X-Men Evolution or Batman Beyond?

I haven't seen both of those shows sense I was a kid, but I remember liking Batman Beyond more though...

BB did the impossible job of creating a character to suitably replace Bruce Wayne as Batman.

Beyond is now on Netflix streaming along with both Justice League series.

X-Men Evolution is also streaming.

Loved both shows. But damn that Batman Beyond was amazing. They actually made a Batman that wasn't Bruce Wayne and people weren't pissed about it. They've also continued some of his story in other stuff. He appeared in Justice League Unlimited when the JL were time traveling. Batman/Terry gets killed in that one but then the JL finally fixes the timeline. Then towards the end of JLU we get to know Terry McGuinnes's real origin as per Amanda Waller. Plus his costume is badass. I'm also a big fan of the intro music to the show.

I heard somewhere long ago but I can't be too sure from where that the original idea was to kill off Terry at the end of Batman Beyond to make the series kind of tragic with Bruce still being alone at the end but it was scrapped since the show was aimed at kids. Anyone else ever here about that as well?

I like X-men evolution way better. Even though I like Batman, Beyond just felt a bit too far removed for my tastes. They're both good shows though.

Beyond I think is better than Evolution, but while watching Beyond, I can never quite get away from the idea that I'm watching a less good version of Batman The Animated Series. Because DAMN that show is good.

Batman Beyond is nearly as good as the original Batman the Animated Series.

Evolution, while interesting, seemed to lose focus after the first season. A good show, but definitely not up to the Bruce Timmverse stuff.

@lotr_dan: It's Easier to just think of Beyond as a sequel to the original series. Which it is. It's not trying to replace it and/or be better than it, it's just a continuation.

I'll say it. Fuck the animated Marvel universe. It such a cluster fuck of different bad series with only 2-3 worthwhile series while the DCAU is consistent has its own cannon and the same voice actors for characters. Marvel has... jack shit in comparison.

In Beyond I really liked how Terry's new futuristic enemies scaled appropriately with the times and likewise so did Batmans gadgets. He still used cunning and intelligence to overcome challenges but wasn't just wearing spandex. Ink was one of my favorite villains.

Batman Beyond. Easily. It also had the fantastic movie.

X-Men Evolution took the "mutants are outcasts" thing, and put it in the most obvious fucking light they could've by making most of the team teenagers. Also, Mystique being their principal or whatever it was was such an asinine move. The show became more interesting as it started delving deeper into the actual X-Men fiction, dealing with Apocalypse, etc. But yeah, the teenage thing still kinda fucked it royally. Though it probably has the best Wolverine out of any of the animated X-Men shows. He wasn't as much of a total drama queen as he was in that 90's cartoon, but he was still on the outside enough as opposed to Wolverine and the X-Men. He's involved, but he's still going out on his own, on missions for Charles, etc.

I'd say if you haven't watched it, watch Wolverine and the X-Men. I feel it's a more interesting show overall, and does right by most of the characters.

Also, watch Young Justice and Spectacular Spider-Man. Those shows are fucking great.

Batman: The Animated Series.

Batman Beyond was as good as the first seasons of Justice League and far better than the Superman series. I think it was better than X-Men Evolution too which lacked some of the gravitas of the 90's X-Men show. Normally, I am all for a little levity but the characters in X-Men Evolution didn't click as well with me as in the earlier series. I did get into Batman Beyond though and enjoyed the dynamic between Terry McGinnis and Bruce Wayne. It was a relationship unlike the ones he forged with the various Robins or Jean-Paul Valley, who predates McGinnis as a someone who took on the role of The Batman in Wayne's absence. The new cast of villains were interesting; some being variations on the traditional rogues gallery and others being original creations. The world of Batman Beyond feels very cyberpunkish which I like.

Batman Beyond also had one the coolest instrumental theme songs ever.

I really enjoyed the first season of Batman Beyond, but I grew bored of the show after that. The plots felt stale and the episodic nature of the series didn't help. The movie was great though.

X-Men Evolution was the opposite, I felt it kept getting better as it went along, especially after the existence of mutants became public knowledge. The last episode was really bittersweet, with the final montage revealing what could have happened had the show gone on.

Batman Beyond gave us The Zeta Project which I was way into during it's short run, so I guess it has that. Short of that I've never liked Batman in any form so I can't say I liked it more than X-Men Evolution.

Batman Beyond was better than it should've been but then again pretty much all the DCAU stuff ends up being awesome if you give it a chance. The portrayal of old man Bruce was probably one of the best things ever done for comic book cartoons. Great villains for a futuristic setting and terrific cyber punk vibe makes it one of the definitive continuation of the incredible Bruce Timm Batman series. Obviously it can never be better than it's predecessor but you'd be hard pressed to ever make a Batman cartoon as good as The Animated Series. The only bad part was spinning off stuff like The Xeta Project into a thing while trying to tie it back to Beyond.

