Book Review - X-Men '97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series
- The Artbook Collector
- Jul 1
- 5 min read
July 1st 2025
After its hugely popular run in the 90’s and introduction of the iconic theme song, X-Men: The Animated Series became a fond memory of those that grew up with the show. However, Marvel brought the show to Disney+ and it found new life and new fans. But to take that a step further, they revived the series, continuing the story under the title, X-Men ’97.
Marvel Studios are no strangers to artbooks, they have released a huge amount for their projects in the past, including one for the original series, so it made sense that there would be another. X-Men '97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series was published on July 1st by Abrams Books and a copy has joined the collection, so now I can jump in and give my thoughts on the book. As always, I’ll go over build quality, content, credits, use of space and value, so you can find out everything you need to know before deciding to buy.
Build Quality
This book comes as a hardcover, in a landscape format and a good size too, coming in at 31cm x 26cm. It features 224 pages of good quality gloss paper held in with solid binding. Nothing unusual here for Abrams Books, who have been making artbooks for a long time, so there is very little to speak about in this section, as it is all positive!
Content
X-Men '97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series is split into two sections, the history and making of the show, and the art. I like the separation here, it establishes how the show came about, then becomes a showcase of hundreds of images that brought the characters and world to the screen.
The early section of the book is text heavy, though includes some images too, and focuses on the history of the original show and how the revival came to fruition. It then highlights the writing, art style, animation, FX, cast, and the shows opening for X-Men ’97. It’s a well written and interesting deep dive that fans will no doubt appreciate. It also includes comments from artists, creators and producers, each offering their perspective on what it was like bringing back the iconic series. It's worth noting that the writer Beau DeMayo is mentioned very briefly, not unexpected following his firing after working in the first season.
The following art section dedicates each chapter to an episode, a common approach for artbooks based on shows. In these chapters you get sketches, storyboards, background art, costume designs, stills and animation exploration. As well as this, members of the X-Men team get character profiles too, describing their history and personalities, followed by art dedicated to their designs.
The highlights for me in these sections are for the core team, as the costume art, and in some cases a look at different art styles, provide a look at what wasn’t used, often the most interesting part of any artbook. It’s just a shame that more early art wasn't used for other characters and backgrounds too.
There is some other early art peppered throughout though that shows the artists working out how the animation and powers will look on screen, this is a great inclusion that you don't often see. Another nice section is for Episode 4: Lifedeath – Part 1, as it highlights the video game arcade art style after Jubilee is pulled into a Motendo by Mojo.
Many artbooks based on 2D animated movies and shows lean on screenshots to fill pages, however this book does a much better job than most at including a lot of early art. Some of the images included do look like what you see on screen as that is the nature of art for an animation, but I appreciate that it isn’t dominated by this like others have been.
An artbook trend that is seen here, one that I’m not a fan of, is making the page colour black for those dedicated to background art. It’s not consistent, but it tends to be the case that most are designed this way for this release. I don’t know why this has become a thing in artbooks, usually seen in those based on video games, but it doesn’t benefit an image that is dark in colour. I understand wanting to change the colour, but I personally don’t think that black is the right move. An example can be seen below.
You also don’t get much in the way of commentary on individual pieces of art, there are a few bits here and there, but it’s not often. Although this would usually be a drawback, as the art follows the written 'making of' the series, it’s not really an issue with this release, as their artistic approach has already been covered.
Credits
The book does a fantastic job with crediting the artists, as each page includes the artists names with a number that matches those alongside each image. Marvel has always done right by their artists in this regard, so it’s a big positive to see them carry that on here.
Use of Space
As you can see in the previews, the pages are filled and no space is wasted. Again, this has always been consistent with a Marvel artbook, but is also expected for an animated show. With 224 pages and a show made up entirely of artwork, there would hardly be an excuse to not fill the pages up!
Art that crosses the centre fold does have some unfortunate image loss, though there are very few images that spread across more than one page. As much as I like to see a large piece of work from an artist, I do like that it wasn’t done often because this is a common issue in artbooks.
Value
X-Men '97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series has an RRP of $50/ £40, which is standard pricing for an artbook in 2025, so nothing unusual here. I have no problem with this as the full price, but we all know that products are rarely sold at the top price point.
Using Amazon as I always do for comparisons, in the US the book is already 13% off on its day of release. In the UK, that is increased to 21% off, coming in at just over £30, an already good deal for the book. Of course, these prices are temporary and will fluctuate, but it shows that this book can be picked up at a lower price if you shop around. For a large 224 page hardcover, $40/ £30 is a great deal for fans.
Verdict
X-Men '97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series delivers a fantastic history and behind the scenes dive into the show, followed up by art that allows the work of the team to shine. It's not trying to do anything special, but is an example of executing the basics very well and won’t leave fans disappointed for that reason. Despite some minor setbacks mentioned in the review, I’d be happy to recommend this to fans of the show, as well as Marvel fans in general.
If you are interested in the book, you can add it to your own collection by ordering here;
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