I'm not sure why this has such a large cult following rating this a 10/10.
This series is far from flawless. When discussing the series with 10/10 users, they usually default to "well it's a cartoon". While that's true, a 10/10 cartoon isn't ripe with continuity errors.
I watched the entire first episode and part of the 3rd.
Let's break this down into a few categories. This is supposed to be a direct continuation of the previous series:
Continuity:
The first episode starts a year after the conclusion of the previous series. Multiple continuity issues exist and the changes aren't even referenced for having an explanation later on.
- Xavier is presumed dead. At the end of the previous series he wasn't dead, he (well Morph actually) even broadcast to the entire world he was alive and well. How the entire world would now think he's assassinated is confusing. No reference to even hint at an explanation of how that changed.
- Bishop is now present on the team, we are given no hint of an explanation how he arrived.
- Storm has a mohawk, in the comics there was a storyline that went along with it. This one could be fixed, but no mention at continuity change.
- Morph now primarily has a different appearance. This is very easily explainable, but no explanation is given.
While all of these things wouldn't need immediate addressing, they should have at least had a line of "since Bishop joined the team" or "since Storm changed her hair" or "since Morph changed his form". At least they should have acknowledged the changes and it would be ok for them to come back later on and give more detailed explanations.
Story Telling:
- The first episode is a rehash telling of the first season. Sunspot appears as a new comer who runs away only to be found again, just like Jubilee was in the original series.
- A discontinuous 2nd Mastermold suddenly appears and is destroyed in the first episode. There's a continuity issue as the original series had Gyric and Trask hiding from the first Mastermold, but didn't use the 2nd mastermold to stop it. If they feared the 1st one so much, they should have shut the 2nd one down. Trask even turned against the 1st Mastermold, so it's unknown why he would allow a 2nd one to exist.
- The show seems to have to even retcon itself. Madelyne Pryor appears suddenly and with no explanation. What would have normally been some type of storyline thread of a season is condensed into 1 episode of unreasonably fast storytelling.
- The dialogue here just seems really off, like they are trying to use 90s slang and snarkiness, and it's just weird. Storm mentions she commands the sands, but she doesn't command the sand, he commands the weather.
Ridiculous use of new and inconsistent powers:
- Wolverine does not have super strength, but must possess it or Gambit would not have been able to jump on top of his back and ride him like a lawn mower. Wolverine in the old series could be injured. Certainly the impact on his body by having his adamantium claws explode with kinetic energy would cause him pain, but he's completely unaffected.
- Cyclops falls from a blackbird, 3 flying X-Men decide to not assist him, so he unleashes a massive optic blast which does no damage to the ground. In many other scenes like this one of the X-Men would have assisted him or Storm would have used her winds.
- Cyclops power can now push him backwards and have no impact on his neck. Maybe he has an adamantium spinal column now?
- Storm and Bishop get taken out in the first episode by nobody goons and later Storm is identified has having Omega level powers. Either case is fine, but to have both scenes in the same episode is odd.
Animation Quality:
In some ways the animation has improved, in other ways its declined.
- Rogue's hair has countably less lines. Her appearance is the most noticeable, she looks like a very different person.
- Magneto's long hair is odd, he looks like an old grandma. They used a costume that was from the story they were telling, but that costume was odd even back then. If they aren't 100% following the comics (and they aren't) it would be okay to design a better costume.
- The shading on Storm's costume is less well done. She now looks like she has black strips on her costume instead of shading.
- On a plus side, Jubilee's face was drawn such that you can now tell she's of Asian descent.
- The designs are generally less detailed, on some characters it isn't very noticeable, on others like Rogue it's pretty drastically different.
Other just weird stuff:
- You'll notice some really odd scenes. In one scene, they are interviewing Gyrick and the camera keeps zooming in. You can't see his full face it's so far zoomed in. I thought it was going to keep going and just go inside of his nose or something weird.
- There's another several scenes where they over zoom in on a person's face for a long period of time. I don't know what that's supposed to convey, it's just weird. Normally shows will do a head and shoulders shot, not ultra zoom in on someone's face unless they are trying to point out a facial expression or something.
Overall this seems like an incoherent mess that doesn't well follow the original series well and it even has to retcon itself to make its own story make sense. They should have just started a new series and not try to continue it from the old one. This continuation series is definitely not a 10/10.
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