How To Watch Every X-Men Animated TV Show In Order
X-Men ‘97 Season 2 is on the way and continues the tradition of bringing the X-Men to life on the small screen through animation. While this series is easily one of the most mature, it’s also the fifth in a decades-long history of great cartoons.
What started with a one-off pilot titled “Pryde of the X-Men” has since exploded into one of Marvel’s longest-running animated franchises. Some shows have leaned into more anime influences while others completely reinvigorated the lore and offered something new. Below is a list of every X-Men animated show in order, and while most can be found on Disney+, one will be much harder to find.
X-Men: The Animated Series (1992-1997) started the trend of bringing Marvel’s merry mutants to the small screen, and to this day it’s still beloved. Each episode explored a comic book arc in a tight 20 minutes with the Jim Lee-inspired ‘90s team and it was the first time a children’s animated show was taken more seriously than a show designed to sell toys.
Characters like Wolverine and Cyclops are still fondly remembered today, and it’s hard for any fan of the X-Men to not hum the iconic theme song some 30 years later. X-Men: The Animated Series remains the oldest but also the best Marvel animated series out there and is available on Disney+.
X-Men: Evolution (2000-2003) came hot off the heels of the first live-action film, and it was a far cry from what was on the big screen or the show that came before it. Rather than have a team that’s all the same age, this was a story about Wolverine and Storm acting as teachers to a younger class made up of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, and others.
X-Men: Evolution is a great way to get new fans onboard as it’s not bogged down by lore and doesn’t look nearly as dated as the past series. Both are great, and both ran for multiple seasons, but it’s not hard to see what makes this show stand out, especially when it’s also easy to watch on Disney+.
One of the more tragic entries on this list, Wolverine and the X-Men (2009) was a fun in media res story. After the mansion is destroyed in a then-unknown attack, Wolverine must become the leader and recruit past members of his team. Though this time he has to contend with being in a role he never wanted while trying to stop a threat he and the team don’t fully understand.
Unfortunately, the series was canceled after one season, and we never got to see the main storyline reach a fitting conclusion. Nevertheless, Wolverine and the X-Men is an easy watch on Disney+, and it digs more deeper into the lore of X-Men than anyone would ever suspect.
The Marvel Anime initiative took key Marvel properties and reimagined them for a Japanese audience, with one of the biggest being Marvel Anime: X-Men (2011). The series sees Professor X reunite the X-Men to head to Japan, where they face new enemies and meet a new ally in Armor.
The series has incredible animation, and while it only lasted for 12 episodes, it was one of the highlights of the Marvel Anime project. Unfortunately, Marvel Anime: X-Men is also the hardest X-Men show to find and can really only be watched if you bought the DVD.
The latest outing for the X-Men in animation, X-Men ‘97 (2024) is a sequel series to the ‘90s show that brought back most of the original cast and picks up almost exactly where the original show left off. The series does take a more mature angle for its audience that allows the characters to tackle deeper themes like grief in ways that feel real.
A Disney+ exclusive, X-Men ‘97 doesn’t pull its punches and is a worthy successor to what came before. Even if you didn’t watch the entirety of X-Men: The Animated Series, you can still enjoy this show simply because of how well made it is. A blast from the past that shoots to the future, you’d be doing yourself a disservice not watching X-Men ‘97.
