Should Evo be more like Ultimate X-Men?

[Stu]

Now then

More of this discussion nonsence. ;)

I've been watching my Evo tapes for most of the day, and later went onto read 'Return To Weapon X', and after what was, IMO dismal start to Evo, I began wondering why the cartoon didn't a whole new continunaity from the beginning, like Ultimate X-Men did. Thorwing ot 40 years of continunity, but remaining faithful to the original stories and the charactsers in them, whilst Evo turned them into ditzy teens for the most part.

For those who don't follow comic books, the Ultimate line restarts the continuanity and retells it for the modern day, Marvel did this in hopes to appeal to teens more, much as Evo has done. So, after a first season of what consider crap whilst for me, every book of Ultimate X-Men I have read has been enjoyable.

Should they have taken an Ultimate approach to the show?

[Cyber E.]

I'm happy with the way Evolution was. It was spawned by the popularity of the first movie, and while it didn't start from the VERY beginning of their adventures, it did one helluva job. It made the story accessible because you could jump on in with the lives of these mutants and not from the earliest adventures. They got to the good stuff.

So no. They shouldn't have made it more like Ultimate X-Men. I, for one, think it was perfect in its own right that it didn't need to reboot everything and stay fresh to be good. It made the show much more enjoyable.

[Zombies8MDingo]

I wans't too pleased with Evo to start with, I hated how they were, in my eyes at the time, trying to appeal more to kids by making it about kids. But I really like it now, and they're really going back to basics, the original X-Men were teens back when Stan Lee was writing it. If we wanted proper or ultimate X-Men we could just read the comics.


The first season of Evo really seems to have been all about getting younger viewers who hadn't seen X-Men interested before they kicked it up a gear, the consensus in a different thread seems to be that the 90's X-Men cartoon just went too far too fast. Evo has a loyal fan base, a kick ass website newly hosted by TZ and a creative team who seem to care about the show, and hopefully will be back for more seasons.

[AdamYJ]

No. I never liked Ultimate X-Men. I could never relate with the X-Men in that comic. They also seemed to come off as jerks to me. Evo was way better.

[Ian]

I don't get what you're saying, Adam; in escence, the concepts ARE the same. Ultimate X-Men: A retelling of the story, placing everybody at the beginning and with revamped histories. With the exception of Wolverine, all of the X-Men are teens. X-Men Evolution. A retelling of the story, starting at the beginning, with all of the characters getting revamped histories. With the exception of the teachers, (Storm, Wolverine, Beast), all of the X-Men are teens. The difference between, them is that X-Men: Evo is targeted to pre-teens, and therefore focuses on the school aspects, while Ultimate X-Men is targeted towards, teens/adults, and focuses on the action aspect.

BTW, are you by any chance the same AdamYJ from the DC Boards?

[Mynd Hed]

Well, if the question is, "Should Evo BE more like Ultimate X-Men," in the sense of, "if they make new episodes of Evo, should they be more like Ultimate X-Men," then my answer is no. Such drastic changes in tone and character in the middle of a show almost never turn out well-- look at how much Batman suffered in the transition from Batman: TAS to The New Batman Adventures, among countless other examples.


But if the question is, "Should Evo HAVE BEEN more like Ultimate X-Men from the beginning," well, maybe. There are things they could have taken from Ultimate X-Men that would have been good, such as a more political mindset and more of a focus on mutation as a metaphor for racial and religious relations as opposed to a metaphor for adolescent isolation (i.e. teen angst).

However, Ultimate X-Men is often very dark-- some criticize it for being "dark for the sake of dark"-- and I don't think that tone would have worked at all for the type of show the creators of Evo were trying to make. Had they tried to go that route, it probably would have gotten stuck between the "pull no punches adult cartoon" thing that Spawn: TAS did so well and the older-children-to-early-teen demographic that Evo actually went for, and found itself without an audience. And that's to say nothing of the problems they would have had with the network censors and soccer moms.

[Sandman]

I enjoy Ultimate for the same reason I enjoy Evo. They are both different and fresh takes on the X-Men universe. In a sense, Evolution is already like Ultimate in that it is an alternate universe and has reinvented some events and characters. The Scott of Evo is different than any Scott I have ever seen. I remember reading an interview with Craig Kyle in which he said that all the characters were faithful to the ones loved by the hardcore comic fans. I thought that was odd since characters like Toad, Avalanche, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch are complete 180's from their comic personas. Even characters like Kitty, Kurt, and Gambit are noticeably different. And I happen to enjoy their Evo personas more and I hope Evo doesn’t try too hard to follow the comics like it hinted at the end. If I want the comcis, I'll read the comics. Give me fresh storylines and new plots.

[AdamYJ]

I was in a little bit of a rush when I wrote that, so I probably came off as being a little too short with you folks. I just could never get into Ultimate X-Men. I know the concepts are pretty similar, but I always liked Evo better. I think it may have been Mark Millar's writing. Something about his writing just left me cold. It's probably because everything he writes seems pretty dark when I tend to lean towards the lighter side of comics. I also find the kids in Evo to be much more ingratiating than the ones in Ultimate. I could never get myself to care about the Ultimate X-Men as much as I could the Evo X-Men. Maybe it's because the teens in Evo are being aimed at a younger audience and thus seem more innocent than the Ultimate ones. I don't know. I still don't know what it is people see in Ultimate X-Men.

And yes, I am the same AdamYJ as on the DC boards (you didn't think there could be that many of us around, did you?)

[Spider-Man]

While I've read the X-Men comics off and on for the past 16 years or so, it took me awhile to get attached to them. I found them hard to relate to because their comics wwere so full of storylines. There were dozens per issue it seemed. X-Men: Evolution made me care about the characters easily. We were given solid introductions to a lot of the characters. While the early episodes weren't exactly great, it did give us a nice intro to some of the characters. There are still a pile of episodes I've missed, but I think the series has done a great job fleshing these characters out. I found the Ultimate version to be too vulgar at times, really overbearing, and one dimension. That series was focused more on action, while the cartoon focused more on characters.

[Denaill]

I began wondering why the cartoon didn't a whole new continunaity from the beginning, like Ultimate X-Men did. Thorwing ot 40 years of continunity, but remaining faithful to the original stories and the charactsers in them, whilst Evo turned them into ditzy teens for the most part.
Actually I feel they did pretty much what you're describing. They did retain enough background to stay true to each character's personality. But I don't think you have to be a comic fan to enjoy watching Evolution, everything is pretty much brought in new and explained as it happens.

I agree some of them come off as "ditzy". But a lot of the teenage stuff I think comes from the age demographic they're aiming for and the rigid guidelines that come along with it. I mean Wolverine is hardly ever able to use his claws and they're not even allowed to show someone taking a blow to the head. He ends up losing that wild man, berzerker image that most comics fans know him for.

Overall though I'm really happy with most of the character translations from the comics.

[Andrew T. Hingson]

EVO came out first (I believe), so no. Ultimate X-Men should be more like EVO.

[James Howlett]

I think Ultimate X-Men should be more like the show. The comic tried really hard to make these characters really hip, and went overboard. I think the characters came off two-dimensional and annoying at times. You did eventually care for them, but the shock value of characters being almost killed and injured made it hard to get attached. I think X-Men: Evolution did a good job at really flushing out their characters.