If there was one single crystalline thing I can think of in my youth that I can say got me into comic books, it was probably the X-Men cartoon series.
It was a truly genre defining element of the after school lineup when I was 6 or so. It was the typical high octane goodies kicking the crap out of baddies that you would find on any action cartoon of the time, but filled with an incredible depth of kid-friendly social commentary. All the strongest characters were women, and the main villain had a justifiable motivation of his own. There was serious complexity to be found at 4pm on weekday afternoons. We absorbed that stuff, us kids did.
We watched Beast be unfairly denied bail and go to prison, just because he was a mutant. We saw the legacy virus ravage the mutant population, and watched mutants be ostracized for it even though it could spread to anyone. The setting may have been fictional, but the problems were real, and there was a lot to learn from in these stories.
X-Men ran for 5 years, and a lot of people that grew up with it still consider it their favorite adaptation of a comic book property. The incarnations of certain characters here, like the outrageously accented Gambit and Rogue, or the nefariously evil arch-villain Apocalypse, are considered by many to be the finest versions of the characters in any medium.
It would seem impossible to return to the halcyon days of the X-Men Animated series, but indeed, through the miracle of science (and Secret Wars) it seems we've done it. This week, X-Men '92 #1 comes out, and brings up back to that world we left so long ago. Yellow spandex and all.
The first issue of X-Men '92 brings us back to the halls of Xavier's school for gifted youngsters (where else?) where class is in session under the guiding hands of professor McCoy. When class is interrupted by the return of a mysterious villain from the past, and his messages of a great evil to come, it kicks off what promises to be an entirely original plot, with some new characters introduced too.
It's good to see characters back in old costumes again, eyesore outfits from decades past and personalities echoed we'd long forgotten. The tongue is planted quite firmly in the cheek for the overall style, with writers Sims and Bowers clearly aware that the same audience who loved the cartoon are probably all roundabout 30, and play to that idea well. There's even some cameos from mutant characters I personally thought I'd never see again (Long live the X-Statix!). The artwork of Alti Firmansyah fits perfectly, being both reminiscent of the cartoon whilst still being sharp and stylish.
It will be very fun to see what direction X-Men '92 takes in the long run. The time frame of 1992 is less a hard fact and more a rough suggestion of the zeitgeist, as we see movie posters for films that hadn't been released as of 1992 for example. With virtually no ties to the rest of the Marvel universe as it currently exists, the story bears none of the burden that comes with upholding the collective canon. What other characters will turn up? What accent will they write Pyro with? Only time will tell.
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