What A Cartoon! - X-Men: The Animated Series "Out Of The Past Part 1"

"THERE IS NO FREEDOM FROM ME, THERE IS ONLY FREEDOM... THROUGH ME!"

Chris Dobson

Gotta admit, I was a little surprised that Gary Butterfield or Jeremy Greer weren't guests on this one, but I suppose they already did their time in the X-Hole for Days of Future Cast. And I'll never complain about more Matt McMuscles content!

Shaxbert

I definitely watched this as a kid and loved it, but even at the time the contrast between the comic and the show was striking. I didn’t need the show to explain the Morlocks to me because I had gotten into Uncanny X-Men in 1986 - during the Morlock Massacre! Henry can explain it better but the TLDR version is: my introduction to the X-Men was a bunch of powerful thugs *murdering* Morlocks by the dozen, only for the X-Men to invade the tunnels and murder the shit out of those thugs. The blood was black and lots of actual death was just out of frame but it was BRUTAL. Flash forward eight years later and I’m a teenager watching a toothless battle take place in those same tunnels with many of the same characters. Notice that distinctive old woman with the Morlocks in the start of the episode? I saw her back in Uncanny X-Men 211, her powers are empathic (she makes you feel what she feels) which didn’t save her life or the life of the *children* she was guarding. Yes, the comic had child murder. The cartoon had energy nets and stun rays.

Diamond Feit

Hearing your comments on the opening theme song I had to share this edit that shows the X-Men music has a similar flow to the Whitney Houston song “I’m Your Baby Tonight” <a href="https://youtu.be/xm8LQEVdvjc" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/xm8LQEVdvjc</a>

Diamond Feit

I adored this series as a child. I was also watching from Canada and, funnily enough, never had trouble catching it on Saturday mornings. I wish I remembered what channels we had... Elements of this series haven't held up well, but it still has its moments and I love how ambitious it was. I may also be the one guy on the planet who liked Cylcops more than Wolverine.

Stew Shearer

The conversation about how striking Apocalypse's voicework was reminded me of the time one of my friends decided to take acid in the morning and go into school. He realized it was a bad idea pretty much the instant he stepped into the school building, and grabbed me to ask if he seemed okay (he did). He then told me he took LSD before he got on the bus, to which I asked if I could do some 'tests." I started quoting one of those incredible speeches, in that voice, to which he grabbed me furiously and said NO. DON'T DO THAT. Which, because we were asshole teenagers, meant that for years after we would all start talking like Apocalypse whenever our friends were experimenting with hallucinogens. Anyway, cheers to John Colicos for coining a voice that proved to be a perfect "are you too high?" litmus test for dorky stoned 90's teens. PS Kids don't do drugs, especially right before a math final.

David Prosper

top tier episode - I was literally smiling the entire time

mavrick

I love these snarky Bob episodes where it's clear his has a bit of disdain for the series. Also, Henry, please use your connections with Matt McMuscles to get Jay from OSW on TS. I would love to have to hear Bob put up with all the wrestling talk.

Neil L

Not surprisingly, there's also a supercut of Professor X screaming. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K956y2om92I" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K956y2om92I</a>

Dayken

Been going down a 90s Toybiz X-men rabbit hole lately, and this episode just sent me further down. Came across this X-men Headquarters Toy Commercial from 1995, which actually had Cathal J. Dodd voicing Wolverine in it instead of the generic "BUY THESE TOYS, KIDS" voices these things would usually have. This marketing still works on me, cause now I really want to buy this thing. How else am I going to get into X-men Headquarters?! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFsU7bZ7roQ" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFsU7bZ7roQ</a>

Gambit talks like Jar-Jar Binks!!!

Tom Brien

The X-Men comic book series had unprecedented consistency for a major publisher with writer Chris Claremont leading the book for something like 14 years. So while the storyline could be difficult to just jump into, Claremont (at Marvel direction at the time) did do a great job of reinforcing character key traits in every issues. You always knew that Wolverine was the best at what he does, and what he doesn't isn't very nice. You always knew the importance of Cyclops' ruby quartz glasses. You knew these things because they were hammered home in every. Single. Issue. (Sadly, Claremont was forced out in a power struggle with penciller Jim Lee -- who left after something like 10 more issues anyway.)

David G

I loved this series, and there is so much to unpack because it's history was so interesting. Loesch was the behind-the-scenes MVP as she really wanted to get the X-Men to TV. When they did "Pryde..." as a pilot they cut the RoboCop animated series short an episode to take money from it to pour into that pilot, which ultimately bombed as network executives didn't think kids would like get it. She really did a lot to get this thing onto TV via Fox when she got there, including having many battles with Stan Lee who wanted a ton of control over the show. He wanted to be the narrator and do his usual Stan stuff, plus he hated the direction of the show and thought it was all wrong while also demonstrating a lack of knowledge on the property since he hadn't really touched it since the 60s. The serialized nature of the show in the first season was so cool at the time as it wasn't common. The network hated it because it screwed up everything when an episode ran into delays. One season one episode, the Juggernaut one, was even delayed and forced to air out of order which was the main reason why the network tried to put an end to it after the first season. And yeah, this show looks pretty bad in places, but as a kid I didn't notice. We weren't that far removed from the slop of the 80s that was action cartoons. And even though Batman looked better, as a kid I didn't think it really did since that Batman did not look like any Batman I was familiar with while X-Men looked like the comics, albeit a poor imitation. Those "Previously on..." segments were also pretty creative. It started as a recap of the prior episode, but as the show went on and the amount of characters exploded they would do callbacks to seasons prior in those bits. For example, if Colossus was about to show up in a new episode they'd do a callback to his past appearances. Same with Bishop or Apocalypse. It's a technique that people probably identify with Game of Thrones now which basically does the same thing when it's bringing a character back that may not have appeared in seasons. As for this specific episode, while it wouldn't have been my choice it is interesting for Wolverine's backstory and the crazy animation. It's way over the top, but I kind of like it. I like the little scruff on Wolverine's chin and the subterranean locations look pretty neat. It also works really well for Deathstrike and I can't imagine she would have looked better if animated by AKOM, though they might not have gone nutty with the cleavage that forced the edits here (originally she did not have the white shirt when the animation came back and they had to go back and add it - another lesson in animators being horny). I could talk about this show for hours though, so I'll cut myself off here.

Joe Hodgson