X-Men: The Animated Series‘ original team roster would have made X-Men ’97 a very different Marvel show. Twenty-seven years after the original show was canceled, X-Men ’97 modernizes X-Men: The Animated Series while respecting every character and event it established. In fact, X-Men ’97 builds upon the original series’ overarching storyline with many of its main villains, heroes, and cameo characters coming back in bigger roles, and even X-Men ’97‘s updated opening intro tying into the plot of each episode.
X-Men ’97 gives each member of the titular team a visual overhaul, but it also dives deeper into their individual arcs. Cyclops and Jean Grey face relationship challenges with the reveal that Madelyne Pryor has been impersonating Jean for a while. Magneto attempts to replace Professor X as a genuinely heroic leader figure for the X-Men and all mutantkind. Storm overcomes her insecurities after losing her mutant powers. Rogue accepts her true feelings for Gambit after he sacrifices himself. Curiously, however, the latter wouldn’t have been possible had X-Men: The Animated Series moved forward with its original roster.
At Calgary Expo 2024, X-Men: The Animated Series producer and director Larry Houston (via Agents of Fandom) stated that in early drafts of the show, “The original team had Colossus and Shadowcat, but Marvel asked us to swap them for Rogue and this new character named Gambit.” Piotr Rasputin a.k.a. Colossus appeared in X-Men: The Animated Series season 1 episode 6, “The Unstoppable Juggernaut” and in season 2 episode 4, “Red Dawn”, as well as in the form of a Morph transformation in X-Men ’97 episode 2, “Mutant Liberation Begins”. On the other hand, Kitty Pryde a.k.a. Shadowcat never appeared in either animated show.
Three years before X-Men: The Animated Series premiered, Marvel had made an earlier attempt to translate the X-Men to animation in Pryde of the X-Men. The Pryde of the X-Men pilot introduced a team composed of Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Dazzler, Colossus, and Kitty Pryde, who was set to prove her worth as the youngest X-Men member throughout the show. After Pryde of the X-Men‘s lukewarm response, Kitty Pryde was omitted from X-Men: The Animated Series altogether, only returning to the animated medium during 2000’s X-Men: Evolution.
Rogue and Gambit aren’t just two of the members of X-Men: The Animated Series‘ titular team. The on-and-off couple are an important part of the show’s emotional core. What makes Rogue and Gambit’s relationship so compelling is their eccentric personalities. Rogue is sweet but playful, while Gambit is brash yet courteous. Rogue and Gambit are also linked by their mutant abilities: both of them destroy everything they touch, though Gambit has more control over this power than Rogue.
Colossus and Shadowcat could have been strong additions to X-Men: The Animated Series, but they would have lacked Rogue and Gambit’s exciting dynamics. While Kitty Pryde and Colossus have a romantic relationship of their own, theirs isn’t as hectic. Colossus is a stoic warrior with a much more uniform mood than Gambit. If X-Men: The Animated Series had included Kitty Pryde, she likely wouldn’t have had enough time to spend with Colossus as she went on her comic-inspired adventures with Nightcrawler in the X-Calibur team.
Rogue and Gambit’s absence in X-Men: The Animated Series would have affected X-Men ’97 even more. X-Men ’97 balances multiple parallel storylines, one of which is Rogue’s refusal to stay in a relationship with Gambit due to her feelings for Magneto, and her subsequent regret once Gambit dies during the Sentinels’ attack on Genosha in X-Men ’97 episode 5. Gambit becomes the face of the Genosha tragedy due to his heroic sacrifice, and Rogue goes on a quest for revenge that leads her and the rest of the X-Men to find out the real identity of X-Men ’97‘s main villain.
No other heroes would have fit into X-Men ’97‘s story as easily as Rogue and Gambit. Cyclops and Jean Grey’s story is complex enough as it is with Madelyn Pryor and Cable already thrown in the mix. Colossus and Shadowcat’s relationship wouldn’t have been strong enough to cause the same emotional response to the Genosha tragedy. Had X-Men ’97 filled Gambit and Rogue’s roles with other heroes like Wolverine, Beast, or Magneto, the show would have come off as repetitive, as these mutants have been at the center of X-Men-related events far more often than Rogue and Gambit.
Source: Agents of Fandom / X