So, before X-Men: The Animated Series in 1992, there was Pryde of the X-Men (or X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men). This animated pilot in 1989 was Marvel's first serious attempt to bring the X-Men to television, and while it didn't launch a series, it left behind a fascinating legacy.
Apparently, this was made using leftover budget from RoboCop: The Animated Series.
Narrated by the late-great Stan Lee, it featured Kitty Pryde (aka Shadowcat) as the audience POV-character (in X-Men: The Animated Series, it'd be Jubilee), joining the X-Men just as Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutant Terrorists threaten Earth.
The team lineup included Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Wolverine (complete with a wild Australian accent), Dazzler, and Professor X. This lineup did reflect the X-Men of the '80s. Whereas X-Men: The Animated Series reflected the IP in the '90s, with Jim Lee's character designs as the basis for that series.
The action sequences and character models were strong for their time in this pilot.
One thing this pilot did was directly inspire the legendary 1992 Konami arcade game X-Men, which used the same character designs and voice styles. And of course, that wonderful crazy line, "Welcome to die!"
What If?
Pryde of the X-Men was one of those fascinating inflection points where a single production choice rippled across decades of character prominence, merchandising, and fan identification. This pilot ended up remaining a great "what if" in terms of how things would have shaken out with the X-Men IP going into the '90s.
Kitty could have become the face of mutant adolescence, and Dazzler's multimedia marketing legacy never ended up fading.
Kitty Pryde was poised to be the POV character for a generation. She was smart, relatable, and already beloved in the comics. Had the pilot gone to series, Kitty might've been the face of '90s X-Men animation, not Jubilee. Kitty's Jewish identity, her cerebral approach to heroism, her support power vs. Jubilee's pop culture references, flashy Asian American personality, and explosive offensive powers to match.
Dazzler was created as a multimedia experiment, a disco-pop mutant designed to cross over into music and film. She was designed to be an aspirational pop-icon mutant, blending fame and heroism. With her and Longshot getting all the coverage instead (the luck-powered rebel from Mojoworld), they could've created a glam-punk romance that instead of Rogue and Gambit's Southern romance. Dazzler and Longshot would have explored fame and authenticity, trying to remain themselves despite being made spectacles at times. They were perfect for the MTV generation.
What ended up happening, of course, was X-Men: The Animated Series reconfigured the lineup based on '90s toy viability, Fox Kids demographics, and the rise of Wolverine as a merchandising juggernaut as we know him today (he was also given a much more proper Canadian accent).
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