Review: X-Men Evolution

My assignment is finished! Time to celebrate!

It's been over a decade since X-Men Evolution first aired between 2000 and 2003, but I enjoyed it enough to record most of the episodes on videotape – yes, in those days we had to resort to such arcane measures if we wanted to have copies of our favourite shows. My sister in particular completely loved it, and though those old tapes are long gone, all four seasons of the show are now freely available on YouTube.

One of the biggest questions that arise when you're about to rewatch something you haven't seen in years is: will it hold up? There have been so many films and books I wish I'd never tracked down again because my memories of them were so rosy it was inevitably a let-down when I returned to them as an adult.

But I'm happy to say that X-Men Evolution is still pretty good. Not without its flaws, but still a coherent and rewarding piece of television. Like I said in my last post, the inevitable point of comparison is X-Men: TAS, which (as much as I adored it as a kid) has not aged well. It's certainly not unwatchable, but I can't help but feel that a viewer unused to the distinctive style of nineties cartoons would be utterly bewildered by it. And possibly a bit scared as well.

But X-Men Evolution is something you could sit a small child in front of, knowing they would understand the gist of what was going on – at least most of the time. So here's my controversial opinion that will no doubt draw the ire of anyone out there in their late twenties/early thirties: X-Men Evolution tells a better overarching story than X-Men: TAS. Indubitably.

The most notable thing about the show is how it more-or-less eschews comic book canon in favour of creating its own continuity. The characters are familiar, with the same powers and personalities as their original counterparts, but for the most part the showrunners felt free to take the basic template of X-Men lore (along with its themes of prejudice, oppression and persecution) and craft their own storylines.

And the premise upon which the show is built is simple: the X-Men as teenagers, coping with all the pressures of high school on top of having strange and often dangerous superpowers. Of our main cast, only a handful of characters remain adults (Professor X, Wolverine, Storm, Beast) while the rest (Kurt, Rogue, Scott, Jean and Kitty, plus original character Evan/Spyke) are de-aged into adolescents. And that's just the first season – the second sees an influx of young mutants at the school who are even younger than our central characters.

The youth of the cast dictates the nature of the show: namely that these aren't just people with preternatural gifts, but teenagers with preternatural gifts and all the requisite angst that goes with them. One of the very first things the show depicts is the sheer amount of power they possess, with Scott's optic blasts accidentally causing an explosion during a pep rally. As each new student is introduced, their powers are often portrayed as much a curse as they are a gift, but over the course of the four seasons there's a definite sense of each character's growing competency in how they handle them.

In short, this is a classic Bildungsroman spread across half-a-dozen characters.

X-Men Evolution also remains more grounded than its predecessors, with little in the way of overt science-fiction elements (the exception is a brief trip to Asteroid M in a two-part episode that feels horribly out of place and is never referred to again). Considering the amount of time dedicated to teenage angst, some might consider this a poor pay-off, but it helps prevent the storylines from spiralling too out of control.

Because it's written as a prequel as well as a reboot, chronicling the early years of the X-Men team before they become an elite paramilitary strike force, there's a chance to explore the background of many characters and the genesis of their team dynamics. This is used to best effect in the show's reimagining of the Brotherhood, who are here depicted as teenagers from the wrong side of the tracks, recruited by Mystique (working under Magneto's orders) and used throughout as foils – or even "frenemies" – to our heroes.  

The first season is concerned mainly with introducing the X-Men and the Brotherhood, with a low-key rivalry set up between members of each group. For Nightcrawler it's Toad, for Kitty it's Avalanche, for Spyke it's Quicksilver. Jean gets briefly paired against Blob, and Scott moves between Toad and Avalanche.

This pattern of giving each X-Men a "nemesis" from the Brotherhood dies out pretty quickly (the only one with any staying power is Toad/Nightcrawler; Jean/Blob never interact again, Kitty/Lance becomes a slightly ill-advised "romance", and I've no idea what the logic behind Spyke/Quicksilver was), but in many ways the Brotherhood fill the narrative spot that's usually held by human beings in other adaptations: a faction not wholly good or bad, but who are detrimental to the X-Men as a group whilst being sympathetic on individual levels.

This squabbling between the good/bad kids remains fairly low-key throughout the first season, carrying the hallmarks of any old teenage drama, and even the machinations of Mystique and Magneto hovering in the background bear no fruit outside the rather terrible season finale. To be honest, it all reminds me of this amusing tweet:

But the show did have one fairly ingenious innovation: Rogue as a Gloomy Goth. Her clothing and makeup is a perfect visual barrier in protecting others from her powers, and she does not immediately join the X-Men thanks to a subterfuge by Mystique that leads her to believe they're out to harm her. It's only after a few episodes that they manage to win her trust, and once she moves into the mansion she ends up having the most interesting dynamics with the rest of the team (including a brother/sister bond with Kurt, an adorable Odd Friendship with Kitty, and a quasi-love triangle with Jean and Scott that surprisingly doesn't suck).

***

For season two Senator Kelly is reimagined as Principal Kelly, and Beast appears for a number of episodes as Hank McCoy before his self-experimentation leaves him as the big blue furry we're all familiar with. He joins the Xavier Institute as a teacher, and becomes the only post-season one character to be upgraded to the opening credits.

See the difference?

Angel is also introduced in the capacity of a guest star (as part of the requisite Christmas episode) and appears sporadically afterwards.

For the most part season two drops the X-Men/Brotherhood rivalry (though it's never eradicated entirely, and some later episodes pick up on it again) and breaks up the Mystique/Magneto partnership in order to focus more on the teenagers' attempts to blend in with humans and the various authority figures closing in on them. Because this version of the Xavier Institute is more of a boarding house than a school, all the students attend the nearby Bayville High, which in turn necessitates the need for secrecy as they mingle among their peers.

On the one hand, the X-Men are eager to "come out" to the world and use their abilities to openly help people; on the other, they're well aware of the consequences this might lead to. The Brotherhood is antsy about it too, and though the exposure of their abilities in the season premiere is given the reset button treatment, the cat's out of the bag by the finale.

Worth particular mention is the episode Mindbender, an episode which plants the first narrative seeds that lead to the eventual introduction of Apocalypse. The fact that it airs so early gives the show a strong sense of "master-planning" at work, but it's also incredibly effective when viewed on its own. Beginning with the X-Men waking up to find Jean missing, the students are one-by-one hypnotized by Mesmero into stealing the keys to the first door of Apocalypse's tomb, with no way to control their actions and no memory of what they've done.

It ends with a genuinely suspenseful fight in an abandoned fairground, as one half of the team tries to subdue the other (brainwashed) half without seriously harming them. They're on the back foot for the entire episode, and when Mesmero gets away what he wants, it's a decisive loss for our heroes.

