By Bodior Elliott
When Marvel Studios released Thor: Love and Thunder in 2022, critics and fans alike panned the film on sites like Rotten Tomatoes, Twitter and Letterboxd. The industry giant was met, uncharacteristically, with overwhelming complaints of a simultaneously disinteresting yet overly complex movie.
According to Metacritic, the sentiment ranges from “laughably bad” to straight up “disrespectful to Marvel fans.” This pattern of negative reviews for the darling of the box office world represents a larger movement that many reviewers and the general public have referred to as “Marvel fatigue.” As the name suggests, this refers to a general disinterest in and annoyance with the Marvel cinematic universe (the MCU, for those well enough acquainted). Symptoms include low viewership, inconsistent box office numbers, and a general distaste of anything with that infamous red lettering over a poster with floating heads.
However, the narrative might be changing.
Disney+ recently released a continuation of one of its animated X-Men properties. This aptly named “X-Men ‘97” was released on the Disney platform on March 20 to a range of mixed reviews. In my view, Marvel has made a stellar choice. Contrary to the seemingly safe and light medium that animation is assumed to be, “X-Men ‘97” appears to take a page out of not just the iconic Chris Claremont run, but also storytelling in the streaming era.
The series is simultaneously of its time and ours, a marriage between a period piece and a sharp reflection of our modern era. In an age of interconnectivity and inclusivity coming off the backend of a devastating pandemic, an animated series of a bygone era based off a comic that was an analogy for minority struggles seems to be a perfect fit inside our current culture. The horror surrounding the chill of massacre of Genosha echoes the chill of a post-9/11 world coming off of a pandemic—the feeling that an era was ripped from you and things will never be the same again.
The X-Men property had always, like most comic franchises, been a difficult series to adapt into other mediums. With years of authors, lore, retcons (overriding previously agreed upon canon), characters and arcs, attempting to fit such characters into the mortally finite medium of live action, for example, has always been a nearly impossible task. This series comes on the tail end of the Dark Phoenix saga, the arc where the telepath Jean Grey was possessed by the cosmic force called the Phoenix.
While having a currently living character be a Holocaust survivor (Magneto) with another who fought in the Korean War (Charles Xavier) barely age between 1963 and 2024, a medium like live action may not be able to translate that well. We’ve seen it with actors who unfortunately pass young, actors who simply are over the role and want to retire, to even the most basic issue of natural human aging. These issues, while not entirely fixed by animation, are lessened greatly within the medium. Within the realm of animation, characters like the Juggernaut, someone who stands at nearly 7 feet tall and weighs 900 pounds, can easily be adapted without worrying about the realistic or convincing nature of his build.
The show itself also is an action-packed extravaganza with gritty themes of genocide and eugenics, sordid affairs and human experimentation. With characters like Rogue punching through tanks, the Goblin Queen Madelyne Pryor attempting to assert control over the entire Earth, to the tragedy of Genosha, this series is a blockbuster hit and spells big bucks for the executives at Marvel Studios.
However, this series is not without its flaws. Concerns over the faithfulness of the adaptations and the whitewashing of beloved characters such as Sunspot come to the forefront for those not well acquainted with the reboot. For instance, heavy and complex arcs such as Genosha, the Inferno saga and even down to Storm’s depowering and romance with tech genius and mutant Forge are quickly skimmed over and too briefly summarized for seemingly no reason, creating a bizarre and dissonant feel for those who have been lifelong fans of the X-Men comic books.
While some of the changes made were arguably for the best (for Storm fans, for instance, spending several arcs with a depowered Storm may have turned some people off), other changes like the ones made to Sunspot and Madelyn’s descent into madness following her existential crisis seem strange and confusing, as both are central to both characters. For those unacquainted, Sunspot, or Roberto Da Costa, is a wealthy black Brazilian mutant with the ability to absorb and channel the power of solar energy.
His race and culture are immensely important to the character, as his mutant abilities were triggered due to him being the victim of a violent hate crime during a soccer match. Within “X-Men ‘97,” this past is done away with, opting instead to making Da Costa simply a non-black Brazilian playboy with no clear explanation of what triggered his powers to begin with. This does an immense disservice to his character and erases interesting stories writers have done with this unique intersection of identity and class.
Despite these issues, “X-Men ‘97” overall seems to still be an immensely popular show, hitting four million views in just five days, according to Disney. This would make it their most popular premiere since “What If…”, another animated Marvel property. This new take on an old series is giving people things to talk about, including their favorite characters. A personal favorite character of mine is Ororo Munroe, or Storm, for those unacquainted. With the wind in her cape and the power of lightning at her fingertips, she’s an electrifying character who grabs attention whenever she appears.
Overall, fans seem to be sending a clear message to the bigwigs at both Disney and Marvel. Less live-action, more animation.
“X-Men ‘97” premieres with a new episode every Wednesday night on Disney+.