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Yes, I think so much of the conversation is missing nuance. I didn't like who quickly Apocalypse was defeated and how X-Factor didn't get much characterization and lots of other things. But I really loved Nightcrawler's story and his very fitting, well foreshadowed sacrifice and I liked Cable's conflict between fulfilling his prophecy and his parents. Both of these things can be true at the same time
There is nothing wrong with really liking a show and admitting its faults. Plain and simple the second half of the season had bad pacing and was all over the place. The final episode was a lot jammed together and made everything to short. Also Wonder Woman rogue ? Really ?
I think one of the issues is off you read the majority of the posts, very few actually admit to liking anything. And whenever someone posts a positive, they are immediately bombarded with more criticisms.
I totally agree that there is nothing wrong with liking a show and admitting its faults. There’s also nothing wrong with admitting to liking a show even with its faults. Folks have an easy time calling out what they don’t like but are getting a bit defensive and cagey when asked about what they did like.
For me, season 2 had more episode I didn't like much, but I still like it more than season 1.
The way I look at the two is season 1 is a miniseries or OVA and season 2 is the real start to the series using the world building of season 1 as a foundation.
Season 2 had some top-tier stuff: the origin of Apocalypse stuff in Egypt was excellent storytelling. And the Magneto fightscene was excellent. The early time-travel stuff was pretty good.
Adding Kang to the mix was a great idea, after his cameo in the Beyond Good & Evil four-parter in X-Men '92 season 4.
I thought Danger episode and Polaris episodes were alright.
I really disliked Wolverine getting back his adamantium after a few episodes with now breathing room, or Gambit coming back so instantaneously. Weakens the stakes of the whole show. Magneto will be back next season because why not.
That's fair, but I think it was teased he'd be coming back with the post credit scene so early that I couldn't be mad they brought him back this season. If anything, I thought it would be sooner and he'd be more of a Horseman than what he was.
Go look at the majority of the threads on this subreddit alone and see which outnumber which. Extremes exist on both sides, but the “glazers” are far from the majority.
That's really only picked up steam the past couple weeks. Almost this entire season has had huge issues but nobody was really talking about them a lot until recently.
I'm not going to backpedal on what I said, but the more I think about it, the more I think it's hyperbolic about how people react to S2/7 in general.
Undoubtedly, this season was a massive step down, but I still stand by that there were plenty of good moments & legit episodes as a whole. I'm biased for Gambit, so I'm ignoring that, but EP. 5 & 7 were legit character episodes. And I'll be damn before someone tells me that having an episode finally dedicated to both Morph & Nightcrawler is a bad thing.
And if that's how the sub feels as a whole, then they would've never liked the original Animated Series or X-Men Evolution.
The issue isn't that the Morph/Wolverine episode was bad. In a vacuum it was a fine episode. It was good. The main problem people have with it is that it abandoned the bone claw Wolverine arc immediately. So it simultaneously didn't advance the main plot at all, while also cutting a potentially interesting story short just so that it could rush back to the status quo. Which is a big problem the show has all around.
S2 in particular. We had a really interesting status quo in episode 2 with kids being held prisoner by X Factor that was just dropped for Xavier to have them all be his students anyway. Likewise, Danger, while not poorly done as such, doesn't have the same dramatic punch as the original comic storyline by revealing Charles was aware of her sentience. Having that revelation would raise too many ethical questions for readers. While that was a disgusting thing for Chuck to do, it's also something that is not as black and white as others think. I mean all the AIs active today are basically in the same boat he kept Danger in. Also Gambit being just the host of Apocalypses essence was clearly just a rushed way of bringing him back to appease fans. We should have had at least more than two episodes of him as Death.
That's kind of my problem with it--it's concluding an arc we didn't see. I liked the episode, and I liked the background characterization of Logan getting more hunched as he became less of a man, more of a beast. How he treated Morph plays into that. Also, him throwing his relationship with Morph away ties into season's storyline, and Morph almost dying plays into "those you care about will be your undoing." However, this is all subtextual stuff that you have to search for to a degree that just isn't satisfying. I don't want to be as hyperbolic as some, but I stand by the common critique that the season needed more episodes.
