late. But to elaborate; these character first appeared in 1975. Thunderbird was a Vietnam vet, Storm was soon revealed to have been orphaned in the Suez crisis, Xavier worries about training adults, Banshee only sticks out because he's middle aged.

Hm. Been a while since I read Giant-Sized X-Men. Although some of that reeks of retcon. I don't remember any mention of Thunderbird being in 'Nam, and I think the Suez part of Storm's backstory came in later as well, like when Cable joined the team. But it's been a while.

For the interested I've started a Live Blog for X-Men: Evolution. Not sure how far I'll get, and it's the first time I've done something like this. So wish me luck. Strategy X is already out.

I actually enjoyed this show! I liked the way that they took the characters and did something different with them. Sometimes, that could irk me to no end if they change the characters so much, but in this case, the stories were well told and it was interesting to see a new twist on the X-Men franchise. Probably the only thing that I didn't like about this show was the fact that we didn't get a lot of character development for Colossus (we got some for Gambit, but he didn't show up that much in the show).

Wow, I didn't even remember I made this thread. And over a decade ago too, long before my rewatch a few years back. I was thinking of doing another one too what with the X-Men cartoon talk in the air and all.

But while I do consider this my all time favorite comic cartoon, it wasn't perfect. One thing that has irked me for years now is the inconsistently sympathetic portrayals of Magneto.

X-Men Evolution ends with Pietro and Wanda carrying away their father Magneto after they freed him from mind control. It's very touching. Meanwhile, Rogue and Kurt turn their back on Mystique, their mother who has also been brought back to her senses. Now, Mystique and Magneto have a lot of awful deeds to their name but Evo Mystique is generally portrayed as more evil than Mags. But none of that matters because Wanda only helps her father away because he literally had her brainwashed to forget why she hates him. The narrative presents this sweet scene of "aw, look, these kids can forgive and love their father" but it's all a sham! If Wanda had her own mind, her own will, she'd do a Rogue and kick her helpless pops off a cliff.

So, even if in some rather arbitrary moral calculus way Mystique is more evil than Magneto, it doesn't justify the dichotomy presented here of forgiveness and rejection. Mags should be just as rejected as Mystique was. I've never understood what the writers were thinking. Everything they do with Wanda post-brainwashing strikes me as "she's OP plz nerf" and no further thought put into it at all.

There's also stuff like how an old, sickly, and helpless Magneto guilt tripped Nightcrawler about 'are you that much like your mother?" as Kurt prepares to kill him. . Only, back in season 1, we get nightmarish images of Mystique and baby Kurt being hounded by Magneto who is basically a shadowy demon in a horror movie pursuing his victim and she's just a mother trying to protect her son from some experiments he was apparently trying to do to him.