Week of Review - X-Men: Evolution's X-23

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It’s day 3 of X-Men week here on the Lido Shuffle and time to address the BEST X-Men show ever made: X-Men: Evolution.  Premiering 4 months after the smash hit that was 2000’s X-Men, X-Men: Evolution was meant to continue the adventures of everyone’s favorite mutants though with a bit of a twist.  The series borrows elements of its aesthetic from the films such as the look of Xavier’s Institute and the more uniform costumes but for the most part feels like a throwback to the ‘70s X-Men stuff rebranded for the modern era, or at least a modern late ‘90s. 

The show focused on the X-Men and Brotherhood as teenagers in high school struggling to balance their lives even as the threats they face grow greater and greater.  It’s one of the most character-driven superheroes shows there is and embodies adolescence shockingly well, comparable to Daria levels of well.  Seriously, I’d be here forever praising it so instead I’ve decided to focus specifically on the show’s most enduring creation: X-23. 

One of the major things I actually quite liked in X-Men: Evolution was that for the most part, it avoided delving too deep into Wolverine’s origins.  Sabretooth was a reoccurring antagonist and there was an early episode about the Weapon X project but for the most part, the show was more about the other characters with Wolverine as their grumpy but lovable dad.  Season 3’s episode ‘X23’ was the first major exception to this, sort of.  

See, due to the weird nature of comic book rights packaging ALL of the X-Men shows have included at least one or two references to other superheroes and their mythos.  I’m not really sure why this is the case but it definitely is- X-Men TAS tied into a whole universe of Marvel shows, Wolverine and the X-Men had a whole Logan vs. Hulk episode, and X-Men: Evolution featured Nick Fury, SHIELD, and Hydra in a few major ways.

In this continuity, the idea is that Hydra, who are just described as “spies,” scooped up the Weapon X research after the project went wrong and decided to build on their results.  After many failures, they eventually succeed in creating a completely emotionless killing machine, or at least- almost emotionless.  

This version of X-23 gets intensely angry when confronted with scenes of familial happiness- enraged by scenes of the life she’d always been denied.  It was that anger that drove her to escape Hydra and steal SHIELD files to track down her biological father, Wolverine, and seek revenge, blaming him for her miserable existence. 

I have to say, ‘X23’ is a shockingly dark episode for a kid’s show, which was admittedly par for the course with X-Men: Evolution.  They don’t try and sugarcoat X-23’s life in any way, they come right out with the fact that she’s been enslaved and emotionally abused since birth.  The scenes of her undergoing the Weapon X procedure are particularly brutal especially as we see Logan’s reaction to them.  

Speaking of, this a very different vision of the story than the one most folks probably know from Logan.  There are similarities, which I’ll get into, but this is not “Old Man Wolverine” like in that film, which frames the entire interaction very differently.  Additionally, X-23 is allowed to be more vicious here, especially when she takes out the ENTIRE X-Men. 

Seriously, X-23 infiltrating the mansion and wiping the floor with the team was a big deal at the time, just a total knockout way to introduce this cool new character.  The only one even remotely able to stand against her is Logan but even then he won’t actually fight her, only defend himself while trying to reach her.  It’s a really well done and emotional climax that almost completely wrong-foots the very idea of Wolverine. 

I’ve said before that the fantasy of Wolverine is inherently tied to anger and the rush from the power to turn your anger into action.  Here, X-23 is defined entirely by her anger, her thirst for vengeance and the fact that no one can stop her, but all of Logan’s strength comes from his vulnerability.  He’s only able to stop her in the end by empathizing and saying how he’s a victim too, admitting to being the one thing X-23 was taught to never be: vulnerable.  It’s a powerhouse ending and does a lot to underscore WHY Wolverine is so drawn to teaching kids at the X Mansion while also showing him that turning the students into great fighters shouldn’t be his only goal.  

The episode was a major success, so much so that X-23 was basically assured a place in the comics as well as a sequel episode in season 4: Target X.  This episode follows up on X-23 after she disappeared into the night at the end of her previous appearance.  It’s revealed she’d been systematically wiping out Hydra’s operation and has almost completely obliterated them.  That’s right, X-23 did what Captain America could never; incidentally, Captain America also exists in this universe because it’s amazing. 

The episode is actually kind of a major cameo fest as it also features Madame Hydra, a sporadic leader of the group when Red Skull and Baron Strucker are indisposed, Omega Red, a Russian super soldier, and Gauntlet, a no-name Z-lister Inhuman.  Omega Red also makes reference to Team X, the black ops unit Wolverine worked as part of in one of his lost memories though you probably know them better as the folks that got killed real bad in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. 

In any event, it’s another really good episode that does a lot to make X-23 more heroic without sacrificing how ruthless and impressive she is.  The plot is that Hydra kidnaps Wolverine to use as bait to draw out X-23, only for her to use their own trap against them.  Allowing herself to be captured, she escapes and completely obliterates Madame Hydra and the other high command and I mean dead.  It’s another instance where Logan is trying to be a mitigating force on X-23, counseling her that she doesn’t need to be a killer just because that’s what they made her. 

I like that role for Logan, especially given this was the show’s last season so he’d thoroughly learned how to love by now.  On the flipside though, I like that X-23 doesn’t actually take his advice: she says that the only way she’ll ever be free is if Hydra is gone and SHIELD thinks she’s dead and honestly she’s right.  Like I said, Wolverine is the fantasy of having power to back-up your anger and X-23 reclaiming her autonomy from people who literally claimed ownership of her is a great example of that. 

Honestly, looking back over these two episodes I’m kind of amazed it took Marvel so long to really get X-23 in the comics or other mediums.  ‘Target X’ came out in 2003 and X-23 in the comics wasn’t any good till 2015 and she didn’t make it into a movie till 2017.  Admittedly it can take time to cement a new character as having made it as just getting a big push is no guarantee, I mean Aztec was a member of the Justice League but now you probably don’t even know who I’m talking about. 

But it’s not as if Harley Quinn or Mr. Freeze had this difficult a time moving across mediums.  I think it’s that X-Men: Evolution was just more willing to embrace both female viewership and Wolverine as someone other than a slice and dice marketing machine, concepts Marvel is only now coming to accept.  I mean, X-Men: Evolution had a whole episode dedicated to the women mutants forming a vigilante gang that re-enacts a whole scene from The Craft verbatim, which is somehow both incredibly of the moment and ahead of its time, so it makes sense we’re only NOW catching up with it. 

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