Mystique. Morph. Shapeshifters are fun in TV and movies. They’re kind of static in comics and nearly useless in print books, where there is no visual shape to shift. But in animated television they are irresistible. The X-Men character of Mystique has had an involved history in the comic books: She was everywhere, personally connected in some way to Rogue and Nightcrawler and Jean and most of the mutants who came to form our cast. In X-MEN:TAS, we used her even more. Transformations are fun, and action storytelling loves the misdirection of letting you see one character do something, then later revealing that it was someone else. Morph was different. He was new, introduced specifically to be fun and funny and loved by all, especially Wolverine, so that when he was killed in our very first story he could be grieved for by our entire X-Men team. His transformations were playful, not deceitful. Well, then after our first season, our audience spoke: bring back Morph! So back he came, now PTSD-damaged by his near-death experience. Luckily we had versatile actors to voice characters who had to take so many guises. Jennifer Dale (Mystique) and Ron Rubin (Morph) were not thought of as the “core cast,” but there were a surprising number of episodes that featured one or the other as a crucial, central character.
MYSTIQUE JENNIFER DALE
MORPH RON RUBIN
