The X-Men are back now led by Wolverine and they are facing the same foes as always. When a mysterious blast takes away Jean Gray and puts Professor X in a coma, the X-Men are left to fend for themselves. Senator Kelly is still trying to rid the humans of the mutants that run amuck and Magneto is now in charge of a mutant inhabited island called Genosha. The X-Men must face their toughest challenge as they try to prevent a war between the human and mutant races.
This series is merely another revisit of the comic book adventures with the addition of some characters we may not have seen in past versions. In the cartoon series that ran back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, we saw a completely different group of X-Men that included: Professor X, Wolverine, Cyclops, Rogue, Storm, Beast, Gambit and Jubilee. In this version the X-Men have changed a little, as in Gambit is just a side player, Jubilee has not yet been seen, and Ice-Man, Nightcrawler and Shadowcat are now major parts of the group. Add to this the permanent addition off Emma Frost and you have a whole new dynamic. Not a bad change, but definitely different from what some of us are used to.
Another major change is that we now have two separate worlds to explore. First the present day, where Wolvie and the group are trying to fight Magneto and the Brotherhood and then the future, where Professor X has legs and has teamed up with Bishop in a post-apocalyptic world. The future world had been seen in past versions of the X-Men series, but not as much as it is featured in this newer series. It’s a nice change because we’re introduced to some new characters that we saw in the comics but never really made it to the silver screen.
It was nice to see some new villains and heroes take center stage in WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN. Besides the inclusion of Shadowcat, Emma Frost and Forge, we also got to see Archangel, Quicksilver, Scarlett Witch and Domino. These characters may have had a small part in the past, but they are, for the most part, main staples in this new version. It’s also nice to see Rogue used more appropriately in this new series. She has always been this underutilized mutant that everyone feels sorry for because of her ability. However, in WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN, we actually get to see her use her powers in a way that is useful to the X-Men. However, it must be noted that in the old cartoon version, Rogue was able to fly and had super strength because she took the powers of Miss Marvel, but in this version she is grounded and basically grabs onto other mutants powers at will to help out her teammates.
This cartoon brought back a lot of good memories for me as I was a huge X-Men fan growing up. I was happy to see that they stayed true to the comics but was able to make it fun for a whole new generation. This obviously isn’t for everyone, but if you have fond memories of getting up on Saturday mornings to catch the latest episode of The X-Men, this may just be worth picking to take another stroll down memory lane.
Video (16×9 Widescreen 1.78:) It’s a television cartoon, so the images come through clear.
Audio (5.1 DTS-HD): Sound is great and everything comes through the surround speakers well.
Audio Commentaries: Eight of the episodes have commentaries by the writer, director and producers. If you want a little more information about stories or characters or just liked that episode this is worth a listen.
The Inner Circle: Reflections on Wolverine and the X-Men(18:51): Writers, directors and producers sit down and talk about how developed the storylines and how they worked through their creative processes. I found it interesting that they pulled several storylines from the comics written by Joss Whedon, because I didn’t even know he had written any.
Making Wolverine and the X-Men (5:15): Honestly there isn’t a whole lot of new information in this mini-featurette that wasn’t in the Inner Circle feature. We get a little more character development, that’s it. I think this is just a fluff piece.
Trailers
