Trailer Marvel Animation’s X-Men ‘97 Season 2 | Official Trailer

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dun dun, See some new old faces, Archangel,psylocke, I wonder if they will give an explanation for Apoc's return because iifc the last time he was on screen he meant to inhabit Cortez's body but the x-men put a stop to that. Maybe i should go rewatch that episode.
 

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Something slightly off-topic.

I used to love the X-men, but something recently has given me a seriously serious ick factor.

Wolverine is supposed to be several hundred years old.

Jean Grey was a 17 year old girl.

Wolverine crushing on her and trying to get with her...is...really...really...disturbing. I didn't think about it when I was younger, but now...

He should be reviled. That's just...wrong. He should be absolutely called out on that.

He's older than a Great Grandpa and he's trying to do things with someone young enough to be a Great Great Great....etc...grand daughter.

He's a filthy old guy and the Comicbooks (maybe they have, they hadn't when I stopped reading) really should call this out as just...wrong.
 

I don't recall the 90s cartoon or the reboot explicitly calling out the character ages.

The original 5 X-Men (Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman, Marvel Girl/Jean Grey) were explicitly high-schoolers (15-18) when introduced in 1963. They have since gone on to age at incredibly indistinct and unclear rates. In that 60's series, they are depicted as students at a co-ed boarding school.

At the '75 revival (also where Wolverine is introduced and would have met Jean Grey), there is an unclear amount of time since the last book in the original run. However, cyclops is flying an SR-71 Blackbird, and no one is acting like it is because he is a child prodigy. They then return to the school, but the whole 'high-school students' cover is mostly ignored (certainly few, if any, 'original-5 acting like teenagers' storylines) until new teenage characters are introduced.

By the time the 90s cartoon was produced, Jean Grey has died, been resurrected, taught some of those other teen mutants (at the school, or others like the New Mutants and the like while she was part of the X-Factor split), had kids in alternate timelines, and a clone of her had married Cyclops and had a kid (she would also marry Cyclops in the comics in the middle of the cartoon's run). None of that clearly indicates an age, nor directly contradicts her being 17 in the cartoon (which, as I said to my knowledge never stated an age). However, they were consistently treating her as someone vaguely in the young-adult range (honestly anywhere from 18-39).

There have been character age-squickiness (and squickiness in general) in Marvel, to be sure. Rogue and Kitty Pryde, in particular, had their age and adulthood lurch about haphazardly; making depictions of their romantic encounters/affections/sexual energy directed their way really unsettling. Some of that is because 1) Rogue was a character salvaged from the cancelled 70's Ms. Marvel series, so some of her early depictions were never depicted*, meaning the audience only saw a young daughter of a villain who lightheartedly battled ROM and Dazzler before switching sides before getting thrown into some pretty heavy psycho-sexual stuff** and then a will-they-won't-they with a clearly adult-coded Gambit; and 2) with Kitty Pryde there seems like there was an actual internal miscommunication about how old she was supposed to be, with her being stated as 13, but other places her being treated as a high-schooler. Also, she originally had a 'young-teen's crush on older teen' thing towards Colossus, to which he was clueless (or pretended to be to avoid the situation). Later writers missed the memo that it was supposed to not be a thing, and made it a thing.
*including her battle with, and absorption of powers and memories from, Carol Danvers
**In the original Genosha storyline, Wolverine and Rogue were teleported to the mutant-apartheid state (naked, because that's how the teleporter's powers worked, naturally). A powerless Rogue had 'some liberties taken' by some of the guards until Danvers emerged as a split-personality taking over to keep her functional while Rogue's main personality shut down. It hit hard.


So yeah, the comics aren't great about age-appropriateness. However, Wolverine in particular has* actually been incredibly good about these things. He's often been paired up with a single female teammate (Jubilee, Kitty, Psylocke, Rogue, Storm, X-23) for sidequests, but always been all-business and gruff-gentlemanly (/fatherly for the young ones). A few other times (and in varying continuities), he's been depicted as having rather unromantic physical situationships with at-the-time very adult-coded Domino or Storm or someone; but most of the time he either gets involved with Asian women who are destined to die before the mini-series' end, or (unfullfilledly) Jean Grey (who again, is usually depicted as some level of fully adult when it happens). More often then not, he's the resident chaste hero -- the one you attach to for your baddassitude and gruff-masculinity needs before switching to Gambit or the like for your gets-the-girl sensations.
*stipulation: I've barely read an X-Men comics in 30 years.
 


