Spoiler Alert: Pryde of the X-Men, Part 1 · 5:11pm Jul 19th, 2014
: If you're reading this blog, you're probably aware of the 1992 animated show X-Men. It was what introduced the greater American public to the franchise, and was arguably even more important to said franchise than the movies that started almost a decade later. What you might not know, though, is that it wasn't the first attempt at such a show.There was a pilot three years earlier to try and introduce the heroes to animation. Why wasn't it picked up? Let's find out.
: Saw Pryde of the X-Men yesterday.
: We start the pilot off with Stan Lee himself as the narrator, an' he tells the audience that anyone, even their classmates, could be a MUTANT! Lyin' ta young'uns an' seedin' paranoia in the country's next generation. Classy.
: The story proper starts with a military convoy escorting the captured mutant terrorist Magneto, before Emma Frost shows up to save him. This might seem a bit odd, seeing as Frost has never been a member of Magneto's Brother of Mutants, but she's probably just here to antagonize Kitty Pryde. Again. What's more bizarre is that while Emma is displaying her traditional powers of telepathy, she also demonstrates a telekinetic attack rather reminiscent of Shadow the Hedgehog's Chaos Spears, even though Emma has little to no telekinetic power in the comics.
: We then cut to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, where a young girl named Kitty Pryde is being dropped off by a taxi driver. The driver is unwilling to wait up for her, as he finds the building creepy. Even though, honestly, there's not even anything scary enough about the school to frighten ME.
: Kitty is meant to be our Audience Surrogate, a role that Jubilee would take up in 1992. You would think that I would prefer Kitty in the role, since I usually find Kitty to be a more unique, interesting, and admirable character than Jubilee. But with the annoying voice they found for her in this, there are no winners here. She meets Professor Xavier, leader of the mutant heroes called the X-Men. He found her using his mutant-tracking computer called Cerebro. The Professor introduces her, and the audience, to the team. Cyclops and Storm are here, and are well done but not terribly memorable. There's also Colossus, who comes across as almost a self-parody. His usually endearing naiveté and use of Russian is more cliche' here than the Heavy.
: There's also Dazzler, who, surprise surprise, is only here because the animation studio though she could make a record deal. No, I'm serious. Her powers, a versatile set that includes hypnosis, illusions, and blinding rays, have now been reduced to generic laser blasts. Nightcrawler is here as well, and he tries to introduces himself to the 14 year old by kissing her. Creep.
: Finally, we 'ave Wolverine, who's bein' voiced wit' an Aussie accent. This is probably the most infamous part 'a this entire project, an' both the animation company an' Marvel Comics 'ave played the Blame Game to try'n avoid criticism fer this decision. Wolverine objects ta havin' a kid on the team, causin' Storm ta chastise him fer bein' too harsh on the scared young girl. She then asks him ta remember what it was like when he first became a mutant.
........
He CAN'T, 'member? He was still missin' most 'a 'is memories at this point. Thanks for remindin' him of 'is traumatic Identity Amnesia, Storm.
: The X-Men are alerted to a hostage situation and leave, with only the untrained girl and the guy in a wheelchair behind as Magneto and the Juggernaut attack, either of whom can fight the entire team to a standstill on their own. Wow, talk about a bad first day for Kitty. Even though his powers don't work on either of these enemies, the Prof elects not to call for backup, and the villains unsurprisingly get their hands on a Mutant Power Circuit necessary to make Cerebro work.
An Aussie playing Wolverine?
Now that's just totally never going to happen again....
2299797 No kidding. Still, people tend to bring a lot of attention to this instance because, unlike with Hugh Jackman, they're TRYING to make him sound Australian, either because Wolverine was too tough to be Canadian or just because Crocodile Dundee was so popular at the time.
2299811
"You call that a knife? THIS is a knife"
wolverinefiles.com/Images/wolverine-1-limited.jpg
2301620 ....that line needed to be in this pilot.