So who wrote the 76 X-MEN:TAS stories and turned them into 40-page scripts and why? Margaret Loesch ordered the series. She and Sidney Iwanter hired me to be in charge of the writing. I hired the Tennessee mafia. That’s what friends and colleagues called me and Mark and Michael Edens (and others). We had been friends since we programmed movies together at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in the mid-70s. We stood up for each other at each other’s weddings. When I, in 1985, got my first writing assignment in Hollywood (along with equally prolific and multi-talented animation writer, another UTK alumnus, John Loy), the first calls I made were to Mark and Michael, telling them that they should get ready to work. Over a thousand produced credits later, somehow we’re still friends. So when I was told to build/develop X-MEN:TAS and get the first 13 stories ready (oh, take a week if you need to), I of course turned to Mark and Michael. We all knew heroic storytelling: in college, we had bonded over Homer, Classic Westerns, and Star Trek. But we didn’t know the X-Men books. We learned fast, relying on mega-fans Will Meugniot (producer/designer), Larry Houston (producer/director), Bob Harras (Marvel editor-in-chief), and Bob Skir (writer) for canon details and wisdom. Though Mark and Michael have writing credit on 20 of the X-MEN:TAS scripts, they had a hand in far more — the majority of the series. Mark, for instance, helped lay out the first 26 stories with me and helped adapt the five-part “Phoenix Saga” from the excellent but not-TV-friendly books (see document cover below) and what was supposed to be the grand finale ( the four-part “Beyond Good and Evil”). If they hadn’t had another series to run and write (Exo-Squad), they would have done more. People in tough jobs tend to hire those they know and trust. I knew and trusted Mark and Michael Edens.