I don't recall the 90s cartoon or the reboot explicitly calling out the character ages.

The original 5 X-Men (Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman, Marvel Girl/Jean Grey) were explicitly high-schoolers (15-18) when introduced in 1963. They have since gone on to age at incredibly indistinct and unclear rates. In that 60's series, they are depicted as students at a co-ed boarding school.

At the '75 revival (also where Wolverine is introduced and would have met Jean Grey), there is an unclear amount of time since the last book in the original run. However, cyclops is flying an SR-71 Blackbird, and no one is acting like it is because he is a child prodigy. They then return to the school, but the whole 'high-school students' cover is mostly ignored (certainly few, if any, 'original-5 acting like teenagers' storylines) until new teenage characters are introduced.

By the time the 90s cartoon was produced, Jean Grey has died, been resurrected, taught some of those other teen mutants (at the school, or others like the New Mutants and the like while she was part of the X-Factor split), had kids in alternate timelines, and a clone of her had married Cyclops and had a kid (she would also marry Cyclops in the comics in the middle of the cartoon's run). None of that clearly indicates an age, nor directly contradicts her being 17 in the cartoon (which, as I said to my knowledge never stated an age). However, they were consistently treating her as someone vaguely in the young-adult range (honestly anywhere from 18-39).

There have been character age-squickiness (and squickiness in general) in Marvel, to be sure. Rogue and Kitty Pryde, in particular, had their age and adulthood lurch about haphazardly; making depictions of their romantic encounters/affections/sexual energy directed their way really unsettling. Some of that is because 1) Rogue was a character salvaged from the cancelled 70's Ms. Marvel series, so some of her early depictions were never depicted*, meaning the audience only saw a young daughter of a villain who lightheartedly battled ROM and Dazzler before switching sides before getting thrown into some pretty heavy psycho-sexual stuff** and then a will-they-won't-they with a clearly adult-coded Gambit; and 2) with Kitty Pryde there seems like there was an actual internal miscommunication about how old she was supposed to be, with her being stated as 13, but other places her being treated as a high-schooler. Also, she originally had a 'young-teen's crush on older teen' thing towards Colossus, to which he was clueless (or pretended to be to avoid the situation). Later writers missed the memo that it was supposed to not be a thing, and made it a thing.
*including her battle with, and absorption of powers and memories from, Carol Danvers
**In the original Genosha storyline, Wolverine and Rogue were teleported to the mutant-apartheid state (naked, because that's how the teleporter's powers worked, naturally). A powerless Rogue had 'some liberties taken' by some of the guards until Danvers emerged as a split-personality taking over to keep her functional while Rogue's main personality shut down. It hit hard.


So yeah, the comics aren't great about age-appropriateness. However, Wolverine in particular has* actually been incredibly good about these things. He's often been paired up with a single female teammate (Jubilee, Kitty, Psylocke, Rogue, Storm, X-23) for sidequests, but always been all-business and gruff-gentlemanly (/fatherly for the young ones). A few other times (and in varying continuities), he's been depicted as having rather unromantic physical situationships with at-the-time very adult-coded Domino or Storm or someone; but most of the time he either gets involved with Asian women who are destined to die before the mini-series' end, or (unfullfilledly) Jean Grey (who again, is usually depicted as some level of fully adult when it happens). More often then not, he's the resident chaste hero -- the one you attach to for your baddassitude and gruff-masculinity needs before switching to Gambit or the like for your gets-the-girl sensations.
*stipulation: I've barely read an X-Men comics in 30 years.
I think that’s a great summation. Comic book characters are an amalgamation of their writer and artists ideas and some of those folks have not always been exemplary to say the least.
 

I don't recall the 90s cartoon or the reboot explicitly calling out the character ages.

