So this weekend I went out with smittywing to see Wolverine, which I thought was very enjoyable in a popcorn & eyecandy sort of way (and most of the actors were very good), and also now I really, really want Cyclops fic, because he was kind of awesome. (Okay, I always want Cyclops fic, but right now I really want to know what happened after the end of the movie.) Then, after dinner, I dragged her back to my apartment to watch episodes of the '90s X-Men cartoon (I have shiny new DVDs, because I watched it as a kid and really couldn't resist now that they've finally come out). Some of our reactions:


* Wolverine starts the credits sequence in his underwear. I have nothing to say about this; it just makes me snicker.

* I am sure there is a perfectly good non-slashy reason for Magneto to open his attempt to kill Xavier with "The years have been kind to you, Charles." I just don't know what it is, exactly. (And this is after a smirky speculation about whether he'll have gotten a toupee. Bitchy Mags is hilarious.)

* For someone who can never ever touch anyone, etc etc, Rogue is really really all-around flirty (except with Wolverine, for some reason). And has a surprising amount of subtext with Storm. (E.g. on finding her unconscious: "Come on, baby, don't do this to me!") She's pretty cool, even with the over-the-top Southern accent.

* Cyclops and Wolverine are constantly bitching at each other, even when the other guy is out of the room (or in Wolverine's case has taken off to Do His Own Thing, Dammit). Oh boys. I would tell you to learn to get along, except I find the snark vastly entertaining, especially coming out of this show's particularly straitlaced Cyclops. (When your girlfriend is calling you by your codename when you're on a date, it is probably a sign of something. Never mind the time Professor Xavier tells him he ought to lighten up.)

* Gambit does not own any civilian clothes. On missions, out shopping, undercover as a tourist at a resort: a trenchcoat and pink body armor is apparently all he's got, no matter how ridiculously inappropriate. I guess he has special thief training that allows him to blend in anyway! He also has a weird tendency to disappear from the middle of scenes (more thief skills?), which may contribute to the trust issues people have with him.

* Jean has a tendency to fall dramatically into people's arms. However this is usually because she's exhausted from taking out the bad guy, so I feel it evens out a bit. (She even manages to kick ass in a pink dress, and this in a scene where she's trying to rescue her unconscious boyfriend from the black leather chick who kidnapped him for a sex slave.)

* Speaking of which, apparently Saturday morning cartoons are totally okay with the whole sex slave thing as long as you don't actually use those words. (And Callisto is pretty blunt about it, too.) Also, are we surprised that this genderswapped version of the usual trope is lifted directly from Chris Claremont? We are not. Even if Storm had to fight Callisto with lightsabers instead of knives. (No, seriously, lightsabers. No, I don't know where the Morlocks got lightsabers. Maybe George Lucas was having a sale.)

*Saturday morning cartoons are also okay with you killing off one of your characters in the first episode, provided you only discuss it in euphemisms and never show a body. (And invent a character just to be the canon fodder, natch.) It's still kind of impressive.

* The writers would like you to know that Storm is claustrophobic. Like, really, really, mentioned-in-three-out-of-four-consecutive-episodes claustrophobic. It is a big deal, okay?

* Also, any time she can deliver a line in an over-the-top fashion, she will. Even Rogue suggests she tone it down a little. Smitty thinks this is what Halle Berry watched for reference for the first movie.

* Best moment ever: the Master Mold Sentinel stands up dramatically, begins to stride out into the world, presumably to lay waste to mutantkind (and eventually to humankind as well because that is what Sentinels always do, but this is very early so one cannot strictly speaking blame the bad guys for not having worked that out yet) and then realizes that he is still plugged in. Oops.

* The mansion gets utterly trashed less than eight episodes in. I think this may be some sort of record, even for the X-Men. (Fortunately Colossus is a (adorable) construction worker in this 'verse.)

* Okay, so even allowing for it being the '90s, the Assassins' Guild of New Orleans has the worst fashion sense ever. Swishy purple capes! Fetish-gear masks! Uniformly green hair! Also one of them appears to be wielding a shovel. I think possibly it is some sort of assassination strategy wherein they show up and their targets start laughing too hard to defend themselves.