(Note: Depending on your particular interests, some of the comments in this essay may strike a nerve with you. Sorry, but these are my opinions, and I stand by them. I wouldn't have included them here if I hadn't thought long and hard about them. You've been warned.)
 
 

    X-Men: Evolution will always hold a special place in my heart.
    It seems kind of silly, saying that about a Saturday Morning cartoon show aimed at pre-teen kids. You'd think I was at least talking about my mom, or my seventh grade science teacher, or something. And although that rings true for both of those, in this case I am talking about a cartoon show.
    Let me explain.

    "Brad (that's my real name), make sure to record X-Men: Evolution! It's premiering in just a few minutes, and I have to go to soccer practice."
    "Nick. Is Beast Machines over?" (I get a bit irritable if someone interrupts me when I'm watching a favorite show.)
    "No... but it's gonna be-"
    "I'll record it... when I'm done watching Beast Machines."

    Yeah, it was rude. But back in 2000, I didn't think I'd ever be personally drawn to anything that didn't have to do with Transformers. After all, you couldn't beat giant transforming warring robots. Especially with the huge upgrade they'd gotten recently, both in the toy department, the story department, and in the really-really-cool CGI department.
    And I'd seen advertisements for this "X-Men: Evolution" show on Kids' WB. I thought it looked pretty stupid. I mean, teenage versions of popular, previously-adult characters? How lame was THAT, and how many times had it been done? I thought it was going to be like... well, what Teen Titans is.
    Still, at least the animation of Cyclops looked cool. I'd check out the first episode, at least, since I had to record it for my little brother. But after Beast Machines was over, since at that time, Transformers came on right before X-Men: Evolution did. And Fox Kids had a habit of ending its shows a little late.
    So yeah, I missed the first 30 seconds or so of the first X-Men: Evolution episode ever.
    I still feel guilty over that.
    I started watching it, with my skeptic eye checking every line of dialogue, every plot point. Hey, this actually wasn't that bad. Toad especially catches my attention. In fact, I think I'll watch it again with Nick when he comes home.
    And I did.
    The next week, the same situation happens again- Nick has to go to soccer practice, and wants me to record X-Men: Evolution for him. Only this time, I make sure to cut off Beast Machines as soon as it's over to make sure I don't miss the beginning of Evolution.
    Now, as you may recall, the second episode of X-Men: Evolution is "The X-Impulse", which introduces Kitty Pryde and Avalanche.
    The first episode was the one that caught me on the end of Evolution's bait hook, but the second episode was the one that reeled me in.
    After watching "The X-Impulse", I was hooked. I KNEW that this was destined to be a great show. The sheer emotion that they had shown between Kitty Pryde and Avalanche, the stress of becoming a Mutant, the action sequences- I had rarely before seen such maturity in not just any cartoon show, but ANY television show. Period.
    The subsequent episodes merely confirmed my hunch, and I very quickly became an X-Men: Evolution fanatic. I made SURE nothing kept me from watching it when there was a new episode on, I taped them all, archived them, and must have watched a new episode at least a dozen times before the Saturday when I decided to let the cassette cool for a while.
    And, it turned out, it was a good thing that X-Men: Evolution was such a good show, as the Transformers television shows very soon afterwards took a nosedive in quality. Don't get me wrong, the toys are still great, as are the comics, but the more recent television shows have been pretty lackluster, even downright sad at times. And I need my good TV fix.
    So, what DID attract me to X-Men: Evolution so much, especially when I initially considered it such a stupid concept?

    Most television shows have excellent quality backing a couple of the following characteristics. Some of the better ones have four or so. X-Men: Evolution has them ALL:

