Back on November 12th, 2021, at their brand new event “Disney+ Day”, Disney announced X-Men ‘97, a new animated series that continues the adventures of the X-Men from the original 1992-1997 animated series. Bringing back the original team from the animated series, X-Men ‘97 will bring all-new X-Men stories to Disney+ for new and old fans alike.
Premiering all the way back in 1992 on the Fox Kids Network, X-Men: The Animated Seriesran for five seasons, with 76 episodes, bringing Marvel’s flagship title to the small screen for a new audience. The team consisting of Storm, Professor X, Rogue, Wolverine, Jubilee, Beast, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Gambit, and Morph (an original creation); X-Men: The Animated Series followed the team through five seasons worth of comic-book adaptations, dealing with themes of prejudice and loneliness, along with real-world social issues such as the AIDS epidemic. With high ratings on review sites such as Rotten Tomatoes (85%) and IMDB (8.5/10), X-Men was one of Marvel’s more successful animated shows. Here is each season of the hit show, ranked.
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5 Season Five
20th Studios
With the lowest score of any season at 56% (Rotten Tomatoes), season five of X-Men comes in last in the rankings. Starting off strong with “The Phalanx Covenant” two-part opening, Season five looked sure to be a strong series finale for the popular show. But, as the season progressed, and with some lackluster episodes, such as “Longshot” and “Jubilee’s Fairytale Theater”; X-Men sputtered to a standstill with some of the lowest rankings the show had seen up until that point. It did have some standout storytelling, such as the Wolverine-focused “Old Soldiers”, but stronger stories were lacking from the final season. If a season six would have been better, we may never know, as the hosting network canceled both the X-Men and Spider-Man animated series.
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4 Season Four
With some of the best episodes in the series, season four is next on the list. Coming off the heels of the phenomenal season three, the fourth season of X-Men was originally planned to be the series finale of the show. Opening with an original story entitled “One Man’s Worth” (which would then go on to be an inspiration for the Marvel Comics X-Men event, “Age of Apocalypse”), season four would have great ratings for the rest of the series. The season included the four-part storyline (originally planned to be the finale) “Beyond Good and Evil”. This season brought in Apocalypse, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver, along with bringing back fan-favorite Cable; season four did a good job fleshing out the lore of X-Men.
3 Season Two
Coming off a successful season one, season two of the show managed to build and continue the hype of the seminal first season, without ruining anything of what made the show special. Starting with a two-part special on the marriage between Cyclops (Scott Summers) and Phoenix (Jean Grey), season two only continued to get better. This season included the highly-rated episodes: “A Rogue’s Tale”, “Whatever it Takes”, and “The Time Fugitives”. Season two took the characters and lore introduced in season one, and managed to expand and elaborate on both to create an even better continuing story.
2 Season One
A close battle with season three, season one hits the penultimate spot on the list. Opening with the action-packed “Night of the Sentinels” story, season one brought the Marvel mutants to new audiences in explosive fashion. Continuing only to get better, episode three of the first season introduced the most well-known X-Men villain of all-time in Magneto, along with his motivations for bettering mutant-kind. More and more characters were introduced (Juggernaut included), and the stories that were told were expanded. Season one finished off with an adaptation of one of the best X-Men storylines of all-time in “Days of Future Past”, solidifying future seasons for the young show.
1 Season Three
The most ambitious season of X-Men: The Animated Series, and arguably the most successful season, season three is most-known and most-acclaimed for adapting arguably the most popular X-Men comic storyline of all-time: The Dark Phoenix Saga. With a long, suspenseful build-up, taking place over two four-part arcs in the middle of the season, “The Dark Phoenix Saga” racked up some of the best ratings of the show, with all the episodes scoring a 7.9 or higher.
A masterclass in animated storytelling, “The Dark Phoenix Saga” wasn’t the only successful storyline of season three. Other standout episodes included: “Nightcrawler” (a look into the world of Kurt Wagner) and “Weapon X, Lies, and Videotape”, a pun-inspired parody of Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape, that spawned one of the most well-known memes in recent history (Wolverine staring at the framed picture in his bed). After two seasons of introducing and fleshing out characters, season 3 allowed the showrunners to fully focus on the stories and lives of the X-Men.
The X-Men: Animated Series was a classic staple of early-nineties culture, and a phenomenon that has managed to stand the test of time; even inspiring Marvel Studios to revive it for 2024. A franchise known for its stance on social and civil rights, the X-Men and their stories will always stand out in history.
