X-Men '97's first two episodes blasted their way onto Disney+ earlier this week and Marvel Studios/Marvel Animation has since shared a gallery of official stills from "To Me, My X-Men" and "Mutant Liberation Begins" (via Toonado.com).
Even more exciting is the fact we have the X-Men: The Animated Series revival's awesome - and undeniably iconic - theme song. We're sure many of you will be listening to this on repeat and, as an added bonus, it includes that fun end credits sequence highlighting the show's leads.
During a recent interview, Marvel Animation and streaming executive Brad Winderbaum was asked if they ever considered completely modernising these characters for their long-awaited small-screen return.
"Our #1 rule was to emulate our memory of the original," he explains. "That was more important than emulating frame by frame what is was. Because if you watch the original show, the animation shifts. Working with [X-Men: The Animated Series director Larry Houghton] and [Eric Lewald, who developed the show, and Julia Lewald] who worked on the original show, this was part of their guidance - to show us where those limitations were, to see those guardrails, and try to get to the same place."
"We always wanted to evoke that feeling, which means we had to try to match the style, or people's memories of the style. Through the design process, it was challenging to not modernize. [We kept] arcing it back to the original, kind of old-fashioned design; big, bubbly muscles, soft curves."
"With our modern sensibilities - we've all watched so much anime and are fans of modern animation - it's very easy to go angular," Winderbaum concludes. "But we were constantly trying to go back to that soft '90s kind of vibe."
Listen to X-Men '97's iconic theme, and check out those newly released stills from the two-part premiere, below.
In our review of the show's first three episodes yesterday, we concluded by saying, "A triumphant return for X-Men: The Animated Series, X-Men '97 is an eXtraordinary epic which, while a little overreliant on nostalgia, should satisfy fans of the original show and serve as an eXcellent entry poin
X-Men '97 revisits the iconic era of the 1990s as The X-Men, a band of mutants who use their uncanny gifts to protect a world that hates and fears them, are challenged like never before, forced to face a dangerous and unexpected new future.
The first two episodes of X-Men '97 are now streaming on Disney+ with new instalments following weekly.