We’re calling it: X-Men ’97 is the greatest X-Men adaptation of all time
The Disney+ series has proven itself the best onscreen treatment of Marvel's mutant heroes
TV Features X-Men
When Disney screened its new animated revival series X-Men ’97 for critics last month, just ahead of the series’ launch, it was with only the first three episodes available to watch. My review, published at the time, reflects that: It (I hope accurately) describes a series in active conversation with some of the creakier, more nostalgia-forward aspects of the original children’s animated series the show is based on, while still trying to be its own, modern thing. The breakneck pacing of episodes, the way its mutant heroes still fall into fairly simple, kid-friendly descriptors, and even its fan-fiction-friendly treatment of fight scenes all spoke to a show trying to keep old fans comfortable, while telling new stories with some of the planet’s most popular comic book characters. It’s a review at least loosely rooted in the obvious potential of what showrunner Beau De Mayo and his team were building by returning to these nostalgic roots—and now it raises a fairly serious question.
That is, what the hell would I have written if they’d given critics the next four episodes, too? Because the following installments of X-Men ’97 haven’t just been “good for a revival of a TV show you watched on Saturday mornings when you were a kid.” They’re the best adaptation that Marvel’s mutant heroes have ever received, period.
It would be easy, in writing about all the things the show has done right these past few weeks, to focus entirely on its fifth installment, “Remember It.” That’s the big one, the thesis statement (quite literally, given that De Mayo broke the silence surrounding his still-murky departure from the series to talk about how years of treatment of the American gay community post-9/11 informed his writing on the episode). Focused on the mutant nation of Genosha, and then on the horrific, visually lush destruction of the mutant nation of Genosha, the episode showcases everything the X-Men fight for, and live in fear of, in 30 heartbreaking minutes. With a visual palette drawn as much from the formative anime films of the era it’s meant to replicate as anything that ever ran on Fox, “Remember It” is an absolutely brutal reminder that all that the mutants of this world want is a place to call home—and what happens the first time they try to drop their collective guards and actually enjoy it.
Unlike some standout episodes of TV seasons in recent years—Mythic Quest’s “A Dark Quiet Death,” The Last Of Us’ “Long, Long Time”—though, “Remember It” works only in the context of the episodes that surround it. That includes, obviously, the following episodes, “Lifedeath Pt. 2" and “Bright Eyes,” which are about the grief of Genosha’s destruction first bleeding out into the universe and then erupting into violence. But it also reflects off of the season’s most joyfully light installment, the earlier “Motendo,” which sees teen heroes Jubilee and Sunspot trapped in a (very Easter egg-heavy) video game by inter-dimensional schlock purveyor Mojo. “Motendo” is, in hindsight, an incredibly necessary palate cleanser, snuck in between newly minted X-Man Magneto’s travails at the U.N. and the horrors to come. Part of the appeal of X-Men ’97 is that it can be both a lighthearted continuation of a classic kids’ show (including pixel-art recreations of the cover of “Days Of Future Past” and jokes about whether if you die in a game, you die in real life) and an absolutely brutal examination of the dynamics of a minority group that finds itself sliding closer to extinction by the day.
None of it is subtle. It’s not meant to be: The X-Men have never been a subtle concept. The mutant metaphor is fluid by design, an abstracted “other”-ness that comes complete with laser eyes and razor-sharp claws designed to scare “normal” people into acts of staggering intolerance. De Mayo’s scripts don’t beat around this bush; unlike the old show, which kept it all to subtext, his characters employ the rhetoric of modern identity politics directly. Self-hating mutant Sunspot bemoans that Genosha is what happens when mutants don’t keep their heads down and hide (and later has his fears that his family won’t accept his identity twisted by the difference between private tolerance and public acceptance). Beast angrily tells a supposedly sympathetic reporter, bemoaning broken glass in the streets in the wake of Genosha’s destruction, that “riots are the language of the unheard.” Even before we get to the climactic scene of “Bright Eyes”—when Rogue, embittered by grief, crosses a line the show could never have gotten away with in a Saturday-morning timeslot—it’s clear that De Mayo’s mutants aren’t just scared: They’re angry. Righteously so.
That anger, and the seriousness with which it’s being taken, is a major part of what has made ’97 such an electric watching experience over the last two months. The party line on pretty much every X-Men adaptation to date has been that, ultimately, Charles Xavier is right: Beg for enough tolerance, and eventually you’ll get it; save the world X number of times, and you’ll get X amount of compassion in return. X-Men ’97 is, if not actively contemptuous of that concept, then at least willing to put skepticism of it in the mouths of characters the audience is comfortable seeing as heroes, giving us a Captain America cameo solely to make it clear that even “the good guys” can’t view the mutant cause through the same existential lens. Echoing the works of writers like Grant Morrison and Jonathan Hickman—the former explicitly, recreating many plot beats of Morrison’s New X-Men, while Hickman’s more recent “Krakoa” work is more subtly influential—the show interrogates Xavier’s dream in a way no other X adaptation has ever really been willing to. After all, if these characters are being asked to die for a dream—as so many have, in this season alone—then it deserves to be exhaustively questioned, right?
And yet, despite the last several paragraphs, X-Men ’97 is neither a slog nor a screed. There’s “Motendo,” of course, which is a joyful ride from start to finish. But also the thrill with which the show races through classic comic-book plotlines like Jean Grey’s mysterious clone, or Storm’s encounter with an actual, no-fooling demon. The early aspects of “Remember It” might be setting the audience up for the gut-punch, but they’re also hugely fun, with Nightcrawler, Rogue, and Gambit touring Genosha like they’re on an actual vacation, having a blast in the relaxed atmosphere. And when it’s time to actually have a fight, the show revels in the power of its mutant heroes, getting creative with their abilities and sending them against genuinely unsettling foes. (R.I.P. Bolivar Trask; you went to hell in an extremely gnarly way.) The same energy that animates the series’ political instincts also runs through its impulses as a product of comic-book storytelling, producing episodes that feel like glorious pulp with both their head and their hearts on straight.
I have no idea where it goes from here, honestly, with three episodes left in the first season. (The three-part finale is ominously titled “Tolerance Is Extinction,” calling back to a repeated refrain from throughout the season.) But I’m comfortable calling it now: This is the best X-Men adaptation ever. Here’s to wherever the hell they hope to take us next.
