# What's up with X-Men Evolution? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 21, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583 "2003-05-21T16:13:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/221 "2003-07-02T11:49:50Z")
> [@](#): > > And in tonight’s thrill-packed exciting episode, not content to twist around all the characters in the X-Men, the authors of the show decided to screw up Captain America as well. Cap wasn’t the focus of the show. So he wasn’t important. It was neat how circled the history aorund like that. That wasn’t my favorite plot point, but I liked what they did with things. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/222 "2003-07-02T13:57:59Z")
If you take Evolution to be it’s own seperate storyline, totally offshot from the movies or the comics, I think they’re doing a good job of telling it. They’ve never claimed to be telling the “real” story of the X-Men (and the Marvel Universe, and they’d be fools to do so and set themselves up for all kinds of pain), just “their” stories that they wrote. Same characters, diffirent world. And heck, why COULDN’T Wolverine and Cap have met up in the “regular” comic timeline? Also, I personally would much rather have read that Cap was cryogenically frozed by Shield than that “block of ice” story as well. Did you notice, though, how the Professor was actually more cynical than Logan when they were discussing the intent of the Project? Most depressing line in the show: “I’ll be here when you get out.” Lgaon telling Cap he’ll still be alive when Cap is thawed. Shows how old and tired Logan probably is of living so long. (Or do I read way too much into this show?) ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/223 "2003-07-02T13:59:15Z")
Logan Logan Logan! No, I don’t need to spell check! arrgh! ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/224 "2003-07-02T14:26:27Z")
Geek Nitpick- In the official Marvel Universe continuity there have been several Caps. One _was_ cryogenically frozen by the government. Cap 1 was Steve Rogers. For a while, he was frozen in chunk of ice and floated around. Eventually, the ice chunk was found by the Avengers and thawed. But, while Rogers was frozen the government replaced him with other Caps. Most were heroes. One (I could look up the exact number he was. But, I don’t feel like it), rediscovered the lost Super Soldier Formula and used it on himself. He became the new Cap for a while. Then, a flaw in the technique he used(He injected himself with the formula but couldn’t replicate the Vita-rays also used on Rogers) drove him insane. The government froze him. Eventually, he was thawed out. He became an agent of the National Force, a Nazi organization trying to take over first the US and then the world. I missed the Evolution episode in question. But, is it possible that this is the Cap they met? ---
**Author:** ![hbrogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f14d63/32.png) [@hbrogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hbrogan)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/225 "2003-07-02T14:37:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DocCathode \* > \*\* One (I could look up the exact number he was. But, I don’t feel like it), rediscovered the lost Super Soldier Formula and used it on himself. He became the new Cap for a while. . . > > I missed the Evolution episode in question. But, is it possible that this is the Cap they met? \*\* No–they specifically mentioned Steve Rogers. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/226 "2003-07-02T14:48:56Z")
Thanks. I figured they would’ve used Steve. The other way would’ve been a good in joke though. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/227 "2003-07-02T15:10:40Z")
Plus, we kind of saw him and he was SO Steve Rogers. Plus, he was the original. There have been other Caps - one of them, Protocide, was killed when an ambitious general assigned to the Cap Project used an incomplete formula. He went berzerk when he realized they’d poisoned him but doed minutes later. AIM revived him decades later - like Cap, he was bloody hard to permanently put down. They mucked with his mind and he thought he was a great war hero and Cap murdered him out of jealousy. Eventually he got it sorted out and went his own way. I don’t think he’s done anything since. He would be an interesting guy to make a series about, but it would be hard to get it started, y’know. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/228 "2003-07-02T15:55:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by KKBattousai \* > **And OOC, what exactly did they screw up about Captain America?