10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About X-Men: Evolution
Marvel's forgotten X-Men series is worth revisiting, and way more interesting than you may remember.
X-Men Evolution has always been considered a younger sibling to the classic X-Men cartoon of the nineties. Starting in 2000, Evolution ran for four seasons and 52 total episodes, making it - at the time of its finale - the third longest-running Marvel cartoon.
When the show began, the X-Men were already established as a team consisting of core members Professor X, Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, and Jean Grey. Over the course of the following seasons new members were added, including Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, Spyke, Rogue, Beast, Gambit, and Colossus.
The villains were also well-represented on the show, with the two most powerful X-Men foes being Magneto and Apocalypse, but also counting among their number Mystique, Blob, Sabretooth, Pyro, and Destiny.
By the end of the fourth season, the show was deeply immersed in X-Men lore, settling into a groove and growing darker. The decision to cancel it resulted in a shorter-than-normal nine episode fourth season.
In the time since, the show has undergone a re-evaluation, with many comic and animation fans finally admitting what many knew all along - when taken as its own series and its own canon, it was a damn fine cartoon that did the X-Men proper.
Like most Marvel properties, the show was full of secrets and treats for observant fans, but even the most dedicated watchers likely missed some of what went on behind the scenes. This list aims to bring some of those to light.
10. It Was Specifically Aimed At A Much Younger Audience Than X-Men: The Animated Series
Evolution was created to be a very different show than the previous X-Men. While the nineties show reflected the comic book storylines of that time, Producer Boyd Kirkland revealed to Marvel Animation Age that Evolution was deliberately designed to take the primary characters back to their teenage years, where they were starting to grapple with their powers. This approach was very similar to the very early X-Men comics, where mutant powers were a metaphor for growing into adolescence.
Kids WB didn't want an 'adult' cartoon like Batman : TAS or the previous X-Men; their direction to the producers was for a show that was aimed squarely at the kid market they felt would most drive sales of toys, action figures, and video games.
As a result, the producers had to stay away from complicated, intertwined storylines - at least for the first season - which allowed them to concentrate on developing the characters of the show and their relationships. Whereas X-Men had immediately jumped into complex storytelling with their first season, Evolution took its time, building up the stories and focusing on the trials and tribulations of being a teenager as much as fights with other mutants.
The success of the first season convinced Kids WB to let the producers expand the Evolution world in subsequent seasons.