'X-Men' And 'Spider-Man' Cartoons From The 1990s Are Available On Disney+
Disney+ is currently available in the Netherlands as part of a sneak preview of the company's new streaming service, and some of those early subscribers noticed that both X-Men: The Animated Series and Spider-Man: The Animated Series are available to stream. Their inclusion in the Disney+ library is news to us, but as someone who spent a considerable portion of my childhood watching these shows, I'm psyched to see them so easily available again.
When users realized the early preview of Disney+ was up and running, a Reddit user shared the following screenshot that sent a shockwave of nostalgia straight to my core: X-Men, which aired from around 1993-1997, is back. Fellow users in the comments pointed out that other animated shows in the franchise, like X-Men: Evolution or Wolverine and the X-Men, are currently not available, nor are Fox's live-action X-Men films (yet).
However, several Spider-Man cartoons are reportedly available, including Spider-Man (1981), Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends (1981), Spider-Man Unlimited (1999), Ultimate Spider-Man (2012), Spider-Man (2017), and Spider-Man Shorts (2017). Thankfully, the cream of the crop is also accessible: Spider-Man: The Animated Series, the 1994 series that I devoured as a kid and whose wild, ambitious later-season storylines introduced me to several other key characters in the Marvel roster.
The one-two-three punch of those primary Batman, X-Men, and Spider-Man animated series molded my early love for those characters and provided an excellent entry point for young audiences who didn't have easy access to the comics. It helped that these shows didn't talk down to kids and often involved serious dramatic storylines which touched on ideas like death. I still remember Wolverine's pained reaction to losing his pal Morph in the two-parter pilot of X-Men: The Animated Series, and I haven't rewatched that since the early '90s. And I can't talk about X-Men without dropping in that absolutely killer opening title sequence:
Since Disney+ has yet to officially announce everything that will be available to stream on Day One in the United States, we can't say with 100% certainty that X-Men and Spider-Man will be available stateside. International rights deals could mean that some shows are only available in certain countries. But our fingers are crossed that U.S. audiences will be able to revisit these animated classics when Disney+ launches in the U.S. on November 12, 2019.