User blog:Kayla L.H./X-men cartoons

Ah, Marvel cartoons. For some people, it means a moment or two of nostalgia, while for others it means gritting their teeth and bearing through it. What I've found with this scenario, however, is it depends more on which of the cartoons one is refering to.

Obviously, everyone is going to have their own opinions, which is actually fantastic since opinions allow for discussion and civilized arguement if done with the right people. With that being said, I would like to express my own opinions about the X-men cartoons in a short format, unlike the massive articles I'm currently working on. I could go on for hours with each of these.

I will be giving them a rating on a scale of 1 (terrible, disgusting, horrible) to 10 (amazing, love it, perfect). Following that will be some explaination.

Unfortunately this will not be including the anime, as I haven't seen it yet. Sorry.

Please comment on this blog post and tell me what your opinions are, and I just ask that you respect my opinions as I will be respecting yours. Thank you.

Pryde of the X-men - rating : 5

If we're going to talk about X-men cartoons, I think Pryde of the X-men would be where to start. Some people include this into 'X-men: The Animated Series', but that isn't entirely accurate as it is a failed prequel.

Being an X-men fan, it was nice to see some of the characters that were really never in any of the other cartoons to be shown on screen for a change (meaning Colossus and Dazzler. I would include Kitty and Kurt in it, but they were seen in X-men: Evolution and Wolverine and the X-men a lot. Some could argue that for Colossus, but he was hardly ever front and center of anything.). I just feel as if the entire thing was a cliche. That's why I feel like it failed. It failed because it was just too damn cliche for its own good.

Regardless of the cliches, it did present itself on screen and make itself known for the half an hour it was playing. Besides, no one who heard the theme song will be forgetting it anytime soon. I do have to say that the voice actors didn't seem to match up to the characters they were speaking for, especially with Wolverine and the White Queen.

X-men : The Animated Series - rating - 7

Many people have told me that this rating should be higher because if was the original series, but my rating stands thus. I feel as if this one, while still great, was lacking in some ways. Let's get voice acting out of the way and say once and for all that, except for some errors here and there, it was pretty much spot on for what I imagined.

I do feel as if the series jumped around a little too much. Even if they are shown in the order it was meant to be seen in, they still jump around quite a bit. It's a little unnerving and makes you feel at times that you've missed something that they never come back to telling you. This only happens a few times throughout the series, however.

I feel as if I should warn all of you that if you have the DVD's, beware that they don't get shown in the way it was aired on TV. The DVD's take episodes out of the middle of a plot and put them on the last season DVD, like 'No Mutant Is An Island' for example, so it leaves it even more jumpy than it was before. I wondered why in one of the episodes it started talking about Jean being back when last we heard she was dead. They had removed that episode from the DVD plot and interrupted everything.

Some characters I was very excited to see on the screen, but others I missed, especially Kitty Pryde, who had been shown in 'Pryde of the X-men'. I do like how they would bring as many characters in as they could, even if they couldn't explain who they were entirely, like in episode Cold Comfort when you are shown Havok, Wolfsbane, Multiple Man, and Strong Guy. It makes us comic fans happy because you feel as if you have just made the discovery of a lifetime.

X-men: Evolution - rating - 9

This one was my personal favorite out of all of the cartoons because it seemed to stick to the guns of the comics, but also added some unique twists to it that gave it a different feel. It also allowed for things to be done in ways most people wouldn't have expected and allowed us to see the characters in a whole different light.

There were quite a few problems with the animation, which is to be expected because nothing can be perfect, but it was still really cool. The looks of each of the characters was exactly, EXACTLY as my imagination would have expected modern teenage versions of the characters to have looked. There have been many complaints from fans on different aspects of it whether it be the dialogue or the different plots that never allowed for other villains to be seen, it still felt complete in ways that didn't have to have a massive list of characters being checked off to be.

With the character personalities, it seemed to me as if they tried to make certain characters more likeable (Cyclops for example) while intensifying certain aspects of the other characters' comic counterparts so they could have an entirely new take on them (Rogue's angst made her gothic, the naivety of the New Mutants, the hidden 'father figure' part of Logan's personality).

I don't know what else there is to say about it, but if I have anything else, I'll edit it in after this note.

Wolverine and the X-men - rating - 4

I was definitely NOT impressed by this cartoon. I think if they would have been able to have another season, I may have liked it, but given what I have, I don't like it.

For one thing, I've never been a huge Wolverine fan, but I watched it in the hope that it would show me something new about the Canadian that I may just like. It did the opposite. I wasn't impressed at all by, really, any of the characters.

Besides that, it HAD to focus on finding Jean for half the freaking season. Jean has always been my favorite woman of X so I can sympathize, but it was obvious that we would find her at some point. They also didn't need to draw it out like they did, and as much as I love the Phoenix saga, I've been getting REALLY tired of that always being something one of the cartoons has to include at some point because it's made Jean seem like a royal pain in the ass to X-men society (blog for another time).

Overall, I was unimpressed by the cliche, X-stereotypes it had throughout the whole season. I'm sure if a season 2 had come around, they would have fixed it much like in the way I'm sure 'Pryde of the X-men' could have been better.

This is a reminder to please leave your opinions in the comments below and tell me what you think. Thanks for reading!