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It’s not just the best screen adaptation of X-Men – it’s easily one of the top five Marvel adaptations ever. What a joy to have a huge, faceless corporation do something right every now and then.
Aren’t the final 3 episodes titled “Tolerance is Extinction” parts 1-3?
Correct. Which is nuts.
Thank you for catching this, dumb mistake on my part (it’s the most chilling line from the first episode!), has now been fixed
>The party line on pretty much every X-Men adaptation to date has been that, ultimately, Charles Xavier is right: Beg for enough tolerance, and eventually you’ll get it; save the world X number of times, and you’ll get X amount of compassion in return. I’m not surprised that so few don’t actually understand and come away with this kind of juvenile understanding of the ethics of love, but it is sad. People are so ready to believe that their anger is “righteous” and that if they only kill enough of the right people then we’ll have peace. Oceans of blood are shed, mountains of bodies build up, and the world drowns in gore yet people maintain the dystopian idea that killing will create justice despite all the proof otherwise.> X-Men ’97 is, if not actively contemptuous of that concept, then at least willing to put skepticism of it in the mouths of characters the audience is comfortable seeing as heroesOf course it is contemptuous. Other than quoting Dr. King out of context every now and then, the actual radical nature of his call to Christian love is ignored for the delusion of violence as a means to peace. The deep irony is that shows like this do ultimately demonstrate the failure of Malcolm X’s Black separatism and Black nationalism. Nationalism only leads to war and separatism only furthers the ignorance upon which war relies. The only hope is the Beloved Community, but people are too busy murdering each other in an unending cycle of violence to learn about that, much less work for it.X-Men ‘97 isn’t good. It is just ragebait propaganda of the most meaningless kind.
Tribalism is ingrained in the human condition. It served an important evolutionary purpose which humans no longer require in order to succeed as a species. I find it troubling how many think that “Separate but equal’ is a viable option for society. Historically it has never worked. Not one time. People believing that the group that they belong to is justified implementing separatism while others are not is a form of bigotry in and of itself. As much as I hate to say it, we are seeing the real world implications of separatism playing out right now in Gaza. Jewish people were persecuted and the answer was to give them their own State. Well, that’s lead us to genocide that is arguably every bit as bad as that which was perpetrated against them in WW2.
The entire Palestinian plight is a perfect example of the inevitable end results of separatism. All it does is foster hatred, justify oppression, and make ethnic cleansing and genocide inevitable. I am reminded of an old episode of the Empire Files that demonstrated just how common anti-Palestinian bigotry is among Israelis and how many of them are perfectly okay with the ethnic cleansing if not outright mass extermination of Palestinians.
There was a British Jewish historian named Tony Judt, now passed, who did what he thought at the time, his duty and worked on a kibbutz during the Six Days War. While the kibbutzim tended to be from the left, and not batshit insane right-wingers in the IDF, he was still struck by their naivete and complete ignorance of…well, pretty much everything.Judt said something along the lines of “Israel sits uncomfortably with the rest of the world because it’s an anachronism: it’s a 19th century settler-colony.”A fair chunk of the nations of the world tried that in 19th century, and either the colonies all died in the arse, or simply got subsumed into the local culture. Hahndorf in South Australia comes to mind, started by persecuted German Lutherans – subsumed, of course. And, hell, there was Nuevo Australia, of all things, in Paraguay.That was the dream: these superior races/groups, move to “virgin ground “ to quote the Redgum song (ie, places that are occupied by people who you won’t think will be missed if you extirpate…or exterminate…them because they don’t count in your eyes).You’ll set up this utopia, and who cares about the people who were already there?About the only way such places can survive intact is with a constant influx of external capital and settlers – so much for the idea of self-sufficiency and independence. This is how Israel works – hence all those American (and other) accents in that video above. And, you know, that blank cheque the US government writes every year. The closest comparison I can think of to Israel’s situation is Rhodesia, and we all know how that turned out. They did the same as Israel does now: they had a hefty backer, at first, in the form of British Empire, they advertised constantly for new (white, Christian, British) settlers to claim their birthright in Zimba- er, Rhodesia. (The other thing about these settlers? They tend to be losers in their own country, and too unwilling to do anything about it.)White supremacy’s baked into Zionism, which entirely based on the ideology of the white Ashkenazim European settlers turned up there from the 1930s onwards. Many of the original Zionists were quite enamored of fascism, especially Mussolini, and only breaking with him when he allied himself with Hitler who espoused, of course, killing all the Jews. Keep in mind when that when they say “Jews should not marry Arabs”, they’re erasing the, y’know, thousands of Arab Jews that existed, and continue to exist – the Mizrahi. That’s by design. Netanyahu has publicly declared that the Mizrahi in the IDF are fine: “as long as they’re led by white officers”. A friend of mine (also my editor) travelled to Israel when she found out she was Jewish. They were quite open and accepting of her……until they found out she was Sephardic, not Ashkenazi, at which point shoulders got noticeably colder. (You don’t even wanna know what it was like for the Ethiopian Betas). (Israel’s quite happy to wheel these tokens out, but, whenever they need some good PR. They ship in a few hundred or so Ethiopians whenever their image needs it.)
Your comment about white supremacy being baked into Zionism reminds me of Richard Spencer’s infamous University of Florida address. I can’t find the video these days, but I remember watching a recording of the address. Israel was his example of an ideal state, a militarized ethno-state designed to promote the cause of a specific ethnicity by marginalizing or driving out completely those who do not fit the racial and ethnic criteria the nation is founded upon. He wanted to do that in America and make it into a total White ethno-state.The fact that Israel is so obviously an example for white supremacists to follow should be a walk up call, but it wasn’t.Your comments about Arab Jews also reminds me of how Israel erases the identity of Palestinian Christians. Israel justifies the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by spreading the lie that Palestinians are Arabs even though scientifically we have proof that both Jew and Palestinians descend from the same ancient people. By casting Palestinians as non-natives the Israelis can cast themselves as the returning “true natives” of the land.At the same time, Israel does everything it can to cast Palestinians as all Muslims. Westerners are notorious for their Islamophobia. Most Western liberals don’t care about the brown kids being drone bombed by the US military as long as those brown kids are Muslims overseas. It is why they happily voted for Barack Obama even though 90% of his drone strike victims were civilians. It is why they’ll keep voting for Joe Biden no matter how many children he murders overseas. But Americans will at least pretend to care if those kids killed are Christians, as seen in Trump’s willingness to allow Syrian Christians into America while blocking Syrian Muslims. So the Israeli propaganda machine does all it can to blind people to the fact that it is murdering Palestinian Christians, some groups of which can be traced back as far as the Apostolic era. The Israelis don’t want to risk not getting any of those billions of dollars taken from Americans to fund the Israeli extermination program.
small point to add, but do not forget about how Israel, and zionists not only try and erase the identity and existence of Palestinian Christians, but Palestinian Jews. There are still those living in Israel whose families have lived continuously in area for thousands of years who consider themselves Palestinian, who are beaten and attacked by the state.
