The new animated Marvel series X-Men 97′ is the long-awaited follow-up to the popular 1990’s X-Men: The Animated Series which initially aired from 1992 – 1997 and became the first show in the Marvel Animated Universe. While many were skeptical leading up to the premier, the show has so far given viewers plenty of fan service.
One interesting homage was revealed for the series’ fourth episode titled “Motendo; Lifedeath, Pt. 1“. The scene depicts Jubilee and series newcomer Roberto De Costa aka Sunspot. The two are seen teleported into a video game titled “X-Men: The Rise of Jubilee” on a giant monitor in front of a large audience.
The two are loaded into a stage that resembles the Days of Future Past storyline, and Jubilee then takes action to battle some sentinels. The screen then bans back to show a classic arcade beat ’em up sprite style of the action with the crowd cheering.
For those who aren’t aware, this scene references the infamous 1992 X-Men arcade game. The game was developed and published by Konami and allowed players to take control of Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Dazzler as they take on Magneto and his followers including Pyro, Mystique, Blob, Weindigo, Jeggernaut, Nimrod and Emma Frost.
The overall design for the game was not based on the 1992 animated series but instead the 1989 pilot Pryde of the X-Men, due to this, many of the characters from the more well-known cartoon such as Gambit, Rogue, Jubilee, and Beast to not play a part in it.
Perhaps the most well-known thing about this game was the limited released 6-player cabinet that featured two monitors paired together to provide an extra-large playing field allowing all six playable characters to be on screen at the same time.
The game was briefly available on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 from 2010 – 2013. It was even released in a limited edition cabinet from Arcade1Up (only the four-player version was included) alongside Captain America and the Avengers and Avengers in Galactic Storm. Sadly, due to licensing, the game is still unavailable on home consoles.
Are you glad that X-Men 97′ referenced such a classic part of X-Men history? Are you looking forward to the latest episode of the show? Let us know.
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