Working for nearly a year before the official premiere in January, 1993, we really didn’t know if X-MEN:TAS would survive. Animation takes a long time. Many at Marvel doubted us. You couldn’t blame them — Hollywood had never succeeded with the X-Men (see article below for a brief pre-TAS history) or really with any other Marvel property. Most in the TV business doubted us: Where were the jokes and the cuddly characters? That’s one reason it was so satisfying when the show came out, and not only did tens of millions of viewers enjoy it, critics from both the comics world and television embraced us. TV Guide gave us an “A.” In Daily Variety, the “bible of the industry,” celebrated TV critic Brian Lowry praised us. In the possibly even tougher world of comic books, we were accepted as no other adapted Marvel property had been before. Wizard Magazine published the following article, tightly sourced and focused by Andy Mangels, in an issue that celebrated 30 years of X-Men comics with the acknowledgement that we, Hollywood, had finally got it right.