The original 5 X-Men (Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman, Marvel Girl/Jean Grey) were explicitly high-schoolers (15-18) when introduced in 1963. They have since gone on to age at incredibly indistinct and unclear rates. In that 60's series, they are depicted as students at a co-ed boarding school.

At the '75 revival (also where Wolverine is introduced and would have met Jean Grey), there is an unclear amount of time since the last book in the original run. However, cyclops is flying an SR-71 Blackbird, and no one is acting like it is because he is a child prodigy. They then return to the school, but the whole 'high-school students' cover is mostly ignored (certainly few, if any, 'original-5 acting like teenagers' storylines) until new teenage characters are introduced.

By the time the 90s cartoon was produced, Jean Grey has died, been resurrected, taught some of those other teen mutants (at the school, or others like the New Mutants and the like while she was part of the X-Factor split), had kids in alternate timelines, and a clone of her had married Cyclops and had a kid (she would also marry Cyclops in the comics in the middle of the cartoon's run). None of that clearly indicates an age, nor directly contradicts her being 17 in the cartoon (which, as I said to my knowledge never stated an age). However, they were consistently treating her as someone vaguely in the young-adult range (honestly anywhere from 18-39).

There have been character age-squickiness (and squickiness in general) in Marvel, to be sure. Rogue and Kitty Pryde, in particular, had their age and adulthood lurch about haphazardly; making depictions of their romantic encounters/affections/sexual energy directed their way really unsettling. Some of that is because 1) Rogue was a character salvaged from the cancelled 70's Ms. Marvel series, so some of her early depictions were never depicted*, meaning the audience only saw a young daughter of a villain who lightheartedly battled ROM and Dazzler before switching sides before getting thrown into some pretty heavy psycho-sexual stuff** and then a will-they-won't-they with a clearly adult-coded Gambit; and 2) with Kitty Pryde there seems like there was an actual internal miscommunication about how old she was supposed to be, with her being stated as 13, but other places her being treated as a high-schooler. Also, she originally had a 'young-teen's crush on older teen' thing towards Colossus, to which he was clueless (or pretended to be to avoid the situation). Later writers missed the memo that it was supposed to not be a thing, and made it a thing.
*including her battle with, and absorption of powers and memories from, Carol Danvers
**In the original Genosha storyline, Wolverine and Rogue were teleported to the mutant-apartheid state (naked, because that's how the teleporter's powers worked, naturally). A powerless Rogue had 'some liberties taken' by some of the guards until Danvers emerged as a split-personality taking over to keep her functional while Rogue's main personality shut down. It hit hard.


So yeah, the comics aren't great about age-appropriateness. However, Wolverine in particular has* actually been incredibly good about these things. He's often been paired up with a single female teammate (Jubilee, Kitty, Psylocke, Rogue, Storm, X-23) for sidequests, but always been all-business and gruff-gentlemanly (/fatherly for the young ones). A few other times (and in varying continuities), he's been depicted as having rather unromantic physical situationships with at-the-time very adult-coded Domino or Storm or someone; but most of the time he either gets involved with Asian women who are destined to die before the mini-series' end, or (unfullfilledly) Jean Grey (who again, is usually depicted as some level of fully adult when it happens). More often then not, he's the resident chaste hero -- the one you attach to for your baddassitude and gruff-masculinity needs before switching to Gambit or the like for your gets-the-girl sensations.
*stipulation: I've barely read an X-Men comics in 30 years.
Great summary. The Kitty-Peter-Zsaji thing alone is worth a couple of paragraphs.

One of the problems with comics continuity - with both Marvel and DC, but sometimes more pronounced with Marvel - is the compressed nature of the continuity. Everything that’s ever happened in the comics is only supposed to have happened in the last decade since the age of heroes began. Sometimes this is explicitly stated and enforced, sometimes it’s more subtly alluded to, but that’s the basic rule.

Assuming compression of time is roughly proportional (which is definitely an assumption) then time moves at roughly 1/6 of real time in the comics, and this fraction will only get smaller as time goes on. This means, for instance, that Kitty Pryde (introduced in 1980 at the age of 13) is now only 21. The O5 X-men are only 25-6 (which seems absurd for Hank in particular); most X-men who were introduced as teenagers (Ororo, Peter, Kurt etc.) are even younger than that. Scott’s marriage only lasted 6 months (1983-6). The Krakoa era lasted only a year. Everyone is very, very traumatised.