There's also a cunning little subplot woven through the course of the season that involves Rogue befriending an English exchange student called Risty. Unbeknownst to Rogue, she's actually Mystique in disguise, using the persona to gain access to the mansion. The writers give the game away a little too quickly when it comes to Risty's true identity (well, to the audience at least – Rogue herself doesn't find out until season three) but it provides Mystique with a way to procure the instrument she needs to wreck vengeance on Magneto:

Yup, Wanda Maximoff is also given a fairly drastic redesign and personal history. Turns out that Magneto had her locked in a mental institution when she was a little girl on account of her uncontrollable telekinetic/psychic powers. When Mystique busts her out she's hell-bent on revenge, a goal that's kick-started when Mystique kidnaps Professor X off-screen (at the same time she springs Wanda), impersonates him for several episodes without either the students or the audience knowing, puts Jean on Cerebro in order to track down Magneto, and starts training both the X-Men and the Brotherhood for a mission to find and destroy him.

But Magneto has his own plan underway. Using Sabretooth as bait he lures Wolverine into a trap – not so he can capture him, but so Bolivar Trask and the government can. With the Sentinel programme underway, they need a guinea pig to test out their prototypes – and Magneto needs a public exhibition to expose mutants to the rest of the world.

When Jean pinpoints Wolverine's location with Cerebro, Mystique-as-Professor-X (wrongly assuming he's being held by Magneto) combines the X-Men and the Brotherhood into a united force – except there's a mole on her team. Quicksilver is working for his father (something foreshadowed since the first season) and at his signal Magneto sends his Acolytes (Sabretooth, Gambit, Pryo and Colossus) to attack the X-Men and Brotherhood just above the secret experimental lab where Wolverine is being held.

Whew, still with me?

Naturally Trask becomes aware of the commotion and unleashes the newly-created Sentinels upon everyone involved. The whole thing is captured by a helicopter news crew and broadcasts the footage to the world, exactly as Magneto planned.

Well, not exactly – he wasn't expecting his estranged daughter to confront him and rob him of his mutant abilities at a critical moment, apparently killing him when a Sentinel crashes into the rooftop they're standing on.

Oh, and while all this is going down, the younger students are in a panic back at the Institute, Mystique having set the mansion to go into lockdown and self-destruct while they're trapped inside it. Luckily Scott left the team in outrage over the very idea of working with the Brotherhood, and manages to return just in time to shelter everyone in the indestructible Danger Room.

All of these disparate agendas and situations are beautifully knitted together in the season two finale (which honestly, is one of my favourite two-part episodes of the entire show), leading to a Darkest Hour outcome for our heroes: the mansion destroyed, the Professor missing, and most of the team held captive by the government.

It can often be frustrating for the audience when they're clued in on things that the characters aren't, and yet if it's handled properly there's a wonderful tension to be had in viewers understanding things that characters are still struggling to grasp. Here we see Mystique assuming that Wolverine has been taken by Magneto when we know it's Trask, Scott not understanding why the Brotherhood is working with the X-Men after Tabitha brings him intel that Mystique has returned, and of course, Magneto believing that his plan is going off without a hitch – oblivious to the fact that Wanda is about to blindside him.

Giving the audience a big picture perspective while characters are fumbling about trying to get their bearings can be a great way to tell a story if it's done without sacrificing the characters' intelligent (that is, don't make them stupid, just ignorant of important facts) and in this case it makes for great suspense, permanently changes the status-quo, and sets up the third season beautifully...

...which begins with the X-Men/Mystique confrontation getting interrupted by the arrival of the authorities, and the crisis of separation that ensues. The main cast (plus Bobby, who usually gets treated as the Sixth Ranger from this point on) end up hiding in a cave, while Ray/Berserker leads the younger recruits down into the sewers for sanctuary with the Morlocks.

I've always been a fan of storylines where the team dynamic is shaken up by the loss of their headquarters and all their resources, and though it doesn't last long here, the writers make the most of their characters' sudden vulnerability. Although there's an extremely false note when Logan just up and abandons the teenagers after a tiff with Cyclops, it makes sense that in their confusion and fear the X-Men would temporarily team up with Mystique to save their captured comrades (better the devil you know, right?)

In stark contrast to an identical situation on X-Men: TAS, the rebuild of the mansion takes considerable time, with the students forced to live in the underground complex while it takes place. On top of this, they have to win over the students, parents and staff of Bayville high school, many of whom wish to impose a mutant ban. Such is the main focus of season three, though towards the end, the foreshadowing for Apocalypse becomes much more overt.

Self-Possessed sees Rogue's powers spiral out of control, and after she accidentally touches Risty (exposing her as Mystique) she absorbs her shapeshifting powers, consequently channelling everyone she's ever touched. It's an important demonstration of how truly powerful Rogue is, and indicates how she'll be used in the episodes to come.

Plus the animation of her ordeal is amazing...

Mesmero continues his manipulation of various X-Men and Acolytes to unlock his master's tomb, culminating in a brainwashed Rogue being used to gather the powers of all her fellow mutants: X-Men, Brotherhood and Acolytes alike. And she gets each and every one.

So by the time Magneto and Professor X call a truce in order to tackle a far greater mutual enemy, the audience knows they're up against a formidable threat. The third season finale sees the X-Men and the Acolytes teaming up to find Rogue and Mystique: Wolverine and Sabretooth (with Gambit as the unlikely mediator) head to the Tibetan Mountains, while the rest investigate a crypt under the Sphinx.

Their efforts to halt Apocalypse are in vain, and on awakening he renders all the assorted mutants unconscious with a simple, single clap. Seriously, if you want to know how to successfully build up your villain as someone worth dreading, then use X-Men Evolution as a case study. It's not simply the power Apocalypse commands, but the violations he inflicts on Rogue and his chosen Horsemen that make him legitimately frightening.

Season four was whittled down to only nine episodes in total, and so focuses mainly on Apocalypse – though it has a smattering of other fairly strong standalone episodes. There's a real sense of scope at work as Apocalypse gains control of pyramids in Egypt, Mexico and China, and a sustained atmosphere of fear as the world frets over what exactly is happening within the domes he's raised over each pyramid.

Naturally this escalates tension between humans and mutants, and across the nine episodes a few important developments take place: we're introduced to Leech (a quintessential Chekhov's Gunman), Rogue and Kurt deal with the psychological effects of Mystique's betrayal (more on this later) and Apocalypse assembles his four Horsemen.

This time around they're Magneto, Professor X, Mystique and Storm, whose character designs look genuinely unnerving and who give the final battle between X-Men and Apocalypse the necessary personal hook.

A good comparison is the battle between Aang and the Fire Lord on Avatar: The Last Airbender. The Fire Lord is physically intimidating, but because the two characters had never even met before this confrontation, the battle had no emotional resonance. (As it happened, the writers compensated for this by intercutting their battle with the highly personal showdown between Zuko and Azula, which made all the difference).

Similarly, there's no sense of history or vendetta between Apocalypse and the X-Men – but pitting the team against their mentors and surrogate/biological parents? That's a fight with an edge.

So it's easy to get a little choked up at the sight of our teenage protagonists stepping out of the army helicopters to stop Apocalypse on behalf of a world that hates and fears them. The Grand Finale makes room for nearly everyone: the X-Men, the Brotherhood, a couple of Acolytes, the new recruits, a few free agents (such as Angel and Havoc), and heck – even Nick Fury and the Sentinels!

