The designs and landscapes of the show are simple but that’s why they work, and the action scenes are very fluid and easy to follow. The costumes given to the X-men have a very timeless look to them and are more inspired by their current costumes than the black leather “Ultimate” and movie look that were popular by the time when Evolution was still on the air. But that doesn’t mean that some of the characters don’t look a little off; Logan  has a pair of outrageously large sideburns and you can see through Rogue’s white streak of hair to the eye that it’s supposed to be covering. But nitpicks aside the animation in “Wolverine and the X-men” is very well done.

While “Wolverine” may alienate the newer audiences, longtime fans that read the comics or grew up on the past two animated series should be very happy with the final product. In the opening scenes we see nods to old X-men mythos and character interactions that sound like they were pulled directly out of an X-men comic. The writing team definitely understands who the X-men are and you instantly recognize characters like Kitty Pryde and Collossus just by hearing their first lines of dialogue. Comic readers should also get a kick out of seeing some the more obscure X-men making important cameos. In the first episode you can expect to see characters like Rockslide, Boom-Boom and Dust kicking ass. It’s a very refreshing to see some characters on the small screen for the first time. I should also mention the voice acting in this series, almost every character sounds consistent with how they sounded in Evolution or TAS, Wolverine is even voiced by the Steven Blum, the same actor that portrayed him in the “X-men Legends” video games. It’s also very cool to see Collossus have a Russian accent that isn’t overly exaggerated, but Nightcrawler unfortunately sounds like eurotrash. The acting is still very good for a Saturday morning cartoon and all the actors feel comfortable in their roles.

And now for the plot of the show itself (don’t worry, I won’t spoil anything). This may be the first X-men show that doesn’t involve Prof. X telling a young X-man that a mutant is a person born with special blah blah blah blah blah Cerebro detects mutant yadda yadda humans don’t like mutants blah blah Magneto is a @#!%, no “Wolverine and the X-men” starts with a bang and we are almost instantly shoved into a dark world where not even the X-men can be protected by some really nasty villains. The show introduces a new direction that the previous series’ have avoided, jaded fans should be happy to see something different in their X-men show. The plot leaves you intrigued to see more of the series and sets up a very interesting over-arching mystery. If you’re worried that the story relies to heavy on Wolverine then I’m sorry to say this but he is clearly the main character of the story. The series could have been called “Wolverine and his Amazing Friends” and nothing would change. But I don’t really mind this choice (and trust me, I thought I would) Wolverine is clearly the most interesting of all the X-men portrayed in this show and he is the one you wan to see more of. And just because Loganreally cool). The script is sharp and the dialogue is witty, which bodes well for the rest of the series. The overall story is pretty light and standard but it’s a set up that does its job and sets up the rest of the series well. takes center stage that doesn’t mean that the other X-men get their chance to shine and do some really bad-ass things (Boom-Boom and Pyro team up to do something

In short, this new series should be a fun ride that might even be an improvement over the past two X-men cartoons if every episode is this solid. The dialogues between characters are spot on, the plot sets up interesting mysteries, the animation is clean, the action scenes are exciting and well directed, and you get cameos from mutants you never thought you would see. This series has everything that would make an X-man fan happy. The only problem: if you don’t know who the X-men are this series won’t teach you.

Grade: 4.5/5