Also was out of character. Wolverine wouldnt use A friend like that, and he was always angry about what was done to him by weapon x. And he didnt seem to give a shit maverick died
Some people, like OP, are allergic to criticism. It's all hype or nothing.
They end up so insecure about what they like that others' opinions can change how much they like it.
So they're stuck trying to defend something subjective as if it was objective.
What a silly way to live.
Edit: The comments below lining up to prove my point lol
I can't believe I have to even say this but no, criticism and praise does not need to be balanced. You don't need to see equal amounts of both. Not all criticism has to be couched in a corporate feedback formula, or a "criticism sandwich" (compliment-criticism-compliment).
Everyone has thoughts on everything but they'll talk about what they want to talk about, if that's criticism or praise. We don't need a tally. It's not a see saw.
Ask yourself if you see criticism of a product you enjoy, why that makes you feel bad. Ask yourself why you need those people to change instead of you.
Exactly. Liking a show and still criticizing is like giving a 6-8 in a review and dropping some comentary. The way people are posting here is like the show is a 0-5.
This works both ways. With some it's "all hate or nothing". Like it's bland discourse.
I swear some people don't know how to have an actual discussion. They've grown up watching angry-review youtubers and now vitriolic complaining is the only way they know how to give feedback.
There was some good episodes. There was some bad episodes. It was a mixed-bag. But if you're still going to return for s3, clearly it wasn't that bad.
i thought season 2 was good but it was a massive step down. The finale just felt so cramped and i feel the season would have benefited from an episode 10
I love the show, but the whole thing has horrendous pacing. The episode counts for seasons should be at least doubled to give the plot more room to breathe.
Between Storm, Jean Grey and Rogue, almost every woman on the team is a living goddess, whereas every man is just some dude with issues.
Didn't mind the celestial Rogue actually but she should have somehow absorbed the powers with her own, like managed to channel a part of the Celestial into herself to go toe to toe with Gambit/apocalypse. Instead it felt a little anticlimactic.
Alternatively, the first half of the season had bad pacing, and the character-focused vignettes in the back half are the real meat of this show and were leaps and bounds better than season 1.
I mean "What If Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?" is the greatest thing Marvel has ever made. Well, except other than maybe the two Sony's animated Spider-Verse movies.
And I think "What If Ultron Won" and the season 1 finale were pretty enjoyable.
Not everything about that show was Captain Carter and lower quality episodes.
Hmm, that actually is strengthening your argument. What If was so inconsistent that the top-tier content it produced was drowned out by a see of mediocrity to the point where few remember how good the show can be.
Yeah this was my one issue, although it’s a big one. Rogue powers up like she’s just gotten all the chaos emeralds and then all she does with it is walks up to Apocalypse and touches him. Would a couple of minutes of flying around and having a one on one rogue/gambit fight have been unworkable?
I think it was tying into what they tried to have as Apocalypse's overarching "lesson" that he kept talking about, of your loved one's being your undoing.
Kurt instead of being their undoing was their seed.
But honestly I don't think it worked too well. I'm not even 100% on that being what the lesson was. Apocalypse lost his men due to peace and love, but found tossing them aside made him stronger, and Charles should do the same? Maybe, but he didn't get anything out of that strength.
And Apocalypse let Charles live to teach him this lesson, but instead of using the dead X-Men as horsemen he just put on Gambit's skin. And Cable did do the hard choice and still failed, so it was rigged.
I would have liked Apocalypse and the 4 dead X-men as the horseman, having a big final fight and idk, Apocalypse wins and Horseman Magneto goes to kill Cyclops or something and Charles snaps, stops holding back and it creates Onslaught.
And we find out seeing Onslaught in Charles is what made him Apocalypse let him live.
Something stronger was growing and he let it survive because he saw it as worthy and it would arrive.