I enjoy aspects of X-Men Evolution like the animation and the concept of well... evolution for mutations. However I found the general tone of teeny high school soap opera very off putting and I thought a lot of the character designs looked bad. What bothers me the most is how the show spits on the foundation on which the Xavier institute was created in the comics. The whole point is that mutants can't go to normal school but lo and behold it's an entire show dedicated to the main X-cast (save Wolverine) in freaking stupid high school and even some of the villains in high school. All the while using their powers very conspicuously to the point that of course forces Xavier to mass mind wipe people. There are nuggets of cool ideas in Evolution I just thought they handle a lot of it poorly. Fortunately Wolverine and The X-Men came out later and made me believe that X-Men can still have truly great cartoons.

Still in favour of Batman of the Future (the snappy title we got here) but I'll be honest: Evolution bothered me way less than Wolverine & the X-Men.

Wouldn't The Batman be a more apt comparison to X-Men Evolution than Batman Beyond? Batman Beyond is still part of the DC Animated Universe (albeit all cyberpunk), while The Batman is a reboot/retelling that makes some pretty significant caveats with established lore, much like X-Men Evolution.

Of course, I haven't watched any of these shows in years and I'm kind of afraid to find out if they match what I remember them being, so I can't answer this question either way.

EASILY Batman Beyond. Terry McGinnis actually behaved like Batman in Beyond, yet Wolverine in Evolution was just another lame, neutered cartoon version of Wolverine. Fighting robots? CLAW TIME! Fighting anything else? Well...this can be handled with just kicks and punches. No need to actually hurt anyone, right?

Also, the "Epilogue" episode of Justice League Unlimited (an episode of JLU that actually revisited the Terry McGinnis character and pretty much gave Batman Beyond a proper finale)? Absolutely amazing.

I've gone for X-Men Evolution, I love both but I really enjoy the younger take on the established X-Men characters more than the Terry/Old Bruce dynamic.

Why is 'both' not an option if 'neither' gets to be one? Because I love them both. Equally. Like my own children who I secretly play favorites with but will never tell them for fear of damaging their young psyches.

@squirrelgod said:

Yes, but at the same time I always found Amanda Waller's plan of rewriting Warren McGinnis's sperm with Batman's rather bizarre, and the involvement of Andrea Beaumont seemed incongruous considering she of all people should resent the circumstances that led to Bruce becoming Batman rather than trying to duplicate them.

As a huge superhero fan and animation fan, I have to admit that this is a tough question to answer. They are both a part of my childhood/teenhood and they both have their pros and cons. I'll have to go with... X-Men Evolution but only by an inch or so. I like the storylines and I'm all for stories about people who are different and have to struggle with and take on discrimination.

Batman, so, so easily.

Batman for sure. Never really liked the X-men show that much when I was younger and even Justice League was a little boring to me. Batman Beyond nailed it for me though with the cyber punk setting and Terry was a pretty cool character.

In the interests of not having to make a new thread, did anyone catch the new episode of the Avengers animated series? About halfway through it and... urgh.

I only have watched X-Men Evolution as a kid, so I barely remember it but I did like it, I need to watch Batman Beyond to make a proper decision. I think DC's animated series are waaaay better than Marvel's stuff, the only Marvel series I appreciate is Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and the old Spiderman cartoons.

So, that's what that was? I haven't seen Batman Beyond, but I was watching JLU and all of the sudden that episode pops up, and I had no idea what was going on. Sure, they try to explain a bit about Terry, but it pretty much came out of the blue.

I thought Wolverine and the X-men was doing a far better thing then X-men Evolution and this is coming from a guy who watched the latter as a kid. For some reason Evolution rubbed me the wrong way mostly cause it tried to copy the feel of the original Bryan Singer movies. Except for the 2nd one, I thought the Singer films were kind of bad. Batman Beyond was just awesome cause it was part of the Bruce Timm continuity and introduced a fresh take on a classic character. It could of totally blew up in their faces, but it didn't which I got to give them props for doing.

Blegh. I hated Wolverine & the X-Men because it went out of its way to perpetuate what's wrong with most X-Men adaptations. The whole "Wolverine's in charge because he's popular" notion is bad enough, but the narrative conceit they used to justify it was ridiculous.

It's a well established concept in the Marvel Universe that you can only alter time under very specific circumstances; basically any changes you make to the timeline will result in a divergent timeline that won't be reflected when you go back to the 616. So the whole idea of Xavier being trapped in the future, feeding information back to reshuffled team, led by Wolverine because "that's the only way it'll work, I guess" just seemed like a thinly veiled way of making it appealing to people who watch the films but won't read the comics.

Granted, they had some potential to go into some interesting ideas with the AoA stuff in the second season, but that never materialised.

Unsurprisingly, I didn't like the episode of Avengers Assemble I watched earlier. Has the same stench of "we picked this roster because the movie did well", and the striving to do a gag of some sort every five seconds really doesn't help either. Also joins in on overemphasis of the Hulk; he may have been a founding member, but he quit the team after the 2nd issue and didn't rejoin again for nearly 50 years. Blegh.

Spectacular Spider-Man was an awesome series. It's a shame that it was canned after the second season, though.

That cliff hanger... Makes me glad young justice at least got to tie up loose ends. Amazing show BTW for anyone who likes these 2

I got to say batman beyond. At the time i was a teen I liked X men evolution more but as an adult batman is just so stylishly done and is genuinely tense and noir while being for kids.