** Captain America, as first told in Marvel’s predecessor comics: Immediately after Steve Rogers was given the Super Soldier formula, Nazis broke into the top secret lab, destroyed all the equipment, and killed the scientist who had developed the formula before he had committed it all to paper, leaving Steve Rogers was the sole beneficiary of Operation: Rebirth. Steve, as Captain America, went on to fight the Nazis in WW2, and then fell into the Arctic Ocean and was frozen in a block of ice for 20 years until the Avengers revived him in the late 1960s. Captain America, as told by last night’s episode of _X-Men Evolution_: Despite the obvious initial success of Operation: Rebirth on Steve Rogers, the U.S. government didn’t use it on anyone else for several months or years. Then, Captain America discovered he was dying, and sabotaged all the lab equipment himself (with a little outside help from a pre-adamantium Wolverine) so that no one else would be killed by the project. Soon after, he was frozen in carbonite by a bounty hunter and sent to the palace of Nick Fury the Hutt. > [@](#): > > **And if we’re going to be complaining about the ep, how’s about Magneto pulling together some lame girder monster instead of just chucking large pieces of metal around the way he normally does.** I took that to be Magneto getting “creative.” If you’re going to be a supervillain with magnetic powers, you might as well show some panache when you use them. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/229 "2003-07-02T17:10:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Despite the obvious initial success of Operation: Rebirth on Steve Rogers, the U.S. government didn’t use it on anyone else for several months or years. Then, Captain America discovered he was dying, and sabotaged all the lab equipment himself (with a little outside help from a pre-adamantium Wolverine) so that no one else would be killed by the project. Soon after, he was frozen in carbonite by a bounty hunter and sent to the palace of Nick Fury the Hutt. Well, it took some time to make more atom bombs after the first tests. They may have been waiting on more adamantium shields. 🙂 I really like Nick Fury in X-Men Evolution. He strikes me as being one of the people who’d be able to kick some serious mutant buttocks if he so chose. ---
**Author:** ![FairyDust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@FairyDust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyDust)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/230 "2003-07-02T18:35:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DocCathode \* > \*\*Kurt has tan genitals? > > \*\* [hijack]Note to self: Add tan-colored felt to shopping list when buying materials to make my own anatomically correct Nightcrawler plush doll. 😃 [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![king\_of\_spain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7cd45c/32.png) [@king\_of\_spain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/king_of_spain)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/231 "2003-07-02T19:52:22Z")
The people behind the show have said officially that there are no other costumed superheroes currently running around in the Evolution universe. No Spider-Man, no Fantastic Four, nobody. They allowed themselves to do a Captain America story only because Cap would be confined to the past. ---
**Author:** ![Sock\_Munkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Sock\_Munkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sock_Munkey)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/232 "2003-07-03T00:48:30Z")
No Spidey??? Say it isn’t so! ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/233 "2003-07-03T03:39:39Z")
It _does_ make for a sharper contrast in the mutant/human conflict without any other superpowered types running around, though. I always wondered why people on Marvel Earth got so worked up about mutants when there were so many people around with equal or greater powers already–particularly since the origins of those powers are usually unknown to the public. ---
**Author:** ![Sealemon88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Sealemon88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sealemon88)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/234 "2003-07-03T04:06:13Z")
I actually agree with their decision, and not only because it makes the mutant/human conflict more plausable (“Filthy mutants! Oh, wait, sorry Human Torch and Thing, we thought you were someone else. Want us to clean up the trashed building for ya?”), but also because there’s no NEED for other supers, except as possible future cameos. Evolution is such an obvious departure from main Marvel continuity that it just makes sense to me to keep it as “clean” from outside character influinces as possible. This really is a good show. I am looking forward to seeing how they develop the Apokolips storyline. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/235 "2003-07-03T11:31:21Z")
_Can’t wait for the new episodes_ ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/236 "2003-07-04T01:24:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by king of spain \* > **The people behind the show have said officially that there are no other costumed superheroes currently running around in the Evolution universe. No Spider-Man, no Fantastic Four, nobody. They allowed themselves to do a Captain America story only because Cap would be confined to the past.** What’s Nick Fury, then? [Chopped liver](http://ohr.edu/ask/ask213.htm#Q3)? ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/237 "2003-07-04T06:13:54Z")
