The Failure of Pryde of the X-Men: Australian Wolverine & the Prelude to a Hit Show!

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A few years ago we did a "History of X-Men: The Animated Series" video and we definitely touched on the Pryde of the X-Men pilot that failed to make it to series from a few years before but there was more to the story that we thought needed another separate video.

This is that video.

We'll cover Margaret Loesch's persistence in getting the X-Men on to TV, why (maybe) Wolverine was Australian and why, in the end, this version of animated X-Men, while influential, did not get picked up for a TV series.

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The prelude to X-Men: The Animated Series, Pryde of the X-Men was the attempt at an animated series that unfortunately was never followed up on.

It starred X-Men Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, Professor X, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Dazzler as they went up against The Brotherhood Of Mutants' Magneto, Blob, Toad, and Emma Frost.

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Will and Adam X-amine the 1989 pilot Pryde of the X-Men, which pre-dated the 1992 X-Men animated series from the same production team. Could this X-citing 80's adventure concept have mutated into a successful series? Why was Wolverine Australian? Plus, the hosts give their review of the first 2 episodes of the X-Men '97 series on Disney+.

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In 1989, Marvel Productions redirected the budget for a 13th episode of RoboCop: The Animated Series into a single X-Men animated pilot — the very first time the mutant team ever appeared on television. Narrated by Stan Lee, animated by Toei, and cancelled by corporate chaos before a single follow-up episode was ever produced, Pryde of the X-Men is one of the most influential failed pilots in superhero animation history.

This video breaks down the production history, the creative decisions (including Wolverine's Australian accent and a supporting character's unprecedented placement in Magneto's Brotherhood), the financial collapse that killed the series, and the remarkable legacy chain that runs from this orphaned pilot directly to the 1992 X-Men animated series, the Konami arcade game, and X-Men '97.