Having grown into responsible adults and leaders over the course of the show, the Battle Royale showcases all their powers to best effect, but perhaps the real genius of the story is that Apocalypse poses no direct threat to them. As they discover, his alien technology is designed to trigger the dormant X-gene in the world's population and attempt to turn all humans into mutants. This process will result in the deaths of millions of ordinary people, and it's that the X-Men decide to stand against.

It's beautiful. It’s perfect. It's what makes them heroes. What better way could the show have possibly encapsulated the core ideals of the X-Men and their story?  

This more than anything is what makes them true heroes, and though it's clear that there was room for at least one more season, X-Men Evolution ends on a near-perfect note. Seriously, it's an immensely rewarding finale that makes use of all its characters, brings the long-running Apocalypse arc to a conclusive finish, and makes good on several of its deeply seeded promises – namely, the show's consistent hints that Rogue will have particularly important role to play in this story. Of all the conclusions to this franchise's cartoon adaptations, X-Men Evolution can boast the most satisfying.

What Works:

Better than any other take on the X-Men premise, X-Men Evolution captures the psychological effect that having mutant powers would have on teenage minds: withdrawal, anger issues, stress, tribalism, and knee-jerk defence mechanisms. The most well-adjusted team member is Kitty, and it's not a coincidence that her power is the easiest to hide; one which furthermore makes her invulnerable to physical attacks. On the other end of the scale is Rogue, whose appearance and attitude have clearly been built up over a number of years as self-protective measures.

Being a mutant has always been an obvious metaphor for adolescence (their abilities manifest when they hit puberty; their spurts of uncontrollable power – particularly in Rogue and Jean – are a natural stand-in for impending adulthood), but here the writers milk the teen angst for all it's worth. The more I think about it, the more sense a High School AU version of the X-Men actually makes. It's just a wonder it took this long to materialize!

***

In many ways Rogue is the most important character on the show, and during this rewatch it surprised me just how early and consistently her role in the grand scheme of things is foreshadowed. I'm not sure to what extent the writers had her journey mapped out, but the final episode makes her the key player Apocalypse's defeat, bringing her character arc full-circle.

The idea of Rogue as a Goth initially seems a surprising one, but ultimately one that makes perfect sense; not only as a way to put her in protective clothing, but in telegraphing her defensive "stay away" persona. The familiar trajectory of this character's backstory is followed almost to the letter, with Rogue's powers manifesting when she puts her would-be boyfriend in a coma after her bare skin touches his (though in this case it's while they're dancing, not sharing their first kiss, removing some of the sexual connotations inherent in the usual manifestation of her powers).

Absorbing his memories and strength, she suffers a brief identity crisis and flees to his house, believing it to be her own. It's there that Mystique attacks her in the guise of Wolverine and the other X-Men, until she's scared enough to rebuff the overtures of friendship and assistance from the real X-Men.

This scene is loaded: she's not only reminding Rogue of what the "X-Men"
tried to do to her, but almost touches her on the shoulder before catching herself. 

As I said earlier, their first attempt to win Rogue over to their side is a failure, and there's consequently some tension between them at Bayville High before a field trip that turns life-or-death allows her to learn the truth. But it's in the horrifying and fascinating dynamic between Rogue and Mystique that the show really excels. Lately I've had a few rants about the If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him trope, and the general mentality found throughout a number of narratives that a victim has to forgive their abuser in order to a) let the healing process begin and b) prove that they're not as terrible a person as said abuser.

I really can't articulate how much it bugs me that so often a victim is not allowed to even be angry at the person who makes their life miserable; that so often rage is considered the first step on the road to the Dark Side instead of a perfectly normal reaction to maltreatment and manipulation.

Sure, wallowing in bitterness or seeking out revenge aren't things to be encouraged, but a victim doesn't owe their abuser jack-shit, least of all the time and emotional toll it takes to reach out and forgive them. Again, that's not to say forgiveness can't be healing or worthwhile – far from it; only that choosing not to forgive, or feeling incapable of it, doesn't make you a bad person.

(To put a fandom spin on it with the two most recent Cinderella films, I infinitely prefer the way Ever After depicted their heroine calmly telling her stepmother: "After this moment I will forget you and never think about you again," than I do the latest Cinderella piously declaring: "I forgive you," to her stepmother. It's not that one response is better than the other, but I dislike the implied message of the second that suggests years of abuse can be wiped clean in a second if the victim just finds it in her heart to forgive her abuser).

So where am I going with all this? Firstly, there's no doubt that Rogue is mentally and emotionally abused by Mystique. The show exposits that Mystique is Rogue's adopted mother, and though there's no indication of what her early upbringing was like (when we first see her she's in the foster-care of a blind woman called Irene) we are privy to the mind-games that Mystique plays with her. I've already mentioned that she gaslights Rogue into believing that the X-Men are out to hurt her, and that she later disguises herself as a teenage girl called Risty in order to befriend Rogue and infiltrate the Xavier Institute. The deception is an elaborate one, as the friendship is nurtured over an extended period of time, to the point where Rogue feels comfortable in treating Risty like a confidant.

A grown woman tricking a teenage girl into thinking they're friends and making her care for someone who doesn't truly exist is vile enough, but Mystique is also complicit in Rogue being used as a vessel for Apocalypse's agenda – first brainwashing her into absorbing all the powers of her fellow mutants, and then in delivering them up to Apocalypse himself.

And so I got a sinking feeling in my stomach when the show's fourth season tackled the aftermath of Mystique's exploitation of Rogue. Having been turned to stone in the process of freeing Apocalypse from his crypt, Mystique (as a statue) is taken to the Xavier Institute – though Professor X has her moved to the Brotherhood house when Rogue makes it clear she doesn't want it around. 

But Kurt (Mystique's biological son) isn't happy with this arrangement, and returns the statue to the house in the hopes that he can reach some understanding of the mother he's never known. Rogue is furious, especially when Kurt starts with the familiar platitudes found in these types of stories, such as: "she's our mother" and "if you don't get rid of your [anger and hatred] it will destroy you" and "prove that you're not like her."

Rogue responds by pushing the statue off a cliff, shattering it into pieces.

Frankly, it's awesome. What's better is that Rogue isn't haunted by grief or guilt over this course of action, and neither is she punished for freeing herself from the woman who used her body and powers without her permission. The show takes her side in this matter, and when Mystique eventually re-emerges in the season finale, Kurt and Rogue cut short her excuses, tell her to leave them alone, and turn their backs on her.  

Depicting that it's okay for young people to reject abusive parents instead of reaching out and making them vulnerable to further abuse? That's revolutionary, and something that I don't think was handled with this much potency until Zuko called out his father over on Avatar: The Last Airbender.

***

There were plenty of other good things about the way Rogue was handled, and her centrality was determined by the fact that she had a unique and important bond with all the other X-Men (others only had a couple – Scott for example never interacted much with Kitty, and Jean never had anything to do with Kurt).

