Review by C.J. Bunce
The 1990s animated X-Men series was a springboard for many into the world of Marvel Comics’ mutant superheroes. Whether or not viewers read the comic books, they were drawn into the episodes’ gritty plots that took ideas from issues of the decade. This week Abrams Books unveils the continuing look behind the scenes of the X-Men in animated form that began with X-Men: The Art of the Animated Series with its look at the 2024 reboot of the series in X-Men ’97: The Art of the Animated Series, available for pre-order now here at Amazon. How did Marvel Animation pull from the original series and bridge the story from where it took off in September 1997 to give today’s fans the kind of nostalgia fix they’re looking for in a world where every comic book finds its way to TV or film?
With forewords by Marvel Animation chief Brad Winderbaum and showrunners for the original X-Men animated series Eric and Julia Lewald, writer James Field takes kids and kids-at-heart from the 1990s back to the impact of the original show. Behind the scenes books rarely give as much of a glimpse into what it would be like in the writers room of a TV show as you’ll find in this book. Since TV series have far fewer episodes than when the first X-Men series aired, the book has room to dig into all ten first season episodes of the new show.
Each episode is a chapter with a detailed explanation of the plot, followed by storyboards, character sketches, designs, costumes, stills, animatic frames, and animation cels that create a picture of what goes into a 2020s series with the look of the 1990s. Readers meet the old X-Men characters and the new: Wolverine, Professor X, Magneto, Phoenix, Storm, Bishop, Beast, Cyclops, Cable, Gambit, and other familiar faces, with newcomers like Roberto Da Costa aka Sunspot stepping into the position taken by Jubilee in the original.
The new production team worked with original creators Eric and Julia Lewald to revisit how the show bible worked for the first season, with its breakdowns of story by A character, B character, and C character plots. A key feature of the series was balancing the unusually large cast of characters for an animated show.
Fans of the series will especially love the look at the Motendo storyline, which finds the X-Men transported into a vintage arcade game, complete with pages of imagery, including concept art and stills. A nice feature you don’t see in every movie or TV art book is attribution to dozens of artists for each of their contributions appearing in the book.
What rationale went into updating the look of characters and costumes for the new show? Which voice cast members returned and which didn’t (and why)? Why were some environments in the original series reproduced nearly identical for the new series and others weren’t? The book answers all kinds of questions and is filled with some great artwork that fans of any aspect of the X-Men will appreciate.
X-Men fans won’t want to miss this. X-Men ’97: The Art of the Animated Series, in a full-color, over-sized, hardcover edition from Abrams Books, is available for pre-order now here at Amazon, arriving in bookstores tomorrow.
