10 Best X-Men: The Animated Series Episodes
It's a lot more than just the intro, y'know.
Being an X-Men fan in the 1990s was awesome, thanks in great part to the X-Men: The Animated Series. Airing on Fox Kids from 1992–1997, this cartoon heavily featured the characters comprising X-Men’s comic book lineup at the time and birthed a mess of toys, video games, trading cards, and other fun collectibles.
The series was so popular that the series creators are actually trying to convince Disney to revive it. Spanning 5 seasons and 76 episodes – a record as the longest-running Marvel animated series until it was beaten by Ultimate Spider-Man twenty years later – X-Men: The Animated Series was the introduction to Marvel for many young fans.
Not only would it be successful in its own right, but it would pave the way for other beloved series like Spider-Man and X-Men: Evolution. While it’s depressing that the final episodes of Season 5 were disappointing, most episodes through the rest of the series brought our favorite stories to life.
From the Phoenix Saga and Age of Apocalypse to The Mutant Registration Act and Legacy Virus, X-Men: The Animated Series tried to cover as much ground as possible as well as possible. Here are the best episodes of all.
10. Night Of The Sentinels, Part 2
As the first animated series focused on the X-Men, the creators of this show had plenty of inspiration to draw from and could have began chapter one however they pleased. Introducing the characters and having them defeat the villain of the week would have had kids plenty excited.
Instead, they opted to let the X-Men hit the ground running.
The dual Night of the Sentinels episodes were excellent ways to introduce us to the series, but the second part is intense for a cartoon. After saving Jubilee and successfully infiltrating the Mutant Registration Program facility, it looks like we're headed to a happy ending.
Think again.
Beast is captured and Morph is killed. Dispatching a character early in a series is a bold move even for an adult show. Killing off an X-Men during episode two of a children's cartoon is intense.
This set the precedent that no X-Man is safe and that the series wasn't afraid to subvert expectations to tell a great story.