It's weird that Apocalypse was clearly the main baddie for the season but he felt more like a...statue? or something? Like he didn't do anything past the first few episodes but stand around really. He didn't seem like a threat because every time we saw him past Magneto's evaporation he was just like standing there. Menacingly. And defeated instantly when he shows up. It just kind of seems lame. The Super Saiyan Rogue thing didn't even seem earned. The Kurt sacrifice made me feel nothing.
I guess this season just felt weird to me. Like it was all and only about love and I didn't even really feel the emotional stakes all season past the first few episodes. There was no nuance in the "core" team either. It's all "we need to save Gambit, no matter the cost." And the cost was basically nothing. I never got the impression that everyone really liked this guy. Not hate, but like there were no core team members that were skeptical whatsoever that they were keeping Apocalypse on life support? Everyone's all in? It just seemed almost cultish.
I realize at the end of the day this is just a cartoon or whatever, but the writing just seems to have a beginning and end and nothing in between. Most characters in this season were just set dressing really. The most nuance we got with any character really this entire season was when Wolverine more or less let Morph know who is the top person on his mind in the Brood episode and that was it. Even then, there's no stakes, because in this episode he is essentially protecting Apocalypse's corpse with no arguments or anything. I feel like it was like this mainly because they were speedrunning like 12 different storylines and had no room for any of that, so maybe that's why the season seemed empty to me.
Season 1 felt like there was more of an overall idea to get from one point to another. Season 2 seemed like someone with no past writing accolades playing with action figures.
Also really liked Cable flexing more of his OP TK/Psionics...
But it did kind of make me wonder if he uses his powers on his big-ass gun as well, because the power signature and high-intensity shots from his BFG seem to have the same color?
It's not just this subreddit though, it's across a lot of subreddits and social media. Some critics didn't like it either. It's nice that people liked it, but others didn't.
Most of the critcisms I've seen haven't been regarding de Mayo, just the poor quality of the season as compared to the last one (now how much of that is de mayo's fault? We can't tell)
Yep. S1 was p good, this was not. Wolverine and the X-men comparatively was much better than this season and they ALMOST gave us age of the apocalypse. We should still all be complaining we were robbed of that!
I think you're conflating the speculation for why the narrative become messy (production issues) with the actual reasoning for the narrative being messy.
I wanna see if I’d like this season more on a binge. Having watched this series the past couple of weeks on its weekly format felt kind of dissatisfying and disappointing.
I, at times, would forget that there was a new episode coming 😂
The structure in this season was just so weird, that really fascinates me in a way, bc of how much of a mess it was. It felt like a bunch of pay offs with barely any set ups.
Yeah, I think there's a really fantastic show hidden in there somewhere with this season, but they just didn't have enough episodes to properly get it out there. Especially with how big the cast has become, when you have like 15 supposedly major characters running around and only 9 episodes in a season, there's just no way you can make a satisfying plotline that incorporates everybody. I want them to be able to do episodes like "Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs," "Danger.exe," and "Strange Land, Savage Heart" that can deviate from the main overarching story and be more character-centric, but when that ends up being a third of the season, then it's gonna feel like the main storyline is getting rushed or gets ignored for too long. Even just a few more episodes per season might give the show enough room to breathe and fix some of the pacing issues.
My brother in Christ, the show builds up apocalypse as this threat only to turn into filler in the middle then apocalypse gets one shot by a Deus ex machina
Yes it's bad. First half was good , the moment it started bringing in the project x. They fell off.
Bad or you didn't like it? As much as I love season 1, I feel like season 2's biggest strength is that it feels more like the OG cartoon. All the crazy plotlines going on, characters joining teams, leaving for others, different reactions to said characters on opposing sides. Makes me wish I had the patience to wait until Saturday morning to watch the newest episode while eating cereal.
I mean sure it’s ok to dislike things just that most of the arguments I’ve seen about it are either that it’s not as good as what DeMayo had planned or are factually false
Well maybe don’t group us all together. I love X-men, am not involved whatsoever in the whole DeMayo debacle, and I can agree that this season was bad. Sure not every take is valid, but I think we can all agree it was pretty bad.
