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s10127470 · 2 months ago

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The Story of X-Men: The Next Mutation (Part 1)

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Can you guys actually believe it?

This month marks an entire year since I started my fanfic series, "X-Men: The Next Mutation"!

It's been a wild ride doing this series!

And I couldn't be more thankful for all of you who read it sticking with me through eight action-packed episodes!

You've seen the mutant teens face against an unstoppable foe from the past, a ravenous race of aliens, an animal-morphing hunter, a disgraced geneticist, a crazed religious zealot, and a fun-loving madman.

And there's certainly more to come!

So in honor of my series officially turning 1-year old, I wanted to share with you all the story of Next Mutation.

How i came up with the idea, my reasons for a lot of the choices made in this series, my ideal vision if it was an actual animated series, and even plans for the future of the series!

So sit back, grab a snack, and follow me as I take you all on a journey into the making of X-Men: The Next Mutation!

The Premise, The Team, Tone and Style:

The concept for X-Men: The Next Mutation dated all the way back to 2023.

I initially worked on the series in order to commemorate the 60th anniversary of The X-Men.

When coming up with the concept, my biggest inspiration was Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Which saw the titular heroes getting special new powers and becoming the most powerful we've seen them before.

I've always been fascinated by what that series did and I wanted to see something similar to that done with other famous fictional characters.

And among those characters were The X-Men.

And how would they become more powerful?

SECONDARY MUTATIONS!

And so, I decided to have Secondary Mutations, in stark contrast to the comics, be FAR more common among mutants.

Another aspect about this version of The X-Men was to have them in a world where mutants were far more socially accepted.

Not only because I felt that it would allow for the focus on the new powers to truly flourish, but also because let's be real, I think we're all starting to get burned out by seeing The X-Men being hated by all humanity and on the verge of extinction for the umpteenth time.

And after coming up with those aspects, I immediately came up with my roster.

This version of The X-Men would've consisted Cyclops, Jean Grey (who would be going under an actual codename: Psyche), Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Shadowcat and Lockheed, Rogue, Iceman, Beast, Gambit, Nightcrawler, Angel, Thunderbird, Sunfire, Emma Frost, Psylocke, Banshee, and Xavier.

And I had already had their Secondary Mutations in mind.

And so, with all my basics down, I realized something....

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I wasn't able to come up with any stories or episode ideas.

So I decided to scrap the project.

But with the impending release of X-Men '97, it gave me the encouragement to do my own X-Men series.

So I decided to revive the project, but with some changes.

I decided to scale down the roster, only keeping Cyclops, Psyche, Beast, Storm, Angel, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Iceman, Wolverine, Shadowcat, Lockheed and Xavier.

I wanted the starting roster to be a mix between the First Class and Giant-Sized cast.

I also decided to age down the cast as well.

They were originally gonna be around the same ages as in the comics.

But I aged them down to be teenagers and young adults instead.

And this ties into the main reason why I couldn’t think of any episodes for the original version.

The X-Men were already gonna have their Secondary Mutations from the start of the series.

And I felt that wasn't a good idea, as it would essentially make the series feel pointless.

So I figured it would be best to focus on The X-Men getting their new Mutations and seeing them gradually get use to them.

Hence why I made them so young.

As for the depictions of the X-Men themselves, there are two members I specifically want to highlight: Angel and Xavier.

Angel because in contrast to the comics, adaptations and even most fanfictions......he's a female here.

This was heavily inspired by the artist oni18064, who in his Marvel AU, had made Angel a female by the name of Wren Worthington.

I found the concept rather intriguing and I'd decided to adapt the idea into my series.

I had this idea in mind even for the original version of Next Mutation.

As for Xavier, I kinda wanted to help him out.

I've already gone on record about this, but it does bare repeating.

The comics have not been kind to this man for the last 20 years.

Constantly revealing tons of shady and terrible things he's done.

Going so far as to RETCON them during major events in The X-Men's early years!

I get that Xavier is not suppose to be perfect, but this movement of just tearing him down and revealing that he's a horrible person has become OVERKILL!

And having The X-Men (or anyone as a matter of fact) gradually wanting nothing to do with him anymore.