    - The premise. My main beef with the X-Men before Evolution came along was that the premise itself was good, but the execution wasn't "right". Let's focus on the former for now. I don't think any concept ever- not even Transformers- beats out X-Men on the premise. It's just an absolutely ingenious idea. Let's have superheroes, but let's them NOT be superheroes. They'll have superpowers, but they'll acquire them naturally. At birth. It opens up a whole new way of looking at the "classic superheroes". Do you have any idea what the IMPACT on society would be if something like that actually happened? The chaos, the uncertainty? Well, of course you do, you've obviously watched the show. But the X-Men was definitely Stan Lee's best idea. No more did you have a lone superhero who had gotten some dose of radiation and then the community around him respected him while he fought a bunch of villains who had to have equally corny backgrounds. You had this gang member, and this upper-middle-class high school kid, and this older professor, and this anarchist, all suddenly gifted with these powers. The power to do what they couldn't do before. No longer was the law an insurmountable boundary. If you wanted something bad enough, and you were a bad enough person, you took it. And the law couldn't do ANYTHING about it. But two years ago, you were just your average joe.
    - The execution. Now this, unfortunately, was where Stan Lee fell short when he created the original X-Men. He took a concept that could have been so different from your average superhero-in-tights formula, and instead just made it the same. The X-Men all wore really tight tights, all were very corny and superheroey, all had rather unrealistic proportions to the point of being almost gross, and then you threw in aliens into the mix, and different realms and gods, and even some typical "corny background experiment mishap" for the story behind a couple of the characters. It completely ruined the concept. But then Evolution came along. It took out all that corny stuff, and made the X-Men just a group of gifted people that had been recruited into a Mansion, under the guise of a school, and were trained by a Mutant Professor. They had to help a society that hated and feared them. But they weren't sure what the heck was happening to them, and when the secret eventually leaked out about Mutants, the world was even in utter chaos for a couple of days. (To go off-track for a little bit, I actually thought it was a VERY good idea that Evo actually took place during the period where Mutants were made public. The previous incarnations of the X-Men all had them already there, and society already at least somewhat used to them. They didn't show the chaos that would have been the result of such a earth-shaking discovery.) They also took out or changed a lot of the corny elements. For example, now Arcade isn't some psycho millionaire who's decided to build up a huge maze of death to run Mutants through- now he's just a computer geek.
    - The animation. With the exception of a few select scenes in a few select episodes, X-Men: Evolution has had some of the best hand-drawn animation I've ever seen on television. It was consistent, clear, and well-done. There were some times that actually made me sit up and say, "WOW". For example, that scene at the carnival near the end of the episode "Mindbender" (the first one with Mesmero) looked more like a moving oil painting than a bunch of animation cells. The shadows, the INDIVIDUAL RAINDROPS running off Cyclops' and Jean's faces... it was just incredible. And that's very rare, especially in this day-in-age, in which nearly all the cartoons are either just flash animation-like, Anime, or have Anime influences in a half-hearted attempt to capitalize on the former's popularity. And I'll be honest, I despise Anime. I despise the style, I despise the mouths not moving to the voices, I despise everything about it. And for those of you who like Anime, let me ask you something. Take the same characters, take the same story, take everything about those stories, but give them Evolution-esque animation. Wouldn't you like it BETTER then? Yes, you'd only get 13 episodes a year as opposed to 52, but whatever happened to quality over quantity? I'd rather have less of a good thing than more of a not-so-good thing. But that concept seems to have been forgotten in television recently, as you can tell when networks seem to brag about how many NEW shows they have for the season, not how many have actually STAYED on the air for more than one or two years.
    - The characters (and their development). Really, the characters in X-Men: Evolution are the most real out of any fictional series I've encountered. (Sometimes they even seem more real than people I've met on the Internet...) The ONLY characters in Evo that were stereotypes were those that had barely any part at all, like Pyro or Arcade. The rest- especially the "main six", Cyclops, Jean, Nightcrawler, Spyke, Shadowcat, and Rogue- had deeply involved characters. I mean, just from their behavior and subtle expressions, you could probably guess with a great degree of accuracy what they liked to do in their free time, what their political views were, etc. Because even though they fit into a general behavioral category, they had small differences. Their entire lives didn't revolve around one specific personality, which is entirely too rare in television these days. I mean, take Shadowcat, for example (who I think is the most well-put-together character in Evolution). On the outside, she's this shallow "valley-girl" type who likes shopping and talking on the phone. Y'know, your typical girly girl. And most shows would just stop there. But no, Evolution digs deeper. Underneath her valley girl exterior, Shadowcat is a tech-head computer geek. You can see her on her laptop enough throughout the series where it starts to become associated with her. She's taking a class in computer programming. She's also taking a class in astrophysics. In the NINTH GRADE. So she's got to be an absolute genius. It's that "realness" of the characters that makes you care about them when they get into bad situations, and it's yet another reason why Evolution is such a great series. You identify with these characters, no matter who you are. You're THERE when Spyke is betrayed by the skateboarding friends he trusts, and when he decides to isolate himself from society by siding with the Morlocks. You're THERE when Mystique abandons Scott in the desert to die. And you're THERE when Rogue pushes the Mystique statue off the cliff.  And it's GREAT.