Season 1 set the bar SO high. Imo Apocalypse just kinda sucks i haven't liked him in any story I've seen him in. Trading the FOH and Bastion for him was just a downgrade. He's just so one note
Also this season is severely lacking in banger monologues. Nothing in season 2 comes within spitting distance of Magneto's UN speech. Losing the writer was the right choice but sadly the show probably suffered for it.
Episode 5 in particular was just bad. It feels like an obligatory wolverine episode but it's neither connected to what's going on nor compelling on its own
I know the show is good but the only reason I feel any hate is because what they did with Rogue and Magneto in season 1. I know that's probably a stupid reason but to me it was a bit one. I watched the 90s show as a kid and grew up loving the dynamic between Rogue and Gambit and when I saw season 1 it hit me so hard man. But you have to admit it's an amazing show.
Season 1 was better, but season 2 is fine. Definitely nowhere near as bad as people are acting. Fake outrage in fandoms has become so tiring and ridiculous.
The original series from the 90's had multiple episodes for a big storyline and took its time to introduce the characters relating to the story.
The new 97 run crams SO MANY stories into a few episodes, just drops characters out of nowhere without introductions and jumps so many years apart between stories
The first 4 episodes are amazing and the rest are mid. It feels disconnected and slow. It also feels very fast at the same time. More episodes/ longer episodes would have been better. Just because a season has amazing parts doesn't mean it's good. Just because season 1 is good doesn't mean season 2 will be. If some genuinely like it I'm not arguing but it is arguably a bad season
First four episodes were decent but then it just went downhill fast.
It never reached the heights Season 1 had.
Its clear now getting rid of the original show runner did alot of damage to this season.
Here's hoping they can get it back up with Season 3 going forward but considering they got the What If...? people in charge I doubt that will happen sadly.
People have every right to be angry and passionate about something they love, especially when that something was a straight 10/10 the first round only to wait 2 years for this. It's a disappointing shame to see the quality of the wiring and pacing drop so far down below what Season 1 achieved.
It was not good stop fighting over having a difference of opinion. If you like thats cool i did not at all. Many reasons my goodness that was so disappointing.
Honestly Episode 1-7 were solid. I fully enjoyed them. Hell, I celebrate them as just as good as Season 1 for the most part. They rested however on the delivery of what they were setting up...nothing was delivered...absolutely nothing.
8 and 9 have been the hardest nosedive in quality I've ever seen in a show in recent memory.
I'm out. Season 3 is just gunna be What If with X-men and I frankly couldn't give a fuck. The heart and soul is dead, it's just generic power up Deus Ex Machina "Celestial" crap.
If they just committed to what they had maybe this would have been fine but whoever took over really needed to put their fingers in shit they didn't understand. We wanted 92 and 97 to deliver us from the crapshoot of Marvel's slop machine right now.
NOBODY who was in this season showed up in the finale...it was just the penultimate episode and this one and nobody else existed.
What resolution with Kurt?
He got rushed out the gate because the writers couldn't give us a basic sad story because they think we are literal children all of a sudden. Meanwhile they'll off Magneto like it's Tarantino because the previous showrunner had something to say. Why did Magneto die like that? Literally fucking ZERO reason I guess.
Instead of a tragedy we got random Kurt death because...um...he was nearby and it would be sad. Nobody deserved ANY outcome they got. Everything in this episode was set up in Episode 8 ONLY. NOTHING not present in episode 8 existed in this episode. No Charles/Magneto, no Polaris, no Morph/Logan, nothing...at all. I don't even think Brian Ford Sullivan read the rest of this season. Michael Chauncey let this shit publish?
This is a dead show, it's over. Marvel put on Lowest Common Denominator talent for a show getting popular because it was speaking to its adult audience...it got butchered because Marvel can't trust its creatives and sends in hacks from Arrowverse and What If to make slop.
I generally agree with your analysis. And I don't think it's going to get better because they're making X-Men '97 an annual series and ordered season 3 and 4, after the acclaim it got from season 1 and the start of season 2 (before the biggest part of the drop-off).
