Did X-Men: Evolution receive the same type of hate Ultimate Spider-Man did?

[Medinnus]

Or anyone who wanted an appealing, well-written Spider-Man show and got USM instead... I feel USM has earned its dismissal.

 

[Captain Travis]

Or anyone who wanted an appealing, well-written Spider-Man show and got USM instead... I feel USM has earned its dismissal.

This. I feel like everyone thinks if you don't like USM its cause you're bitter about SSM but that's not the case. At least for me SSM is dead I'm over it just want a good spidey toon.
Anyway I really loved X-Men Evo mainly towards the end but I really enjoyed it. The animation was good, the voice acting was excellent Scott McNiel as Logan was a great replacement for Cal Dodd!

 

[Aang]

I think a good question to consider is this: Why do the people who liked X-Men the animated series and Spectacular Spider-Man but also enjoy X-Men Evolution and Ultimate Spider-Man do so? Is it just because they are nondiscriminatory or do they have legitimate reasons? While I agree with many of the points of criticism against USM that are made, repeatedly, by posters on this board, I do not come to the overall negative appraisal of USM that many have come to. Why is that? I could answer that now but instead I will stay on topic, sort of.

In terms of my enjoyment of X-Men animation series overall, I would rate X-Men Evolution above X-Men the animated series for the following reasons:

* I am not a big fan of the Logan/Scott/Jean love triangle. It is quite annoying to me. {For full disclosure I do not like love triangles at all (see: Mary Jane/Peter/Harry in Raimi Spider-Man Trilogy; Gwen/Peter/Harry in Spectacular Spider-Man; SuperBoy/Martian Girl/FishBoy[I know that is not his actual name] in Young Justice).} To me it weakens Logan (Go and find some other lady please, you are wolverine after all), it makes Jean look greedy (two men...really), and it makes Scott look pathetic (he is supposed to be the leader of the X-Men. Come on sir, this is not a good look. Maybe that is why the Avengers beat them. (Yes, I did just go there.) You would not see Captain America acting like that. No.) X-Men evolution eliminated it, which I considered a big plus.

* I am not tied to X-Men cannon (I am not saying this is good. Respect and appreciation should be given to the source material of any story made into animation because it is most likely primarily the quality of the source material that makes it a good candidate for animation. However this is still fictional art using made up characters, in made up environments, with made up origins, etc. I think that I could make a reasonable argument that the obligations to the making or remaking of fictional art are different than are the obligations to historical narrative or nonfiction. As long as the original writers/artists give their approval to the retelling of their characters, then any appraisal made by me or anyone else has to be considered subjective and not absolute, which is not a bad thing.)

*I liked Gambit, Logan, Ice Man, Pyro, Quick Silver, Scarlett Witch, Magneto, and Storm better in X-Men Evolution. However, I did miss Cable in X-Men evolution. Cable is cool.

*X-Men evolution had the episode with Logan's female clone X-Men the animated series did not.

Finally, I can not rightly criticize the presence of the teen angst in X-Men evolution and not criticize its presence in other shows such as: Young Justice (which I really like, but, don't get me started) and X-Men the animated series (I do not care how old Scott was supposed to be in that series. He might as well have been a teenager. See my above comments about him in relation to Jean.)

 

[hobbyfan]

I can't rightly say for certain, but this much I do know.

When Evolution launched, it was shortly after Marvel had started its Ultimate line, and Evolution, IMPO, was meant to represent the Ultimate version of the X-Men. I wasn't a fan of Evolution, per se, but I wasn't aware of any haterizing at the time.

 

[W.C.Reaf]

The whole high school thing wasn't so terrible or inaccurate. The original X-Men team were teenagers were they not? The whole prejudice angle in X-Men works pretty well in a high school setting though it was a bit corny to have Mr. Kelly be the principal. I didn't particularly like Wolverine already being there when everyone else is a teenager but I suppose that couldn't be helped if they wanted to include him, it's just odd for him to be a teacher though I suppose no more so than when he was the leader in Wolverine and the X-Men. We're never going to get an X-Men cartoon where Wolvie isn't in the starting roster I suppose.

Being teenagers works in with mutant powers activating at puberty, so we get some of the early days of some of the characters. Though yeah some extra thought could've gone into why they're at Xavier's and high school. While the point was to get them interacting with regular humans, seeing their friendships, and the eventual confrontations when outted as mutants. We didn't get any regular human supporting cast members in the other X-Men shows, which does water down the prejudice angle a little bit. But because of the bad writing in season 1 it was glossed over.

Evo is the only show that tried not to overexpose Wolverine, though. They only gave him one episode per season and tried not to let him take over the show. Also him being a teacher was ahead of it's time give the current comics.

 

[Rick Jones]

I can't imagine that Evo got the type of hate USM got if only due to how much the internet and mass media changed within the 12 years that separate the two shows. When Evolution debuted, it was really far off of my radar though, so I'd be the wrong person to say. It took a few years before I even knew it existed and when I did find out, my early disinterest in it was probably a lot less due to the Smallville-like high school setting than it was due to the original takes on the character designs. I've since ran through the entire series and grew to love it for several reasons but that took time.

 

[TheMadSlasher]

So really, why the hate towards X-men Evolution? Was it really just from 90's X-men fanboys who didn't like the fact that the next X-men cartoon was so different than the one they watched as kids?

