Today’s Cartoon Country looks at the second season episode of X-Men Evolution titled “Walk on the Wild Side”, in which the female X-Men (specifically Jean Grey, Amara Aquilla aka Magma and Tabitha Smith aka Boom-Boom) get fed up with playing second fiddle to the guys, and form an all-female vigilante crime-fighting group called the Bayville Sirens. Shortly after our heroines form their new gang, this happens:

-Not only did the story just randomly jump to Radio Disney for a second, but this sequence boasted a puzzling occurrence which was never addressed. The 3 characters who formed the Bayville Sirens were Jean, Amara and Tabitha, who did so out of frustration (and some unintentionally sexist comments from Cyclops). OK, got that, however, about a third of the way through that little dance party video thing, Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat) and Rogue just show up, and for the remainder of the story the 2 of them are just there, as if they’d been Sirens all along, despite them having no stake in any of this and no participation in the story up to that point. There’s really no reason for Rogue and Kitty to be in this story at all, other than a) they’re girls and b) they’re main characters. OK, we’re not going to offer a logical, canonical reason for these 2 to just arbitrarily join the story? No explanation at all? Just not gonna address that at all, huh? Not even a throwaway line somewhere? Nothin’? M’kay.

Speaking of strange occurrences,

RIDDLE ME THIS……

What is it about this episode that makes so many aspiring authors on the internet want to write fan fiction about it? The last time I ventured onto FanFiction.net, there were literally dozens of fanfics based on or inspired by “Walk on the Wild Side”. In one of them, in retaliation the male X-Men decide to start their own all-boys’ splinter faction called the Bayville Strikers.

Far be it for me to pass judgement on another author’s vision, but I gotta say, naw, that idea’s not working for me, bruh. We don’t need an all-guys’ X-team for the same reason TV doesn’t need a White Entertainment Television. Boys don’t need special representation in what’s already a male-dominated genre. We don’t have to imagine what a superhero team consisting of just boys would be like; we’ve already seen that, several times: that’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That’s Street Sharks. That’s Battletoads. That’s Ronin Warriors. That’s Centurions. That’s Super Hero Squad. I could go on, stop me before I sub-reference again. All-male teams are a dime a dozen, so that wouldn’t be anything special. If they were really going to have a girls’ vigilante team AND a boys’ vigilante team existing alongside of it, then you should just make one team and make it co-ed, which would just be the X-Men.

But that’s just my opinion. If “Walk on the Wild Side” revs your engine, then by all means enjoy the ride. Myself, if I want a Girl Power superhero team, I’ll stick with these ladies:

They have better costumes, anyway.