While fans wait for the second season of X-Men ’97, the Disney+ animated season is revealing some behind-the-scenes details on your favorite characters. Excerpts from a new art book will provide an in-depth look at Marvel Animation’s Emmy-nominated revival of X-Men: The Animated Series. Picking up where the original series left off when it aired its final episode in September 1997, this new series features returning cast members and a revamped but familiar art style. X-Men ’97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series goes on sale this week, and excerpts feature new looks at three of the show’s main characters.
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ComicBook has the exclusive preview of excerpts from X-Men ’97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series. Those excerpts feature character designs for Magneto, Beast, and Jubilee. With Professor Charles Xavier believed to be dead, he left the X-Men to his longtime friend and sometime rival, Magneto. The Master of Magnetism had an interesting character arc through the first season, going from reluctant hero to world-ending threat. Magneto gets a new look in X-Men ’97, and X-Men ’97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series gives a closer look, with some insight from the creative minds behind the animated series.
The character design sheet for Magneto shows several different iterations of the costume Magneto wore in the Uncanny X-Men #200 storyline, “The Trial of Magneto.” Artist Paolo Rivera draws four different designs, with all four highlighting the large “M” on Magneto’s chest. There’s also an outfit from Uncanny X-Men #202, as well as a redesign that gives Magneto a white beard.
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We then move on to more colored designs by Leinil Yu and the team of Steven Choi and Sylvia Filcak-Blackwolf, before Amelia Vidal and Franco Spagnolo finish things off with uncolored designs. These final designs display Magneto with different facial expressions, showing the range of the art team.
“So we do start with the iconic cover, which I love,” said Episodic Director Chase Conley about Magneto adopting the costume from Uncanny X-Men #200’s cover. “We wanted to showcase the big M on his chest, because he represents mutantkind on trial. It’s an unjust trial, but it’s just one big M, like Mutants, and then you see the U.N. behind him. [Mutantkind] is on trial in front of the entire world.”
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To wind up, we end with designs for Beast and Jubilee. Ryan Lang, Jordi Lafebre, and Steve McNiven are the artists credited with the first three designs for Beast. The blue furball is in three different poses. Next, Amelia Vidal draws Beast with a white lab coat, with Steven Choi and Vy Tran providing inked character designs with helpful notes attached, such as placing shadowed blacks where light doesn’t enter, like on Beast’s neck, while also using blacks to accentuate anatomy. We end the look at Beast with a front and back design by Steven Choi, Paul Harmon, Mark Taihei, and Sylvia Filcak-Blackwolf.
Jubilee is featured in her signature yellow rain jacket by Steve McNiven, Ryan Lang, and Jordi Lafebre. The one by Lafebre gives Jubilee a more human appearance. Amelia Vidal, Franco Spagnolo, and Vy Tran work on Jubilee’s facial expressions before Mark Taihei and Mariko Yamashin focus on Jubilee’s upper body. We end with front, side, and back perspectives by Mariko Yamashin and Sylvia Filcak-Blackwolf.
X-Men ’97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series features storyboards, character sketches, vehicle designs, new costumes, stills, animatic frames, cels, and so much more that detail every step of the process that the talented team of animators, designers, and storytellers undertook to bring viewers the further adventures of Wolverine, Storm, Bishop, Beast, Jubilee, Cyclops, and the rest of Marvel’s most famous mutants.
X-Men ’97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series goes on sale July 1st. You can purchase a copy here.
Excerpt from X-Men ’97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series (Abrams) by James Field
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