Why Professor X's astral plane became a staple of X-Men animation

Among the X-Men, Charles Xavier’s journeys on the astral plane have produced some of the franchise’s most striking moments, showing up in comics, the Animated Series, and live-action films. X-Men ’97 used that power heavily in season 1, and season 2 continues the tradition with a twist as Xavier navigates new challenges in Ancient Egypt after inadvertently traveling back in time in the season 1 finale.

Eric Lewald, a showrunner on the original 1990s series and executive producer on X-Men ’97, says those sequences grew out of necessity as much as creative choice. “First of all, remember it was on Fox Kids,” he said. “There’s a real limit to the amount of physical violence and intensity that we could show.

If you get inside people’s minds, it becomes much more exciting for the artists, and much more freeing for the writers.” There was also a practical animation reason.

charles xavier, astral plane, x-men, x-men ’97, animated series, ancient egypt, eric lewald, fox kids, season 2, time travel