The Mutant Ages

It finally happened... We watched X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The 2009 exploration of Wolverine's origins disappointed us at the time, and it disappoints us so much more in 2020. With Todd Harper's help, Ryan and Maddy tear apart this notoriously bad movie, which is impressive only in the sense that it manages to offend just about everybody. Next week's episode: The pilot episode of X-Men Evolution!...

Maddy and Ryan finally close the book on X-Men: The Animated Series with the second half of the show's two-part crossover with Spider-Man The Animated Series. It's a very entertaining send-off. Logan and Beast finally tell everyone they're dating, Spider-Man learns the importance of friendship (or something?) and Hobgoblin uses a CD-ROM. Next week's episode: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (we have to wa...

Back in September 1995, the Spider-Man animated series did a crossover with X-Men: The Animated Series, starting with Spider-Man learning he's mutating and then going to Professor Xavier for help. Unfortunately, instead of just calling Xavier on the phone, Spider-Man breaks into the X-Mansion, and for some reason he's surprised that the X-Men attack him. Good news, though. This episode's really ga...

Ryan and Maddy open up the mailbag for some listener-submitted questions about the X-Men villains we don't like, some theories about how the MCU might finally go about introducing the X-Men, and discussion about potentially casting actors of color to play X-Men characters originally conceived of as white. Last but not least, we have the second issue of The Mutant Ages Comic Book. Next week's episo...

At long last, Maddy and Ryan called Wolverine. Or at least, we called the best-known originator of the character's voice, Cal Dodd, the actor who voiced Logan on X-Men: The Animated Series. We talked to him about Wolverine's emotional vulnerability, the ways that X-Men: TAS refused to shy away from politics, the fact that Cal is a Storm/Wolverine shipper, and also a series of videos in which Cal s...

Now that Ryan and Maddy have finished watching all of X-Men: The Animated Series, they can look back on the series as a whole and evaluate it. We discuss our favorite and least favorite characters, our favorite ships, the best and worst episodes, and the political allegories that this show has done. We also talk about our personal lives over the past three years since we started this show, and how...

Magneto was... right?! We knew that, but we didn't expect X-Men: The Animated Series to tell us that. In the show's stirring series finale, Professor Xavier gets attacked on live television by known mutant hater Henry Gyrich, and Magneto rallies mutants to fight back against the system that has been trying to kill them. When the laws are unjust, you shouldn't follow them. This is a political episo...

What's it like to be the only mutant in a small town in Kentucky? Pretty bad, as it turns out. X-Men: The Animated Series gives us another depressing but realistic analogy for queerness in "Hidden Agendas," plus a storyline about a renegade military off-shoot that convinces the residents of Cumberland, Kentucky to become even more bigoted than they already were. This episode is heavy. Further read...

Mr. Sinister is a bad, bad man. X-Men: The Animated Series sure did remind us of that in "Descent," a truly disturbing origin story about our favorite villain. Apparently, he tortures homeless mutants (typical), works with Jack the Ripper (what, what??), and invents sunglasses. Okay, that third thing was more cool than scary, but still. Ryan and Maddy get pretty deep in to analyzing potential quee...

Remember when Wolverine fought in World War II along with Captain America and punched out a bunch of Nazis? Well, Logan remembers, even though his Weapon X amnesia should not allow for that. Apparently, an affair with Steve Rogers in Paris is too romantic and too powerful for anybody to forget. This episode is very gay. We enjoyed it, even if it could've gone a bit deeper on its politics, but hey....

Remember Fabian Cortez? It's been a while. The last time Ryan and Maddy saw him on X-Men: The Animated Series, he had just failed an attempted coup against Magneto and gotten kidnapped by Apocalypse. Now Fabian Cortez is in South America, convincing native people to worship the mutant-god villain that Maddy and Ryan love to hate. Jubilee and Beast run afoul of Fabian and Apocalypse's plans in this...

Up top, Maddy and Ryan want to encourage their listeners to donate to bail funds and other methods of supporting the protests against racist police brutality (https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co) and also to remind any listeners participating in these protests of their rights (https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights). Now it's time to talk about the much-maligned "Jubilee's Fairy Ta...

Ryan and Maddy do a big listener mail episode to catch up on voicemails, emails, and comments from you lovely Mutant Ages listeners. The most important part of this episode is the listener question that sparks us to tell the story of teenaged Ryan meeting Hugh Jackman, and also teenaged Ryan coming out of the closet. That's all one story, by the way. Next week's episode: "Jubilee's Fairytale Theat...