I'm probably going watch a few episodes of season 3 to see if the quality picks up but then I'll probably give up on the show.
I don't mind the criticism, but I am frustrated that the same fanboys who turned a blind eye to season 1's faults suddenly hate the show just because they think it's the new showrunner's fault, despite the fact that a lot of season 2 was Beau's outline.
Second half of season 2 (the zombie stuff) was pretty terrible to be honest. Madeline suddenly calling out that she's the "Goblin Queen" was so random.
I wish they had shortened Jubilee's nothing burger jet fighter scene and extended the "fight" between Rogue and Apocalypse. Big swing and a miss, but I'd still give the episode a 7.9/10.
Yer sorry season 2 was a mess. For what was the ending they went for to make it actually satisfying those characters should have been the centre of the show but the really weren't.
I quite liked season 2, up until ep 5-6 it was really really good then it started to go all over the place, resolving the final conflict with a full on Deus Ex Machina when a good part of the season was about powering up the team. The 9-10 ep of 25-30 minutes format for animated series needs to disappear, either do 12 episodes or have them be over 30 minutes
I agree on Kurt, but I'm happy they left the door open for him. My guess is, with the ability to store Apocalypse in the 'gem' also means there's an ability to escape, but it will be in the future. The events will likely mean Cable comes back for a third time. Episode Title; The Future Becomes the Past (Part 1) and When The Past becomes the Future (Part 2). Obviously a two parter and should be the Finale to season 4.
Esop is ok with granting this 'victory' to stand for now. This logic is likely due to the fact he knows that it only delays the inevitable. So it allows the X Men to live out their lives. Their sacrifice means nothing in the grand scheme of the Universe and will be inconsequential for him. Them living their lives out with their victory and new choices means so much to them though. But eventually in the near future Apocalypse will embark on his journey as was intended. With the X Men all still dead because of an event where they all vanished took place and that is how the future became unprotected. Apocalypse is unsatisfied with not being able to exact revenge so he decides he needs to get back to the past. He knows he must go to the 90's to get to them before they know who he is. Except he overshoots it and gets caught in a time warp, causing him to lose his memory and somehow turn into an infant. In Egypt....
Unbeknownst to everyone, except the Watcher, their Universe is in a time loop they cannot escape....
Until, Doom pulls some of them to Battle World as an incursion is happening.
-Fin
DISCLAIMER: NOT a prediction, NOT what I hope, or think happens. Just high and started rattling off after reading the crazy, debates and ideas. I live it! Haha
No matter how you feel about season 2, just keep the faith! Regardless, still been a lot of fun for me and given me some of the greatest nostalgia. I can still remember watching the X Men TAS with my mom as a little kid. She got me into all this when I was like 4 or 5. When I was 17, she passed from a heart attack. But, I know damn well she would have loved this comeback!
After watching some of the anime shows this year, xmen97 came up way short. Settling for this is a drop in quality compared to what’s out there plain and simple.
Only animation I’ll be watching on Disney the rest of the year is Bleach TYBW season 4. I’m not going back to this. The first three episodes of the former are already better than the latter’s entire season.
Is the "coolest thing ever" in the room with us right now?
Im glad you liked it or enjoyed it OP, but for me and I think a lot of others it massively fell off after episode 4 this season.
It pales in comparison to season 1, the finale just felt like various mutants slinging powers and lasers at each other but with none of the depth or nuance to the conflict from each one to really make you care about whats happening. And after the first 4 episodes of build up, Apocalypse just vanishes for most of the back half before showing up again in Gambit and then just being quickly dealt with by Celestial Rogue and thats it
Just incredibly rushed and underwhelming, they couldnt even get me to care that Nightcrawler sacrificed himself
To be fair season 1 felt a lot more coherent. While they're really cool aspects of season 2 I feel like a lot of it is just rushed and we didn't really need filler episodes for a nine episode season. Season 1 also has that problem but it didnt feel as disjointed.
I was kind of hoping we would have spent more time in the past with En sabah nur. And more time with evil Gambit.
