I Don't Know If The Artist/writer Did It On Purpose, But I Like How, In The Very Brief Flashback Glimpses

It’s MORPH’n time! I am loving Morph in X-Men ‘97! Very much enjoying what JP Karliak is bringing to the role and read a really great theory about how Morph uses his new neutral/blank face to mask his trauma. In ep 3 you can see how he reverts to his old face when talking about Sinister, and then immediately changes back to the blank face. If that’s true it would be a deep and fascinating choice for the character and I love it. So here’s my take on Morph, and one last, not so secret sneak peek at the last member of the team illustration. I wonder who it could be…

X-Men '97 #2 (2024)

written by Steve Foxe art by Salva Espin & Matt Milla

A real artist would have put them in the pink leopard-print miniskirt.

My thoughts on X-Men 97 (spoilers below)

Congratulations Morph on making it into the opening credits! Congratulations to Bishop and Magneto, too, but Morph is like the little redshirt that could, they went from "killed off two episodes in" to opening credits main character. You are the Guy Fleegman of X-Men TAS Morph, even if you are a not a guy. They even did a "threatened by Sinister" montage for them.

Thank you, Gambit, for bringing back crop tops for men, you are a fashion god. And the very first scene with Gambit is him in the kitchen making beignets.

Jubilee getting to be the experienced X-Man welcoming the new kid who was saved from kidnapping is a nice call back and kind of "full circle" for her.

Fantastic sequence of them fighting Sentinels, especially Cyclops doing the whole "optic blast his way to the ground" thing. And he could have gotten one of the flyers to catch him, he just wanted to be cool.

Nice to finally see Morph and Wolverine banter when Morph isn't being set up for a tragic death or brainwashed/filled with angst. No, now Logan is the one filled with angst, because he can't deal with pregnant (with Scott's baby) Jean.

Sunspot with his little glow sticks, and Jubilee dancing at the club is adorable.

Sunspot's card that he gave to Jubilee is the most 90's thing ever, look at those graphics.

Storm. I saw that "Lifedeath I and II" was part of the episode titles for future episodes, so I knew it was coming, but damn. It was extremely well done. Having her take the hit for Magneto instead of Rogue makes sense, and is another example of TAS writers combining comics stories (Storm's power loss and trial of Magneto) really effectively.

I kind of like that, after Cyclops gets beaten down by X-Cutioner, Morph is the one who jumps in to save him. Like, despite being a sarcastic little shit and all the previous bad blood, Morph's got Scott's back.

Wolverine driving Jean to the hospital, and Rogue using her powers to absorb "baby delivery skills" was all great. "He's coming!" "Who?! Apocalypse?" "The baby!!" And then Jean just telekinetically slapping Wolverine with his jacket and jeep keys.

One Jean? Two Jean! (Red Jean....Blue Jean?)

I'm surprised we've got a Jean double already, I expected that the show would drag it out much longer before showing Maddie. I am wondering if Madelyne will have been programmed to believe that she is also Jean, and there will be confusion over the "real" Jean. I am very, very curious as to where they will go with the Madelyne Pryor story, especially since Goblin Queen will presumably show up at some point.

So......

...this is odd. It's consistent with the powers seen in Age of Apocalypse/Exiles, which is where the redesign comes from...

...but this is really not how Morph's powers worked in the old show.

And, like, it's a problem, because I really think the blast in Night of the Sentinels would not have done the kind of damage it did if Morph had this type of body in TAS.

(Animation continuity, what's that?)

It really doesn't work to just say Morph always had the Exiles base form and was just hiding it until now (which doesn't even work anyway, as we see Morph sleeping, unconscious, and flat-lined in the OG show). It needs to be a change that happened between the two shows, but that really needs to be said at some point.

I'm bringing the Morph content to tumblr. Follow if you like Morph

Were these three dumbasses watching static?

Me when people on tiktok say they are the 1. Morph fans

NO BECAUSE I WANNA KNOW WHERE THEY CAME FROM???