    - The voice acting. The realness of the characters wouldn't have much of an effect on us if it didn't have good voice acting backing it up, and Evo has that. Granted, so do most non-Anime cartoon shows, but that doesn't mean it's not an essential quality. Instead of the stilted pauses and the occasional obvious "rushing to complete this sentence in the time allotted by the mouth movements", non-Anime shows allow the actors to really get into their character, to really show emotion when it's needed. The Evo actors have done an excellent job in portraying their characters, from Pietro's smug behavior to Cyclops' stern, no-nonsense tone. Some of the best voice acting, I think, was with Rogue and Nightcrawler in "Impact". That was very emotional, and the voice actors simply could not have done a better job if their lives depended on it.
    - The story arcs. Many people didn't seem to like how long it took to get to Apocalypse, but I really liked it. One major thing I liked about the story arcs in Evo was that they weren't all solved right away, like they are in many cartoon shows. Usually, you'd just jump from one arc to another to another. But in Evo, things seemed to happen at a more "true-to-life" pace. Meaning, some things would just remain a mystery for a long while without any real conclusion being reached. You thus had many different story arcs going on at the same time, but without it being confusing.
    - The maturity. X-Men: Evolution was definitely made to be viewable by kids, but it was also exceptionally mature for such a show. I especially became aware of this around the end of Season 2, when just so many things were thrown on the boiler at one time. Wanda spent about a decade of her life in a mental institution, having been abandoned by her father there. She was fed TV-tray meals through a metal opening in the door to her cell. The entire world was in a state of lockdown and martial law after the discovery of Mutants. Humans as a whole were shown to be a bunch of hypocritical morons, ESPECIALLY the popular kids. Try finding THAT on your average cartoon show, or heck, even your above-average ones.
    - The religion. This is hardly a subject you'd expect to find on a show where one of its main themes is evolution. But it's there. Even with all the ludicrous rules that Kids' WB has put on its shows- such as the fact that they're not even allowed to say the word "Christmas"- the Evo writers managed to fit some in. And as a Christian, I have to say that it's pretty refreshing. It's also one of the main reasons why "On Angel's Wings" is one of my favorite episodes from the first half of the series. Like the part where Cyclops talks to Rogue in the coffee shop about his past, his belief in a "guardian angel" for a while, and how just maybe, there was somebody looking out for them. Or the quote from the Bible that Beast gave in the same episode. Or when Shadowcat mentions to Beast in "Retreat" that Beast is "who he's meant to be". This is obviously alluding to a Divine Purpose for why Beast is the way he is, which is certainly a religious topic. The show by no means preaches to you, but it does just nudge you with religion a little, at least acknowledging that it exists and that some of the main characters actually believe in it.
    - The comedy and the drama. You won't find many kids' shows that get even ONE of these polar opposites right, much less both. But Evo nails them both on the head. Rarely is it trying to be funny when it's really not. Rarely is it trying to be emotional when it's really not. Even after watching "The Stuff of Villains" two dozen times or so, I still find it hard not to smile when I see Toad wearing Quicksilver's costume and hopping around. And when watching the end of "Impact", it's incredibly difficult not to feel at least a little saddened or shocked. Whereas in most cartoons, I find the comedy to be pretty flat (and sometimes even crude) and the drama to be dragged out and overexaggerated.
    - The sound effects and music. This is the final point, but by no means is it the least. In fact, it's actually the one that X-Men: Evolution has gotten officially recognized for. The show won an Emmmy in this category last year, and it's in the nominations again this year. That's gotta say something, especially when award shows usually don't give good cartoons the respect they deserve. There was no sound effect in Evo that was not supposed to be there, nor was there anything missing. I think there was ONE voice mistake in "The HeX Factor", where Pietro talked with Avalanche's voice, but that was a pretty short line and I'm still not entirely certain I'm right on that point, since the two of them sound so much alike when they're talking in a particular tone. (Compare that to the, on average, three or so sound mistakes that occur during the more recent Transformers episodes.) There were echoes when appropriate, background conversations, very subtle stuff. And the music, egads did it rock. I never get tired of hearing the main theme song, and even almost three-fourths of a year after first watching "X23", I'm STILL bopping (in my head) to X23's awesome theme music now and then. Sometimes I'll even hum it out loud. And that's only one of the theme songs. (Another of my favorites is the Brotherhood theme.)

