"X-Men: The Legend Of Wolverine" DVD Talkback (Spoilers)

[James Harvey]

Buena Vista Home Video has released X-Men: The Legend Of Wolverine, a DVD featuring five episodes of the classic 1990's animated series.

http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/dvd/low/t-lowcover.jpg (http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/dvd/)
X-Men: The Legend of Wolverine
Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Release Date: April 11th, 2003

Synopsis: When a familiar face from Wolverine's former life resurfaces, he must wage a war he never intended. Ultimately, the X-Men must join forces with Magneto in a fight to save all mutants from annihilation. Discover the truth of Wolverine's secret past and watch his decisive battle as he is forced to make a choice that will forever affect the fate of the X-Men.

Special Features:
-Audio commentary by Stan Lee
-Interview with X-Men writer Chris Claremont
-Bonus Episode - "X-Men: The Final Decision"

This talkback is for discussion of the DVD release. To discuss episodes from the DVD release, please use the talkback threads below.

#48. The Lotus & The Steel (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=145667)
#44. Nightcrawler (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=74171)
#28. Out of the Past, Part 2 (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=83824)
#27. Out of the Past, Part 1 (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=83824)
#13. The Final Decision (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=158472)

Comments?

[Samhaine]

Bah. A compilation disc. Why do they need to do this, especially when they have been releasing Spidey and soon Hulk in order?

[oranthal]

Since when did Wolverine become "legend" status? Sure, he is the most popular X-Man with a mysterious past that the writers make up as they go along that ruins continuity that have already been set, but that doesn't make him a "legend".

[The Detective]

Can someone give me a list of episodes that are on this disk?

[joshualane]

Can someone give me a list of episodes that are on this disk?

You didn't read Jim's thread did you.

Out of the Past, Parts 1 & 2 - Wolverine's former love, a Japanese woman named Yuriko, believes Wolverine caused her father's death. She has turned herself into a living weapon, the cyborg Lady Deathstrike, and has come to America to seek revenge.

The Lotus and the Steel - Wolverine returns to Japan after quitting the X-Men, but soon finds himself in a battle with attacking bandits.

Nightcrawler - In Germany, Wolverine becomes restless while the rest of the team indulge in some much needed rest and relaxation. When he hears about a demon hiding in a local monastery, his investigations lead him not to a demon but to a mutant. Will the townsfolk be convinced?

The Final Decision (Bonus Episode) - Magneto and the X-Men must team up to stop the Sentinels from being released.

[Cyclops]

This DVD is worth it only for "Nightcrawler" and the awesome "The Final Decision" episodes! Two great episodes in one release! Plus, I'm assuming the disc will only cost $12 or $13 dollars, since that was the cost of the Spider-Man cartoon DVDs from Disney.

[Silent Bob]

Has Disney announced any more X-Men DVD? They released three Spider-Man DVDs, so I'm hoping they will do the same with X-Men. I looked ahead on a few sites and saw nothing except for a Hulk cartoon DVD.

[Stu]

No, so far only 1 X-men DVD has been announced. As with Spider-man, I'm guessing we will be getting both X-men and Hulk DVDs when the films get there DVD released.

Next time round I'm thinking we'll be getting character releases (i.e an episode for that character)

Wolverine - Deadly Reunion
Cyclops - Orphans End
Nightcrawler - that one where he comes back in search of his mum
Rouge - The one with Codey and The Brood
Storm - Hopefully that one with the nuclear sub and Omega Red.

Something along those lines.

[James Harvey]

A trailer for the The Legend of the Wolverine is now available online. Check out Toon Zone News (http://news.toonzone.net) for more info! Stay tuned for an interview with Len Uhley about the X-Men episode "Nightcrawler," featured on the X-Men: The Legend of the Wolverine DVD.

[Stu]

Kick ass! Will this interview be along the lines of the John Semper Spider-man Q+A?

I couldn't get the trailer to work, the site said it was 'unavailable at this time'. This happen to anyone else?

[Pilmedium]

Well, this DVD does not sound worth while unless you are want particular episodes that happen to be included, or in this case, if you like the theme. That is about the only use of a compilation set.

[James Harvey]

For those looking for a review of the DVD, Superhero Hype! has one, apparently the only one at this time, online right now. The reviews is favorable, but mixed. The extra features are apparently very well done, but apparently the age of the cartoon has a few drawbacks. A review for the DVD can be found HERE (http://www.superherohype.com/articles/legendofwolverine.php).

X-Men: The Legend of Wolverine hits DVD stands tomorrow, April 29th, 2003!

[Stu]

I'll be ordering mine tonight - from the advert I saw about it on the TV when watching X-men last night it appears region 2 have been duped on the bonus episode. www.play.com also states the R2 version only has 4 episodes. Looking forward to getting it.

