FERB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (16)

By: Stephanie Burt
February 22, 2021

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite animated TV series.

X-MEN THE ANIMATED SERIES | ERIC LEWALD, SIDNEY IWANTER, MARK EDENS | 1992–1997 and X-MEN: EVOLUTION | MARTY ISENBERG, ROBERT N. SKIR, DAVID WISE | 2000–2003

The X-Men were the biggest deal, by far, in mainstream comics during the 1980s and early 1990s; some of us showed up for all the queer subtexts, some for the soap-operatic intricacies, and some because this short Canadian dude with claws was really cool. X-Men no. 1 (the 1991 relaunch) remains the best-selling comic book of all time. And yet when it comes to bringing in new audiences, comics have never had a patch on televised animation. X-fans who were young enough in the 1990s mostly came on board through X-Men: The Animated Series. Adapting signature plots, heroes and baddies from the first 30 years of the comics, the colorful five-season hit let viewers admire an animalistic Wolverine, wonder at the paternalistic telepathic Professor X, identify with the mall teen and viewer-surrgoate Jubilee, resent the drippy, lawful good teacher’s pet version of Scott Summers, and fall for the best het ship in all of comics as the dashing red-eyed Cajun klepto Gambit flirted with the untouchable Southern-belle Rogue. There’s a big new book about the series, interviewing writers and producers: it’s hard to imagine a better point of entry, at least for kids.

If you’re already an X-fan, there’s more. Much more. More comics, several thousand. A couple of films if you must (they’re all bad except Logan, and none are queer enough). There’s also a terrific second animated series, X-Men: Evolution, not a condensed version of the comics so much as what fans would call an alternate universe (AU), preserving the diversity, the queerness and the soapy throughlines of ’80s X-comics while returning to the book’s ’60s roots as a story about a school.

Most of the mutants of Evo are teens attending a public school, Bayville High; the good guys live and train at a boarding school run by Professor X, whose other adult teachers (the ones who wouldn’t make sense as teens) are Storm and Wolverine (Beast later joins them). The mature couple with leadership qualities, Scott and Jean, are high school seniors; she’s a popular soccer player, and he’s… trying. Other mutants are underclasspeople: a flighty, slightly Valley Girl-ish version of Kitty Pryde; her best friend, the good-hearted, prank-inclined Nightcrawler; Rogue, a traumatized Goth teen with stunning purple lipstick; and more — many more. As the series grew and introduced new mutants, including the ones from the 1980s New Mutants comics, some comedic (the goofy tween Jamie Madrox, who splits into separate bodies whenever he’s hit), some sympathetic (the Brazilian immigrant Magma, who doesn’t trust her powers), some pure agents of chaos (Boom-Boom, who makes things go boom).

The difference between 14 and 17 has rarely been so depicted; Kitty and Jean live in different emotional worlds, whether or not they’re using their mutant powers. Nor has the closet often been so well portrayed: the first two seasons of Evo show mutants trying to help one another without showing the normal world their powers. Then they get outed. (The problematic Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, a boardinghouse of amoral dirtbag teens, are out all along.) When our friend A. showed me and my kids The Animated Series, we understood why she (a queer adult) fell hard for the Rogue-Gambit ship. When I showed slices of Evo to our friend, M., she exclaimed in delight, “THIS IS REALLY GAY!” (We were watching season 2, episode 13.)

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FERB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (16)

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