Snikt snikt, motherf*ckers; the X-Men team is bound to ride again! I ain’t talking about Marvel’s recasting and eventual live-action reboot, either. Nah, this time, we’re getting another cartoon.
Also, I don’t mean that to be derogatory at all, since this new show is going to come from the original creators of X-Men: The Animated Series, one of the best superhero Saturday morning cartoons known to modern man (or mutant, for that matter). Through their aptly-named X-Men: TAS joint Twitter account, series writers and developers Julia and Eric Lewald announced yesterday in very uncertain terms that something big was on the horizon for both themselves and fans of their work.
Just check out the excitedly cryptic Tweet for yourself:
No, it's not a new season of #XMenTAS, but – b/c of NDA – we can only say that after many months of crunch work we turned in a 'thing' yesterday and have already received 'things' back – let's just say that we're very excited, and hope you will be, too! #PreviouslyonXMen #NewYear pic.twitter.com/YGXm7J0OhR
— XMenTAS (@xmentas) December 6, 2019
It’s been a minute since X-Men: TAS has been on the air, as the show ended in 1997 after a five-year run. It received tons of praise for somehow managing to boil down storylines from the comics into a slightly more kid-friendly version while not losing sight of what made the X-Men the X-Men, if you follow me, and many remember it fondly from that golden era of 90s TV. This, and the Spider-Man cartoon that aired alongside it, made up a bulk of my Saturday mornings at Grandma’s. Seriously.
I guess we can thank Disney Plus adding X-Men: TAS to its lineup for the reignited interest in the show. Granted, the tweet also says they’ve been working on this new series for months, so who knows? In any case, I’m assuming the “thing” they turned in was a pilot, since they’ve said before that their fabled season six is never happening. The “things” they got back, meanwhile, are presumably notes, and assumedly positive ones if the duo is confident enough to post such a succulent tweet for us to munch on.
So, let us pick up a big brewski like Wolverine there and toast to the success of the original X-Men: The Animated Series and hope that this new show is somehow even better, whatever it ends up turning out to be.