So that, in a nutshell, is why I like X-Men: Evolution. In fact, that pretty much covers all the different angles you CAN look at in a cartoon, isn't it? Yet another reason why Evo is so great- it covers everything.

    I remember when I learned that Evolution was going on hiatus for a while after the first nine episodes of Season 3 aired. I remember thinking to myself, with a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, that this was the beginning of the end for Evo. I still had some definite optimistic feelings about Evo's future, but for the first time since it began I started to worry if it was going to be renewed for another season, even in spite of its popularity.
    And it was renewed, at least for Season 4. But when I saw that one nine episodes were being ordered for an entire year, then I knew for certain that Kids' WB was trying to faze Evolution out. For whatever reason, they figured the show had run its course, and felt that they had to replace this "old hat" popular show with a new one that would most likely be its inferior, but hey, it's NEW, and that's all that really seems to matter in the world of TV.
    So even though I firmly believe Evolution could have lasted to Season 5, 6, and maybe even beyond that if it had been kept on the air for a reasonable part of the year, Kids' WB took Evo off the air for nearly three-fourths of a year before putting it back on again. They aired all thirteen remaining episodes (the last four of Season 3, plus all nine of Season 4) right after the other, instead of doing something sensible like spacing them out over the year. And then after the Season was obviously over, they decided to repeat the episodes and- *gasp!*- the ratings weren't that good! Well, no duh. Of COURSE they're going to be low when you put on Evo after three-fourths of a year in hiatus and delve right into the storyline again, when most casual watchers will have moved onto something else or forgotten important storyline details, and when you air them with as little trumpeting for them as you did. So, surprise surprise, Kids' WB pulled its only excellent series not because of the viewers, but because they wanted to put something NEW! on instead and thus fazed it out over a year. So congratulations, you guys, for cutting a perfectly good show off the air when it still had plenty of gas left.
    But I suppose I should at least be grateful that Evolution got a proper ending- and what an ending it was. I have to say, the ending of the final episode was the first time I've EVER cried while watching a TV show. Beast Wars' "Code of Hero" came close, but that was the first time I actually did it. Like one of the writers said, you see these characters that you've gotten so attached to over the last few years, that you related to so much, finally leave you to go on with their "lives". The ending- with the vision towards the future- was just so incredibly well-done and emotional, and David Kaye (the voice of Professor Xavier) did such an excellent job with his speech. It was just so incredibly sad, to know that these characters would "grow up" without you seeing them do so, would continue to "live their lives" without you being there, in a sense. That their story would continue even after the series ended, although I suppose you can never really end a concept like X-Men completely. Heck, even as I type this I'm getting a little misty-eyed just recalling the ending.
    And so the Evolution series is doomed to go the way of so many other good television series. Into the land of dusty old DVDs sitting in a person's cupboard. Into the land of a few dedicated websites, but little else. And into (hopefully) a couple of children's fond memories, where when the subject will somehow come up in 2033, they'll say, "Oh yeah, I LOVED that series! Whatever happened to it?". And then two minutes later it will be forgotten again.
    But I'll never forget X-Men: Evolution. It is to become the standard by which I will judge all future television shows. THE line which they will strive to cross, but most likely never will.
    And I hope you won't forget Evo, either.