Movies / Animé and Toons

Marvel X-Men: Volume 1

By Hervé St-Louis
April 28, 2009 - 00:20

X-Men Volume 1 contains the first two seasons of the X-Men cartoon series as well as the first episodes of the third season. Giant robots called sentinels, created to purge the world of mutants, pursue Jubilee, a young mutant. The X-Men, who agree to welcome her into their team, train her and save Jubilee from the sentinels’ attacks. The X-Men are good mutants that fight prejudice from humans and attacks from evil mutants. Through their leader, telepathic Professor Charles Xavier, field leader Cyclops, weather mistress Storm, telekinetic Jean Grey, intellectual but animal –like Beast, kinetic Cajun rebel without a cause, Gambit, southern belle Rogue and impulsive Canadian Wolverine are the X-Men and they fight for humankind. Will their effort be enough to protect a world that fears them?

The X-Men’s golden years were the 1990s. After some brief appearances in Spider-man and his Amazing Friends and a miscarried X-Men pilot, Saban Entertainment, a French animation company that had done work with DIC, the creators of Inspector Gadget and The Real Ghostbusters. Saban’s creators, Haim Saban and Shuki Levy were producers that had collaborated on DIC productions in the past. Some of the music used in the old He-Man cartoons and the Mysterious Cities of Gold, were composed by either Saban or Shuki.

The music composers were also smart businessmen and created their own animation and production studio apart from DIC. Saban and Shuki worked closely with toy producer Avi Arad, owner of Toy Biz, to work on the X-Men cartoon series produced by Saban. It is interesting that Saban’s old partners, DIC was the perennial adversary of Marvel Comics’ own animation studio in the 1980s, Marvel Entertainment/Cadence. DIC would often undercut Marvel with cheaper production prices to pry away series from them. This is why G.I. Joe was transferred to DIC after the 1987 movie. Saban, through its experience with DIC had a lot of experience with collaborating with Japanese animation studios in productions. For example, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Ulysses 31 were animated entirely in Japan. The Power Rangers were also co-produced with Japanese studios.

The animation in the X-Men series was of lesser quality than that of Spider-man and his Amazing Friends or series like Dungeon and Dragon, all done by Marvel. Yet the storyline format with strong emphasis on continuity really made the series stand out and cultivated a new generation of X-Men fans that had never read the comic book, yet were familiar with the dynamics of the X-Men. Before long, X-Men started rewarding its viewers by introducing continuity that is more intricate and many cameos, like in the 'Slave Island' episode where many characters, like Sun Fire and Thunderbird that had been X-Men in the comic book, appeared as independent characters. In the story with Morph, in part two of 'Till Death Do Us Part,' the shape shifter transforms into Deadpool and Omega Red, characters that had failed to appear previously in the series. When Professor X searched Gambit’s mind in 'Day of the Future Past' Part 2, He sees characters such as Ghost Rider.

The animation in this series is poor by any standards. Special effects are always energy based. When characters like Mystique morph or Rogue absorbed powers, they are surrounded by halos of energy. I tend to prefer the more organic feel of Rogue’s powers in the X-Men film franchise, however, I can appreciate that this series is a product of its time. Many characters wear those headbands, have jackets or long coats, and have all types of pockets on their costumes. That’s so 1990s, it’s fun to watch.

On the technical side, the DVD authoring won’t allow me to skip back to a previous episode without going to the root menu of the disc. That’s quite annoying. The discs include no commentaries or behind the scene information on the series. However, the fact that Disney just packed as much episodes as possible without worrying about seasons was a good decision and is a good value for viewers.

Episode Guide

Disc 1

• Night of the Sentinels (Part 1)
• Night of the Sentinels (Part 2)
• Enter Magneto
• Deadly Reunions
• Captive Hearts
• Cold Vengeance
• Slave Island
• The Unstoppable Juggernaut

Disc 2

• The CureCome
• The ApocalypseDays Of Future Past (Part 1)
• Days Of Future Past (Part 2)
• The Final DecisionTill Death DUs Part (Part 1)
• Till Death DUs Part (Part 2)
• Whatever It Takes

Rating: 10 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12