Star Wars And Marvel Get Beat By A 90s Animated Series On Disney+
Star Wars and Marvel can't compete with this cartoon!
This article is more than 2 years old
X-Men: The Animated Series has been popular among its viewers since its release in the early 1990s. However, thanks to the Disney+ streaming service, people with power are learning for the first time just how dedicated people are to the show that, for many, kickstarted their love of superheroes. For those unfamiliar, X-Men: The Animated Series aired on Fox Kids for five seasons and a total of 76 episodes that ran from 1992 to 1997. The show was a classic example of a series that would not dumb its subject matter down for kids, often tackling real issues with allegories to racism, homophobia and the prejudice that surrounds them. It would also ask heavy science fiction questions like the morality of time travel, all to a generation of kids who were eating it up while munching on Alphabet cereal and wearing their Cyclops footy pajamas (just me? No way).
Those kids didn’t go anywhere. More than two decades after the show ended, the episodes made their way to the Disney+ streaming platform. Keep in mind, the platform launched with the premiere of The Mandalorian and promised other Star Wars and Marvel Studios content to go along with the library of it that was already available. However, speaking on Justin Underwood’s YouTube channel, the minds behind the show revealed that a majority of people have been gravitating toward X-Men: The Animated Series.
X-Men: The Animated Series writers Eric and Julia Lewald discussed the enduring legacy of the show and noted how instrumental streaming numbers have been in all the new and exciting things happening in the world of X-Men at Disney+. Per Cosmic Book News, Julia Lewald explained that she somehow got her hands on a piece of internal metrics that showed X-Men: The Animated Series was at one point in time (likely at launch) the number one show on the platform, even beating The Mandalorian.
It makes sense, even if people purchased a Disney+ account to watch the first episode of The Mandalorian, they likely finished and then looked at what else the platform had to offer. Proper Marvel nerds clearly didn’t take long to stumble upon the 1990s bit of nostalgia and get a binge-watch going after 22 years. By the way, speaking from experience, the show holds up!
That popularity and timelessness of the story is likely the reason that the Mouse House announced that it’s making new episodes of the hit X-Men: The Animated Seires titled X-Men ‘97. Not only will the original writers and director be involved, but voice cast such as Cal Dodd, Lenore Zann, George Buza, Alison Sealy-Smith, Chris Potter, Catherine Disher, Adrian Hough, and Christopher Britton will return as well. New cast members include Jennifer Hale, Anniwaa Buachie, Ray Chase, Matthew Waterson, JP Karliak, Holly Chou, Jeff Bennett, and AJ LoCascio.
As Collider notes, the duo also explained that the new show is expected to come out sometime in the middle of 2023. They also offered some insight into how it will address the time jump — it won’t. The show is hoping to pick up right where the other one left off. They even implied that Cyclops’ “Previously on X-Men” moments will include some of the original series — and if you can literally hear what’s between those quotation marks, then the middle of 2023 will surely be an exciting time for you as it will be for an entire generation of cartoon and X-Men: The Animated Series fans.
