15 Failed Comic Book TV Shows That Only Lasted One Episode
10. Pryde Of The X-Men (1989)
X-Men: Pryde Of The X-Men (commonly known as Pryde Of The X-Men) was originally broadcast in 1989 on the Marvel Action Universe television block, alongside the likes of Dino-Riders and RoboCop: The Animated Series.
Narrated by X-Men co-creator Stan Lee, the pilot episode begins with Magneto making his escape from a moving military facility with the help of The White Queen (before she became known as Emma Frost). We then cut to Kitty Pryde as she makes her way to Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters where we meet the X-Men: Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Wolverine (who speaks with a terrible Australian accent for some reason) and, because it was the '80s, Dazzler.
Though, there isn't much time for pleasantries as the Brotherhood Of Mutant Terrorists (Magneto, Toad, the Blob, Pyro, Juggernaut, and the White Queen) invade the school. What follows is an epic face off between the X-Men and the Brotherhood (in outer space of all places). This forgotten late-eighties pilot showed promise but was never picked up as a series.
Although the characterizations are annoyingly overwrought (in typical Saturday morning cartoon fashion), the adaptation was very faithful to the source material. They even managed to include Lockheed, Kitty's ridiculous pet dragon. Not a bad job, and it proves that you don't have to extensively reinvent the comic (as was done with X-Men: Evolution) in order to make it work on the small screen. Marvel would, of course, go back to the drawing board for 1992s X-Men (The Animated Series).