The beloved animated series X-Men is set to return to television with X-Men ‘97. This Disney+ series is the sixth instalment of X-Men, the first cartoon featuring the Marvel Comics superhero squad. Picking up almost 30 years later where the animated series left off, the new one is a resurrection of the original Fox Kids Saturday morning show, which aired 76 episodes between 1992 and 1997.
Now, one of the main questions is whether or not fans must watch the original ‘90s show to understand what’s going on in the current season. For those adults who watched it as children back then, you don’t need to go on a nostalgic trip down memory lane to remember what happened because Marvel Studios has officially released a recap of X-Men: The Animated Series. And for the unversed, you can watch it too.
The video loops backwards on the VHS, starting with the two-part Night of the Sentinels series debut in 1992 and ending with the Graduation Day series ending in 1997.
Here are a few things you should know before you watch X-Men ‘97:
To begin with, this enormously famous cartoon popularised the mutant characters. Although there was quite a bit of mutant vs mutant fighting in the first X-Men series, the main focus of the programme was on their efforts to be treated like ordinary individuals.
A lot of antagonists were adamantly opposed to the existence of mutants.
The show features sentinels, which are essentially enormous robots that look for and target mutants. The Sentinels were formed by Henry Peter Gyrich and Bolivar Trask of the Mutant Control Agency to capture unregistered mutants.
Throughout the series, Gyrich’s mission was to convince humanity that mutants were the enemy.
Charles Xavier’s X-Men — Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Storm, Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit, and Morph — were made public by the Sentinels’ attack as anti-mutant fervour spread across the country and Senator Robert Kelly expressed alarm about the increasing threat of mutant violence.
Xavier, popularly called Professor X, is a mutant possessing telepathic ability, tremendous strength and intelligence. Xavier is a mutant rights campaigner as well as the founder of the X-Men.
Following the Second World War, Xavier made the acquaintance of Eric Magnus Lensherr, a mutant maestro of magnetism known as Magneto.
After a series of events, he transformed into a mutant supremacist who utilised his magnetic powers to wage war on humanity.
Xavier thinks that mutants should struggle for civil coexistence with humans by using their powers, whereas Magneto wants to ‘liberate’ mutants by launching a nuclear missile.
Magneto’s plans were foiled by Xavier’s X-Men, so he views them as “traitors to mutantkind."
Magneto’s mutant scientists created Asteroid M, a mutant-only asteroid where any mutant can live independently of humans, free of its brutality.
Magneto called for a mass evacuation of mutants to the asteroid where he and his Acolytes governed, declaring his aim to be peaceful.
Another character is Dr Nathaniel Essex who was fascinated by Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and his views on natural selection.
Decades after the mad scientist’s dark experiments produced Jack the Ripper, a serial killer who helped Essex with his study on mutated people to end sickness and genetic problems, the scientist reappeared in the current day as Mister Sinister.
As the head of his own wicked mutant gang, he is curious about the personal life of the married mutant couple Cyclops and Jean Grey because he thinks their genetic makeup would create the master bloodline of an unstoppable mutant species, which he would eventually enslave.
In the last scene of the animated series Graduation Day, Gyrich interrupts Professor Charles Xavier’s mid-speech before the UN with a gadget. The gadget overpowers Xavier’s telepathic abilities, outing him to humanity as a mutant. In the process, people turn against him. Gyrich is captured by the authorities.
Xavier goes into a coma as animosity between humans and mutants reaches an all-time high. Furthermore, the psychological harm inflicted on Xavier gradually kills him, and just nothing on Planet can heal him.
Magneto seized the opportunity to wage war against humanity. Wolverine, Jean and Cyclops travel to Genosha to confront Magneto’s army of mutants.
Even though medical science is unable to heal Xavier, Shi’ar’s alien technology can yet rescue him. Magneto utilises his skills to enhance Xavier’s ability to connect telepathically with Empress Lilandra. Xavier would live under Shi’ar’s care, but he would never be able to go back.
Xavier says goodbye to Magneto and the X-Men in the last scene of the Graduation Day television series finale, stating, “My spirit shall remain among you, where it was always meant to be."
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