Tomorrow, the new Marvel Studios animated program, X-Men ’97 debuts on Disney + and I expect to be watching it weekly. In order to prepare for this event, I picked out a few of the original series from X-Men: The Animated Series to watch over the last few days.

I watched a few of the episodes: Season one episodes- “Days of Future Past: Part One and Two“, “The Final Decision” ; Season two episode “Mojovision“; Season three episode “Longshot“; and Season three episodes “Old Soldiers“, “Hidden Agendas” and “Graduation Day.“

Graduation Day was the final episode of the series run and it is the one that the first episode of X-Men ’97 is supposed to follow directly after. That is why it was a vital episode to watch. It dealt with the near death of Charles Xavier and how Magneto and the X-Men tried to work together to call on Lilandra of the Shi-ar Empire to help save Xavier. Xavier was taken away in the Shi-Ar spaceship to keep him alive.

The animated series was never great in animation, but much of the storytelling was solid. Specifically, the stories based after the comics. The Phoenix Saga was considerably better in this animated form than it has ever been in a couple of attempts to adapt it into live action.

With the iconic opening theme, X-Men: The Animated Series introduced the concept of mutants to countless young children who have now grown up to be excited about the new series on Disney +. With the X-Men now being used in the Marvel Studios, their arrival in the MCU is right around the corner.