"Xplosive Days"
Episodes Included: "Mutant Crush"; "Speed and Spyke"; "Middleverse"
Month Released: September 2003
Average Price: $10 (U.S.)
DVD Extras: Episode Introductions with Boyd Kirkland; The Art of the X-Men; and an X-Men: Evolution Trailer
Packaging: The art cover for the packaging isn't very good at all- in fact, I think it's downright ugly. The lines look too rough and jagged, and some of the faces are out of whack. Ick. If it was better-drawn, though, it would have looked nice. The back talks about the basic premise behind Evolution (and it's not TOO bad in its wording), along with some cursory descriptions of the eps contained inside and the extras. The actual DVD has a picture of Jean Grey on it.
Episode Introductions with Boyd Kirkland: Like the other Season One DVDs, the episode introductions for this DVD are of a pretty good length, averaging about two minutes each. In the "Mutant Crush" episode intro, the primary focus is, of course, on the Blob. An interesting point brought up is that it would have been all too easy to make Blob nothing more than a "big strong fat guy" caricature, but instead the writers tried to give him a bit more personality in this ep (his crush on Jean, etc.) to make the viewer feel a bit more sympathetic towards him in later episodes. They also focus on how Jean's powers evolve over this series- how in this ep, she can't free herself from her metal restraints with her telekinesis, but in later eps, she easily could've gotten out of the situation. That was intentional. In the "Speed and Spyke" intro, the focus is on Spyke and Pietro, obviously. They talk about how when they were creating the Spyke character, they thought that he was going to be unique- until many of the fans pointed out that a character in the X-Men universe already had similar powers, who was named Marrow. Oops. They said that that was not intentional, however. They also talk about how it was a bit refreshing to write for Spyke, since they didn't have to make sure they dissapoint any fans of him from the previous comic series, since he didn't exist in said series. I can certainly see where they're coming from on that part. They also talk a bit about Quicksilver, and the cool motion blurrs he does when he runs really fast. Finally, in the "Middleverse" intro, why Forge was put in the episode is explored a little, as well the fact that this episode has many elements that Evolution normally doesn't have- pocket dimensions, etc. Also mentioned is the conflicts that happen between various members of the X-Men in this episode.
The Art of the X-Men: This is the "main extra" of the DVD, and is about five-and-a-half minutes long. It's pretty fascinating- definitely one of the better extras- and details some of the design processes that the X-Men went through, focusing especially on their costumes. Some little things that I hadn't noticed before were mentioned in this extra- although I did realize that they all had black as a major color of their costumes, to make the X-Men a "team", they also had some design elements in common with their older comic versions. For example, Jean has light green incorporated into her costume, Cyclops has yellow, Rogue has dark green, etc. A lot of the walk cycles were highlighted for the characters, too- how they each walked slightly differently, etc. Toad's and Nightcrawler's walk cycles are especially great. A bit of time is also spent at the end talking about the great animation in this series.
X-Men: Evolution Trailer: This "trailer", which is on all the Season One DVDs, isn't really a trailer at all- it's just a commercial that was aired on TV that advertised the Season One DVDs, which is pretty pointless, since you already HAVE the DVD anyways. Lame.
Last Words: This DVD is good, if not outstanding. The "Art of the X-Men" extra is fantastic, and the episode introductions are pretty cool too, but the "trailer" is a joke, as is the artwork on the front of the cover. Three episodes for $10 ain't TOO bad, but the three in this DVD aren't exactly what I'd call the best of Evolution. Still, it's a nice buy for those people REALLY into the series, but otherwise skip it.
Overall Rating: 7/10 Good