Morph

So my boyfriend had asked me who my favorite X-man was as he knows I am a big fan. But all the main X-men are so cool so as to be unattainable that I didn’t have a particular answer- Storm maybe? Or Cyclops. Then on a rewatch of first episode of X-men 97 dawned on me. Back when I had first seen X-men the Animated Series, one of the X-men didn’t feature in the opening credits. He sat in the mansion watching TV and swapping looks, and later messed around with the X-men but never felt like he was one of them. My little kid brain went, “that’s me” and latched on to Morph as a character. While it was sad to see him die, as an avatar, it was like I got to go on one big adventure with the team. Morph was later revisited and my favorite insert character got to do all the fun fantasy stuff- save the X-men, be the villain, be part of the team and also not. Somehow Morph represented for me a person who both belonged and didn’t, in my young mind. I imagine I’m not the only one who felt like this. Seeing Morph back in the team in X-men ‘97 is an absolute DREAM. This time he’s part of the main cast and gets to do even more of the fun fantasy stuff *wink* and it feels incredibly validating. #xmen #xmenart #xmen97 #morph