28 Years Ago, A Marvel Movie Was The First X-Men Release Nobody Remembers

Summary

• Generation X, Fox's first attempt at an X-Men movie, was critically panned and failed to become a series despite high expectations.
• Jubilee, an underused X-Men character, was given a central role in Generation X but received criticism due to a casting decision.
• The movie introduced lesser-known characters with powers that differed from their comic book origins, like factional invincibility and density manipulation.

While Fox's X-Men franchise came to dominate the superhero genre for several years alongside Sony (before the MCU took it to another level), there was one Marvel movie that was released earlier that few remember. After buying up movie rights from Marvel in the early '90s, Fox was responsible for a hefty output of superhero movies that included the X-Men franchise, Daredevil,Elektra, and the pre-MCU Fantastic Four movies. All of these garnered decidedly mixed reactions but helped to spur what would become the golden age of superhero movies in the mid-to-late 00s.
Fox's cinematic efforts began at the turn of the millennium with X-Men, which became part of a franchise that spawned 13 movies. Marvel Studios then reacquired the movie rights following Disney's acquisition of Fox in 2019. Unbeknownst to many, however, is that X-Men was actually Fox's second attempt to spawn an X-Men franchise after buying the movie rights, as a Pilot TV movie was released in 1996 by the name of Generation X.
Related All The X-Men Movies In Chronological Order The X-Men timeline may be jumbled but there is a way to watch all the movies in chronological order. Generation X Explained & Why It Failed Generation X was based on the run of Marvel Comics by the same name, which was published just two years before Fox's adaptation. The movie was produced by New World Entertainment, which had a history working on Marvel productions like The Incredible Hulk series and the animated X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men pilot, and was directed by Jack Sholder, who is best known for horror movies like Alone in the Dark and Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. Fox, meanwhile, aired the movie on its own station, confident that it would be a success.
Executive Producer Eric Blakeny had planned for the movie to turn into a series. Unfortunately, despite his and Fox's confidence, Generation X was critically panned, and all hopes of a series disintegrated. The script drew some measure of criticism, though they were mostly leveled at the show's starring role, Jubilee, who, despite being an American-Chinese character in the source material, was portrayed by the Caucasian Heather McComb in Generation X. Though likely unrelated, New World Entertainment went defunct just one year after the pilot aired, and the movie is now notably absent from the Disney+ lineup.
Other Marvel TV movies existed before Generation X, including Dr. Strange, Captain America, and various movies from the Lou Ferigno-starring The Incredible Hulk franchise.
Generation X Gave One Underused X-Men Character Center Stage Close Jubilee is a largely underused character in the X-Men franchise, though she has appeared on-screen several times as portrayed by Katrina Florece, Kea Wong, and Lana Condor in Fox's movie series. In Generation X, however, Jubilation Lee played a far more central role than she is now typically given. The character kicks off the movie by getting into trouble for her "fireworks" power manifesting in an arcade before the two headmasters of Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters, Banshee and White Queen, swoop in to bring her under their wing to hone her powers.
Jubilee is an interesting member of the X-Men, whose powers involve generating pyrotechnics from her hands - AKA fireworks. Compared to her classmates, who are liable to generate destructive blasts of energy or demonstrate superhuman strength, Jubilee's very specific and not-so-destructive power set often places her in a backseat role. For this, Generation X is worthy of note - though it unfortunately fumbled the ball with the casting decision.
Every X-Men Character In Generation X X-Men Character
Powers
Emma Frost/White Queen
Telepathy/Telekinesis
Sean Cassidy/Banshee
Sonic Scream
Jubilation Lee/Jubilee
Thermodynamic Emission
Angelo Espinosa/Skin
Dermatoplasticity
Monet St. Croix/M
Super Intelligence/Invincibility
Mondo
Density Manipulation
Russell Tresh
Dream Dimension Control
Arlee Hicks/Buff
Superhuman Speed
Kurt Pastorius/Refrax
X-Ray Vision/Optic Blasts
Jubilee appears alongside a slew of lesser-known characters including Skin and Mondo, whose powers are somewhat on a level with her own though differentiate slightly from their comic book origins. While M is invincible in the movie, for instance, her comic book counterpart is akin to a perfect human specimen, boasting powers such as flight, regeneration, and superhuman physiology. Emma Frost and Banshee are perhaps the most well-known of the X-Men that appear in Generation X, alongside Jubilee, where they assume the roles of X-Mansion headmasters.
The movie also created two brand-new X-Men, Refrax and Buff, whose powers include X-ray vision and superhuman strength, respectively. These were not popular enough for Marvel Comics to include in its publications, though that was, at one point, a possibility. These were introduced as a replacement for the original Generation X team members, Chamber and Husk, whose powers were too outlandish to convey on the budget for Generation X.


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