My own distaste for Evo was partly due to the fact that I am one of those XTAS fanboys.

The other reason is that my time in high school was excruciatingly traumatic and I chafed beneath the jackboot of the authoritarian control freaks that ran my school like the spiritual equivalent of North Korea. You, the individual student, existed only the glorify the School Community. Yay, collectivism.

So when I watch television shows about school, then the school must be either 1) absolutely "like college, no detentions, no uniforms, etc.", or 2) portrayed as a concentration camp run by venomous sadists that lust for power over their victims.

In X-Men Evo, we got a relatively authoritarian Xavier Institute which was portrayed as justified. This is quite frankly noxious to my worldview.

That, plus Bobby was generic and Logan was a Drill Sergeant Nasty far too often (Logan should ALWAYS be a rebel/renegade, NOT an authority figure) and Gambit was a villain who had only a handful of appearances.

However, in Evo's defense, Scott and Jean and Beast were well-characterized (although Beast used his feet as hands too often but that's a minor criticism).

Still, I have reasons for preferring XTAS.

Honestly I'd love an X-Men series that was college age. You know, college, where people are treated as human beings rather than animals to be neutered and tamed.

 

[Medinnus]

This. I feel like everyone thinks if you don't like USM its cause you're bitter about SSM but that's not the case. At least for me SSM is dead I'm over it just want a good spidey toon.

it is easier for people who want to defend USM to dismiss critics as "bitter about SSM", or people who want to defend MAA to dismiss critics as "bitter about AEMH", or people who want to defend X:Emo as "bitter about X:TAS", than actually accept that their little show isn't perfect.

 

[Aang]

it is easier for people who want to defend USM to dismiss critics as "bitter about SSM", or people who want to defend MAA to dismiss critics as "bitter about AEMH", or people who want to defend X:Emo as "bitter about X:TAS", than actually accept that their little show isn't perfect.

That does happen. In the same manner, the default response for disparaging a show often is to state how it is not like something else. More precise and thoughtful evaluations giving specific reasons why something is good or not, other than that it is not somethig else, are far more helpful.

Many of the responses to this topic are really good examples of precise and thoughtful responses, despite differing opinions.

Different shows can have different perceived strengths and weaknesses. Something that may be perceived as a strength of a show by someone may perceived as a weakness of that show by somene else. Also, it is possible that the same person can like a particular show and that show's predecessor, for different reasons.

 

[Stu]

I don't believe Evo received a hatred on par with Ultimate Spider-Man. For a while, Evo had a very strong fan following, especially after the awesome two part finale. Most were genuinely annoyed when it was cancelled, (without actually ever being cancelled) and a spin off of the future X-Men we saw in the closing moments of the finale was often requested.

Ultimate Spider-Man however, will likely be forgotten as soon as it wraps up and replaced with another Spider-Man show, much like The Batman was.

While I am not in the crowd that venomously hates Ultimate Spider-Man, it cannot be argued that the show is very good. It should not be held accountable for Spectacular Spider-Man being cancelled as this was due to Marvel aquiring the animation rights back but the simple truth is if Ultimate Spider-Man were any good, it would not recieve the hate it gets online.

 

[Antiyonder]

Though it didn't bother me, with X-Men Evolution, the only real criticism seemed to be towards Season 1 coming off as a poor sitcom with other aspects to like such as some characters being better written that their TAS counterparts and Rogue's arc in joining the team. Plus the show improved next season.

USM on the other hand is poorly written in general such as false development, not realizing what it wants to be (whereas Evo found a consistent way to be more about the mutant problem and slice of life moments), inconsistent (such as how the first episode paints Spidey as a rookie, yet insists he's an experienced hero in the second episode) and characters lacking in likability all around. Heck, even Spyke became more likable onscreen when they had him sticking up for mutants that can't pass for regular humans.

In short, Evo's problems were in the long run less, with USM having a lot.

 

[RoryWilliams]

it is easier for people who want to defend USM to dismiss critics as "bitter about SSM", or people who want to defend MAA to dismiss critics as "bitter about AEMH", or people who want to defend X:Emo as "bitter about X:TAS", than actually accept that their little show isn't perfect.

Sure but there's a fli pside as well, with comic fans often having a well-deserved reputation for not being objective. There's objective, genuine criticism and then there's bollocks about not 100 percent honoring comic canon and stuff that nobody else really cares about.

So I'll argue that USM is a poorly written and poorly directed show but at the same time I still remember chuckling at all the bellyaching and crying about Superboy and Dick Grayson being contemporaries in Young Justice or costumes changes or any of the other minute details that don't really matter. Or really the dissonance between the positive reviews and box office intake for Iron Man 3 vs. the internet fans screaming about how it destroyed the franchise by not sticking to the comic canon or whatever.

 

[CyberCubed]

I've been watching through X-men Evolution and the show is quite good. Even Season 1 had some strong character moments that people dismiss. The show reminds me a lot of Young Justice and Avengers, except Evo handled many of the characters better.

I find this show very underrated and don't understand why. 90's X-men comes across as dated and Wolverine and the X-men was simply canceled too early to have much of an opinion as a whole.

X-men Evo feels like the definitive version until we get some new X-men show that goes on for a long period of time and is good.