[The Drizzle]

I just got the DVD at Borders about an hour ago. I have yet to watch it, but it looks like it'll be good. Disney's Marvel DVDs (Spidey, X-Men, Hulk, etc.) always have such cool extras.

[Antiyonder]

This DVD is worth it only for "Nightcrawler" and the awesome "The Final Decision" episodes! Two great episodes in one release! Plus, I'm assuming the disc will only cost $12 or $13 dollars, since that was the cost of the Spider-Man cartoon DVDs from Disney.
I'm wondering why they didn't include Old Soldiers as a bonus episode.
You can't go wrong with a Captain America/Wolverine Team Up.

[ZorBrak]

I REALLY want season sets or nothing, anything else is a travesty to such an excellent show. Shame on you Disney you guys have stooped to as low as WB in terms of how you both treat your animation and FANS.

[BCVM22]

I REALLY want season sets or nothing, anything else is a travesty to such an excellent show. Shame on you Disney you guys have stooped to as low as WB in terms of how you both treat your animation and FANS.

Have you even checked out any of Disney's DVD releases for the respective animated series for Spider-Man and X-Men? What they lack in episode organization (i.e. compliation DVDs versus season sets), they more than make up for in everything else. At least 4 episodes per disc, usually with an extra episode or two added in. And the extras are nearly worth the price of admission alone. Between the 3 Spider-Man DVDs, you have interviews with Stan Lee on how he created Spider-Man, why he included the "Great Power" message, how Daredevil came to be, episode introductions by Lee, and more. On the X-Men DVD just released, you have more Stan Lee material, and furthermore, a 15-minute interview with Chris Claremont, plus episode comments by Claremont.

And what does Warner give us, as far as extras go, on their releases? If we're lucky, episode introductions by Bruce Timm, and maybe a short featurette or two.

Say what you want about Disney's releases of the Marvel animated series, but in lieu of season sets, these do quite nicely.

[Robin2099]

Gotta say that I'm in agreement here. Disney handles there animated DVD's very well, and to say that they don't care about the fans after putting out such awesome DVD's just isn't fair to them. I mean look at the Batman DVD's as an example of a company that just doesn't care.

[Christopher N. Denner]

I almosted picked the DVD (alone with Evolution) up yesterday, but ultimately voted against it. Wolverine has got to be the most overrated comic character ever... and I just can't bear watching a bunch of episodes about him in a row. Maybe I'll pick it up down the line some time.

:p

Now, if they had say, a Cyclops based disc with these episodes...

05: - "Captive Hearts"
14: - "Till Death Do Us Part" (part 1)
15: - "Till Death Do Us Part" (part 2)
34: - "No Mutant Is An Island"
44: - "Orphan's End"
52: - "Secrets, Not Long Buried"

... that might be something worth getting. :)

[James Harvey]

The disc isn't all that bad. The assortment of episodes is good, and the extras are fairly decent. I am dissapointed that Disney is apparently not going the 'season' route with this show. This show could easily fit into five volumes, as each season was the standard 13 - 15 episodes.

And on a related, with 'The Incredible Hulk' series only 21 episodes long, you think a nice four volume set of the series could've been made instead of thefour or five episode discs we'll be getting. This series has the best chance to get all of it's episodes on DVDs, depending on which route Disney will take with it.

Anyways, back to the new X-Men DVD - It's pretty nice. I actually like this dic better than the Spider-Man releases, although you can now see the patterns on these releases. The menus are similair, cover art, design, etcs, etc...They're good, but could be better.

[Mattashell]

These episodes are not in order. They should have started with the first four episodes. Spider-Man did not go in order either, but at least the four episodes on each disc apeared in respective order. The episodes on this set were clearly meant to capitalize on the film release of X2 with episodes focusing Wolverine, Lady Deathstryke and Nightcrawler. Since Magneto wasn't in these eps they gave us a "bonus" episode featuring him. Spider-Man discs had episodes of the 60's cartoon as bonus episodes. Since this "bonus" episode is just another episode of the same series, and they are in no order, it could have been just a five episode set. I wish they would have made Pryde of The X-Men the bonus, since it is the only previous animated incarnation of the X-Men.

Clairmont's commentary was not that great. Clairmont's and Lee's interview spots were pretty good, but I don't feel I learned anything that I didn't already know.

Despite what people say, I feel WB is doing a better job, if for the issue of episode continuity alone. While it is sad that they have only four episodes per disc instead of five, like they started out with, the other extras are primarily frivilous to me. Order is the most important thing and Disney is accountable for this. Without episode order I find these discs hard to watch. People complain about WB, but the truth is I wacth my WB discs again and again, while my Spider-Man discs collect dust. This one is even worse than Spider-Man and I doubt I'll even end up watching it again at all.