If you watch the twitter embed video in my post, Alon Mizrahi a, well, a Mizrahi (ie, Arab Jew) author, talks exactly about that. If it’s not showing up for you, he talks about how the Mizrahi were subjugated and erased by the immigrant Ashkenazim from Europe – in a way that never happened when they lived in places like Iraq, or Yemen, or Morocco…and about how white supremacy is deeply embedded in Zionism.
The “Arabs hate the Jews” was brought about not by some millennia-old tensions, but by the incoming European colonists who simply did not like brown people – stoked by the fact that these white Europeans and Americans had just shown up with a bunch of high-tech Western military equipment and support and started killing Arabs. They encouraged the Mizrahi to leave places like Iraq and Yemen – to maintain the facade of “We’re for all Jews!”, only to intern them in what amounted to slum labour camps. There heads were shaved and they were gassed with pesticides (because they were filthy Arabs), and put to work to build the paradise for the whites. With the tension stoked by the Israelis – by declaring Arabs the enemies of Judaism – the Mizrahi often had little choice. They had to lose their accents, their language, their history. Alon recounts, rather chillingly, how his mother said “The highest compliment you could pay me as a young woman was ‘You don’t look Moroccan!’”
The Mizrahi Jews(many don’t like to be called Arab Jews, FYI) were ABSOLUTELY persecuted in the Middle East
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-treatment-of-jews-in-arab-islamic-countries
Galaxy brain takes about the history of Antisemitism. It’s bad enough this comment chain about X-Men 97 devolved into Israel, but it’d be nice if people didn’t get basic damn history so wrong. Just because Netanyahu is a bloodthirsty monster doesn’t mean that there was magically peace between Jews, Muslims and CHristians in the region until those “pesky European Jews” came in
First of all, lol:More hasbara bullshit from the Israelis to keep the cash coming from America who think if they keep paying Israel Jesus’ll come back.Of course a fucking Israeli-American agitprop org is going to spruik that bullshit. Note how the authors throws in “The Muslims hate the Christians exactly as much as the Jews! See? Give us money, pls.”Second of all: Israel does not get to claim to be all of Judaism.As Alon Mizrahi said (clue’s in his name there, buddy): the level of antisemitism in the Middle East today is a direct result of a bunch of white Europeans turning up and starting a colony in 1947, and declared a jihad on Arabs. Kinda forced the Mizrahis’ hands there. Many don’t like being called “Arab Jews” only because the colonists made the term one of shame. That’s why. That’s standard practice in colonies. That’s how they work. That’s how they subjugate the natives.The Europeans, of course, welcomed the Mizrahi with the common love and understanding of a shared culture and spiritual history going back a- nah. Just kidding. They locked those Arabs up in camps, shaved their heads, gassed them, then used them as cheap labour so the superior whites wouldn’t have to get their delicate hands calloused as they established themselves as the aristocratic ruling class, just as the English did in Zimbabwe.(Still, at least the Mizrahis didn’t get force-sterilised like Betas did.) Just because Netanyahu is a bloodthirsty monsterIsrael likes to boast about being the only democracy in the Middle East, right? So who elected him? Hmmm? Why is he a bloodthirsty monster? Why does he so appeal to the majority of Israelis? Hmm? (Too bad his idiot brother got himself killed in Uganda, eh?)How did Bibi, the son of one of Revisionist Zionism’s (you know – actually, you probably don’t – the guys who were bombing the British in Palestine as the British tried to defend them from Nazis) most zealous nutjobs, come to appeal to the majority of Israelis? You gonna say it was the Palestinians?
Ah yes, the Middle East was friendly to Jews the same way America was friendly to African American before Obama’s inauguration. Clearly Amin al-Husseini was just having friendly teatime with Hitler.
Excellent point.
