Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Wolverine and the X-Men: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

You must remember this: a mutant is still a mutant, as time(s) go by.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 7, 2010

When did Marvel assume the mantle of Comic Book King from DC? For what seemed like decades, it was a DC universe, populated by such iconic figures as Superman and Batman, with Marvel considerably back in the pack with such relative also rans as Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four. Stan Lee’s always somewhat idiosyncratic take on the comic book idiom seemed to flower more and more as the 20th century grew to a close, and the dawn of the 21st century turned out to be an epochal era for the imprint, as a handful of motion picture adaptations of various Marvel enterprises hit the big screen in the early 2000s, making Marvel the top of the heap in terms of box office revenue and general impact. While the glamour and cultural zeitgeist awards probably belong squarely to the Spider-Man franchise, for many Marvel aficionados the more consistently enjoyable series has been the X-Men outings, three films (four if you include the standalone Wolverine film) which ably captured the original comic book spirit while also (generally speaking) being wonderful thrill rides full of some very interesting characters. Aided by the acting gravitas of such heavyweights as Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, as well as fun turns by everyone from Hugh Jackman to Halle Berry, the X-Men films showed us a semi-dystopian future where mutants, all with their individual superpowers, banded together to fight both the bad guys (as personified by McKellen’s Magneto character) and a government intent on sequestering them all away in “ghettos” clearly redolent of World War II concentration camps. Of course Marvel has always maintained a hand in the television animation camp at least since the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon with that unforgettable theme song so lovably morphed into Spider-Pig by Homer Simpson in The Simpsons Movie. While last season’s Wolverine and the X-Men is probably not going to win any “classic television animation” awards, it does posit a sort of parallel universe for our mutant hero brigade that makes it at the very least an interesting companion piece to both the comic books and the film series.

Marvel Comics have never shied away from literary ambitions, and the line’s rabid fan base usually considers themselves an I.Q. point or several ahead of the general comic book reading clique. Wolverine and the X-Men takes that proclivity, subtly bending some time-honored (pun intended, as we’ll see in a moment) tropes in the Marvel canon and twisting them to make an enjoyable, if sometimes cursory, version of the X-Men mythology. This cartoon series is notable for its long form ambitions, most noticeable in the triptychs which both open and close what evidently is going to be the solitary season for this outing, at least for now. (The series is ostensibly cancelled, but as the press release accompanying this Blu-ray points out, the SD-DVD releases of the show have sold in the hundreds of thousands of units, so if this Blu-ray follows suit, we may have a Family Guy or Futurama situation on our hands).

Wolverine and the X-Men starts out with a three part episode that begins with Charles Xavier and Jean Grey, the two telepaths of the group, reacting in pain to some sort of evidently sinister force. As Wolverine rushes forward to help Charles, there’s a blinding explosion and we suddenly jump forward a year. Through a series of slowly revealed flashbacks, we discover that both Charles and Jean disappeared mysteriously in the wake of whatever hit the Xavier Mansion, leading to the disbanding of the X-Men, who have all gone their separate ways. In the intervening year, the government’s fascistic Mutant Response Division (MRD—referred to colloquially as the “Mardies”) has gone on a rampage, attempting to capture and imprison all mutants. When Wolverine is targeted after having helped to save a child trapped in the burning wreckage of an accident, that sets a chain of events in motion which reunites some of the original X-Men as well as introducing, due to a time travel conceit (hence the pun “time-honored” above), several new characters.

Despite some of the convoluted time travel issues which make up a significant part of Wolverine and the X-Men’s overall plot arc, this is probably still a show that will be easily accessible to younger kids, per the press sheet accompanying this release describing that the series is targeted to boys in the 6 to 11 age range. There’s nothing overtly hard to understand here even though the series makes no bones about jumping forward and backward in time, as well as having one major plot point hinge on a time travel conundrum. What will keep younger kids involved in the series is the banter and byplay between the characters, especially between Wolverine and Beast, who tend to come off as a sort of cartoon Odd Couple at times.

