X-Men TAS: Courage

If I had a nickle everytime these were my favourite characters i'd have two nickles.

If I had a nickel for every time a cheerful, silly, “jester” type character was abandoned by their friends and came back as a bitter, twisted version of themselves with messed up hair and dark marks under their eyes, I’d have two nickels, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

(Also they both ultimately get redeemed and then go off away from the main cast for a long time to recover.)

no thoughts just Morph's side profile

It’s MORPH’n time! I am loving Morph in X-Men ‘97! Very much enjoying what JP Karliak is bringing to the role and read a really great theory about how Morph uses his new neutral/blank face to mask his trauma. In ep 3 you can see how he reverts to his old face when talking about Sinister, and then immediately changes back to the blank face. If that’s true it would be a deep and fascinating choice for the character and I love it. So here’s my take on Morph, and one last, not so secret sneak peek at the last member of the team illustration. I wonder who it could be…

I make very important things

Original:

X-Men '97 #2 (2024)

written by Steve Foxe art by Salva Espin & Matt Milla

People seem to forget how powerful original series Morph was. I love this clip/ episode.

My thoughts on X-Men 97 (spoilers below)

Congratulations Morph on making it into the opening credits! Congratulations to Bishop and Magneto, too, but Morph is like the little redshirt that could, they went from "killed off two episodes in" to opening credits main character. You are the Guy Fleegman of X-Men TAS Morph, even if you are a not a guy. They even did a "threatened by Sinister" montage for them.

Thank you, Gambit, for bringing back crop tops for men, you are a fashion god. And the very first scene with Gambit is him in the kitchen making beignets.

Jubilee getting to be the experienced X-Man welcoming the new kid who was saved from kidnapping is a nice call back and kind of "full circle" for her.

Fantastic sequence of them fighting Sentinels, especially Cyclops doing the whole "optic blast his way to the ground" thing. And he could have gotten one of the flyers to catch him, he just wanted to be cool.

Nice to finally see Morph and Wolverine banter when Morph isn't being set up for a tragic death or brainwashed/filled with angst. No, now Logan is the one filled with angst, because he can't deal with pregnant (with Scott's baby) Jean.

Sunspot with his little glow sticks, and Jubilee dancing at the club is adorable.

Sunspot's card that he gave to Jubilee is the most 90's thing ever, look at those graphics.

Storm. I saw that "Lifedeath I and II" was part of the episode titles for future episodes, so I knew it was coming, but damn. It was extremely well done. Having her take the hit for Magneto instead of Rogue makes sense, and is another example of TAS writers combining comics stories (Storm's power loss and trial of Magneto) really effectively.

I kind of like that, after Cyclops gets beaten down by X-Cutioner, Morph is the one who jumps in to save him. Like, despite being a sarcastic little shit and all the previous bad blood, Morph's got Scott's back.

Wolverine driving Jean to the hospital, and Rogue using her powers to absorb "baby delivery skills" was all great. "He's coming!" "Who?! Apocalypse?" "The baby!!" And then Jean just telekinetically slapping Wolverine with his jacket and jeep keys.

One Jean? Two Jean! (Red Jean....Blue Jean?)

I'm surprised we've got a Jean double already, I expected that the show would drag it out much longer before showing Maddie. I am wondering if Madelyne will have been programmed to believe that she is also Jean, and there will be confusion over the "real" Jean. I am very, very curious as to where they will go with the Madelyne Pryor story, especially since Goblin Queen will presumably show up at some point.

the silly