Cannot believe that Richard Spencer thing was six years ago – it’s the sort of thing you’d expect happening the 1950s, not the 2010s. ‘Course, we all know why he said that – it’s not so much that he cares about Jews, but more the classic “See? [Insert outgroup here] gets to do this – why can’t I?” The martial state and strong nationalist identity, as well as the (creative) reinterpretation of its history are one of the hallmarks of fascism. It was disturbing as hell to see those twentysomething kids saying they were doing an IDF-sponsored leadership tour to get some ideas to take back to their own youth groups. Fucking hell, that was creepy. Do they get given a dagger at the end of it? Can you imagine what would happen if, say, a British Pakistani went to Pakistan to learn leadership skills from the army to take back to his youth group in London?And that’s a huge problem: why, indeed, is the West tolerant of Israel’s latent authoritarianism and borderline fascism, while it bleats about Iran, or Russia, or China, or Syria? While it whinges about the rise of rampant nationalism like in India under Modi, or Turkiye under Erdogan?Why shouldn’t Ankara start going harder on the Kurds? Israel gets to kill Palestinians. Why shouldn’t Beijing start taking islands in the South China Sea? Tel Aviv gets the West Bank to settle. Why shouldn’t North Korea have nukes? Israel gets them. This is what Dick Spencer is really getting at. Of course he doesn’t give a damn about the Jewish people; he just loves their style. If the Israelis get to set up a culturally-exclusive ethnostate, then why can’t he? It’s not just the tolerance, of course, but the support for it (and, often, benefit). The phrase “rules-based international order” gets thrown about a lot – Israel makes a mockery of it. Everyone’s forgotten, but before the war, there were mass protests – absolutely huge – against Netanyahu, who is still facing criminal charges and, at the time was busy trying to cripple, if not eliminate, the Israeli courts’ ability to try a sitting PM, because it was the only way to save his arse from jail time…short of declaring war on someone. Your comments about Arab Jews also reminds me of how Israel erases the identity of Palestinian Christians. Israel justifies the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by spreading the lie that Palestinians are Arabs even though scientifically we have proof that both Jew and Palestinians descend from the same ancient people.Again – it’s not a religious conflict thing, as it is popularly portray (Jews Vs. Muslims), because if that were true, then it would be limited to only to affecting Muslims. But that’s an acceptable facade for the West, especially America. As biased as Aussie reporting is towards the situation (it has gotten better, especially with certain high-profile fuckups – google what happened, and is happening, with Lebanese-Australian reporter Antoinette Lattouf), I’m shocked, though I should be, at the reports being made by NBC and CNN and even PBS – the campus protests are consistently and purely framed as “anti-Jewish”. There are, of course, hundreds of Jewish students screaming “Not In My Name”, standing in solidarity with the protesters and Palestinians (and not a few actual goddamn Holocaust survivors), but every interviewer manages to find a white Israeli exchange student (well, dual citizen, more likely) fresh off the El Al flight from Tel Aviv, tearing their hair and weeping and fainting dramatically. Again: Israel is all Jewish, and all Judaism is Israeli. There is nothing outside that paradigm. It’s a paradox, innit? Israelis are both the true natives of Palestine…yet are also, somehow, pureblood white Europeans. I do love when there’s a cooking show on TV and they’re in Israel and some Israeli with a strong Noo Yawk accent talking about how the falafel he’s serving is the traditional food of “his” people. Mate, the food of your people is a burger and a bottle of coke. The Lebanese have taken Israeli food manufacturers to court for selling “traditional Israeli” hummus and babaghanoush – a classic case of cultural appropriation, because of course those things didn’t exist before 1947. Colonisation at its finest: these things weren’t good until the colonisers declared them so.And that’s part of the thrust of it: Israel, conveniently, plasters over a lot of unpleasantness the West has towards the Middle East. Israel can be held up as a token – “See, we don’t hate all the Middle East!” Israel presents Middle East that’s acceptable to the West, that’s safe and familiar. Of course, Levi (formerly Larry) in Tel Aviv gets baseball – he’s from Brooklyn. Of course Asher (formerly Ashley) in Ashkelon gets Jane Austen – she’s from Manchester.Of course Isaac (formerly Ivan) in Eilat gets Prokofiev – he’s from Yekaterinburg- oh, shit, wait. Forget I said that.They’re “Middle Eastern” – not Arab. Israel’s ideal Christianity is, of course, essentially Disneyland for American evangelicals. It’s version of Christianity isn’t, of course, for Palestinian Christians (I mean, the whole “Palestinian” thing is a bit of giveaway). Israel positions itself as the guardians of the Christian Holy Lands not because it gives a shit about Christianity – the Judaisation of Jerusalem has been noted many, many times by others, up to and including the UN – it’s simply because the American Evangelicals are the largest voting bloc in the US. And they believe that if Israel regains the borders mentioned in the Bible, then Jesus will come back and start the Rapture – which, ironically, is not a good thing for the Jewish people, because the happy-clappers also believe that as soon as he comes back he’s gonna get revenge on the people who got him nailed to a cross the first time around. That’s why Biden signed the cheque. If he didn’t, all those votes will most certainly go to Trump.But even that’s slipping away from them. The largest cohort of émigrés into Israel during Netanyahu’s rein wasn’t, as much as as Washington likes to think, nice little familiar boys and girls from New York or Chicago or LA, but from…Russia. Again, Israel presents itself as this little slice of the Western surrounded by the savage and barbarous East, holding back the hordes with grit and a ton of US taxpayers’ dollars, but the truth’s a little more complex than that. They’re from Russia, a country with a culture that, let’s face it, is not the most tolerant of anything.It was very telling that the world’s most famous Jewish leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly excoriated Netanyahu for not providing aid – especially missile defence systems, which the Israelis are likely the best in the world at. Israel and Russia have been forging ties for decades since the fall of the Wall; the former Soviet States provide a good chunk of the white settlers Israel needs to stay afloat and try to outrun the Palestinian birthrate (it’s not working, by the way). Israel has been a noted haven for Russian oligarchs for ages. Israel is a tourist mecca (probably the wrong term…) for them. Israel does not want to piss off the vast amount of Russians in its populace or parliament, nor the billions of roubles looking for a safe home outside Moscow. They accept non-Jewish Russians more openly than Ethiopian or Arab Jews. Max Hastings – the famous British war correspondent, and friend of Tony Judt (who, like Judt, “fell out of love” with Israel after the Six Days War having “been led up the garden path” by them – and who also penned that biography about Bibi’s brother, Yoni, that was actually honest and truthful…and thus got himself sued by the Netanyahu family and the book censored in Israel…) – mentioned that what struck him about Israel was that it wasn’t really a liberal, open-minded Western European/American culture, but very much a Russian culture born in the age of the Tsars. That’s the culture where, if someone from the neighbouring village looks at your sister funny in the market, you ride to his town, rape the women, kill the men, and burn everything to the ground. The land that has worshipped Iron Men as leaders – who feel empowered by the fact that if their leader brutal on his people, then imagine what he must be like to his enemies, and if you’re surviving under that brutality, then you must be tougher and stronger than those who don’t, no? The land that holds grudges for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.Ze’ev (“Wolf” – yes, he chose that name for himself) Jabotinsky was one of these Russians – well, Ukrainian, but he was born in Odessa in 1880 – infamously said that democracy has failed everywhere but, maybe, England. He found the Revisionist Zionist movement – the more hardcore, violent strain of Zionism. Zionism advocated for a Jewish homeland; Revisionist Zionism advocates creating that homeland by any means necessary, and, being God’s chosen people, any and all means are acceptable. Coming from that climate of fear as a Jewish person in Russia, he saw enemies everywhere. Ze’ev was the guy who idolised Mussolini, and based his whole movement on them, only breaking with him in the 30s when Mussolini allied with Germany.These were the guys who were attacking the British in Palestine in WWII as the British were actively defending them from the Nazis.Likud, Netanyahu’s party, has building named after him. That’s where Bibi gets his politics from; his father was an avid follower of Ze’ev, and raised his kids in Ze’ev’s philosophy – anything is permissible, because everything you do is God’s work. Anyone who disagrees, of course, is not doing the work of God. (Netanyahu’s dad was an early lobbyist in America for the creation of Israel in 1930s and 40s – and even his fellow Zionists thought he was a nutter. Anthony Blinken’s grandfather was another such lobbyist – go figure). But, I’m sure, the West will go on believing that Israel is a bastion of liberal democracy and progressivism for a while yet, believing it to be a nation composed of the best examples of Judaism – even as the actual best examples of Judaism are standing shoulder to shoulder with the Palestinians, shouting “Not in my name”.