And they're still doing it to this day!

I swear to God.

90% of the horrible things that happened (or have happened) to The X-Men, Xavier is usually somehow involved in it.

And this has done so much damage how many people view him.

So many fans tend to view Xavier in an incredibly negative light and see him as a let's be real, the fucking Anti-Christ!

And I don't know why the comics became so obsessed with making Xavier into the true villain of this entire series!

But from what I've heard, this can largely be blamed on the original Ultimate Universe.

Where everyone was literally the worst versions of themselves.

Xavier in The Ultimate Universe was incredibly manipulative and was clearly shown to use his powers to get what he wants.

Also, he had the hots for Jean.

Apparently the reason why he's like that is because the Ultimate Universe had the basis of taking the negative traits that many of these characters briefly had and just made that their entire personality.

And Xavier did display a few moments of manipulation and having an interest in Jean in the past.

So they basically made that his entire personality.

Though I must ask why they decided to bring that over from the Ultimate Universe?

If they did that, why didn't they bring any of this as well?

(P.S.: Firestar in that panel is about 15 years old)

So for this series, I wanted to......not do that.

I wanted show while he may not be perfect, Xavier is a genuinely good person.

Along with that, I wanted to fix many of the major criticisms levied against him

In the comics, it's been shown that Xavier has used his powers to manipulate and tamper with the minds of others, specifically the original five.

Here, while not shown yet, The X-Men all joined Xavier by their own free will.

I really want his relationship with The X-Men, especially Cyclops, to feel much more genuine.

Not only being someone they can truly look up to and look to during their tough times, but also being someone that is truly their friend.

Another major complaint is that he never really helps out, using sitting on the sidelines while his band of child soldiers basically risk their lives for his goal.

So I decided to make him a more active player in The X-Men's adventures!

This aspect was heavily inspired by, of all characters, Joe Swanson from Family Guy!

Before he became a total joke, Joe was portrayed as not only a very competent cop, but also a surprisingly tough fighter, in spite of the fact he was stuck in wheelchair.

And So, I decided to have Xavier's fighting style being a mix between his psionic powers and his combat prowess.

Remember, the guy is canonically an Army veteran.

One thing to note about this version of Xavier is his ideology.

It's essentially the same as Cyclops' in the comics.

He believes that while mutants and humans can peacefully co-exist, but he knows that not all of them are willing to.

And that mutants should be allowed to have rights and defend themselves from prejudice.

One last thing to note about Xavier is his racial background.

In contrast to most other iteration, Xavier is of mixed heritage.

With his father being Caucasian, and his mother being African-American.

This was heavily inspired by lot a recent fan interpretations of the characters.

Which themselves were inspired by the popular fan casting of Giancarlo Esposito as Xavier.

So I decided to adapt that aspect into my fanfic and made Giancarlo the voice of the character.

Sidenote: I'm actually kinda surprised that none of readers have made any Breaking Bad jokes yet.....

Speaking of voices, when casting The X-Men, I already had who I wanted in mind.

And the choices I had were already recurring VAs for the characters.

Scott Porter as Cyclops, Jennifer Hale as Jean Grey, Danielle Nicolet as Storm, Liam O'Brien as Nightcrawler, Chris Cox as Colossus, and of course, Steve Blum as Wolverine.

But for the others, this where things get interesting.

For Angel, I already had Grey Griffin in mind for her.

Same goes for Dee Bradley Baker as Lockheed.

As for the other three X-Men.....

I choose Jason Marsden for Iceman, as I felt that he would make for a pretty solid new voice for the character.

Plus, he's actually voiced Iceman before!

That being in the video game, X-Men Destiny.

It was admittedly a little tough to find a voice for a younger Beast.

But in the end, I settled on Yuri Lowenthal.

The reason why is actually an Easter Egg.

One of Yuri's most famous roles is of course, Ben Tennyson.

And several times in the series, we've met future versions of Ben, going by the alias Ben 10,000.

And the in the original series, Ben 10,000 was voiced by Fred Tatasciore, who's basically been the penultimate voice for Beast since Wolverine and the X-Men.

So basically, Fred is gonna be how Beast will sound like when he gets older.

