X-Men: The Animated Series Celebrates 30th Anniversary

X-Men: The Animated Series turns 30 years old today. The cartoon debuted on Halloween in 1992, bringing the X-Men — far and away Marvel’s most popular property at the time — to a whole new audience outside of the comic book faithful, and getting its theme song (which Disney now has the legal right to use) permanently stuck in the heads of anyone who watched even a single episode. “To everyone who was there 30 years ago watching #XMenTAS on #FoxKids on #Halloween night 1992, and everyone who found the show whenever they found it, thank you!” tweeted the XMenTAS Twitter account, run by series co-creator Eric Lewald, who wrote a book about the seires’ creation. “We celebrate because of YOU! #xmen #disneyplus #marvel @xmendirector.”

X-Men: The Animated Series‘s five-season run on Fox Kids became the touchstone for an entire generation’s understanding of the who the X-Men are, cementing the show’s X-Men roster (Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Best, Wolverine, Jubilee, Rogue, Gambit, and Professor X) and Jim Lee-designed costumes as the most iconic and recognizable the franchise has ever had, even today. That’s probably why Marvel Studios decided to make its first official X-Men project X-Men ’97, a revival of the animated series, bringing back original cast members Cal Dodd, Lenore Zann, George Buza, Alison Sealy-Smith, Chris Potter, Catherine Disher, Adrian Hough, and Christopher Britton, with original series writer Beau DeMayo at the head.

“This is the first X-Men title produced by Marvel Studios,” Brad Winderbaum, Head of Streaming, Television, and Animation at Marvel Studios told This Week in Marvel when announcing the seires. “What an amazing first step to reintroduce audiences to the X-Men with a look at one of the most pinnacle eras of the X-Men comics, which was the ’90s. That iconic style that has its roots in Chris Claremont, and is celebrated in Jim Lee, and then again in The Animated Series. Over the years, as we’ve met with so many filmmakers who have come in to pitch on various projects, the touchstone that we hear over and over again is X-Men: The Animated Series.”

“As an animated show, the original X-Men was the forerunner to some amazing action series,” adds Dana Vasquez-Eberhardt, VP of Animation at Marvel Studios. “Everyone that is making X-Men ’97, top-down, is a fan. On this project, instinctually, we knew exactly what this is. To bring this series forward and pick up that baton, and not just keep running at the same pace, but to really elevate. That’s the responsibility.”

X-Men: The Animated Series is now streaming on Disney+. The streaming service even recently reorganized the episodes into their proper order, and celebrated the series with a brand new trailer.