In the second half of X-Men: The Animated Series "Storm Front" two-parter, Ryan and Maddy decide they like this storyline after all, because Storm finally gets to turn the tables on the abusive tyrant Arkon and fling some tornadoes around. Plus, Logan and Jubilee get some great moments in which both of them stand by their friend in their own ways as she works through her feelings. Ryan and Maddy r...

No one should kidnap Storm, but for some reason, that's what happens in "Storm Front," the latest two-parter in X-Men: The Animated Series. Luckily, Jubilee and Logan are amazing in this episode, but it doesn't really make up for the fact that we have to watch some random alien guy treat Storm like crap. She better kick his ass in the second half of this two-parter. Or else!! Next week's episode:...

This week, we watched one of Ryan's favorite X-Men: The Animated Series episodes, and we're delighted to discover how well it holds up. It's Halloween night and one of Wolverine's boyfriends shows up at the door: Nightcrawler! With the help of Rogue and Jubilee, Logan and Kurt have to go save Nightcrawler's mother from the Friends of Humanity. Also, it turns out Nightcrawler's mother is also Rogue...

If Mojo knew about The Mutant Ages, he would make sure we were canceled. Or he'd force us to pivot into a battle royale. Luckily, he has no idea! Unluckily, we had to watch "Longshot," a very uneven episode about the Mojoverse. Longshot crash-lands in Jubilee's car and has amnesia (of course), and then he falls in love with Wolverine all over again. Beast and Rogue have to put up with everyone's b...

Let's go back in time to season three of X-Men: The Animated Series, when Jean was way off in the universe somewhere protecting the M'Kraan Crystal. In this episode, Scott decides to quit the X-Men and go on a personal journey, revisiting the orphanage where he grew up. "No Mutant Is An Island" is definitely out of sequence, but it originally aired as part of season five, so that's when we're watc...

You know who Maddy and Ryan forgot about? Omega Red. The communist tentacle cyborg has returned to remind us that people used to spend a lot of time thinking about Soviet Union submarines armed with nuclear weapons. The prospect of nuclear war is still scary even now, but this episode isn't. Omega Red and Wolverine tie each other up in bondage, and in the background, Storm and Rogue have to do all...

Here's a first: the second half of a two-parter in X-Men: The Animated Series gets just as rave of a review from Maddy and Ryan as the first half. Thank goodness for that, because "Phalanx Covenant" tells the story of a terrifying virus sweeping over the entire planet, and if this episode was either bad or a downer, we're not sure our poor stressed hearts could take it. Luckily it's got just the r...

The season five premiere of X-Men: The Animated Series is all about a virus that takes over the planet in a terrifyingly short amount of time. Ryan and Maddy didn't plan to talk about covid-19 this week, but now we kind of have to. But don't worry! Even in the midst of a crisis, Logan is still madly in love with Sabretooth, and Beast is fed up with that bullshit and making a new alien BFF. Also, M...

This week, we watched Generation X, a made-for-TV movie about Emma Frost being amazing and also a bunch of other bullshit. This movie is obscure, and it probably should be. Maddy and Ryan brought Todd Harper back on as a guest for an hours-long breakdown of this very silly movie, complete with our Irish accents (apologies to Sean Cassidy) and tons of reminiscing about the '90s. Ahhh, what a time....

Maddy and Ryan wrap up the fourth season of X-Men: The Animated Series with this acid trip of an episode, in which Magneto finds out that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are his kids, but also the ThunderCats are there. And they're mad. And then there's a UFO? Wolverine hides behind a tree and live-tweets the whole thing for Beast and Xavier's benefit. If you think this description of the episode is...

For a Xavier-centric episode of X-Men: The Animated Series, Maddy and Ryan actually had a pretty good time with this one. We would've enjoyed it even more if we'd been high, but the animation is gorgeous even if you're not. If you're watching along with us, strap in for some Shadow King illusions and astral plane fights. Jean screams. A lot. Also, Logan keeps having "nightmares" about Sabretooth....

This episode of X-Men: The Animated Series makes no sense, to the point where most of the recap section of this episode is Maddy and Ryan just debating what literally happened in each of the scenes they have to summarize. "Secrets, Not Long Buried" features Cyclops going to a secret mutant town in the middle of the desert and getting fucked by a bunch of cowboys, but somehow, it also manages to be...