Year: 1993-1994
Rated: TV Y7
Running Time: Volume 3: 345 min. / Volume 4: 322 min.
SRP: $23.99 each
Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Release Date:

Features: B+

The X-Men Animated series has always been a cartoon in a kid’s time slot that was never really intended for a kids audience. Or at least that’s how it came across to me. All of the stories appealed to the time I read the comics they were based on which was high school/early undergrad college. I would literally read the comics and hope that they’d be turned into episodes of the cartoon.

Picking up from where Volume 2 left off, Volume 3 jumps right in to the Savage Land, the strange love triangle between Gambit, Rogue, and Magneto. Then, I have a correction to announce: In my review of the Volumes 1 and 2, I made a mistake, they cover the Phoenix Saga, and in Volume 3, the 4-part “Dark Phoenix Saga” is introduced. This was pretty advanced storytelling because so much of this is pretty difficult to keep straight in the comics, but for kids this was a high concept story. Also on the disc two of Volume three is the memorable “Juggernaut Returns” story when Marko comes after his step brother, Professor X. “The Nightcrawler” was his introduction to the series, and “Weapon X, Lies and Video Tape” was the first we get to see the classic story that was done originally in Marvel Comics Presents with art by Sam Keith in cartoon form. Even the titles of the episodes were pretty clever.

Volume 4 kicks off with the ultra-serious “Proteus” arc where Dr. Moira McTaggart’s son has a terrible accident that leaves him on the freakish side of being a mutant, hoping to find his real father, he searches him out and rips through those who would stand in his way. It’s just an extremely harsh story about child abandonment, social acceptance, and bad parenting. But it’s this stuff that made me love the series so. You could go an entire episode without laughing or smiling, but you wanted to see the next episode. The Four Part “Beyond Good and Evil” handled the wedding between Jean Grey and Cyclops, Apocalypse and the Four Horsemen, Mr. Sinister, Cable, Bishop and the Lazarus Chamber. The season ends on the story of “Family Ties” where Quicksilver and the Scarlett Witch discover who their true father is by consulting the High Evolutionary. It’s as if the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe unfolds on TV–from the corner of the X-Men anyway.

I make no apologies for my disdain on the X-Men theme song. It really is atrocious and I wouldn’t mention it all the time if they somehow took it off of every episode and menu selection. Thankfully you can fast forward through it, but god forbid you leave to fix yourself a sandwich while the menu’s playing. As an artistic style, I think the series falls a bit flat. I realize that it’s supposed to mimic the art style of Jim Lee and that era of Marvel comics, but that over-rendered and over-cross-hatched style of art doesn’t look that good when it’s simplified into animation.

It doesn’t hold the iconic look and timelessness of the DC Animated series, it is very dated, and the colors don’t punch as hard as other series do but as far as putting the comics in a more faithful treatment in another medium there is no comparison. Re-watching these episodes reminded me of why the last X-Men movie (X3) didn’t work. They tried to put too many story lines into a two hour package and the X-Men story works so well in long form and in episodic. If the cartoon won’t tread that path, what did Brett Ratner and Fox think they could do that this animated series couldn’t? The X-Men animated series took the time that was needed to explain each story, and was never intimidated in doing crazy stories about Wundagore, or the Morlocks. This is the way superhero comics should be adapted, honest and truly.

Volume Three:

Disc 1
34 Savage Land, Strange Heart (1)
35 Savage Land, Strange Heart (2)
36 Obsession
37 Dark Phoenix: Dazzled (1)
38 Dark Phoenix: The Inner Circle (2)
39 Dark Phoenix: The Dark Phoenix (3)
40 Dark Phoenix: The Fate Of The Phoenix (4)

Disc 2 ?
41 Cold Comfort
42 Orphan’s End
43 The Juggernaut Returns
44 Nightcrawler
45 Weapon X, Lies and Videotape
46 One Man’s Worth (1)
47 One Man’s Worth (2)
48 Courage

Volume Four:

Disc 1
49 Proteus (1)
50 Proteus (2)
51 Sanctuary (1)
52 Sanctuary (2)
53 Beyond Good and Evil (1)
54 Beyond Good and Evil (2)
55 Beyond Good and Evil (3)
56 Beyond Good and Evil (4)

Disc 2

57 Have Yourself A Morlock Little Christmas
58 The Lotus and the Steel
59 Love in Vain
60 Secrets, Not Long Buried
61 Xavier Remembers
62 Family Ties

Audio/Video: B/B
These are standard DVD presented in full frame 4:3 aspect ratio. Audio is 2.0 stereo.

Extras: F
Nothing to speak of here because there are no extras. It’s not a big deal, I’m sure that keeps the price low but for those looking for something more won’t be satisfied by that.