Welcome to Adventure(s) Time's 130th installment, a look at animated heroes of the past. This week, we look at the manga adaptation of X-Men: The Animated Serieswhich had the heroes traveling from the New York sewers to remote Canada to the deceptive paradise of Genosha in only a few issues. And if you have any suggestions for the future, let me hear them. Just contact me on Twitter.

One interesting aspect of X-Men: The Manga (adapted by Reiji Hagihara) was the way issue numbers in no way correlated to the episode numbers of the show it was adapting. Typically, one episode of the cartoon would consume two issues of the comic, but this wasn't a hard and fast rule. And just because the episode had a specific ending point, this didn't mean the comic had to stop there. For example, issue #9 opens with the final moments of the show's fourth episode: Sabretooth's ambush of the X-Men that ends when Jubilee blasts him through a wall.

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From there, the comic jumps to "sometime later," and seven pages into the story, begins an adaptation of the show's fifth episode, "Captive Hearts," the animated debut of the Morlocks. Given the first season of X-Men: The Animated Series' tight continuity, this isn't as jarring as you might expect. The comic opens with Sabretooth injuring Wolverine, then pages later, has Jean checking in on him, as he overexerts himself during a training session. If the episodes had nothing connecting them, you'd experience the team jumping from one random encounter to the next. But because actions have consequences in this first year, and the narrative is carefully plotted out, the scenes have a nice flow.

The "Captive Hearts" adaptation, which carries through issues #9-10, translates the episode faithfully, with not much to note. We have a manga rendition of Manhattan that manipulates stock photos, and some odd dialogue choices, like this joke from Gambit that's certainly not in the episode's script....

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...(or if it was in the initial draft, it was censored long before the episode was animated.) We also have Wolverine stating he's going to take one of Cyclops' "arms as a memento" during the scene where he intimidates the Morlock impersonating a deceased Cyclops.

X-Men: The Manga #11 skips the next episode's opening sequence, which has Cyclops and Jean Grey standing in Wolverine's disheveled room, recapping the last moment of the previous episode, where they discovered him missing. #11-12 is a straightforward adaptation of "Cold Vengeance," the episode that has Wolverine traveling to the Arctic to escape his feelings, only to run into Sabretooth in the cold.

After surviving Sabretooth's initial attack, Wolverine is discovered by a group of Inuit. Later, a young man envious of Wolverine named Kiyoek inadvertently leads Sabretooth to their village. Sabretooth kidnaps the villagers and destroys their homes, but Wolverine soon defeats Sabretooth in battle and rescues his new friends.

It's the show's first character spotlight episode, utilizing Wolverine as the hero to no one's surprise. If there are any complaints about the episode, they center on the somewhat tame fights between Wolverine and Sabretooth. Their battle in the fourth episode was more intense, including even a brief flash of blood, but it feels as if the censors are tightening up on this one. The manga adaptation has some cool shadowy images of Sabretooth, and oddly, an alternate name for the tribal elder. It's Pooyetah on the show, and Bociettah in the manga.

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And there's another noticeable translation quirk: instead of calling Sabretooth a "snow demon," Kiyoek is convinced the mutant is the abominable snowman!

But what's truly memorable in this episode is when Cyclops sends Storm, Gambit and Jubilee to investigate the island-nation of Genosha, which claims to welcome mutants. They arrive at the resort, and in the episode's final scene, find themselves attacked by Sentinels and men in hi-tech gear.

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The manga adaptation doesn't include the Sentinels here, but does have a tease for how cool the Genoshan army is going to appear when rendered by actual manga artists. Most of these designs come from Jim Lee's era, heavily influenced by Appleseed's mecha-style robots and military equipment. (Recently on his podcast, Rob Liefeld asserted the Genoshan tech was penciled by Lee's assistant Karl Altstaetter.) The show's limited budget didn't truly capture the look, but it's the kind of thing you have to assume the manga adaptation can deliver.

DESIGN-Y

When and why the character models change on the show can be confusing. In one scene, both Gambit and Jubilee are shown wearing their trademark long coats when visiting the sunny Genoshan resort.

Earlier, at the airport, she's wearing a thick sweater...with shorts. And Gambit simply stays in his X-Men uniform, though in some episodes we see him in civilian outfits when interacting with the public.

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CONTINUITY NOTES

The Genosha subplot pays off the Genosha Beach Inn television advertisement briefly seen in the premiere episode "Night of the Sentinels." Though you have to wonder why it's taken Gambit weeks to hear about the place, if the resort already has a television ad campaign.

This is the first episode to establish Wolverine as Canadian, though the audience isn't given an exact location of where he's escaped to. We later learn in the episode "Beauty & the Beast" that Wolverine's scenes are set in the Baffin Island region of Canada.

Sabretooth tells Wolverine "You've lost it, pal. Ten years ago, I never could have gotten this close!" emphasizing to the audience the length of their feud. And implying Wolverine might be aging out of this hero racket, an idea Chris Claremont was toying with during the final days of his initial run on Uncanny X-Men.

The metal housings for Wolverine’s claws are drawn on his bare hands instead of his gloves throughout "Cold Vengeance." Occasionally, that mistake happens in the comics, as well. More amusing is the animation mistake that has Wolverine's hairy, bare arms colored the same banana yellow as his costume.

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OVER THE KIDDIES' HEADS

Gambit's line, "Relax, Cyclops. All work and no play make Jacques a dull boy," was possibly a reference to The Shining.

"LET THE ICE BE YOUR TOMBSTONE"

Any of these stories on their own might've made for unremarkable done-in-one episodes, but the connective tissue that binds them together is what made X-Men so unique in its early years. The Morlock adventure isn't merely an excuse for the team to fight some ugly mutants in the sewers, it's a dramatization of Storm's claustrophobia and a means for Wolverine's feelings for Jean to come to the surface. His angst over her rejection sends him back to his roots in the next episode, which naturally means another confrontation with Sabretooth.

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Although the show isn't able to present a bloody brawl between the feral adversaries, the intensity of their hatred for each other does come through. And there's also a human element, as a young man insecure in his masculinity is forced to live in the shadow of Wolverine, who's unwittingly showing him up and embarrassing him in front of his village. It's not an element of Wolverine's mystique that's often explored -- usually, we see Wolverine through the eyes of young female mutants as an unlikely father figure -- but this is a clever concept. All of the qualities that draw young men to Wolverine would also make them intensely envious in real life. He's the coolest guy in the world until you find yourself in direct competition with him.

Then, there's the Genosha subplot. Not as closely connected to the ongoing narrative, but a reminder of society's view of mutants. Mutants are persecuted and feared... but, hey, this resort is offering a mutant discount. Want to check it out and have a quick vacation? Fans of the comic know what's happening next, but it's more significant to viewers coming into this cold. The world of the X-Men still feels very new here, with unique concepts appearing in each episode, followed by some hook to keep you interested until next week. It's not hard to understand why this show developed such a following so quickly.

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