Wolverine and the X-Men/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Adaptation Distillation - It has handled some of its characters and plots well and contains references to dozens of different stories from the comics.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation - Is Wolverine-As-Leader a reluctant leader burdened with The Chains of Commanding? Or has he been turned into a Drill Sergeant Nasty Canon Sue Hypocrite that routinely bullies subordinates (who are, of course dissenters and thus always wrong) and has abandoned integrity to his principles in a stunning display of the fact that power corrupts? Both interpretations have supporters and detractors and a respectable amount of evidence can be assembled for either interpretation. Coupled with the fact that pretty much every fan of X-Men has their own personal preferred characterization and canonical references (and the fact that Wolverine's characterizations have often been wildly varied even within the same source) and things get rather messy, rather quickly.
  • Base Breaker - Wolverine. As shown on this very page, characterization of the other X-men and his role as leader came under fire from fans, even before the series aired. After airing...well let's just say a good portion of people still aren't happy.
  • Complete Monster- Colonel Moss is easily one of the most unpleasant humans in the entire series. Causes Angel to ultimately be crippled and turn to Sinister for help. Starts imprisoning humans who are so much as going near mutants.
    • In the first episode he tortures a girl's father to get information about Wolverine-and then implies he'll do the same to the little girl. When Wolverine plugs him into the torture machine and sets it on high, it's hard to feel sorry for the Moss.
    • The Shadow King is actually even worse. He's a cruel and merciless telepathic mutant who forced a child Storm to be a thief and would berate and threaten her if she did not bring back enough stolen goods. Xavier befriended Storm and defeated the Shadow King. Though his body was destroyed fighting Xavier, his evil spirit lived on and he gained the ability to possess others and force them to do things against their will. When we first see Shadow King in the present, he has possessed a starving man in a desert. When another man comes to help this starving man, The Shadow King possesses the good Samaritan and leaves his original victim to die in the desert. Shadow King later possess Storm herself and forces her to use her Weather Manipulation powers to destroy all Africa, simply to spite her.
  • Designated Villain - It's hard to see how Wolverine and his band differ from Magneto and Quicksilver... at least until Mags crosses the Moral Event Horizon. Quicksilver however, remains all but indistinguishable from Logan and his band, given that they are both outlaws willing to stick it to the man to save their own and happy to screw with the MRD and their associated supporters. This might well be deliberate given that the X-Franchise as a whole is known for its shades of grey.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Nightcrawler, at least for the writers anyway. He gets the most focus and development (other than Logan, of course) and is one of the most competent X-men on the team.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Selene of course. And Domino too if one considers her evil.
  • Growing the Beard: Concept art shown for Season 2 implies that this would be the case. But of course it never saw the light of day.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships - Weirdly enough, Forge.
  • Les Yay (Rogue and Domino)
  • Magnificent Bastard: In the obligatory Hulk guest-star episode, Nick Fury gets Wolverine to help take Hulk down. It's later revealed that it was actually a cover for cleaning up a Super Soldier experiment gone awry. Bruce Banner and Wolverine both try to What the Hell, Hero? him for endangering innocent lives and Fury brushes them off with this:

Fury: SHIELD doesn't answer to you. You're just tools to use when I see fit.

  • Moral Event Horizon - Magneto arranging for the Sentinels to slaughter thousands of mutants on Genosha before intervening, then taking control of them for use as a vanguard in a genocidal war on baseline humans pretty much erase any sympathy for the character; even in-universe, Lorna/Polaris and Wanda/Scarlet Witch disown and banish him from Genosha for his crimes. He is actually surprised at this.
    • Mr Sinister is revealed to have crossed it when we learn his plotting leads to a future where Apocalypse rules over a dark Social Darwinist nightmare future where his survival of the fittest creed is unchecked. Before this, in series anyway, he was merely a thouroughly creepy schemer. It's hard to find even the smallest bit of sympathy for a man who knowingly ushered in hell on earth.
    • The Inner Circle - Emma believed they were still going with the original plan of destroying the Phoenix Force by depriving it of a body and releasing it into the atmosphere; the new plan involved a transplantation from one body to five in an attempt to control it as a weapon of global conquest.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The Shadow King.
  • The Scrappy: Marrow in the future segments. Completely selfish, has to have her pet Sentinel ROVER convince her to do the right thing and save the team, and FINALLY? Betrays the team after Rover's death.
  • Ships That Pass in the Night - Certain large groups of fans have become particularly fond of the pairing Forge/Toad, or "Fortimer" as it's been affectionately dubbed, to the point of it having its own LiveJournal community. Despite them never meeting or even being in the same room together at any point in the show. It just doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad - Sort of. Wolverine is the only one to appear in every episode, while more than half of the episodes focus on him anyway.
    • The writers really liked Nightcrawler, aside from Wolverine he probably got the most focus character-wise as was portrayed as being one of the smarter more competent X-Men.
    • With Deadpool confirmed to appear in the second season, you just know he's going to knock Wolverine off this spot.
  • Tear Jerker: Admit it. When Rover died it was like The Iron Giant all over again. Except the difference being that Rover was Killed Off for Real.
  • Too Good to Last - The second season has been cancelled.
  • Ugly Cute - Toad, while being with the bad guys, and being a green, slimy, annoying brat in his first appearance, tends to have a lot of adorable, slightly pathetic woobie moments. Specifically when he's curled up on the ground whimpering while everyone else is fighting Sentinels.
    • Or when he unintentionally unleashes the large kicked-puppy eyes when Quicksilver refuses to break him out of jail.
    • Nightcrawler is a blue elf with a devil tail and long hair, this was unavoidable.
  • What an Idiot! - Quite a few, but Quicksilver usually has several for every episode he's in.
    • Though as mentioned above he was pretty smart in his debut appearance
    • Also Marrow who in her first appearance scolds Professor Xavier for leaving Cerebro intact, because it would allow the Sentinels to find all hiding mutants, but several episodes later, out of misguided revenge, helps the Sentinels capture Xavier having seemingly forgotten that this would allow them to finally use Cerebro.
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