Wolverine and the X-Men
Season 1, Episode 10, "Greetings from Genosha," 2009
Matt Says:
Bet you thought I'd go for another Cyclops-centric episode, huh? Nope, for Wolverine and the X-Men I went with an episode about my second favorite X-Man, Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler is as criminally miswritten as Cyclops in so many modern stories, but this animated series got him pitch perfect: swashbuckling, fun, but still with a sort of inner sadness from being treated as an outsider because of his looks.
But this episode, where he arrives on Magneto's mutant haven of Genosha, sees Kurt in a place where he doesn't have to hide or get sidelong glances from everyone he passes. He gets a tour guide in Scarlet Witch, and gets to go to a concert with her. But when things look to good to be true, they probably are, and Kurt finds the underbelly of Magneto's order, and what's great about Kurt is he doesn't think twice: he does what's right immediately, even though it means he has to give up his burgeoning romance with Wanda and the place where he finally fits in. That nobility is one of the many reasons Nightcrawler is such a great character.
One of the best things about Wolverine and the X-Men was the vast well of characters that the series drew from. X-Men stuck to '90s characters mostly, and X-Men: Evolution didn't stray too far from its core cast. This episode, set on Genosha, allows the animators and team to go wild with mutants. Dazzler appears in her original '70s costume.'90s Acolytes Senyaka, Scanner, and Mellancamp appear. Sauron is shown in Magneto's prison. And '00s characters Mercury, Pixie, Squid Boy, and Dust (a phenomenal character animated beautifully here) all have speaking parts. And sharp-eyed viewers even get to see Wolfsbane run across screen. It's an X-Men Easter egg hunt of epic proportions.
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