X-Men ’97 Character Guide

The ’90s are back in style in X-Men ’97. Marvel Animation’s revival of X-Men: The Animated Series revisits the iconic era of the 1990s and the team of mutants — Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Storm, Jubilee, Beast, Bishop, Rogue, Gambit, Morph, Nightcrawler, and Magneto — who use their uncanny gifts to protect a world that hates and fears them. The all-new episodes (premiering March 20 on Disney+) pick up where the beloved Saturday morning cartoon left off in 1997: with the X-Men facing a dangerous and unexpected new future without their leader, Professor Charles Xavier. 

That future means a new X-Men team, a new headmaster of Xavier’s School for the Gifted, a new TV-14 rating, and a new — but faithful — modernized animation style from Studio Mir (Avatar: The Legend of Korra, Young Justice, My Adventures with Superman). But one thing hasn’t changed: the X-Men’s nostalgic costumes. Lead Character Designer Amelia Vidal (Marvel Studios’ What If…?) outfitted the characters with classic looks pulling from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s era of X-Men comics, translated into the style of X-Men: TAS.

“I think they are similar in concept — the designs of the original series are closely tied to a comic book style and translated into animation,” Vidal told Marvel.com. “The use of light and shadows, proportions, and design elements that were very present in the comics of the 90’s, like strong colors, large detailed hair, and of course the iconic character costumes. I adore the X-Men costumes from the 90’s and I believe that when something is so iconic and loved by everyone, it must be preserved and protected. If we decide to change something it should be to serve the story or to make it more technically functional to the animation, but each design decision must be made consciously. Every character design starting point is the original series.”

On continuing the X-Men’s animated adventures in 2D, Vidal explained: “In 2D, the more simplified the design, the easier it would be to animate. But due to its closeness to the original show and comics origin, simplifying them too much was not an option because I wanted them to maintain the design spirit of the original. I wanted them to work well in animation as best as possible while keeping the same outfits, making them look anatomically correct with their complex hairstyle like the original show. To preserve all of that, we organized a set of good practices on how to draw anatomy and to organize the hair into a number of large masses and small hairlines inside, stressing shapes to give volume in certain ways.”

See the X-Men ’97 character designs by scrolling through the gallery below.