This story contains spoilers for X-Men ‘97
If you’ve been on the Internet, you’ve likely encountered the “Wolverine Crush” meme. It’s so popular that Mondo even made a limited edition figure out of it. The image itself comes from the fifth episode of the first season of the X-Men animated series where Wolverine pines for Jean Grey, and it highlights a show that was completely unafraid for a level of emotional earnestness devoid from much of Saturday morning cartoons to that point.
Not to denigrate other cartoons, but the majority of them were made explicitly to sell toys. The best way to move G.I. Joes and Transformers was to attach them to an animated series, but those series never got too hung up on any kind of sentiment for their characters. There may be a special lesson to impart or something like that, but it would be a bit of a stretch to call any of these shows soap operas. However, X-Men: The Animated Series, drawing heavily from the comics, knew that the saga of mutants was inherently dramatic, and used that comic history as a true north for storytelling while working to stay within the bounds of what network censors would allow.
This leads to some fascinating character texture where you have these buff superheroes dismantling giant robots in one scene, and then dealing with emotional fallout in the next. You get that right from the first episode where the team thinks they left Morph behind to die and Wolverine, the toughest guy on the team, laments, “He was the only one who could ever make me laugh.” That’s a surprising amount of depth for a guy who has knives pop out of his hands in a TV show made for kids—a character so morose and angry that he deeply values his friend’s sense of humor as a reprieve from negative feelings. And that’s before you even get to the love triangle between Wolverine, Cyclops, and Jean Grey, or the tortured forbidden romance between Gambit, a charming flirt, and Rogue, a woman with a lot of love in her heart, but whose power prevents her from touching anyone.
In this way, X-Men, along with Batman: The Animated Series, served as an introduction to more mature characters. Neither show was inappropriate for kids, but they also trusted that a younger audience could hang with action and character drama in equal measure. They knew that the set pieces and emotions could serve each other. Just look the eighth episode of Season 1, “The Unstoppable Juggernaut,” where, in an attempt to weaken Juggernaut, Rogue touches him, but because her absorption power takes not only strength but also knowledge and emotions, she starts screaming, “They love my brother, not me! They love my brother, not me!” revealing to the audience how Juggernaut’s brutish villainy emanates from his deep jealousy of Charles Xavier.
While such emotional moments may no longer be as groundbreaking as they were 30 years ago, X-Men ’97 shows that they will be as present as they were in the original series. You can see this most clearly in what happens to Storm in the second episode, “Mutant Liberation Begins,” where the X-Cutioner means to “assassinate” Magneto by hitting him with a radiation blast. However, Storm saves Magneto by taking the shot, a shot that wasn’t meant to kill, but to remove a mutant’s powers. Storm’s absolute agony at losing her powers is what makes the episode so potent. This isn’t simply a plot beat about turning the tide of battle; this is taking a character who was proud of her mutation and ability to commune with the weather, and now a bigot severed her from a key part of her identity. The show trusts that the audience will understand that for Storm this is a fate worse than death, which only works if you fully invest in the psychological underpinnings of the characters.
This emphasis on character-first drama and romance continues in the last two episodes, “Remember It” and “Lifedeath, Part II.” In “Remember It,” we’re set up for a continuation of Gambit and Magneto continuing to vie for Rogue’s affections, and her own inner conflict of trying to figure out what her heart desires. Naturally, a giant Sentinel shows up and starts wreaking havoc on the Island of Genosha, so our heroes have to go save people, but even here, X-Men ‘97 doesn’t pull back or opt for easy answers. Instead, by leaning on the melodrama, it hits particularly hard as Rogue loses both Magneto and Gambit. Both men sacrifice their own lives to save others, but especially work to ensure Rogue’s safety because they love her regardless of whether or not she feels like she can return that affection. When Rogue sobs, “I can’t feel you,” with Gambit dead in her arms, it’s not simply because a character we like has died; it’s because the show grounded the love story first.
In “Lifedeath, Part II” we continue not only Storm’s journey towards healing, but return to Charles Xavier’s struggle in the stars with galactic empires on the line. But look at the construction of both episodes, and they’re grounded in the romance first with Storm’s conflicted feelings about Forge and the love between Charles and Lilandra. These episodes have action, but the stakes are all about interpersonal relationships. Will Charles’ sacrifice his memories because he loves Lilandra, and the fate of the Shi’ar rests on their marriage? Can Storm forgive Forge and overcome literal and figurative demons to save him? These conundrums are a far cry from G.I. Joe telling us that “knowing is half the battle.”
As adult viewers, we may be slightly more savvy to the storytelling conventions at play. Cable is around so a time-traveling element tells us that Magneto and Gambit may not stay dead. We know that there will be some kind of reunification among the X-Men as they come together to battle Mister Sinister. But these plot machinations are always secondary to the emotional battles that are fought in every episode, and it’s that rich melodrama is what makes the action sing, not the other way around.