But the hardest character for me to find a voice for was Shadowcat.

Since I wanted to give her a new VA.

But it was so damn hard.

So much so that I even considered giving her one of the prior VAs like Danielle Judovits or Kath Soucie.

But in the end, I settled on Jennie Kwan, who you'll know best as Chun Li in Street Fighter 6 and Suki in Avatar: The Last Airbender.

For the team's outfits, I used the exact same ones done by TheScarletMercenary.

I wanted to give the team for this first season matching uniforms.

And essentially, these outfits are like a modernized version of the original, First Class outfits.

The only exception with this is Wolverine, who's wearing the same outfit also done by TheScarletMercenary.

Which itself is pretty much a modified version of his classic outfit.

For the tone and style of this series, I wanted it to be a callback to a lot of the teen-focused action shows a lot us grew up with.

Teen Titans, Alpha Teens on Machines, Ben 10, Totally Spies, Danny Phantom, and even X-Men Evolution.

With a lot of action, a lot of adventure, a lot of comedy, and most importantly, a lot of heart.

One thing to note is how this series isn't really as heavy with the themes like most other X-Men series.

That's because I kinda wanted to avoid that.

Sort of....

I know how important they are to the identity of the brand, but I've always kinda had the fear that The X-Men could only be used as just for allegory and commentary and.......literally nothing else.

But even then, those themes are still there, just little more low-key.

In episode 3, "The Beast Within", we get to see Beast's childhood and the struggles he faced due to his animalistic appearance.

And in episode 5, "Flight of The Thunderbird: Part 2", we find out how Edwin Martynec's experiment had turned the residents of Camp Verde into anthropomorphic animals.

Another thing to note is how you hardly see The X-Men in their uniforms.

Like, they've only been in the damn things for two episodes.

This essentially ties into the more slice-of-life approach to this series.

Given that's something we hardly see from The X-Men nowadays.

Hell, in the little downtime they get, they're always usually still in their uniforms.

It reminds you that in spite of their extraordinary powers, they're still just normal people with their own hobbies, dreams and interests.

But real talk though, this might be the X-Men fanfic version of Regular Show.

Like, we usually start off with these guys doing normal, everyday stuff and then BAM!

They suddenly find themselves thrusted into a world of insanity with whatever villain of the week they're facing.

Though they haven't reached this level yet.....

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One major aspect of this series is its world building.

Particularly when it comes to Mutations.

I already mentioned how Secondary Mutations in this world are far more common.

But I also gave the Mutations their own system.

As stated in the series, Mutations are divided into six classes.

Energy: The mutants in this class possess the ability to manipulate some form of energy.

Mental: The mutants in this class possess various psychic capabilities.

Feral: The mutants in this class have Mutations that involve the transformation into or the obtaining of physical traits of members of the animal kingdom.

Elemental: The mutants in this class possess some kind of manipulation over the forces of nature.

Molecular: The mutants in this class have the ability to manipulate and alter their own bodies in some way.

Hybrid: The mutants in this class possess a set of Mutations that don't exactly fit into one specific class.

This system, along with the Mutations having actual names, was inspired by the Quirk system from My Hero Academia.

I also wanted to fix a major issue that's been plaguing X-Men stories for a long time....

Being that they've kinda made mutants a lot less interesting.

One thing that was cool about them was that not all of them were connected to The X-Men and many of them were doing their own thing in other parts of the world.

But with everything that's happened to them, they've unfortunately been reduced to being huddled and grouped together.

So for this series, I wanted The X-Men to have allies who while mutants, are usually off doing their own thing.

Like with Thunderbird, who's based down in Arizona.

And lastly, I want to talk about what this series would be like it if was animated.

The character designs would be Jeff Matsuda, who's famous for his work in comics and animation, especially the latter!

He did the character designs for Jackie Chan Adventures.....

The Batman....

And TMNT.

And he already has experience with The X-Men thanks to their comics.

As for the animation, it would be done by Flying Bark Studios, the animation studios behind Rise of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Glitch Techs and LEGO Monkie Kid.

Like, you’re telling me you wouldn’t want a X-Men series animated like this?