Finally! I’ve been chomping at the bit to give a review of X-Men ’97 ever since it premiered on Disney+ several weeks ago. But I decided to hold back before I did my review because I wanted to review the entire season as a whole instead of just doing piecemeal reports like what most websites have been doing ever since the animated show was released. Well, the last episode was released and I can now say I’m ready to do my review for the entire first season of X-Men ’97.

However, before I do get to my review of X-Men ’97 Season 1, I will have to say up front that I’m going to break my standard protocol and make this as SPOILER FILLED review. There’s a couple of reasons for that. One, I’m pretty sure everyone who was on the fence regarding if they should watch it or not succuumed to the temptation and started watching it, especially with all of the hype surrounding the pivotal Episode 5, Remember It. Two, I actually have some issues with the season and, in order to explain why, I have to delve into SPOILERS. So, yeah. You have been warned.

X-Men ’97 takes place some time after the events of the last episode of the original series. The world thinks Professor X is dead due to an assassination attempt, even though he’s actually in space to get healed up. This had led to a sharp division in the global population regarding their stance on mutants. While more people empathize with the mutant population now, some are even more angry at how much more love the muties are getting. To complicate matters even more, Magneto, one of the X-Men’s greatest foes and a known enemy of humankind, has now been bequeathed the X-Men due to Professor X’s last will and testament.

Now, the first thing I will have to praise Disney+ is they didn’t pinch any pennies when it came to the production of X-Men ’97. From the animation to the writing to the dialogue to most of the voice acting, everything is generally top notch. I really love the art design of the show as, while it does convey the general aesthetic of the earlier seasons of the original Animated Series, it also looks much more modern as things are generally cleaner and smoother. This is very evident in the opening intro of each episode as they took the time to re-animate the entire thing and you can really see the difference in quality from the original Animated Series to X-Men ’97. On a side note, this is one time I wish Disney+ didn’t have the “Skip Intro” option to do so automatically because, like I said, they change the intro for each episode. So, automatically, it’s important viewing! Also, why would you skip such an awesome song?

While we’re on the audio side of things, I might as well talk about the dialogue and the voice acting. I will say I really loved the scripting of the lines as they are adequately comic book-like. There is a certain melodramatic style to the writing and, while that may sound like a bad thing, it definitely isn’t. The X-Men, even in the original Marvel comics, is known for its drama so the lines were always supposed to not sound like how people talk in real life. It’s much more smart than that as everyone can have a quick comeback or come off like they always have the right response at the right time.

While there are plenty of examples to draw from, I would like to focus on the aforementioned fifth episode, Remember It. This episode is chock full of drama but the one that exemplifies that for me would be after Jean Grey catches Cyclops/Scott Summers with Madelyne Pryor in a telepathic reunion. Jean is understandably angry but Scott can’t help it because, after all, she’s still the mother of his son. They go on a wonderfully scripted back and forth, pulling off things like how Jean Grey only remembers her love for Scott and he retorts on how she might only be in love with the memory. That entire sequence doesn’t sound like how normal people talk. But, then again, they are superheroes and this is just a television show! Of course they don’t sound like real people. Still, you get really engrossed with what they’re saying because it’s still very well-written.

It certainly helps that the voice acting is top-notch for the most part. I’m very glad Disney got some of the original voice actors to reprise their roles as well as get some really good sound-alikes as well. I will say it did take me a while to really get into Ray Chase’s take on Cyclops/Scott Summers as, in all honesty, doesn’t sound a lot like the Cyclops from the original Animated Series. Back then, he was voiced by Norm Spencer who has passed away and, while Ray Chase’s take sounds like Cyclops speaks from his chest a little more. Still, I did get used to it by the end of the first episode, To Me, My X-Men. However, for the rest, such as Matthew Waterson’s Magneto, Holly Chou’s Jubilee and Jennifer Hale’s Jean Grey, were really good copies of the original vocal performances.

I also found it really smart for Disney that, even though they did cast new actors for some roles, they still got the original voice cast to play other roles! For example, the original Jubilee voice actress, Alison Court, did the voice for Abscissa, Jubilee’s older AI self in episode four, Motendo/Life-Death: Part 1. Catherine Disher, who voiced Jean Grey in the original Animated Series, returns as Dr. Valerie Cooper and Chris Porter, who did the voice for Gambit in the original show, now does Cable’s voice. It’s weird but, hey! It works!

Strangely enough, the biggest issues I have with the voice actors would be Lenore Zann’s Rogue and Cal Dodd’s Wolverine. Yes, they’re voiced by the same voice actors as in the original series. But they do sound much older, which does make sense as it’s been nearly three decades since they did these roles. What makes this doubly strange is that both Alison Sealy-Smith and George Buza, Storm and Beast, respectively, still sound like they did in the past! However, they do pull off the emotional moments very well. In fact, I was all set to rail against Rogue’s voice actress until we got to her performance while talking to Gambit and that final “I can’t feel you” line in Remember It. That was, simple put, a five-star performance.

The action in X-Men ’97 is also top shelf when it comes to quality. I mean, try watching the action scenes in the original Animated Series and compare what you would say is the best one to just the first scene in To Me, My X-Men, where Cyclops leads a small team to free Roberto De La Costa/Sunspot from the Friends of Humanity, which I would say is the weakest action scene in the entire season. It doesn’t even come close to how well animated and how well choreographed the action is in that one bit than in the Original Series. And it only gets better from there!

My only real gripe with X-Men ’97 is Disney only ordered ten episodes. I get why they did this as I’m guessing producing just these ten episodes already cost Disney a bundle because of how high quality the animation is. While that may sound like me just wanting more X-Men ’97, that’s only partially correct. My other problem with the shortened season is that some of the more pivotal storylines don’t get enough time to breathe.

Take, for example, the entire Madelyne Pryor storyline. This was a huge overarching storyline in the original Marvel comics, lasting for years! There was a ton of twists and turns with her story but, in the new animated series, it’s pretty much resolved in one singular episode, with the Jean Grey clone leaving the X-Mansion and adoping the name Madelyne Pryor for some undermined reason. I can’t help but imagine how much more this would resonate with viewers if they gave an additional episode to this storyline. I guess it did help the writers to focus on what stories they really wanted to tell and it did help trim out a lot of the fat. But, when it comes to cooking, leaving some fat leads to more flavor.

Still, the season’s length is a very minor gripe when you consider how fantastic the overall first season X-Men ’97 had. This is a must-watch for anyone who’s even remotely interested in the X-Men or anything in the Marvel universe. Then again, I’m pretty sure you have, right?

What did you think of X-Men ’97’s first season? What was your favorite episode and why was it Remember It? Let me know in the comments section below!