At Big Lick Comic Con, Alison Sealy-Smith and Catherine Disher traced how Larry Houston’s mutant choices for X-Men: The Animated Series shaped the characters that went on to anchor the live-action franchise—right down to the way Bryan Singer’s first X-Men film
The moment Alison Sealy-Smith talked about how “a family” of mutants was chosen, it landed like a behind-the-scenes revelation. Not about a casting swap or a behind-closed-doors rewrite—about a decision made in animation that ended up steering the live-action franchise for years.
Sealy-Smith was one of the featured voices at an X-Men panel moderated by Collider’s Maggie Lovitt at Big Lick Comic Con in Northern Virginia. alongside Catherine Disher. Sealy-Smith is best known for playing Storm. while Disher voiced Jean Grey in X-Men: The Animated Series and later transitioned to voice Valerie Cooper in X-Men ’97.
When Lovitt asked how their relationship with the X-Men family evolved over the years. Disher looked back to X-Men: The Animated Series creator and producer Larry Houston. Disher explained that “a lot of people got introduced to comics as kids by watching the cartoon. ” then tied that to how Houston shaped what audiences—and eventually films—would come to associate with the team.
In Disher’s retelling, Houston had “a huge roster of characters” to pull from when he chose which mutants would be featured in the show. She said she once asked him about the collective noun for a group of X-Men, and that he came back with a line that stuck: “I’ve got it: a family of X-Men.”
That idea didn’t stay in the cartoon. Disher then pointed to what happened when Bryan Singer directed the first live-action X-Men movie. She said Singer was not a huge Marvel Comics fan when he accepted the job. She added that Singer “knew very little about the X-Men. ” watched the cartoon. and—because of that—many of the characters featured there were brought into the films and continued to be central to the franchise.
The roster that ended up mattering most since X-Men’s premiere in 2000 included figures such as Wolverine, Cyclops, Professor X, and Storm. Disher and Sealy-Smith framed it as a fork in the road: there’s a version of the Marvel universe where that list could have been completely different.
Disher laid out the alternative directly—if Houston had chosen to feature other mutants more prominently, like Bishop, Polaris, Cable, or Cannonball, “the Marvel universe as we know it would look nothing like it does now.”
The panel also touched the timeline of the early live-action era. The original X-Men movie and its 2003 sequel, X2: X-Men United, were both directed by Bryan Singer. Singer did not return to direct the final installment in the early 2000s X-Men trilogy; he was replaced by Brett Ratner. Even with that change behind the camera. the characters and story had already been set in a way that. Disher said. “it wouldn’t have made sense to introduce a new roster that late in the story.”.
That bridge between eras is part of what makes X-Men ’97 the current mutant moment for fans watching on-screen. While Marvel Studios is developing a live-action X-Men reboot film. Disher’s panel remarks kept pointing back to the same throughline: the animated choices that formed the “family” became the franchise’s foundation.
For anyone looking to catch up, the first season of X-Men ’97 is on Disney+. Collider also teased that coverage for Season 2 is coming, with the next chapter set to begin streaming next month on July 1.
The early live-action starting point for all of this is clear on paper, too: X-Men (2000) premiered on July 13, 2000, runs 104 minutes, and lists Bryan Singer as director. Producers credited for the film are Avi Arad, Lauren Shuler Donner, Ralph Winter, and Richard Donner.
X-Men X-Men: The Animated Series X-Men ’97 Alison Sealy-Smith Catherine Disher Storm Jean Grey Valerie Cooper Larry Houston Bryan Singer Brett Ratner Wolverine Cyclops Professor X Bishop Polaris Cable Cannonball Big Lick Comic Con Northern Virginia