Pryde of the X-Men

This one time deal left something to be desired. I remember this show coming on during the Marvel Action Hour with Robocop, Dino Riders, and something else, possibly Spiderman. X-men was made by Sunbow, the powerhouse of the 80's, so the voices were some of the same people heard in GI Joe. The story of is fast paced and reads like a comic strip with action left and right. The black bird looks better than the recent futuristic versions out there. They also stay very close to the comic unlike other versions. This one timer was probably just to promote the video game, but it should have been a series. Who knows what would've happened if it was a series, it sure would have been better than the newer versions now.

This cartoon is in keeping with X-Men continuity and characters other than Wolverine (wrong accent, too tall).

If you like the Evolution cartoon, which has nothing to do with either the comic books or the 90s cartoon, you probably won't like this.

If you follow the X-Men somewhat faithfully and like the 80s cartoon, and can ignore Wolverine's height and Australian accent, you'll probably like this.

I do. It is not perfect -- I miss Rogue from the later cartoon -- but it is fun and the animation is traditional, not lampoonish like the Evolution mess.

This one shot X-men pilot episode had the best animation quality of any other Marvel cartoon then or since. Yes, the quality even rivals X-men Evolution. I prefer the mature look of Pryde's animation over Evolution's Disney look any day.

The Voice-Overs (Wolverine's Australian accent) have been panned quite a bit on this board. Wolverine's austrailian accent didn't bother me much at all and I collected the X-men comic for a while during the eighties. Even though Wolvie's accent was wrong, his temperment and intensity were captured perfectly by the Voice-Over. I'd Prefer Pryde's Austrailian Wolverine over Evolution's MUCH SOFTER Wolverine any day. Evolution's Wolvie just doesn't have the intensity or temperment; C'mon Wolverine as a teacher? Gimme a break. The other characters in Pryde were well portrayed.

The story line isn't that complex but it's not supposed to be. It's a pilot episode and therefore is meant to be more of an showcase of the format and characters of the cartoon than anything else. The plots surely would have gotten more complex had the series been picked up.

I can't help but think that Marvel missed an opportunity by not producing more episodes. Hmmmm... maybe the animation was too expensive because it was damn near movie quality. If the 90's series had Pryde's animation quality, we would have had a near perfect series. I've seen Pryde of the X-men several times and always wondered about what could have been. If you haven't seen Pryde of the X-men yet, don't listen to negative reviews and go check it out. It's definitely worth it.

This forgotten late-eighties pilot showed promise but was never picked up as a series. Although the characterizations are annoyingly overwrought (in typical Saturday morning fashion), the adaptation was very faithful to the source material. The producers chose a mid-eighties line-up (Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Storm, Dazzler, Kitty Pryde) and concisely setup the struggle between the two mutant factions while briefly outlining the comic book's continuity at that time. The only misfire was Wolverine's inexplicable Cockney accent (the character is supposed to be Canadian, not British). They even managed to include Lockheed, Kitty's ridiculous pet dragon. Not a bad job, and it proves that you *don't* have to extensively reinvent the comic (as was done with "X-Men: Evolution") in order to make it work on the small screen.

Why does everyone seem to hate this? Sure, the story was 100% generic, but it was definitely watchable. While the Saban cartoon that followed it around four years later was much more complex story-wise, its animation couldn't hold a candle to this one. If they were somehow able to combine this cartoon's animation with the stories of the show that came after this, we would have had a GREAT series.