I’ve been saying for weeks now that the ’90s X-Men animated series is easily the best superhero cartoon ever, second only to Batman: The Animated Series. That is by no means a unique opinion either; pretty much every kid of that era thought the exploits of Professor X and his crew of young soldiers perfectly blended crazy sci-fi stories, cultural allegories, and deep character development. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t perfectly suited to a little bit of good-natured ribbing, because let’s face it—it was kinda goofy. Thankfully, the Honest Trailers team have filled that critical void quite nicely.
Employing their trademark blend of praise for things they like—with nudging at things they don’t—the Honest Trailer crew has provided some very deft commentary on a ’90s icon. Some of the best bits of skewering include how very dated the references seem now: how Jubilee seemed a weird choice to join the team, how very stereotypical some of the characters ended up being in a show that tried to stop people from stereotyping, and how weird a lot of the noises characters made were. Wolverine’s grunts are the stuff of legend, and Jean Grey absolutely did sound like she was having X-gasms all the time.
And after watching the first season recently, it became abundantly clear how much Storm yelled at nature. She just wouldn’t shut up about it! Did her power only work if she shouted? But it also did do several storylines just as well, if not better, than the movies. “Days of Future Past” is just as good as Days of Future Past, and the show did “The Phoenix Saga” and “Weapon X” a billion times better than the movies. Maybe cartoons are better suited to the X-universe, but it’s still pretty darned impressive.
Be sure to read our review of X-Men: Apocalypse, and let us know what you loved about the animated series in the comments below!
The X-Men TV universe will connect in interesting ways to the movies.
Image: Genesis/Saban Entertainment
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist and a lover of animation near and far. Follow him on Twitter!
