Ranking Every Marvel Animated TV Series From Worst To Best

6. X-Men: Evolution

Edging just ever so slightly ahead of its successor comes X-Men: Evolution, a show that really turned its attention to a younger, more energetic version of the new mutants in the wake of the team's big-screen success.

The show was a major hit, and the dynamic shared between the young and old members of the team reinvigorated Marvel's premier superhero line-up much like its predecessor did ten years earlier. The idea to have Wolverine, Storm and the Professor as the only senior members (and teachers) of the group worked brilliantly, and it was majorly refreshing to see the Jean/Logan/Scott love triangle given the boot in favour of trying something altogether different and less melodramatic.

There's also a lot of good stuff here involving Mystique, Rogue and Nightcrawler, although the series' interpretation of everyone's favourite southern starlet might prove jarring to fans more accustomed to the character's earlier, more iconic incarnations. Still, the decision to follow an altogether more younger team helped differentiate Evolution from other X-Men series' and, at the time, put it way ahead of the competition. It may not garner the same accolades that its older counterpart did (or have as good an opening intro), but it's definitely one of the best comic book shows of the millennium era.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.