It’s been more than a year since Marvel Animation revived X-Men: The Animated Series in all of its splashy operatic 2D glory. X-Men ’97 was a triumph, not just in the Marvel canon but in an entire year of TV. As the producers and artists behind the series explain in the new book X-Men ’97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series, translating the ’90s Fox show for new and audience alike was a delicate process. To do it right, they needed legit fans — but also artists who would know when to make changes that would empower the storytelling. A rarity in the series revival business, the crew took a character-first approach to nostalgia.
Ahead of the book’s July 1 release, Polygon has obtained an exclusive excerpt, along with some behind-the-scenes imagery from the making of the series. As we wait patiently for X-Men ’97 season 2 — not easy! — here’s author James Field’s deeper dive into what worked so well in season 1.
“I was lucky. I got a phone call from [VP of Marvel Animation] Dana Vasquez-Eberhardt asking if I wanted to do a pitch for an X-Men animated series,” began X-Men ’97’s Supervising Producer/Director Jake Castorena. “They gave me two weeks to come up with the pitch—I had COVID for about a week and a half of it, and then I did a storyboard pitch, and the rest was history. They liked my interpretation, what X-Men ’97 means to me, how it would become relevant—fresh but familiar in this day and age.”
For Castorena, whose credits span a multitude of comic book adaptations, his passion for the X-Men began in childhood with X-Men: The Animated Series and Konami’s X-Men arcade game, which fueled his love of both Storm and Wolverine. Castorena’s passion for the characters went beyond what he saw on-screen, as he recalled, “When the series ended in ’97, I was already fifteen years old. . . . At that time, I didn’t have too many friends. There was lots of drawing, cartoons, and comics. I wasn’t the most popular kid on the block, and I was called nerdy or childish, but I couldn’t care less. The X-Men helped me a lot through those times, not being ashamed of being a weirdo and feeling proud of being different.” He continued, “I felt the comics never underestimated the reader, and that was faithfully translated into the animated series.”
Maintaining the look and feel of X-Men: The Animated Series was paramount to ensuring that X-Men ’97 would be seen as an organic continuation of the show beloved by fans. “The original pitch was about reviving the series, not about rebooting it and not about remaking it,” said Marvel Studios’ Head of Television, Streaming, and Animation Brad Winderbaum. “One of the reasons was that there are so many stories in the X-Men comics that you could continue telling in that X-Men: The Animated Series style. But the bigger question is: Why go back to a style that seems antiquated or old-fashioned instead of creating some big CG extravaganza on-screen? The real reason is because I love that aesthetic; I love the way that show looks.”
Castorena added, “We are a revival. There’s already a sandbox that we are fortunately beholden to. . . . It’s a combination of what we learned so far in animation—the recognizable nineties style of the show, making it producible in this day and age and designing to where we can keep the quality.”
The nineties were an important time for the X-Men, not only debuting the animated series but also notable for some of the characters’ most famous comic book stories and most memorable costumes. “When you look at the comics and you look historically at the X-Men, that late nineties period is one of the most iconic periods of the comics,” said Winderbaum. “It gives us unique parameters to play within that aren’t going to be too influenced by what’s come before in live action, and it won’t step on the toes of any plans in the future. It puts it in a fond time and place that is both visually incredible and nostalgic.”
Castorena would work in tandem with the Marvel Studios team to create a Venn diagram of sorts to ensure that they were bringing on the right artists to bring their vision of X-Men ’97 to life. “We needed people who are really good at their job and people who are fans of X-Men—those are the two biggest caveats that we needed for trying to get people on board the show,” he recalled. “First and foremost, we needed fans. The responsibility we have in making the show, telling it right, and doing the characters justice is not lost on our showrunner. It is not lost on Marvel. . . . The less education we have to do with people about the IP [allows us to] expand on the love they have for it and makes the overall process of playing in this sandbox more effective.”
The team would bring on Ryan Meinerding, Marvel Studios’ Head of Visual Development, to begin designing the new looks for the X-Men characters, updating and adjusting the models for a thirty-year-old show. A self-professed comic book nerd, Meinerding fit Castorena’s criteria: he grew up with the show and the comics that inspired it. His love for the characters and medium eventually led to a career in Marvel Cinematic Universe character design, beginning with 2008’s Iron Man. “I’m brought on to do early, early designs to get people excited about things—sides, key frames. In this case, it was a full lineup of the cast they were excited about,” Meinerding recalled. He would need to find a balance, to capture what fans loved about the characters’ appearances in X-Men: The Animated Series but ensure they captivated a new audience, too.
Image: Abrams/Marvel
Unlike many shows of the time, and arguably even in 2024, X-Men: The Animated Series was unusual in that it had a large roster of lead characters, so it was important to Meinerding and the team to ensure that each character’s pose, posture, and costume could, in his words, “communicate the contrasts that they have. A lot of the designs from that era, from the nineties cartoon, are wonderfully iconic. Some of them are a little too complicated—the hair on Wolverine’s arms, different anatomical cues—they were trying to accomplish something so realistic and grounded with the character designs that they couldn’t quite carry out in the animation,” continued Meinerding. “So [we looked] at some of those things and stripped them back to an even simpler approach. . . . The comics will have done certain things that the animated series referenced, but [X-Men: The Animated Series] also created its own iconic things, like the idea of Magneto’s eyes being completely in shadow. You can see them in there, but his eyes are framed by black shadow. It’s one of those things that shouldn’t work, but because it worked in the nineties cartoon, it’s an idiosyncrasy that has a tremendous amount of nostalgic value for people, and those were some of the things we were trying to capture.”
After Meinerding’s initial pass at the revitalized X-Men team lineup, he was tasked with identifying artists to create versions of character designs. Amelia Vidal had been one of the Lead Character Designers on the first two seasons of What If…? and had been brought onto that project based on the strength of her prospective X-Men designs, which had been posted on social media. Growing up, Vidal’s parents (both artists) had an extensive comic book collection that she enjoyed reading and, along with X-Men: The Animated Series, the books proved to be the perfect introduction to the Marvel universe.
“We wanted to maintain the essence of the original series, so when viewers watch the new show, they would get into this new story as seamlessly as possible. It was essential for me to maintain the elements that make the characters iconic and that the changes done are only to reinforce and enhance the original concept of the characters,” began Vidal. “Also, we had to [undertake] some work on the technical side of the characters, making them more functional for the current animation process, but always serving the story and requirements according to the personality of each one of the characters.”
Excerpt from X-Men ’97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series (Abrams) by James Field © 2025 MARVEL
