X-Men ’97 Is Great Because It Isn’t Focusing on Wolverine

With only four episodes left to go until X-Men ’97‘s season one finale, the Marvel Animation series is only continuing to earn more praise and attention. The show continues the narrative of X-Men: The Animated Series in some pretty unexpected ways, all while folding in some newer elements of Marvel continuity. Thus far, there are a lot of elements to X-Men ’97 that have been refreshing to witness, from the show’s various reinterpretations of comic storylines, to its newer sensibility towards visual spectacle. While we still have a few weeks left until Season 1 of X-Men ’97 is in the books, an argument can be made that the show is feeling so refreshing, in part, because one of the show’s team members isn’t a main focus: Logan Howlett / Wolverine. 

That absolute isn’t to discount Wolverine as a character, as his distinct gimmick and gruff vulnerability have remained a cornerstone of the X-Men’s narrative for decades. There are plenty of reasons why the character has become a household name, not only spawning countless pieces of merchandise, but a number of long-running solo comics, a podcast series, and a trilogy of live-action films under 20th Century Fox. Hugh Jackman’s version of the character has, in one way or another, either appeared or been referenced in virtually all of Fox’s X-Men films, and will be back on the big screen again in a number of months through Deadpool & Wolverine. There have, and surely will continue to be, plenty of stories to tell regarding Wolverine. 

That fact is both a blessing and a curse going into X-Men ’97, especially considering how much of X-Men: The Animated Series was already devoted to telling Wolverine’s story. Across the show’s initial run, we extensively covered Logan’s origin, his time with Alpha Flight, his team-up with Captain America, his past with Lady Deathstrike, and countless escapades with the X-Men themselves. It feels pretty telling that, in the years leading up to X-Men ’97, the most iconic images surrounding The Animated Series both concerned Wolverine, as scenes of him staring longingly at a framed photo of Jean Grey and awkwardly standing nearby a romantic embrace between Jean and Scott Summers transcended into memes. Wolverine’s animated adventures didn’t even stop once The Animated Series ended, as he later led his own (albeit, short-lived) show Wolverine and the X-Men, and even got his own anime.

Sure, there are newer comic storylines surrounding Wolverine that X-Men ’97 could theoretically cover — but the show is making an inspired choice not to. Instead, thus far, the storylines we’ve seen adapted have concerned some of Logan’s other X-Men teammates, whether that be the deus ex machina of Jean Grey and Madelyne Pryor in “Fire Made Flesh”, Storm’s transformation in the two-part “LifeDeath” arc, or Rogue and Magneto’s romantic past across the whole season. X-Men ’97 hasn’t even gone out of its way to center Logan in these story beats, potentially as an audience proxy for the larger team’s response to the latest plot twist. As a result, we’ve gotten to discover so much more about some of X-Men ’97‘s other heroes, beginning to flesh them out in the popular consciousness the way that Wolverine has been for decades.

We already know that Logan is a great character, both as a formidable fighter and a distinct personality. The handful of moments we have gotten with him — the impossibly cool combo with Gambit’s powers, the comedy of errors of him helping deliver Madelyne and Scott’s baby, his rapport with Morph, or his heart-to-heart with Jean — have still illustrated how great of a character he is, without needing to make him the focus in yet another X-Men storyline. If X-Men ’97 does end up with a Wolverine-centric episode down the line (or even by the end of the season), the show’s track record thus far proves he will be handled in a unique way.

New episodes of X-Men ’97 debut on Wednesdays exclusively on Disney+. If you haven’t signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out here.

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