[Silent Bob]

This one is even worse than Spider-Man and I doubt I'll even end up watching it again at all.

I actually like the 'Wolverine' disc more than the 'Spider-Man' discs. Based on what I've seen, it reall ylooks like the Spider-Man DVDs are apartof a bigger storyline, and made it hard to follow along, as it kept referring to stuff I've never seen before. It was a pain in the butt and made it less enjoyable to watch. The X-Men DVD was better, I thought, becuase the episodes were fairly self contained and looked nice. I find myself not even touching those Spider-Man DVDs, but revisiting the X-Men one quite a few times. The X-Men DVD is great, especially for that "Nightcrawler" episode.

[Cyclops]

Has anyone found any easter eggs on this release, by any chance?

[jwl]

the movie is a nice volume to the set i would have liked to see

the episode called wepon x lies and vidotape on this dvd

x-men aka wolverine vs spider-man

i aslo would like to see the secret wars and

the 6 forgottion warriors episodes come to dvd

i would like to see them on a two disc set


some day

long live all the heros


i think season sets for x-men and spider-man

and spider-man and his amazing friends


Has anyone found any easter eggs on this release, by any chance?


no i have not found any yet

[Cyclops]

If there were extras on the three Spider-Man cartoon DVDs, there has to be extras on this one. Has anyone found any? Does anyone know of some sites where there might be some easter eggs information?

[Stu]

I looked but couldn't find any easter eggs. Being that I found all of them on the Spider-man TAS discs I doubt that there are going to be any. www.dvdeastereggs.com doesn't have any listed either. They have the Spider-man ones listed.

I enjoyed this disc. All of the episodes where enjoyable, unlike the Spider-man disc where the 2 worst episodes (Rocket Racer and The Spot) made it onto the DVDs, the highlight of which was was Nightcrawler. I wish they had saved The Final Decison for another disc as this was part 3 of a 3 parter, it would have been nice to have a bonus episode of Cyclops, something along the lines of Orphans end. Notice how no Sabertooth episodes where on the disc, perhaps a later Wolverine Vs Sabertooth release is in the cards. The extras were decent as well (really cool menus!) especially the Chris Claremont commentaries. I hope we are treated to these again in the other Marvel disc releases. Looking forward to the next one, which is more than I can say for some of the other animated DVDs I've recently picked up.

[Cyclops]

I guess there aren't any extras, but there should be. There have been on every Disney Superhero DVD to date, so it makes sense there would be on this one, too. This is a bit dissapointing, as I enjoy finding easter eggs.

Aside from that, I enjoyed this disc. This is a nice change of pace from the dissapointing Spider-Man DVDs. This release had five good episodes - not a stinker n the bunch. I forget how powerful the Nightcrawler episode can be at times, especially with the symbolic ending of the church burning down. And who can forget Wolverine's reading from the Bible at the very end? Wow!

The audio was nice, too, much better than the Universal DVDs released a few years back. The intro sounds really nice now, with Disney's amped up audio.

[Trevor]

Have you even checked out any of Disney's DVD releases for the respective animated series for Spider-Man and X-Men? What they lack in episode organization (i.e. compliation DVDs versus season sets), they more than make up for in everything else. At least 4 episodes per disc, usually with an extra episode or two added in. And the extras are nearly worth the price of admission alone. Between the 3 Spider-Man DVDs, you have interviews with Stan Lee on how he created Spider-Man, why he included the "Great Power" message, how Daredevil came to be, episode introductions by Lee, and more. On the X-Men DVD just released, you have more Stan Lee material, and furthermore, a 15-minute interview with Chris Claremont, plus episode comments by Claremont.

And what does Warner give us, as far as extras go, on their releases? If we're lucky, episode introductions by Bruce Timm, and maybe a short featurette or two.

Say what you want about Disney's releases of the Marvel animated series, but in lieu of season sets, these do quite nicely.


Just looking back on this old thread---boy how much things have changed in 6 years.

I must say that I still pull out the Legend Of Wolverine disc every once in a while to watch some of the episodes. I remember when I picked up the disc in 2003 I thought that it was okay, but I did hope that Disney would pick better episodes for the next compilation release, since Out of the Past has never been a favorite of mine (although, in the early 2000's it appears to have been a favorite of both Universal and Disney, having been repeated on this disc, 2 years after Universal had issued it) and I just didn't find that this release lived up to the excitement of the show.

Unfortunately, we never saw any more compilation releases, I guess because of the lawsuits, and none of the bonus material that was created for this release was "flown over" to the 2009 DVD's.