There aren't many that have ever even heard of the X-men animated series before the 1992 iteration. As awesome as that series was, there was, indeed, another series right before it. It all began with, surprisingly enough, Robocop the animated series. They gave that series 12 episodes and the reason it didn't have the full 13 is because the final episode's funding was transfered over to what is now known as Pryde of the X-men. This series failed to take root, mostly because it wasn't all that great. The voice acting was a little off, especially with Wolverine's weird Australian accent and Magneto's cliche ridden villain voice. There was a lot wrong with this pilot episode, but it also grew a cult following because of everything it did right.
We get a fairly decent, albeit long, introduction to each of the X-men. The roster is actually different from the one in 1992, but not really in a good way. Yes, Rogue was one of the greatest characters, but the exclusion of Colossus and Dazzler is a bit of a downer. I like Nightcrawler too and he was barely in the 92 series. Aside from that, we still get Wolverine and Storm, so even with his weird voice, he's still the character we know and love.
The movie is based around Shadow Cat, who has a very annoying baby voice of Kath Soucie. They call her Kitty Pryde (hence the title) and honestly, she should have been the character they did rather than Jubilee. Her powers aren't exactly comparable or quite as useful in combat, but that gave her a bit more charm than what we ended up with. Professor X still remains basically the same, though his 92 voice is far better without sounding like Charlie from Charlie's Angels. He also gets an upgrade from his normal looking wheel chair.
The animation is actually far better than what we normally get from old 80's cartoons of the time. They actually stepped up their game, probably because it was the pilot and/or finale of Robocop amount of effort. What could have come from the series may have been a massive downgrade, but I guess we'll never know. The best thing you can say about this show is that it is better than the average animated series. The real problem is that the story/plot is extremely basic and seemed to want to cram anything and everything in its runtime.
For some reason, someone thought it would be a good idea to literally plop this into a story EXTREMELY similar to its videogame counterpart. All of the Brotherhood of Mutants in this show are treated like boss character underlings while Magneto literally stays in the back and gives commands. Then all of the time, Kitty Pryde is whimpering and whining like a little tiny baby with a rattler. Her dialogue is so cringeworthy, a bit more realism in her demeanor would have been nice, but we got what we got.
Despite its flaws, though, it is still a nostalgic piece of art that many saw in their childhood and loved when they were kids. It may not have aged well with people, but it did become a staple in many collections. I saw this when I finished the 92 X-men's first season and was hungry for some more. This was weird, I'm not going to lie. It was a big difference between this and the far more serious show of the 90's. I had no idea that this was produced by the same lady, Margaret Loesch, who literally put her career on the line to create this entire franchise because she loved the idea so much. This was a fun show and it had all kinds of charm, including that wondrous 80's cartoon charm that so many love and will almost cry from such gorgeous nostalgia. It brought one of the best beat'em ups out of Konami and it was the precursor to one of the greatest cartoons ever made. We owe this random cartoon pilot a lot and it's fun to revisit from time to time. It may be a little hard to watch without crying, but that's just life. Comfort works in strange ways. Virtua Comfort.