Jewish people were persecuted and the answer was to give them their own State.I’d like to point out a very important point here: one group of Jewish people who were acceptable to the global powers who gave them the state got a state given to them by said powers.
My intention was not to condemn Jewish people, just to acknowledge that given a set of circumstances people of any group will typically act the same. Yesterday’s freedom fighters are tomorrow’s dictators.
I’m glad that I read your post more closely before replying. In the context of current events, it’s really important to identify actual villains, and the “genocide” buzzword is being thrown around irresponsibly on campuses.And to return to the X-Men ’97 context, the Sentinels are the Hamas analogue.
It’s also important to understand that the world is far more complex than dichotomies as simple as villain vs. hero would have us believe. Please, expand on your sentinel/Hamas theory…
Hamas’ aim (as outlined in its 1988 charter) is the destruction of Israel with the implicit genocide of the Jewish people. The Sentinels’ sole purpose is the elimination of mutants.
“Well, that’s lead us to genocide that is arguably every bit as bad as that which was perpetrated against them in WW2.”Absolutely not.
Captain Calipers over here wants to talk X-Men lol
What a naive take. Violence is absolutely necessary in the face of attempted genocide. Dr. King did not espouse absolute pacifism–he only argued for the efficacy of non-violence in *social movements*. The X-Men’s struggle is not primarily for civil rights, but against the attempted genocide of mutants.
First and foremost, your attempt to equate nonviolent resistance and pacifism as the same thing is ill-conceived at best. They are not. Nonviolent resistance is resistance without violence, not the pacific acceptance of wrongs done to you. Those devoutly dedicated to nonviolent resistance do not espouse pacifism.Secondly, the idea that violence is necessary in the face of genocidal totalitarian dictatorships is wrong. And history has furnished us plenty of examples. The Soviet Union, one of the largest most brutal totalitarian dictatorship in history, slaughterer of tens of millions, oppressor of tens of millions more, operator of one of the largest slave systems ever, fell apart without a war or major conflict. The people awoke to the simple truth that they didn’t have to obey. And without their obedience, the monster could not survive. The Velvet Revolution is but one example of what happened all across the Soviet Union as it disintegrated, even in Russia itself.Contrast that with World War II. The last “Good War.” I’m sure it was a consolation to the 130 million men, women, and children shot, burned, crushed, and otherwise horrifically murdered that their brutal slaughter was for a “good cause.” Turning Europe into a giant abattoir, one massive extermination camp where civilians no longer needed to be herded to a specific place to be murdered, now they could be randomly and maliciously murdered at home, is not a victory. The countering of evil with evil only perpetuates evil. Murdering innocents to prevent the murder of innocents just makes two monsters.The belief that you can murder your way to peace is not nearly naïve, it is insane.As for Dr. King, he utterly rejected war. I highly suggest you read his book, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos of Community?” In there he wrote:“One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. How much longer must we play at deadly war games before we heed the plaintive pleas of the unnumbered dead and maimed of past wars?…Therefore I suggest that the philosophy and strategy of nonviolence become immediately a subject for study and for serious experimentation in every field of human conflict, by no means excluding the relations between nations. It is, after all, nation-states which make war, which have produced the weapons that threaten the survival of mankind and which are both genocidal and suicidal in characterWe have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of power, indescribably complicated problems to solve. But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether and succumb to fear and impotence in the presence of the weapons we have ourselves created, it is as possible and as urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to poverty and racial injustice” (pgs. 193-195)
Nonviolent resistance is the process by which evil is resisted not merely for civil rights, but as the means by which war is ended and peace established among nations and peoples.
John Sayles, Men With Guns (1997), illustrates this idea perfectly in my opinion.
Note, the phrase “, slaughterer of tens of millions” should read, “slaughterer of tens of thousands” and I just mistyped. Though, to be clear, millions almost certainly were murdered by the Soviets over the entire history of the USSR, it is just nearly impossible to quantify exactly how many.
Son, how does the enslaved population of Haiti release itself from bondage without a violent revolution?
So you believe that in World War II, we should have simply let the Nazis slaughter whoever they wanted? You’re arguing to allow them to “finish the job,” and that’s abhorrent. Your selective reading of King is an utter lie, and you know it. And you have not a single practical replacement for violence in the face of genocide because you’ve never in your cushy life faced an existential threat.I believe we should always strive for a less-violent world. Ceding the world to the violent does not in any way accomplish that goal.
>So you believe that in World War II, we should have simply let the Nazis slaughter whoever they wanted?So you think your willingness to literally burning of millions of babies alive in order to accomplish your political and military goals makes you better than a Nazi?> Your selective reading of King is an utter lie, and you know it.I’m the one actually quoting the man and providing references for my quotes. If you can prove your claim, then I’ve given you all the tools you need to do so. So, do it.>not a single practical replacement for violence in the face of genocideNonviolent resistance is the only practical way to resist genocide or violence of any sort. Your willingness to burn millions of babies alive in order to accomplish your political and military objectives is proof that war is the most idiotic reaction to genocide and does nothing to prevent it. It does nothing but create more monsters.In contrast to war, nonviolent resistance is far more effective than war against both democratic governments and autocratic totalitarian governments. This is a proven fact. I highly suggest you read the article below by Dr. Erica Chenoweth a sit reviews the history and success of nonviolent resistance in the 20th century and compares it to the success of violent revolutions and wars during the same period. It is a great place for you to start learning about something which you clearly know very little about.https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-future-of-nonviolent-resistance-2/
I’d bet money the show ends up endorsing Xavier’s position as much as any other adaptation. Rogue and Cyclop’s big feints toward rejecting it are clearly born of justifiable frustration and intense grief, not some clear-headed analysis of the situation, and “they need me” is the ultimate revelation of the one Xavier-centric episode so far. Given that the primary audience is probably 40, I’m enjoying seeing the show engage with some of the frustrations and difficulties that come with a commitment to nonviolence rather than having everyone accept it uncritically or pretend it guarantees an easy road or even a positive outcome every time. But just structurally, the strong odds are this ends with Xavier back in charge and the sense that that’s a good, if not totally perfect, outcome.