My reaction to tonight’s episode, “Shadow Dance”: Hmmm! Well, what do you know – chicks really **do** dig the fuzzy elf! (Of course, if Nightcrawler had looked like he does in the comics, Amanda might’ve had a different reaction…) ---
**Author:** ![Sock\_Munkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Sock\_Munkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sock_Munkey)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2003, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/238 "2003-07-05T01:52:27Z")
The Fantastic Four, Captain America, Iron man and Spider-man were all normal humans given powers but never really got hassled the way mutants were so it seem that the stigma in the Marvel universe is in being born different and that the created heroes are thought of as “regular guys who got lucky”. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2003, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/239 "2003-07-05T04:30:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sock Munkey \* > \*\*The Fantastic Four, Captain America, Iron man and Spider-man were all normal humans given powers but never really got hassled the way mutants were so it seem that the stigma in the Marvel universe is in being born different and that the created heroes are thought of as “regular guys who got lucky”. \*\* I agree Imagine the following as a 50’s newsreel. With a cheerful anouncer and appropriate footage running along with the copy. > [@](#): > > The same brilliant science that brought us plastics, color tv, and frozen dinners has produced these miracles of modern science! We can all sleep safer knowing that Uncle Sam’s men are working on making every soldier a super soldier! > > ``` > Tony Stark has always been there to add newer and better tools to the arsenal of liberty. But, he's outdone himself this time! I've seen everything, when I see an Iron man fly! Strap into the armor and slip the surly bonds of earth! Stark reminds us "He may be the Golden Avenger, but he'll always fight on the side of the Red, White and Blue!" > > Reed Richards has been helping the US of A for a long time now. He's taught at our best universities. He was vital our winning the space race. He's invented so many wonderful things, other scientists call him "Mister Fantastic.". But, Richards is even more fantastic these days! Classified experiments(I can't believe the government would reveal the details of how the 4 got their powers-enemies could duplicate the accident[the Red Ghost did], and it's much better PR to pretend it was deliberate and not an accident resulting from a rushed project and low budget) have given him, his fiancee, ace pilot Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm superhuman powers. Richards told the press "I've been free to study what I want, to chose the course of my own life. Every citizen of every nation should have that right." Grimm says simply "I fought in the war an' I'm ready to fight fer my country now! If anybody messes wit the US, it's clobberin' time" > > But there's more! The Big Apple is also under the protection of a friendly neighborhood Spider Man! The jolly web-swinger protects people from those who would use their scientific discoveries for evil. He's grounded the Beetle and disarmed Doctor Octopus. He even stepped in to save the life of astronaut John Jameson! > > ``` Mutants- Here, some of them are born monsters. The first most people may here of them is Magneto’s criminal Brotherhood Of Mutants. AND while the other heroes were born human, mutants never were. Scientists tell the public that mutants, Homo Superior, may be the next step in evolution. Homo Sapiens are now obsolete. Mutants will replace us. Normal humans are vestigial. They are relics. H Sapiens proper place is in museum displays next to the Neanderthal. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2003, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583/240 "2003-07-05T13:38:09Z")
**Doc** , I love that! It’s very Ultimates meets 50’s propaganda! They’d have a product tie in, and a “Neighborhood Captain America Spy-Buster Club” thing with Bucky. Of course, there have been mutants around for a while, like Apocalypse, but he’s so old people could just place his stuff under the heading of “myth”. It would be interesting to find out who locked him up though. One question: Has Apocalypse ever had mental powers? Xavier would have taken out Mesmero with no effort, so I assume the Big A was backing him up. Either that, or A gave him an upgrade. I like the idea of a “clean” world. Really adds to the “outsider” aspect of the X-Folks. The whole Lance-Kitty thing is kinda sweet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-x-men-evolution/176583.md?page=13)