{"id":30127,"date":"2019-05-13T00:04:40","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T04:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=30127"},"modified":"2019-05-12T21:42:10","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T01:42:10","slug":"remembering-1989s-pryde-of-the-x-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/13\/remembering-1989s-pryde-of-the-x-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering 1989\u2019s \u201cPryde of the X-Men\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cPryde of the X-Men\u201d (also known as \u201cX-Men: Pryde of the X-Men\u201d) is an animated pilot I mostly remember thanks to its VHS release in 1989 that my brother and I must have borrowed from my cousin a thousand times over. Despite its obscurity, however, this relic of the early Marvel Entertainment days is one of the many abandoned projects from Marvel that\u2019d inadvertently become a classic. Before 1992\u2019s \u201cX-Men: The Animated Series,\u201d there was 1989\u2019s \u201cX-Men,\u201d a series that begun development after constant guest spots from the team during \u201cSpider-Man and His Amazing Friends.\u201d Watching it years later, it\u2019s surprising just how much of the early episodes of the 1992 series were based on the \u201cPryde of the X-Men\u201d pilot.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While the 90\u2019s series focused more on Jubilee as the primary protagonist rather than Kitty Pryde, both focused on racial tensions, political corruption, and an impending mutant war. Also, Magneto became the primary antagonist against Professor Xavier\u2019s peaceful movement for mutants. Hell, there\u2019s even a very early peek at the Danger Room. Its age notwithstanding, \u201cPryde of the X-Men\u201d is still brutally excellent, hitting the ground running from its fantastic opening credits that expound on the premise of a badass team of diverse super-powered mutants at war in a human world.<\/p>\n

Narrated by co-creator, the late Stan Lee, \u201cPryde of the X-Men\u201d has a ton of information to relay in only twenty-two minutes, and writer Larry Parr does a damn good job of laying out the story for new viewers.<\/p>\n

Set in the near future, the military has somehow managed to capture Magneto, who is being transferred to a prison through a military convoy. Thanks to his resourceful Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Magneto is able to escape and wreak havoc on mankind. Meanwhile, new mutant Kitty Pryde has arrived at the Xavier School for Gifted Mutants and is shown a whole world unbeknownst to the outside. It\u2019s filled with super-powered mutants that Professor Charles Xavier is training to benefit mankind, and is teaching them to use their god like abilities responsibly.<\/p>\n

Introduced in the pilot are a who\u2019s who of X-Men including leader Cyclops, the humongous Colossus, standing in for Jean Grey is Dazzler, there\u2019s the iconic Nightcrawler, and of course, Storm, all helping Xavier to spread the word to other mutants. However, Magneto has other plans when he turns the attention of the X-Men to another mission, and unleashes the unstoppable mutant Juggernaut to demolish the mansion and attempt to murder Xavier. He is Juggernaut\u2019s half brother who Juggernaut despises with a murderous passion.<\/p>\n

The X-Men have more than their hands full, though, when the Brotherhood (consisting of Pyro, The Blob, Toad, and White Queen) plan to divert a large comet to Earth to destroy mankind. In spite of its short run time, \u201cPryde of the X-Men\u201d gets its story told with a spotlight on a lot of the great characters this universe had to offer. Colossus has a great battle of strength with Juggernaut, Dazzler has a shoot out with Pyro, and the seeds are planted for a friendship with Nightcrawler and Kitty.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this is the period where Marvel began to run in to financial troubles, thus the budget for this pilot was taken from the remaining budget from the \u201cRoboCop\u201d animated series and Marvel ended production on all properties except for \u201cMuppet Babies.\u201d This closed the second era of Marvel television animation until 1992, when Marvel would bounce back with the very successful Animated Series from Saban. Though Marvel Comics and Marvel Entertainment rebounded shortly during the nineties, their financial troubles would resurface thanks to the crash of the comic book industry in the late nineties, as well as Marvel\u2019s massive debt.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>While reaction to \u201cPryde of the X-Men\u201d is mixed I, the pilot showed immense potential. Granted, Kitty is kind of whiny, and there\u2019s not much use for Dazzler, but there was a lot of room for character development and retooling down the road. The designs for the characters, mainly based on the eighties X-Men, is a great bit of nostalgia for comic book lovers. Fans used to Wolverine from the 90\u2019s animated series might also be surprised to see Wolverine depicted with an Australian accent in the pilot, rather than the Canadian one that became signature in the 1992 animated series.<\/p>\n

Though the pilot animation was rich and exciting, and a perfect platform for an animated series, it never materialized in to an actual weekly series and began and ended with the pilot. After Marvel scrapped the show altogether, the pilot was quickly transferred to a VHS release that ironically managed to build a loyal fan base on the single episode alone. \u00a0Though, 1989\u2019s \u201cPryde of the X-Men\u201d only produced one episode, it managed to obtain immortality as a relic with great possibility, and a wonderful peek at a dynamic comic book property. \u201cPryde of the X-Men\u201d was fun, simple, and gave the group their long overdue television debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cPryde of the X-Men\u201d (also known as \u201cX-Men: Pryde of the X-Men\u201d) is an animated pilot I mostly remember thanks to its VHS release in 1989 that my brother and I must have borrowed from my cousin a thousand times over. Despite its obscurity, however, this relic of the early Marvel Entertainment days is one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,17],"tags":[58,64,71,99,349,633,701,906,976,1087,1210],"class_list":["post-30127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rot-your-brain","category-tv-tomb","tag-action","tag-adaptation","tag-adventure","tag-animation","tag-fantasy","tag-marvel","tag-mutants","tag-science-fiction","tag-stan-lee","tag-thriller","tag-x-men"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30127"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31140,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30127\/revisions\/31140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}