It would be nice if that were the case, though I would much rather we tell stories about the victories of nonviolent ideals put into action instead of another story about how difficult things can be. But I really fear that the show is veering towards the action movie ethos of “blowing shit up and getting things done.”
The tension between what Xavier theoretically wants and the fact that most of their superpowers are about stabbing things or making them explode is kinda baked into the concept, and there is no version of the comic or any adaptation that doesn’t undercut its message a bit as a result. But watch either Rogue or Cyclops’s big scene again and ask yourself if the writing or performance is really suggesting that this is a good road that is likely to solve their problems and make them happier, because that is not the sense I get at all.
I think it does a bit of a disservice to the cause to tell stories where nonviolent civil disobedience achieves its goals easily and immediately. Most people will recognize pretty quickly that that’s not the case in reality, and its two most famous proponents were both assassinated. If you believe in it, you do it because it’s the right thing to do whether you win or lose, and you will probably lose more often in the short term. I’d rather see a story where we grapple honestly with that difficulty then one that offers a pleasing fantasy that has no relationship with the real world.
King did not beg for tolerance or say that black folks would gain equality through good works. Pleas for tolerance were ignored and the good works of Black people were dismissed or co-opted. Many of the civil rights leaders of the mid-twentieth century were veterans who returned from war to realize their bravery and sacrifice meant nothing to the white establishment. The very un-Charles Xavier path King took was to disrupt the system entirely through boycotts, sit-ins and protests. It was a “no business as usual” policy. So sure, King was not Magneto, but he was light years away from being Charles Xavier. If anything, he’s comparable Booker T. Washington.
I think your characterization of both Charles Xavier and Booker T. Washington is wrong. Xavier’s is just a misreading. You’re correct that Xavier isn’t out there holding sit-ins, that is true. But King didn’t have to deal with people who could shoot lasers out of their eyes destroying an entire restaurant if a counter-protestor punched him in the face, either. Xavier does. And that makes things more difficult in terms of what you can effectively do in protests. That doesn’t mean that Xavier is merely begging for acceptance and doing nothing. He is actively counteracting the dominate narrative and demonstrating the humanity, courage, and self-sacrificing spirit of his students as a way to short circuit the xenophobic stereotypes that justify bigotry against them.Your characterization of Washington has more to do with W.E.B. DuBois’s propaganda than what Washington’s actual motives and methods were. And DuBois’s messaging should be suspect if only because he was challenging Washington for leadership in the Black community and needed to diminish Washington in order to elevate himself. Washington’s focuses on education and economic power as the ways for Black men and women to develop and assert their humanity in a deeply racist society were incredibly powerful. Especially because many of those were either former slaves, like Washington himself, or the first generation post-slavery born into sharecropping serfdom and a poverty more miserable than any in America today. Washington helped educate, enlighten, and empower generations of Black men and women through his efforts.DuBois’s always criticized Washington for not being more involved in direct political action, but DuBois’s also didn’t live in Atlanta when it was run by the KKK and Black men were being hung from the trees like Christmas decorations either. He was an oppression-tourist lecturing others about how much better he was than they while experiencing very little of the heat they faced himself. It is always easier to attack others for not doing something when you don’t suffer for it the way they do.
“He is actively counteracting the dominate narrative and demonstrating the humanity, courage, and self-sacrificing spirit of his students as a way to short circuit the xenophobic stereotypes that justify bigotry against them.”A policy which wholly insufficient in making civil rights gains. Black people demonstrated all of those qualities for literal centuries and had their civil rights denied. Rights were not gained by being nice, they were gained by agitating and disrupting the system. “DuBois’s also didn’t live in Atlanta when it was run by the KKK and Black men were being hung from the trees like Christmas decorations either.” Which the Atlanta Compromise did not in any way, shape or form stop. In fact, whenever Black demonstrated those qualities that whites claimed to admire, such as creating a “black wall street” in Tulsa, white people took to violence and burned the whole thing down rather than accept the notion that black people were in any way equal. The lie of Xavier’s approach is that the “other” has to change to be accepted, when the reality is that the system and the oppressors have to change. That’s what MLK understood. Change has to be fought for, not granted by the benevolence of the oppressor because they will magically recognize how nice you are.
>A policy which wholly insufficient in making civil rights gains.Changing hearts and minds is the only policy that gained civil rights. >Rights were not gained by being nice, they were gained by agitating and disrupting the system.After they had begun to change the concept of Black personhood by demonstrating the failures of racist theory at a basic human to human level. The reason King’s actions were effective wasn’t only because they were disruptive. Many people had been disruptive before him. Most of them had been killed for their disruption. And the ones who hadn’t had been marginalized. All while the same White supremacist ideology ensured the continuance of the White supremacist system.What was different during King’s era is that the hearts and minds of Whites had begun to change in the ways they though and felt about Black men and women. It took decades of work, of suffering, of hardship from the poorest and downtrodden. King recognized that his work was poor people’s work, a “poor people’s campaign.” no matter about how it should have been, but that is what made it possible for Whites to conceive of Blacks as possible equals as opposed to people to be violently oppressed or just outright murdered for speaking up. It is why enough of the dominate White population sided with King to make change possible.>The lie of Xavier’s approach is that the “other” has to change to be accepted, when the reality is that the system and the oppressors have to change.The reality is that everyone has to change. The error that war develops out of is that meaningful change can be forced to take place. It cannot. Meaningful change can only come by changing the hearts and minds of people so that they then change their actions. And that change goes both directions. Dr. King spent a great deal of time educating his activists in the ethics of Christian love and then how to act on those ethics. He knew that White people weren’t afraid of Malcolm X and the Panthers. White people had been murdering Blacks for centuries by that point. All X was doing was giving them a justification for continuing to do so.Instead, Dr. King worked to change Black hearts, Black minds, and Black actions concurrently with changing White hearts, White minds, and White actions. Both sides had to be broken out of the cycle of violence that perpetuated the systems of oppression everyone was caught within.>Which the Atlanta Compromise did not in any way, shape or form stop.And neither did DuBois’s political work. And why not? Because it couldn’t.Black protestors in 1901 Atlanta weren’t beaten and locked up. They weren’t even shot with firehoses or attacked with dogs. They were shot, hung, or set on fire to burn alive in public. That was the real world Blacks lived in at the time and DuBois never changed it. Couldn’t change it.Washington knew on the other hand that he could do something that would actively help Black people improve their lives in the circumstances they actually lived in, not in the ones that they should have had. And by doing so he helped bring the kind of social, economic, and educational power to the Black community that it would need to make resistance possible.