Rogue and Kitty in particular is a joy. A Goth Girl and Valley Girl logically shouldn't get along in any reality, and yet after a tense start the two of them end up being the epitome of an Odd Friendship.

Rogue's story also involves something you don't see very often: a love triangle that doesn't suck. Okay, perhaps that's because it's not really a love triangle, as you're never in any doubt that Scott and Jean won't end up together, but it can be tedious watching the Official Couple getting together for the umpteenth time, and in contrast Rogue/Scott had a lot of interesting (and fresh) potential. It's obvious that Rogue harbours a crush on Scott, one that makes perfect sense given his friendliness and her admiration for the control he has over his mutant powers, and there's poetry in the fact that he can't see and she can't touch, making them a logical dynamic to explore.

Context: bullies knocked off his glasses and she's returning them.

Unlike Scott/Jean, which can be a bit heavy-handed, Rogue/Scott is given just the right amount of attention – a melancholy reaction there, an interrupted proposition there, though naturally Scott notices none of it. It would have been interesting to see what the writers had planned for them in season five, especially regarding their intention to tackle The Dark Phoenix Saga.

There's also some amusing interaction between Rogue and Jean, with Jean existing as a rival to Rogue's romantic inclinations without actually knowing it. As such there's plenty of resentment directed towards her before Rogue comes to Jean's aid in absorbing some excess psychic power, revealing to Scott afterwards that: "me and Miss Popularity are worlds apart. Galaxies. But she'd do the same thing for me."

(I don't doubt the sentiment, but sadly we don't ever get to see a demonstration of it. And Self-Possessed would have been the perfect opportunity for Jean to repay Rouge in kind, but the saviour role instead goes to Wolverine).

But for the most part the show presents a unique and intriguing portrayal of one of the franchise's most iconic heroines. Right from her debut episode the writers set up Rogue as a major player in this story, someone who commands the interest of several parties due to her power's potential, and her character-focus is paid off in droves by the Grand Finale.

***

X-Men Evolution also boasts the very BEST versions of Scott and Jean, perhaps because it's not like it could get any worse than what X-Men: TAS did with their characters; perhaps because these writers are well-aware that they're a boy scout and a goody-two-shoes and so decide to have some fun with this.

There's a hilarious moment when Jean tries to deflate a growing conflict between the X-Men and the Brotherhood by getting on her soapbox and insisting that they should all be proud of their mutant abilities and that it's important to follow the rules – only for Scott to grab her arm and drag her away.

In all seriousness though, Jean can be a difficult character-walnut to crack. She's a high achiever and a powerful psychic, but there's also a tendency to portray her as the Distressed Damsel or a young woman with no control over her abilities (we'll get to this in Wolverine and the X-Men – hoo boy, we'll get there). Combine that with the Phoenix storyline and her position as the centrepiece of a famous love triangle, and she's often thrown into the Mary Sue pile, with a side offering of Die For Our Ship and on-going gags about how many times she's died. This was very much the case in this fandom – and I can kind of see their point.  

But X-Men Evolution does some interesting things with Jean, and it's a shame to see her dismissed out of hand. She's a gorgeous red-head and a star football player and a straight-A student and the object of Scott's affection – but she also struggles with keeping this image firmly intact, and with consistently rising to everyone's high expectations. Professor X often trots her out as his "star pupil" and it's down to her attractiveness and charm and grades that she's made the spokesperson for the rest of the team. Can you imagine the strain this would put on her? The show does, and it's no coincidence that times of stress are what bring on her surges in power.

And yet no one can deny that she's a legitimately friendly and caring young woman. I hate it when people dismiss this trait in any character (I suspect that "niceness" is often taken for granted in female characters, so they don't get much credit for demonstrating it – this happened a lot with Guinevere on Merlin as well) and it's important to note that Jean is almost always the first person sent in to recruit a potential new student onto the team.

Meanwhile, Scott's Character Establishing Moment in this show does better by the character than entire portrayals of him in any other adaptation. On noticing that Toad is pick-pocketing students (including himself) at a football game he heads off to confront him, only to intervene on his behalf when he realizes some jocks are getting ready to beat him up. His reasoning? "I'm not crazy about three against one, so how about we resolve this peacefully."

That's so Cyclops it hurts.

Much later there's another fantastic character-beat during the Mystique/X-Men alliance to rescue their team members from the government. As they make their escape Cyclops traps Mystique on the wrong side of a door in the hope she'll give up the location of Professor X. It's intense, it's morally ambiguous – and it doesn't pay off. Mystique keeps quiet, is recaptured, and gets her revenge on Scott later in the season. But it's a pivotal moment for Scott as a character, making him the guy who makes the tough decisions for the sake of his team and the greater good.

Scott and Jean may not always be the show's most compelling characters, as between them there's little in the way of complex backstories or divided loyalties (and there's a bit too much time spent on their Will They Or Won't They drama) but their inherent goodness and commitment to fair play is presented consistently and admirably without it ever tipping over into self-righteousness.  

***

Even though they were my favourite characters after Rogue, there's little to say about Kitty/Shadowcat and Kurt/Nightcrawler beyond the fact that they were great. There's plenty of Ship Tease between them in the early seasons that never quite goes away, even after they're paired up with other characters, and the two of them have a sweet, teasing connection that seems rooted in their naturally sunny dispositions. If Scott and Jean bring the angst, and Rogue and Spyke the anger, then Kurt and Kitty are two much needed rays of light.

They're mocking Scott and Jean. It's hilarious.

I think we can also credit X-Men Evolution for introducing these two characters to a mainstream audience, neither one having featured heavily in X-Men: TAS.

***

Wanda and Pietro Maximoff have a funny relationship with the Marvel Universe, don't they. There are characters who are reimagined more drastically (Rogue) and characters who remain largely the same across a number of retellings (Wolverine) but Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are consistent largely in their inconsistency from adaptation to adaptation.

They were devoted twins in X-Men: TAS and The Avengers: Age of Ultron, but much more at odds in X-Men Evolution and Wolverine and the X-Men. Then there's the added weirdness of having an entirely separate (Wanda-less) take on Quicksilver in Fox's Days of Future Past. I think "How It Should Have Ended" sums up the situation nicely (at 1:04):

He can be anything from a hyperactive fatherless teenager to an arrogant daddy's boy to a hapless young man desperate for Magneto's approval, while she goes from a loyal follower of her father to a daughter who despises him to one of Joss Whedon's mystical waifs with no parents in sight. As siblings they can be totally inseparable, or completely at odds. The variety is fascinating.

And X-Men Evolution has one of their most interesting dynamics. Quicksilver is an egotistical little shit who is terrified of his sister, though not entirely without affection for her – it's just that his first loyalty is to his father. Wanda on the other hand is a troubled teen who was sent to a mental asylum when she was just a child and consequently hates the man who put her there: Magneto. She first appears in a straightjacket surrounded by several unsettled orderlies, and it only gets better from there.