(If you anchor it to real events it gets worse - there’s no way Magneto could have been a Holocaust survivor and the age he appears in 2016, for instance.)
 

Assuming compression of time is roughly proportional (which is definitely an assumption)
Whether or not this one is in any way an official stance, I feel it has been violated far too many times for it to meaningfully influence how I feel the characters are depicted. The teens can age to adults while the adults stay the same, or young adults (~18) can become 26+ in the same time someone else ages just 16-18 or the like. I certainly feel like characters like Rogue have 'caught up with' various other adult characters like Colossus or Storm, and Kitty* with young-adult characters like Iceman. I think it safe to say that (IMO), there simply isn't consistent progression of the timeline. Characters age as the writers decide they want them to fill certain roles, full-stop. Mind you, this is mostly a impression formed by 30 years out of date knowledge, but if the movie and show depictions are anything to go by --especially Spider-Man, who is exactly as old as he needs to be to tell the tale the writer wants to tell* -- I think the position likely holds up.
*here assuming the 13=>~16 jump was just a flat-out 'we changed our minds' ret-con.
**or match the actor cast in the role.


(If you anchor it to real events it gets worse - there’s no way Magneto could have been a Holocaust survivor and the age he appears in 2016, for instance.)
Magneto, Captain America (fortunately frozen for a while), and anyone/anything related to Nazis/the Soviets* just makes hash of any kind of time-keeping.
*especially anything predicting the USSR into the at-the-time future.
 

Whether or not this one is in any way an official stance, I feel it has been violated far too many times for it to meaningfully influence how I feel the characters are depicted. The teens can age to adults while the adults stay the same, or young adults (~18) can become 26+ in the same time someone else ages just 16-18 or the like. I certainly feel like characters like Rogue have 'caught up with' various other adult characters like Colossus or Storm, and Kitty* with young-adult characters like Iceman. I think it safe to say that (IMO), there simply isn't consistent progression of the timeline. Characters age as the writers decide they want them to fill certain roles, full-stop. Mind you, this is mostly a impression formed by 30 years out of date knowledge, but if the movie and show depictions are anything to go by --especially Spider-Man, who is exactly as old as he needs to be to tell the tale the writer wants to tell* -- I think the position likely holds up.
*here assuming the 13=>~16 jump was just a flat-out 'we changed our minds' ret-con.
**or match the actor cast in the role.
Yeah, it's frequently violated by the same author within relatively short periods of time, for instance.

To unfold the Kitty-Peter-Zsaji saga, for instance, Kitty was created by Chris Claremont in 1980 and is explicitly 13 at that point. After she joins the X-men, she is clearly crushing on Peter (17 when introduced in 1975; thus 20 at this point by time acceleration rules at the time, which are about 1/2). Claremont pushes them to be destined for each other, most obviously in Days of Future Past (1981). They begin to date in 1983. At this point, under the above time compression rules (1/2), Kitty is 14-5 and Peter is 21-2; however, Claremont says that real-time progression applies to Kitty so she's actually 16.

Then Secret Wars happens in 1984 and many X-men (not including Kitty) are swept off to Battleworld for the big event. Jim Shooter (Marvel's editor-in-chief and the main writer) has noticed the Peter-Kitty relationship and decides to kybosh it by introducing Zsaji, an alien healer who falls in love with Peter and then dies.

Claremont is clearly very unimpressed about this but rolls with the editorial fiat - he writes Peter as traumatised by Zsaji's death and pushing Kitty away. The rejected Kitty nearly sacrifices herself for the X-men and would have done if Caliban of the Morlocks had decided not to marry her (don't ask, it's a long story). Logan, as ever the gruff author's voice on such matters, gives Peter a massive bollocking for being immature and hurting Kitty.

By the time Peter and Kitty resume their relationship, it's 2004 in real time. Time compression is about 1/4 at this point and therefore Kitty is 19 and Peter is 25.
 


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