“Changing hearts and minds is the only policy that gained civil rights”Which is not done, is NEVER done, soley by the Xavier methods of “maybe our oppressors will wake up to how awesome we are someday and give us civil rights.” King certainly worked to change hearts and minds; his speeches were a powerful tool. But he was never so naive as to think they alone would turn the tide, activists needs to leverage they power they had to force their oppressors to the table. The Montgomery bus strike worked by crippling on the tools of oppression. It was that work that helped change hearts and minds and leveraged power. The kitchen sit-ins worked by taking direct action. That was the work that helped change hearts and minds and leveraged power. “And neither did DuBois’s political work.”You are straight up wrong about that. DuBois’ work very much laid the foundation for the civil rights movement and its successes, when it had become starkly clear over the blood soaked decades that Booker’s accommodationism did nothing to stem the tide of white violence.
“The kitchen sit-ins worked by taking direct action. That was the work that helped change hearts and minds and leveraged power.”
Which is a form of nonviolent resistance. Same for the Montgomery bus strike. So you’re agreeing that nonviolence is the way to go?
I completely agree that non-violent action such as the boycotts, sit-ins, demonstrations, and strikes are effective in turning the tide of opinion and leveraging power to bring chenage. What does not work is the accommodationism of Washington or Xavier. Xavier is not wrong because he is non-violent, he is wrong because his non-violent methods do not work.
>The Montgomery bus strike worked by crippling on the tools of oppression. It was that work that helped change hearts and minds and leveraged power.You’ve got it backwards. The bus strike worked because hearts and minds had already begun to change. They certainly would continue to do so thanks to the willingness of Dr. King’s followers to display their suffering before the world while refusing to strike back. But to imagine that hearts and minds hadn’t already changed to a great degree is to ignore history.> when it had become starkly clear over the blood soaked decades Decades during which DuBois accomplished next to nothing to “stem the tide of white violence.” On the other hand Washington helped the Black community build the economic, social, and educational power to challenge White supremacy. Washington understood that the work of civil rights was something that would unfortunately take decades to accomplish and he planned for the long term.
I haven’t got it backwards. Without direct action, hearts and minds would never have changed. Without direct action, none of the civil rights gained by King would have happened. That’s what he realized and that’s why he did them. He very much followed by in the footsteps of DuBois, having learned the mistakes of Washington’s accommodationism.
You’re here in 2024 thinking that Professor X was right and Magneto was wrong.I know a _lot_ of things about you just based on that one simple observation. Lol, lmfao.
“ragebait propaganda of the most meaningless kind.”All you folks attempting conversation made that classic mistake of not reading to the end. Some folks just can’t help themselves.
I agree with a lot of this, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it makes X-Men ‘97 not good. (Gotta hand it to the action animation, come on!) If the review’s takeaway is feeling like “righteous anger” is justified, that says more about the viewer than the show. Because in context, even the show’s characters are wrestling with how to handle things, keeping in mind that their more peaceful leader is gone, and their new, more cynical leader might start having an influence on them. Spoilers, but Rogue killing Trask wasn’t a fist-pump moment for me. I was horrified.
Now if it was meant to be something viewers agree with, then I’m disappointed in characterizing the X-Men this way. Heroes needing to kill to solve their problems is some Zack Snyder territory. But, in the spirit of optimism, I’m choosing to believe that isn’t the case. So I’d just remind that this isn’t saying the show is rejecting Xavier’s ideology- Only putting it to the test like never before. (And even then, the comics routinely did this, too.) There’s something bold in that, which makes DeMayo’s adaptation arguably more interesting than any before it.
I would agree with the basic premise of this, but while the show has been very good, I think it’s just not a high bar to be the best X-men adaptation of all time, because most of them leave a lot to be desired.I’ve never really enjoyed an X-men movie, despite growing up loving the comics. The movies just never seemed to know what to do with 90% of the ensemble cast, and I think what I liked about the comics was that it often gave room for all the characters to shine. I also never really liked the way the movie translated the comic costume designs to boring black suits. X-men 97 has stayed true not only to the designs, but the spirit of what drives the comic, and also managed to adapt some difficult storylines in a (mostly) not super forced and clunky way.It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s loads better than any of the movies we got.
Unfortunately, the early films was hamstrung by the fact that things like comics-level costuming would be very offputting to mainstream audiences. The MCU in particular has done a lot to bring audiences around to accepting a lot of things that – depicted live-action – can come across as goofy. And my hope is that if/when Marvel does start making films, they’ll be more comfortable with it (I mean, Wolverine is already wearing yellow in the next Deadpool film).Ymmv, I loved some of the films, and hated some of the others. Days of the Future Past was a real stand-out for me. It had a massive ensemble used well (concentrate on four central characters, and let the rest do cool things in the background), it introduced freakin’ Sentinels without making them seem ridiculous, and it really got to the heart of the Xavier/Magneto discussion in such an X-Men way (time travel and a post-apocalyptic future) and I found it overall to be immensely satisfying.
I appreciate parts of some of the movies, and Days of Future Past probably has the most parts I like, but I really don’t like how most of the cast is just there to do things and they don’t really even establish what the powers are for the background mutants. They just wanna be like “Warpath is there! And also Bishop! What do they do? Who are they? Sorry, can’t help you.”
I really wish Days of Future Past actually conveyed a dystopian future where the X-Men were long dead, and humans and mutants alike are being thrown into camps, giving a true sense of what society would look like if they failed. But instead we just got secluded mountains.
The early X-Men films were also coming out shortly after Batman & Robin, which was probably the most “comic book-y” movie since the 70s Superman movies, and was loathed by both critics and fans. So I don’t blame people back then from going “okay, we want to pivot hard away from some of the wackier aspects of the characters”
Wolverine and the X-Men was a really good adaptation that juggled a ton of characters and aimed for big stories. It’s a real shame it got cancelled after only one season, was really looking forward to Age of Apocalypse being adapted. And that show also gives me pause on naming a best ever adaptation this early.