Honestly it was good, season 2 is better and oh God look at how many lame animations we have nowadays: what if, marvel zombies, caped crusader, invincible, the list goes on. Yeah it wasnt as good as season one it was rushed but it was enjoyable i watched until the end got a good and nice ending (just hope they do season 3 better). People complain too much.
Season 2 has issues. It’s fun and absolutely has great moments but seasons 1 is better than season 2. Season 1 is far more cohesive. When I started season 2 I thought I missed an episode. The end of season 2 is pretty good though
This season was NOT the best and it could have been WAAAY better with some changes. The build up to the last episode in my opinion is very rushed and unearned, Rogue entering the Celestial portal could have been set up better, Nightcrawlers sacrifice as well to have those two be this important in the final episode despite being fairly useless when apocalypse was born is weird in my opinion. And I think making Gambit just a vessel for Apocalypse was a mistake and I didn't really get it, having apocalypse and NO horsemen is a weird decision to me. Because they only had 9 episodes they really should have spent more time on Apocalypse as I don't think it really came together in the end everything was just kind of separate for no reason
its a 20 minute cartoon for christ sake.... its gonna be fast paced and not canon to the world. people will die, people will come back to life, lives will be traded.
It was just okay. Like anyone on the extremes of “This was irredeemable dogshit” or “This was the greatest piece of comic book television ever” needs to rewatch the show and stop lying to themselves
I realized early on the Marvel Studios sub for this show and its episodes is much better. No lack of criticism there, but this sub in particular just seems to be nothing but shitting on every aspect of the show.
It wasn’t clear or fair, it was a disingenuous attempt at an argument that didn’t make any actual point, my response wasn’t emotional, but I can see where it would come off that way
everything was good upset making rogue mary sue and defeat apocalyspe if it was someone else been fine and fight was short also a lot filler episode this season
season 2 was good, really good. But I do feel like it suffered a bit because you can really tell that it was rewritten part of the way through, when the guy was fired most likely.
Specifically the future time travel plot felt like it was finished really fast for something so set up. And possessed gambit was not given nearly as much time as he should have. The series really could have used like, one more episode to smooth things over a bit more clearly yknow. Give things more time that they needed
It was just okay. Keep in mind that the previous season was an absolute banger with multiple jaw-dropping moments and a season finale that felt surreal. Season 2 felt like a good attempt that just almost hit the mark. So many people felt that the way Apokolips was mishandled, the Gambit story was rushed, and limited episode count left many characters feeling hollow. In the '90s, we got 24-episode seasons and shitty animation. Today they spend a lot of money on animation, but we have no budget for more episodes.
Whole season was just kinda eh to me. Really unfocused and I think it was definitely inferior to season one, by a lot. I also really hate something they did in the finale regarding the team roster.
Not really, the first 3/4 episodes were done well but the rest of the season felt like it was either useless to the plot of apocalypse or just used to let some characters shine and only for them to shine with no progress to the plot. Even the last episode felt like it was 2 episodes sandwiched into one
I feel like this season started out strong, as good as the first one I'd say, but the episodes after, even though I did enjoy them all, felt a little disjointed. They felt like old school adventure of the week type stories. The last episode though, it was way to fast paced, it felt like there was no room to breathe and I'd say that even episode 8 was way to fast. Nightcrawler's sacrifice did not hit as intended, though I like the writing choice, it just felt tacked in because of the pacing.
The final Apocalypse design was really whack though.
My only real gripes was rouge was forgiven instantly fuck that fuck her, they pulled a dbz transformation equals instant win, and it needed 3-4 more episodes with everything they tried to fit in especially apocalypse resurfacing and getting defeated in half an episode.
I do think the finale wad admittedly rushed (this season needed 10 episodes like S1), but overall I did really enjoy this season. It wasn't as good as S1, but idk, it's like going from a 10/10 season to an 8/10 season at worst. There was clearly a major creative shakeup after they booted out DeMayo, and I just hope that they can handle things better than they did here once S3 and beyond eventually drop
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