10 Best X-Men: The Animated Series Episodes

6. Slave Island

This follows on from 'Cold Vengeance', in which Gambit, Storm, and Jubilee head off to Genosha, an island promising to give mutants the warm welcome they struggle to find elsewhere. After being captured by Sentinels at the end of that episode, in 'Slave Island' they find themselves held prisoner and forced to work.

This is a fun episode based around the cruelty of slavery and the dangers of one race taking control of another. It also puts Storm, Gambit, and Jubilee at the centre, showing how well the X-Men can operate even when they're separated. As they're forced to wear power-inhibiting collars, the three must find a way to escape without their usual skills.

'Slave Island' introduced Master Mold, and Cable (who would then go on to feature in other episodes). The amount of action and other threads that run through this are all handled well, without the episode feeling overly cluttered, and it's a solid example of the series' bold ongoing narrative: Wolverine returns from Canada, following his battle with Sabretooth in the previous episode, and the final moments set up the next instalment as the X-Men discover their home has been destroyed.

The continuous flow and set-up for later episodes helps to separate X-Men from other 90s cartoons that rely on a more standalone narrative style (such as the mighty Batman: The Animated Series), and allows the storytelling a little more space to breathe.