It's against Wanda that the X-Men finally lose a battle against the Brotherhood, and yet she's never pictured in an unsympathetic light. She bears more than a few resemblances to Rogue (not just in wardrobe/makeup choices) and it's a shame the two never interacted in any meaningful way, as – like Rogue – much of her psychology is rooted in a parent's abuse of her uncontrollable abilities.

Yet unlike Mystique who wants to exploit, Magneto wants to suppress and control. When he can't manage it, she's locked up, and after she breaks out, he searches for other ways with which to restrain her. But I'll get to that in a bit...

***

Remember how Harley Quinn was created as an original character in Batman: TAS and proved so popular that she made the jump to the comic books? Well, X-Men Evolution can boast their own Canon Immigrant: X23, a young teenage girl (naturally) who is cloned from Wolverine's DNA and raised to be the perfect assassin.

To be honest, I found her more interesting as a premise than an actual character, and it may surprise you to learn she was only in two episodes. There was clearly going to be more exploration of her in the proposed season four, but she remains the lasting contribution this show makes to the X-Men franchise and so can't be placed anywhere else except in the "what works" category.

***

Among the overarching plots are several standalone episodes that are pretty good, especially when they incorporate the great group dynamic that exists between Scott, Jean, Kurt, Rogue and Kitty. Take any of these two characters and you'll have a unique rapport that's fascinating to watch. My favourites would have to be Rogue/Kitty (oddest friendship ever), Kitty/Kurt (okay I admit it: I shipped them), and the aforementioned Scott/Rogue/Jean triangle.

There are also a number of episodes that showcase other relationships and guest characters, including the amusing Toad/Nightcrawler animosity in The Toad, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the friendship between Kitty and Danielle Moonstar in the surprisingly spooky Ghost of a Chance, and the mentor/student bond between Jean and Amara in Cruise Control.

And this list wouldn't be complete without mentioning No Good Deed, in which the Brotherhood cause a subway accident and use their powers to inadvertently save themselves and the rest of the passengers. They're lauded as heroes for it, much to the chagrin of the X-Men – leading them to set up more accidents so as to go on enjoying their newfound fame and fortune.

What Doesn't Work:

Magneto and Mystique make for rather ineffectual villains this time around; in fact, I'd go so far to say that this is the worst Mystique ever. She has no subtlety, no finesse, no strategy. Her attempt at ambushing Storm involves her stupidly destroying the element of surprise and getting roundly defeated.

It was an interesting idea to make her the principal of Bayville High, but nothing much comes of it beyond her pitting a bunch of teenagers against each other (because it's not like villains have anything better to do) and her initial relationship with Magneto is too ill-defined to justify her later vendetta against him. Plus her voice actress is way too over-the-top and her costume is terrible. I don't care if her skull-belt is iconic, it looks awful here.

She improves later on in the show, when she's given a better costume, a chance to make power-plays of her own, and pose undercover as Risty, but she never really clicks as a character.

Meanwhile, our first look at Magneto paints him as a clear-cut villain, and he doesn't diverge much from this:

He's the Big Bad of the first season, though his plan to forcibly transport mutants to Asteroid X by them pitting them against each other in a survival of the fittest competition and treating the winners to a bout in a radiation chamber that will enhance their powers but also make them his unthinking slaves is ... a little silly, to say the least.

It's also revealed that he was compliant in some sort of experimentation that took place on Kurt while he was an infant, and he puts his daughter through a horrific violation of free will after ordering Mastermind to remove all her memories of his past mistreatment (namely, him abandoning her in the mental institution).

And unlike the similar gas-lighting situation between Rogue and Mystique, which allows Rogue to unequivocally reject her abuser without guilt, Wanda never finds out that her father mind-raped her into forgetting his neglect. Perhaps season five would have dealt with that, especially since Pietro was aware of the full situation, but it certainly sticks in the craw that the final shot of the Maximoffs is the three of them happily heading off into the sunset together.

NO.

But it's interesting to compare this Magneto to previous and future incarnations. In X-Men: TAS he was more of an ally than an enemy, and in Wolverine and the X-Men he's a Hidden Agenda Villain with long-term plans and warm relationships with his children (well, two of them at least).

Here Wanda and Pietro are largely estranged from him, and when they do begin to interact it's clearly not good for either one of them: Wanda is outright abused, but even Pietro is manipulated into doing his father's bidding. There's some interesting tension within the Brotherhood when it becomes apparent that Quicksilver is going above Mystique's head in regards to who he's taking orders from, as well as a few last-minute hints that he's willing to prioritize his sister over his father, but the show's cancellation put a stop to exploring it all more fully.

So with the exception of the season two finale, in which his Batman Gambit goes off (nearly) without a hitch, Magneto is comprised of plots that never really pan out, and a relationship with his children that never gives them the chance to break free of his control in the same way Rogue and Kurt do from Mystique.

***

I really hate to say this about the show's other original character and their valiant attempt to diversify the cast, but Evan Daniels (aka Spyke) just doesn't work.

Introduced as Storm's nephew, with powers borrowed wholesale from Marrow, Spyke is characterized as a hot-headed skateboarder with an antagonistic attitude and street lingo that has dated terribly. Example of dialogue: "Yo Rogue, why don't you shed them gloves and give K-Girl a tiny tap?"

It's all summed up in the fact that his codename is unnecessarily spelt with a "Y".

But most damning of all is the fact the character simply doesn't form any interesting relationships with the rest of the team. There's a trope called The Friends Who Never Hang, describing the lack of interaction between any two members of an ensemble cast, and in this case there's nobody in the Xavier Institute that Spyke has a particularly interesting rapport with.

The closest one he gets is with Storm, who he calls "Auntie O", but after several lacklustre character-centric episodes the writers just give up and send him into the sewers to join the Morlocks. How Storm plans on explaining this to his parents is never dealt with.

***

For every good episode, there's a bad one. And the bad ones are frankly terrible. Adrift has got to be the most boring twenty minutes of television I've ever seen, in which Scott and Alex are swept out to sea during a storm and struggle to stay alive until help arrives. Then there's Joyride, built on the incredibly stupid premise that the young X-Men recruits would sneak out in the middle of the night for excursions in the Blackbird and not get themselves killed considering they have no idea how to fly a jet.

And of course, the infamous Walk on the Wild Side, aka the Girl Power Episode.

Look, I am both a feminist and an environmentalist. Living in New Zealand, both those things are practically a prerequisite for citizenship. But whenever either of these ideologies are inserted into a story as the sole purpose of that story, it's bound to be an unmitigated disaster. Walk on the Wild Side is no exception.

It starts when Scott commits the unspeakable crime of rescuing Jean and Amara from falling rocks during their training session. Sure, he's a little condescending afterwards, but Jean's reaction is so absurdly over the top that it feels like she's been handed a memo reminding her that she's in the girl power episode, and must therefore hate all men for the next twenty minutes.

She storms off after snapping "I'm sick of being treated like the weaker sex!" even though in all the episodes preceding this one, she never has been.

