Finally! After almost 20 years since its debut on TV in 1992 X-Men the Animated Series is being released in its DVD format. I was really surprised to see that one of the most accurate and successful adaptations of a comic book series was being left out from the home entertaining market. In X-men we might not see an outstanding high tech animation or audio like in today‘s Saturday morning cartoons, however it is full of great and deep stories, the best and most accurate designs, action, social issues (like in all X-Men Comic Books), and much more. I don’t know if Disney and Marvel were waiting for a perfect moment for these released (which I considered that the first X-Men movie would have been more appropriate time), but with the upcoming movie X- Men Origins: Wolverine which had created a lot of hype, I think there has not been a better moment to catch up, refresh or relived the stories that entertained us for almost 5 years.
X-Men Volume one begins with one of my favorite stories from the X-Men Universe “Night of the Sentinels Part 1 and 2.” With these episodes the mood is set, and through out the series, we realized that this are not the average Saturday morning cartoons, yes it has all the aspects and characteristics of those kind of cartoons but it adds more to it. We see that these episodes touch many deep issues and problems faced in America every day, also that the series is willing to go where no other cartoon series had the courage to go before: it kills characters. After that the series begin to flow with episodes linked one another with incredible adventures featuring great, powerful and popular villains like Magneto, MR Sinister and Apocalypse. These series setting is also one of the best I ever seen, like in the comic books, the series takes place in the whole Marvel Universe, which makes them more exciting since we get to see reference from other marvel heroes and villains, like Ms Marvel, Dead Shot Dr Strange, or future X-men like Cable and Bishop. This adds great excitement since we realize that each story could go anywhere from different cities, countries, to a distant future, or space.
Technically I have to say it looks just like in 1992. I do not know how could that be interpreted. To me it was good enough since I knew what I was getting, I knew that these series did not have fast pace animation like today’s series. It is more intuitive and suggesting, besides for the time it was created the episodes looks as best as they can. Voice acting wise this is the best ever, I think these character had set the standard of how the X Men should sound, anytime Wolverine is mentioned Cal Dodd’s voice performance should come to mind. He is Wolverine, same goes to Gambit and Chris Potter. The other character are also well interpreted.
Last week I referred to Wolverine and the X-men as a Fresh take on the already known story. Well if you do not know the story this is the set you Should start with. This Set will give you the most accurate version of the mutant story beside the books. It tells the origin of the characters and their struggle the best way possible. The volume has a total of 16 episodes in two disks, and what is to admire is that each volume close each main saga, it does not let us in the middle of the story waiting for the conclusion, however it leave us wanting for more. I recommend this DVD to all the X-Men fans, it is a most have. You could relate this series to the movies, the new animated series and way not the upcoming X-Men movies. Also to any person who enjoys animated series like batman and Spiderman will find in X-Men a great time. Another great thing about this Volume is that after watching it you could follow the story almost immediately since the second volume is also released on the same day.
Review By Milo
Release Date: April 28, 2009
