The story behind Disney’s latest Marvel project — “X-Men ’97” — is a fascinating one. The series is set to be a continuation of the incredibly popular kids cartoon from the 1990s “X-Men: The Animated Series.”
For months leading up to its release, the project was met with constant intense criticism — for good reason. At this point, Disney does not deserve the benefit of the doubt, especially when it comes to its Marvel properties.
This was no less the case with “X-Men ’97,” especially after it was announced that a male character from the original show had been turned “nonbinary” for the new continuation. Or, even before that, the since-fired showrunner revealed his experiences as a “black gay man” influenced the show.
The X-Men are back!
Watch the first two episodes of Marvel Animation’s all-new #XMen97, now streaming only on @DisneyPlus. (2/2) pic.twitter.com/cynCM07Ydw
— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) March 21, 2024
Given all that bad press, it would be reasonable to assume that “X-Men ’97” was a woke mess that perverts the original series to serve a political agenda.
Fortunately for fans of the original series, the first two episodes, which aired on Wednesday, did not go awry.
Review: “X-Men ’97” Episodes 1 and 2
Shockingly, the new “X-Men ’97” show was incredibly respectful of its source material (including both the “Uncanny X-Men” comics and the original ’90s series).
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Many of the expected woke tropes were nowhere to be found. Cyclops, the white, male hero typically depicted as the leader of the X-Men, is treated with reverence and respect. Overall, the mutants-as-an-oppressed-group allegory — which lefties have wrongly mischaracterized as being a clear LGBT metaphor (don’t believe me? Hear it from Stan Lee himself) — isn’t manipulated to push a leftist agenda.
The one grossly unnecessary LGBT contrivance, the newly nonbinary character Morph, fades into the background and is barely heard from (though, there are some red flags here — more on that later).
Some may accuse the dialogue of being corny, but that is 100 percent in line with the writing of the original show (and the comics for that matter). At its best, “X-Men” is essentially a superhero soap opera.
The dialogue/writing fits and is what X-Men fans are looking for.
Many have accused the show online of having poor animation and character designs. In this writer’s opinion, such criticisms have been overblown. At times, characters feel strangely expressionless during dialogue scenes, especially in close-up shots. But overall, the animation is high-quality.
This is especially the case with the show’s top-notch action sequences.
Cyclops looking incredible in ‘X-MEN ’97’ pic.twitter.com/YxYnFDThdm
— ScreenTime (@screentime) March 21, 2024
The plot echoes many popular (and some deep-cut) storylines from X-Men comics in an incredibly faithful way.
For those surprised that the LGBT-pushing showrunner, Beau DeMayo, could produce a faithful X-Men adaption (or at least two episodes of one), it is worth mentioning that this was the same man who criticized the writers of Netflix’s “The Witcher” for despising the source material.
In summation, the first two episodes of “X-Men ’97,” while not perfect, are solid. They treat the source material with reverence, boast high-quality action sequences and don’t take Disney’s typical tact of peppering in propaganda every five seconds.
A Few Small Red Flags
Now, just because this show isn’t yet a woke train wreck doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way.
Fans upset at the new “nonbinary” characterization of Morph have every right to be up in arms.
The original “X-Men: The Animated Series” showrunner, Eric Lewald, tried to calm down the criticism by coming out in support of the change, telling Variety that he “…didn’t feel [Morph] was any different” in ‘X-Men ’97.’”
After watching two episodes, this writer can tell you with certainty this was a flat-out lie.
Morph has clearly been made to act more overtly feminine and flamboyant. The way he walks, talks and even looks is decidedly more “queer.”
The only reason this was not more heavily critiqued in the above review is that Morph’s screen time likely amounts to less than one minute over the first two episodes’ hour-plus run time.
That said, it’s something to look out for in future episodes.
Another small red flag is character designs.
An effort was clearly made to cut back on some of the characters’ feminine and masculine features, including Rogue, Gambit and others.
Don’t Cry “Woke” Until Wokeness Rears Its Head
Conservatives engaged in the culture — including pop culture — should be cautious not to cry “woke” at every conceivable turn.
After decades of fighting, with Hollywood quickly losing its monopolistic stranglehold on the entertainment industry, it appears that conservatives and freedom-loving folks may finally have the upper hand.
However, that advantage could quickly disappear if crying “woke” becomes the new crying wolf.
Much of the social media criticism of “X-Men ’97” could clearly be described as seeing wokeness where there is none.
For example, many are criticizing the character Gambit for wearing a crop-top workout shirt. This was an incredibly popular trend in the ’90s that was not at all associated with anything LGBT.
I don’t really want to get lost in the “X-Men ’97 is now woke” drama because they’re not really my thing, but if you’re gonna be angry about Gambit wearing an in-style half-shirt in a show representative of the 90s, then your whole commentary sucks. pic.twitter.com/ojiBVeZ1uw
— Dad-at-Arms (@Redpyramid9) March 21, 2024
The examples of this sort of over-the-topic rhetoric following the release of the show seem almost non-stop on X.
As a conservative writer who’s written about cultural politics for years, the only advice I offer is this — keep your powder dry.
Disney is absolutely a terrible, propagandist organization.
But wait to hit them until they actually deserve it.
Otherwise, all you do is undermine the conservative movement’s credibility, giving the wokesters in Hollywood even more power to further corrupt the culture.