It continues when Tabitha invites Amara to stare at the boys track team outside (sure, there's nothing wrong with either boys or girls admiring the opposite sex, but in this context, the act of leering at boys is presented as an act of girl power).

Then – and I'm not making this up – Amara, Tabitha, Jean, Kitty and Rogue decide to dress up in black leather, call themselves the Bayville Sirens, and fight crime. For real. The whole episode comes to a halt so they can dance around in a musical montage about how badass they are.

Actual footage.

And the cherry on top is that the whole thing ends on a massive Broken Aesop. After hunting down a ring of car thieves, the girls start a fight in their garage headquarters, having unknowingly been followed by Scott and Kurt (who want to keep an eye on them). They manage to take down most of the criminals, only for some out-of-control flames to get a bit too close to a parked car, requiring Scott to blast it out of the way.

The girls don't see him do this, and Scott instructs Kurt to keep it a secret. So not only are the girls completely undermined by having to be saved by Scott without them even knowing about it, but Scott himself believes he has to keep it a secret because ... they'd be angry at him if they found out he saved their lives?  

The whole episode feels like a parody of girl power. It actually contains the line: "girl power, don't you just love it?" delivered completely straight. I forced myself to watch it for this review and cringed the whole way through. I still can't believe it exists.

***

There are also a couple of storylines that don't pan out, which I suppose can be chalked down to the proposed fifth season getting canned. They include an episode that introduces a fizzy beverage that's lethal to mutants (but which was never mentioned again) and seeds sown for storylines involving Xavier's son Legion, Jean transforming into the Phoenix, and Gambit, Colossus and X23 joining the X-Men, though none of this never materialized on-screen.

Partial Success:

The show can be pretty uneven at times, even more so than X-Men: TAS (which at least committed to the crazy and was consistent with it). But X-Men Evolution often veered clumsily between government threats, teenage angst, and global crisis on an Apocalyptic scale. It was at its best when dealing with teenagers facing social prejudice, giving them a balanced amount of wins and defeats to keep things interesting, and reimagining comic book canon in clever ways to match its High School AU premise (Senator Kelly as Principal Kelly; the Brotherhood as the kids from the wrong side of the block, Rogue and Wanda as Goth girls, etc).

It also made sensible decisions when it came to paring down on the complexity of the comic books, especially when compared to X-Men: TAS (which is convoluted to the point of incomprehensibility). Being grounded in the real world, there are no aliens, space travel, time travelling or overt science-fiction. Though some may miss these elements, it was a good call to jettison them.

In fact, the show sits in a fascinating position between the film franchise and X-Men: TAS when it comes to its treatment of the comic canon's family trees. Mystique is officially recognized as the biological mother of Kurt and adoptive mother of Rogue, ties that X-Men: TAS keep in all their convoluted glory, revealing that Mystique is Rogue's mother without any build-up and that Nightcrawler is her son in a split-second flashback that only the audience is privy to.

Unsurprisingly, these bonds have been severed in the film series, no doubt due to their restricted run-time and the fact that so much else is going on.

"Why not disguise yourself and live among them?"
"Because we shouldn't have to. PS, I'm your mum."

But X-Men Evolution finds a sensible balance between these two extremes, and though it's still far from perfect, it contains some build-up to the discovery of Mystique's connection to Rogue and Kurt, as well as exploration and closure on their relationship.

In saying that, other attempts to introduce long-lost family members fail miserably. Scott's brother Alex is introduced in the same episode that Scott (and we) learn he survived the plane crash that supposedly killed him ten years ago, neither one having ever been mentioned before. Four seasons later, Professor Xavier gets a phone call out of nowhere telling him that his son is in terrible danger, leading to one of the weirdest episodes of the entire show. 

And I honestly can't remember if they mention Juggernaut being Professor X's stepbrother. If they did, it amounts to nothing (and I probably blocked it out anyway because have I mentioned that I hate Juggernaut?)

***

For the most part the portrayal of the Brotherhood is a success, though there are some troubling (or at least interesting) implications in the way they're presented.

Taking a mutant terrorist organization and reimagining them as a bunch of troubled teenagers being groomed by two highly manipulative adults instantly throws them into a sympathetic light, and the writers are careful to keep them firmly behind the Moral Event Horizon line – they never actually kill anyone, for example.

But they're still presented as "undesirables", especially when compared to the heroic X-Men. And this is troubling when you take a look at them: a frog-like boy with hygiene issues, an overweight guy who is treated as comically unintelligent, a troubled youth whose design is based on Bender from The Breakfast Club (and all the connotations that carries), a mentally-ill girl who was abandoned by her father in an institution, and Quicksilver, who is essentially Draco Malfoy on speed-dial and therefore the only one who halfway deserves the "bad guy" moniker.

See?

There's also the temporary inclusion of Tabitha Smith, a girl with a criminal background and a father who exploits her powers for personal gain (and who her creator explicitly describes as "white trash").

Compare this to the X-Men, who either come from loving families (adopted or natural), or at least a somewhat stable background. They also get to live in a beautiful mansion run by a wealthy philanthropist, where meals, education and training are provided free of charge. The Brotherhood on the other hand? They live in a rundown house that's filled with trash.

(This review also points out that the X-Men are considerably more attractive than their "evil" counterparts).

You can't help but notice an overt class difference in the way the two opposing teams are portrayed. Professor X has his moments of compassion, but for the most part displays very little interest in reaching out to the Brotherhood, who are clearly in more need of guidance and support than his own star-pupils.

To be fair, there is some nuance. The X-Men recruits are often depicted doing their homework, training hard and completing household chores, while the Brotherhood's house could be a nice place to live (it's certainly large enough), if only the inhabitants bothered to clean up after themselves. And Tabitha and Lance at least chose to leave the X-Men of their own volition, usually as a result of disliking the hard work that's involved with becoming a useful member of society.

So throughout the course of the show, the Brotherhood holds a tenuous position between "bad apples" and "just kids", and I doubt you'll be surprised if I told you they were the main source of contention within the fandom.

Toad ended up being an Ensemble Darkhorse (thanks to his role as hapless comic relief), and Quicksilver was given the inevitable Draco in Leather Pants treatment. Surprisingly enough, Avalanche was not – perhaps because they tried a little too hard to cultivate his bad boy image, perhaps because he was considered an impediment to the more popular Kitty/Kurt pairing (though he does get the coolest sound-effect accompanying the use of his powers: a heavy guitar riff that heralds the earthquakes he creates).

To be honest, the shippers had a point. Their relationship starts with Lance exploiting Kitty's powers to get his hands on test answers, and continues with him abandoning her as a building collapses around them. None of this is ever referenced again. Later the writers try to establish a Star-Crossed Lovers dynamic, with the two of them interacting at school despite the disapproval of their team-mates, but there's never any indication of what they have in common or what they find to talk about.

Romance!

At one point he tries to join the X-Men in order to spend more time with her, only to quit when things get too hard, and later (in one of the show's more self-aware scenes involving their relationship) he angrily cries: "I'm never going to be good enough for you, am I." Since he's engaged at criminal activities at the time, the answer is a definitive no. She definitely deserves better.