I agree. It gets points for a much better team lineup as well. But other than that shortlived show, “best X-Men adaptation is a pretty low bar to cross.
I’ve seen enough to feel like X-Men 97 is better than Wolverine and the X-Men. Although Wolverine and the X-Men had the much better Mojo episode. I don’t know what this article is going on about, because that Jubilee entry was the only stinker of the season.
Loved it except for the episode where pretty much every X-Men character got owned by the Silver Samuri off screen for stupid plot purposes.
Wolverine and the X-Men remains my close favourite of these adaptations, though ‘97 is very close to beating it. I think it adapted great stories and gave them their own fresh-ish twists. It fell into some of the tried and true X-Men conventions, but it was immensely engaging.Not to mention, the only in-depth depiction of Emma Frost in an adaptation and the one that made me a lifelong fan of hers.
Have we all forgotten the classic TV series Mutant X?
Unfortunately, no… 8P
Victoria Pratt gets two thumbs up from me. And John Shea is a really nice guy in real life
As a Rogue fan, I have spent decades now trying to explain to non-fans why I love the character and no, that Fox movie version is nothing at all like what she is in the comics. And it is just SO REFRESHING to have such a wonderful take on her character. I am loving what this show has done for her so far.Also, given how Wolverine kind of took over the films, it’s just so great to watch something that’s like “Hey – remember all these other wonderful characters!” and gives them great things to do. Add in the fact that it also manages to juggle all the comics-appropriate soap opera on top of everything else (Scott’s in a love triangle with Jean Grey and her clone!) makes the whole thing even more impressive.Going in, it never even occurred to me to wonder who the target audience for this revival might be. And now I’ve come to understand it’s for those of us who grew up on the original show; we’re all adults now, and so the show has matured with us. And I love it. The mature approach has made for incredibly rich storytelling, and it’s mind-blowing how good this whole thing has already turned out to be.
Some were feeling a little uneasy about the Rogue/Magneto romance (the show doesn’t do it any favors by basically explaining Erik was a groomer!), but with that out of the way, Rogue has really been able to cut loose. Totally agree about looking beyond Wolverine. The show has done right by many of the other team members. They made Gambit look cooler than ever (if that’s possible), vastly improved Cyclops, so people can stop calling him a dork, and gave Storm arguably her best material she’s ever got in any cartoon or movie. Even Morph, who created quite a stir for some people pre-launch, has proven to be an awesome utility player, as a vessel for sick cameos in every fight. It’s great stuff. Now if they could just give Bishop something to do…
I’m pretty ick about Rogue/Magneto myself given the age difference (knowing there’s ton of precedent for it in the comics doesn’t make it better) and I was worried her only thing this season would be the love triangle. And wow has that not been the case, and I’m so, so happy about where it’s taken her.
I wouldn’t go that far… yet. I was into it until the whole “Xavier in Space” arc. Charles rubs be the wrong way now, and I can’t quite place why. But I really disliked him in the episode.
It’s been good, but I do wish they took more time with some of the stories they are telling. I don’t know if they thought they were never getting any future seasons so they packed in as much as they could, but its a bit rushed. The original version did this too and some would say its because it was aimed at kids with short attention spans. Well, 1) Kids can be engaged if you make it worth their while and 2) This revival isn’t aimed at kids. There’s way more mature content than the original. They should have stretched most of this out and gone full soap opera with it, which is what X-Men basically is anyway
They knew they were getting another season because it got a two season order. The second season was done alongside the first, so it’s finished and ready to air whenever.
Well then they have no excuse. Definitely could have gave a few story beats a moment to breath
I agree with you but I also understand why they’re doing it (or at least, why I think they’re doing it). The original show came out in a time where it was appointment viewing on Saturdays only, and if you didn’t have a VCR and missed an episode you may very well straight up miss important stuff and fall behind, so they took their time so that any kids who had missed something could use the “previously on” segments before the show plus context clues in the current episode to catch up to speed. With ‘97, it’s on streaming and anyone who maybe missed an episode or doesn’t remember the previous episode very clearly can immediately rewind, go back, and watch it again, so the show runners don’t feel they need to go as slow. Again, I agree with you that it’s a poor decision to do things that way and I think the show would be better with a little slower pacing but whatever I guess…
My major complaint so far is: They were way too early with the Jubilee episode. And, to make things worse, it was also a Mojo episode. Nobody was clamoring for any of that. They were two of the most lackluster characters. Are? 😉
years of treatment of the American gay community post-9/11 informed his writing on the episodewait, what?
https://bleedingcool.com/tv/x-men-97-episode-5-beau-demayo-shares-personal-heartfelt-insights/
Thank you! the av club link lead to an article that didn’t want to summarize and linked to a tweet that was an image of text because Twitter fucking stupid and I gave up.
grow up man
I love 97 so far but my only complaint is that some episodes are too dark. Not tone-wise, I mean literally dark. As in “in some of the episodes I’ve had to pause, manually go into my TV’s brightness settings and crank that shit up to max to see things”. And I know it’s not just a me problem or a “get a better TV” deal as I’ve talked to others and they agree.
Well, it’s no Marvel vs. Capcom, though.
Watching ‘X-Men ‘97′ now is a slightly weird experience for me. I was a kid when I watched the original series, and didn’t know I was queer or neurodivergent. Now I’ve grown up and learned both those things about myself, and the whole “otherness” theme of the show is hitting in a completely new way.
Well, sure, if you’re not including the games like X-Men Legends II
Considering how fraught it could’ve be, I am pleasantly surprised at how mature and polite the almost inevitable conversation about the Gaza conflict has been, whether I agree with the sentiment or not. Well done, y’all,
Essentially the og show was closest to the greatest X-men adaptation of all time, but hindered by the budget, limitations of the animation, and the network putting it on Saturday morning TV and treated it as such. (Batman TAS was put on Sat morning TV but Warner treated it as pristine prime time tv which is why it got away with more than X-Men did i.e. real guns)
The show’s revival is all of that without those limitations so now it is the best adaptation. Disney should really stop all plans for a live action X-men movie franchise and focus any live action adaptations for a serial TV show to do the characters justice.