Creators and co-writers Greg Johnson and Craig Kyle, who also contribute several enjoyable if lightweight commentaries to this three disc set, are no dummies, and construct this season quite artfully. It’s no mistake that the opening trio of episodes is titled “Hindsight”, while the closing three are labeled “Foresight.” That conceit quite brilliantly sums up the time travel mirroring that gives this season its major through line. This home video release actually may help give the series a second life if only for the fact that there is so much plot here that catching one or two episodes during the show’s broadcast run probably left a lot of audience members confused and not entirely sure of what was going on. Watching the series through its 26 episodes helps to show that Johnson and Kyle have a firm grasp on the arching parallel universe plot lines, even if individual episodes sometimes go off on occasional tangents.

Anyone who has been a longtime Marvel fan will delight in the remolding of such familiar entities and plot points like Days of Future Past, The Stepford Cuckoos and, as the series wraps up, The Age of Apocalypse. This odd concatenation of almost Biblical idioms with pop cultural references is a perfect summation of what often makes the Marvel universe, and Wolverine and the X-Men, so enjoyable so much of the time. There’s the non-nutritional part of the “meal” that appeals directly to the sweet tooth, but if you delve a little deeper, you find some actual vitamin supplements stuffed into the mix.

Wolverine and the X-Men: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Wolverine and the X-Men slices and dices its way onto Blu-ray with an OK looking AVC encoded 1080p image in 1.78:1. While this release is to be commended for a full 1080p treatment, even a great transfer can't overcome the inherent shortcomings of this animation, which is often at Hanna-Barbera levels of simplicity. Midrange shots often feature faces without little details like, you know, eyes, ears and mouths. Backgrounds are often impressionistic, which is to say severely lacking in detail. Fine line detail in close-ups is quite exceptional, and there is some attention paid to getting characters developed with relatively distinctive "looks." Colors are very robust and well saturated throughout the series. But this is, after all, "kiddie fare" so don't expect anything approaching the often painterly technique that graces a lot of Marvel books nowadays.

Wolverine and the X-Men: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Considerably more impressive is Wolverine and the X-Men's bombastic and often completely immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, one that segues beautifully from a plethora of directional sound effects to excellently clear and well positioned dialogue. This series consistently surprised me with the amount of surround activity, something unusual enough for regular live action series, let alone a cartoon outing. Right off the bat in the first episode, as a series of ominous helicopters flies by and we get some excellent panning sound effects, you know you're in for a fun ride with the sound design. This series excels at LFE, filling the many action sequences with some really boisterous low end that will rattle the floorboards. But even quieter ambient effects are often very well placed in the soundfield, opening this series up sonically to a really surprising degree.

Wolverine and the X-Men: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The bulk of the extras on this three disc set consist of an astounding 29 Commentary tracks, all but three of which feature Kyle, Johnson, and producer Chris Yost. Either as a duo consisting of Kyle and Johnson, or a trio of all three, the guys chat through each and every episode of the 26, providing a wealth of background detail. The extra three commentaries are reserved for the opening trio of episodes, and feature supervising director Boyd Kirkland, as well as associate director and character designer Steve Gordon. Two other OK, if fairly standard, supplements are included on the third disc of the set, The Inner Circle: Reflections on 'Wolverine and the X-Men' (HD; 18:51), where Johnson and Kyle talk about creating a series built as a tie-in to the live action Wolverine film, and a somewhat less interesting Making of (SD; 5:15), where the same two talk about ripping Wolverine's father figure and girlfriend out of his life to create some drama. Bookmarks are also available on all three discs.

Wolverine and the X-Men: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The best thing about this series is its complex and very well thought out storyline, one which harkens back to several classic Marvel tropes while skewing everything just slightly for this particular enterprise. The animation is pretty basic looking, a definite minus for the series, but the sound design is often astoundingly effective. This is certainly great fare for young boys, and older "boys" might also find themselves more involved than they'd care to admit. Recommended.