As for the others, Wanda also managed to accrue quite a large fan-following, Tabitha was widely hated (more on her later), and the Blob, who is neither funny, attractive nor interesting, was largely ignored. It's a pity they never fully explored the way his anger issues were linked to his self-image, but as it stands he only ever got one character-centric episode: the one in which he was introduced.

So the Brotherhood – it's difficult to grasp how the audience was meant to respond to them; perhaps because the writers weren't that sure themselves. They could go from endearingly troubled to complete jerks from one episode to the next, though some of the Doylistic decisions (physical unattractiveness, abusive backgrounds, obvious poverty) introduced a whole different level of troubling implications.

Mixed Bag:

What's a show about teenagers without plenty of shipping fuel for the fanbase to fight over? Hilariously, one of the first things the show establishes, heck, the very first thing the show establishes, is the love triangle between Scott, Jean and Jock Jerk Duncan. Forty-eight seconds in (I timed it), and we're witness to Duncan flirting with Jean while Scott glowers at them from the bleachers.

By this point, the fact that Jean and Scott are the Official Couple of any X-Men adaptation feels pretty old. Everyone and their grandmother knows they're an item, and yet here the writers see fit to chronicle all the build-up to their Relationship Upgrade: the attraction, the camaraderie, the flirting, the misunderstandings, the interruptions, the "Jeeeaaaaans!", the Romantic False Leads – it practically plays out in real-time, and even those that like this pairing will admit there's little creativity in the way the relationship develops.

Some of it is quite charming, such as Kitty and Kurt giving them a hard time whenever they inch closer to "couple" territory, but by now it should be obvious that when it comes to shipping, viewers hate being spoon fed. We all know that Scott and Jean will hook up; we've seen it a thousand times before, and so inevitably some of the other potential pairings feel like more compelling alternatives (such as Scott/Rogue here, and Scott/Emma in the upcoming Wolverine and the X-Men).

As it happens, Jean bore the brunt of fandom dislike for this predictable romantic subplot with Scott, which – as usual – stinks of double standards. I think my favourite (which is to say, least favourite) example of fandom hypocrisy would have to be when she was lambasted for her indecision over whether she should go to a school dance with Duncan or with Scott. Meanwhile, Quicksilver turns up to the same event with a girl on each arm, cementing his status as a beloved Draco in Leather Pants.

As for the other characters, I recall that Kitty/Kurt had quite a large following back in the day, leading to plenty of Die For Our Ship directed at Lance (who kinda deserved it) and Amanda Sefton (who despite being introduced out of nowhere, didn't). I have to admit that Kitty and Kurt were my favourite pairing on the show, with the two of them enjoying a fun and playful rapport, and most of it unfolding in such a way that kept you guessing about whether or not it had romantic undertones.

And that, as it happens, is the way to successfully wind up a fandom. Remove all the obvious indicators that two characters like each other that way, and you'll create speculation, which leads to anticipation, which leads to salivating at the bit for two characters to admit their feelings for each other.

***

It's not that Storm and Beast are bad here – in fact, they're near-perfect distilled versions of their comic books counterparts, each a responsible and competent teacher, both coming complete with their familiar personal histories intact. Perhaps that's the problem. They're such quintessential representations of the characters that there's nothing interesting to be done with them. Unlike the new takes on Rogue and Nightcrawler, they're simply not that innovative.

The show does a bit better with our third teacher at the Institute, who manages to keep his usual characteristics intact whilst getting shifted into a more atypical role that allows for an examination of the less-explored facets of his personality. It's Wolverine of course, and perhaps the single greatest thing about X-Men Evolution is that it doesn't fall prey to Wolverine Publicity. What makes it even better? That the de-aging of Jean and Scott mercifully removes all traces of the love triangle from the equation, which also has the added benefit of removing most of the dick measuring between Scott/Logan.

In fact, come to think of it, Wolverine doesn't interact much with Scott and Jean at all. I think he calls Jean "Red" a grand total of once, but most of his interaction is with Kitty ("half-pint"), Kurt ("elf") and Rogue (which crosses into surrogate father territory towards the end).

There's also the matter of his introduction, which sums up so much about how they chose to deal with him this time around: he pulls into a grocery store on his motorcycle, buys a bottle of water that he opens (off-screen) with his claws, and places the empty bottle on the counter with an admonishment to the clerk: "recycle that, would ya?"

I mean... wow. It's interesting that the first thing we ever see of him is his hands – not his knuckles as you'd expect, but his palms.

The show even gives him the dignity of a more realistic costume revamp, switching to black leather from the angry hornet outfit around season three.

He comes across as a low-key bodyguard and trainer to the young mutants; one almost gets the sense that he's a drifter who found his way to the Institute and just stuck around because he grew fond of the kids. And that's all he needs to be. Yes, there are a few episodes that deal with his mysterious past and vendetta with Sabretooth (which had me crying: "AGAIN?") but his best material is definitely with the students.

Between the three teachers at the Institute, Storm is the mum, Beast is the dad, and Wolverine is the edgy uncle who shows up on weekends with beer and inappropriate stories about Vietnam.

***

Then there's the influx of new mutants that are introduced at the start of season two. Perhaps "introduced" is the wrong word, since a grand total of nine new characters are just there when we return to the show, having been discovered, approached and settled into the mansion between seasons: Bobby/Iceman, Amara/Magma, Tabitha/Boom Boom, Jamie/Multiple, Sam/Cannonball, Jubilation/Jubilee, Roberto/Sunspot, Ray/Berserker, and Rahne/Wolfsbane.

Not pictured: Tabitha

It's clear the writers bit off more than they could chew, as a few get barely any focus (Cannonball and Sunspot), and two are sent home at the start of season three before they got the chance to do anything interesting (Jubilee and Wolfsbane). Often it's hard to tell them apart, as for the most part they're a collective glob of background characters, and the ball is completely dropped on the juicy potential of having the main cast become mentor figures to the new recruits.

That said, their inclusion does serve to give the Institute a more lived-in atmosphere, and they participate in plenty of cute scenes (mutant ball, breakfast chaos, training antics and so on).

But of the new characters they do decide to flesh out a bit... well, see the header of this particular category. The main three are Amara, Tabitha and Bobby – one was popular, one was hated, and one was a Base Breaker within the fandom.

I listed them in that order, so let's start with Amara. In a nice touch she's given a much darker complexion than her comic book counterpart (which makes sense given her Brazilian background) and she's adorable. Just adorable. She's the team's cute little sister and there's a pretty decent mini-arc about how she learns to navigate her powers, and though she's tailor-made for the Damsel in Distress role, the show never actually goes there.

Tabitha on the other hand – well, I'm loath to criticize her as she got a lot of hate in the fandom, but the truth is she's pretty obnoxious. And it's not like this show couldn't do bad girls well (c.f. Rogue and Wanda) but Tabitha just grates, even after they give her a sympathetic backstory and a Two Girl Romantic Friendship with Amara.

