X-Men’s Most Underrated Animated Series Is Still Worth Watching 21 Years Later

Marvel’s mutants are once again dominating animation, and it’s the perfect time to revisit an under-appreciated X-Men cartoon that ended way back in 2003. X-Men: The Animated Series is back in public discourse, and for a good reason. While expectations were high for X-Men ’97, few predicted that it would be one of Marvel’s better projects of all time – animated or otherwise.

However, while X-Men: The Animated Series is rightfully iconic, it’s far from the team’s only show well-worth watching. X-Men:TAS defined Xavier’s team of heroes for a generation in the 90s, but it’s far from the only show to prove influential and add to the overall X-Men mythos. Just three years after the famous animated series ended, X-Men: Evolution began its four-season run and delivered a bold new take on the mutant formula.

Why X-Men: Evolution Isn’t As Well-Remembered As X-Men: TAS

The Other Animated Marvel Show Takes Most Attention

X-Men: Evolution delivered wonderful takes on classic characters and enjoyed a reasonable four-season run, but it isn’t remembered quite as widely or fondly as X-Men: The Animated Series. While unfortunate, it makes sense for a few different reasons. Simply put, Evolution wasn’t first. While the show may do a wonderful job with popular Marvel characters, not being the first to do so means that it was simply doing more of a good thing instead of breaking new ground. Also worth noting is that X-Men: Evolution debuted in 2000, only three years after the finale of X-Men: The Animated Series.

With X-Men ’97 season 1 now in the rearview mirror, Marvel audiences may be looking for more mutant content to pass the time until X-Men ’97 season 2 and the MCU’s eventual X-Men movie reboot. That makes X-Men: Evolution‘s four seasons a perfect watch. While taking some liberties with characterization and famous stories, seeing Xavier’s school act like a school is worth checking out, and the whole series is available to stream on Disney+.

X-Men: Evolution Takes Xavier’s School Seriously

An Interesting New Dynamic That Isn’t Skipped Over

Much like Batman: The Animated Series, X-Men: The Animated Series deservedly stands as the definitive animated version of its titular characters due to iconic voice work and the successful adaptation of several famous comic stories. However, X-Men: Evolution changes the formula, ages down most of the characters, and allows for bold reimaginings of famous mutants and X-Men stories through the lens of a more traditional high-school set show. While the general set-up may have incorrectly led viewers to think the show is for a younger Marvel audiences, the school setting actually gets to the heart of the X-Men better than most other shows.

Xavier has always run a school for gifted youngsters, but few X-Men movies or shows take much time to actually focus on the teaching and learning elements of what Charles provides Marvel’s mutants. By digging deep into real social issues with mutant teachers and students, familiar ideas are presented in a new way. The show goes lighter on global commentary and heroics but makes up for it by focusing more on the smaller, interpersonal, social, and moral issues the X-Men are famous for tackling.

X-Men: Evolution Made Serious Contributions To The X-Men Canon

Evolution Gave Us Wolverine’s Daughter

While Batman: The Animated Series famously created Harley Quinn, who has gone on to become one of DC’s most iconic anti-heroes, X-Men: Evolution did something similar for Marvel. The show was the first-ever appearance of X-23, a clone of Wolverine who has gone on to be a mainstay in Marvel Comics and was the co-lead in Logan. In the show, X-23 is the result of Hydra’s experiments to create a better, controllable Wolverine. Much like the Winter Soldier, she’s isolated and mentally manipulated into becoming a heartless assassin. Eventually, Evolution sees her meet, blame, and eventually accept Wolverine and break free from Hydra.

It’s a surprisingly dark origin, supposedly birthed from the desire to have a younger Wolverine-like character for audiences, given Logan is depicted as older and a member of the teaching staff. X-23’s origins have changed a few times in Marvel Comics, but the character has starred in memorable stories about trying to understand her role in the world as a clone and even taking up the mantle of Wolverine herself. Watching her debut in X-Men: Evolution is a piece of Marvel history.