My latent mum instincts are telling her to stay away from the bad influence.

I expect a lot of the hate also had to do with a quickly-abandoned attempt to set up Kurt/Tabitha as a potential pairing, something that went down like a cup of cold sick and was never brought up again after the episode in which it was introduced. She ends up quitting the X-Men in favour of the Brotherhood, only to quit them when Mystique returns, after which we never really get a clear idea of where she goes next.

One other is worth mentioning: Berserker, who became something of an Ensemble Darkhorse among the new recruits. We never learn much about him, but what little we get is tantalizing, and the writers (probably accidentally) give him just enough screen-time to pique our interest. He's the oldest of the younger mutants, has a distinctive hair-style, takes care of his peers while they're on the run, has some sort of history with the Morlocks, and gets a small but surprisingly pivotal role in the Grand Finale.

You can't help but wish for more, while simultaneously acknowledging that his lack of screen-time is what makes him so appealing.

And then there's Bobby/Iceman. Was he an obnoxious liability or a precocious benefit to the team? You decide, because the writers never did.

***

As for the rest, Professor X is a bit lacklustre; more of a Dumbledore figure than a character in his own right. The only Charles-centric episode is terrible, and I've already touched upon the class issues inherent in his treatment of the Brotherhood. In a show where the mutants are largely teenagers, the team's paterfamilias just doesn't get much in-depth characterization.

In a similar vein, Magneto's Acolytes aren't hugely interesting. Whatever vendetta Sabretooth has with Wolverine is never delved into, and though it's briefly mentioned that Colossus is under duress when it comes to his employment options (Magneto tells him: "if you ever want to see your family again...") his backstory remains firmly off-screen.

That leaves Gambit, who gets the most screen-time, but no real understanding of why he's thrown in his lot with Magneto. Unlike Colossus, there's no hint of any coercion, yet at the same time it's strange that they never explain why he's decided to (presumably) go mercenary.

Naturally he gets a rapport with Rogue, though in this case it feels more like something the writers had to put in because it's Gambit/Rogue and not because it feels organic to the story.

Plus, there are some pretty troubling creative decisions made regarding how they're presented as a potential couple. The first time they meet is in the midst of battle: he smiles at her, she seems lulled into passivity (???) and he hands her a charged playing card before darting away. She only just manages to throw it away before it blows up. In Cajun Spice (their date episode) he straight-up kidnaps her by knocking her unconscious with chloroform before trying to pass it off as a charming attempt to give her some time off.

Romance!

Of course, the moment she accidentally touches him she realizes she's been conned into helping him track down his father – yet after a justified storming off, she simply changes her mind off-screen and returns to help him out.

Look, there is a lot of baggage attached to the Rogue/Gambit ship in all its incarnations, but it's never played out like this before, particularly when you consider that this version of Rogue is no more than seventeen and Gambit looks to be in his mid-twenties.

Miscellaneous Observations:

As I mentioned earlier, Nick Fury (the white version) and SHIELD turn up, first in the requisite flashback episode for Logan, but later in a surprisingly helpful capacity – first by pointing the mutants toward the base in which their comrades are being held, and then in supplying Sentinels and transport to the teams in the final two episodes.

And of course, there's the requisite crossover episode. As with X-Men: TAS, it's a Wolverine/Captain America flashback – but don't worry, we get something different for Wolverine and the X-Men.

It always struck me as daft that after Mystique goes to all the trouble of making Rogue believe that the X-Men are out to harm her, she ends up enrolling her in Bayville High, giving them ample opportunity to interact with her, win her over, and figure out that it was actually Mystique conning her. Which is of course exactly what happens.

The episode Under Lock and Key sneakily puts together this line-up of X-Men for its weekly mission. Ten points if you get the significance:

There are some dated elements, such as Lance trying to download answers to a test onto a computer disk, and Spyke getting inordinately impressed at something called "a digi-cam" which is pretty much just a video camera. Having aired between 2000-2003, the show makes for a rather fascinating time capsule: a decade after X-Men: TAS struggled to depict a "not too distant future" that didn't look like eighties kitsch, X-Men Evolution has similar trouble shedding the technology of the nineties.  

In terms of how mutant powers are portrayed, "pragmatic" is the word, which makes sense considering these are mostly teenagers still learning to master their abilities. They can't do anything too flashy. But from a Doylistic perspective, it's a shame the writers weren't a little more creative in showcasing the abilities of their characters – something that Wolverine and the X-Men excels in.

Though there are a few fun sequences (at one point the teens are trying to get good reception on a portable television; Kitty ends up holding it, instructs Bobby to freeze her, and then phases through the ice, leaving a statue of herself holding up the screen to receive perfect reception) there's nothing that really makes the most of what these characters are capable of – which can't help but feel like a wasted opportunity.

Speaking of Kitty, she often ends up taking over from Kurt in the role of comic relief in the later seasons. While drastic business was going on elsewhere, she would usually lead a comedic subplot about her studies (wearing a pyramid hat for heightened brain activity), her driver's education (terrifying her teachers by simply phasing through obstacles) or her attempts at home economics (nobody wants to try her terrible cooking).

Guess what Blob and Toad watch on television? Ah, those were the days.

In Conclusion:

So that was X-Men Evolution. As I said before, de-aging most of the main cast into teenagers was a pretty great idea; a twist on the old formula that brought plenty of fresh perspectives and insights into the usual themes inherent in this franchise. Reboots allow characters and premises to be reinvented and re-examined through a new filter, and in this case it revolved around the aforementioned fact that mutant powers make for a near-perfect metaphor for adolescence.

Everything was built upon this High School AU bedrock: the fear young mutants have of their abilities, the trust issues that form between them and their parental figures, their desperate need to blend in with their human peers, their crushes and teachers and homework problems – it practically writes itself.  

They manage to sneak in a lot of modern touches (Jean isn't a cheerleader but a soccer player, Kitty is a Valley Girl but also a high achiever, Rogue is a Goth to hide how deeply empathetic she is) as well as fresh character dynamics that worked well enough for later adaptations to replicate them – or at least build on them.

The first season is a little wonky, with a season finale that's pretty awful, but the seeds are laid early for the coming of Apocalypse and Rogue's role to play in his return/defeat, and there's a definite sense that the writers are in control of their overarching story.

After that cramped first season the show eases out, though there's always a struggle to juggle the massive cast and perhaps a few too many filler episodes. And of course, it's a shame there wasn't just one more season to wrap up a few loose ends and explore the relationship further. The epilogue gives us a glimpse of the future...

...and there was still plenty of mileage to be gotten from the Rogue/Kurt/Mystique, Rogue/Scott/Jean, Magneto/Wanda/Pietro, Logan/X23, Rogue/Gambit dynamics.

But of all the endings to these animated cartoons, this one is the most fulfilling – giving its characters some temporary closure, while still being clear that there are more trials to come. In some way all its characters come to the Xavier Institute broken and afraid, yet the final shot makes it clear they've found a family and a purpose. 

Next Week Time: