Watching X-MEN: EVOLUTION for the first time. They change the Xavier Institute into a foster home for mutants, and the kids attend a local high school. It actually works as it forces the mutants to learn how to hide in plain sight/control their powers and interact with flat scans

The X-Men is also not the most kid-friendly property in terms of history, but they make it work pretty well. To that end, they add a bunch in the way of characterization that doesn't appear in the comics but that's okay.

There's also an intro scene for Captain America wherein he takes down a Messerschmitt with the shield. It's pretty sweet.

Playing the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants as a gang of wayward homeless teens as opposed to mutants terrorists is also a good look. Allows for better characterization. They're closer to Morelocks than the Brotherhood members here.

Ther are eps based around the X-Men doing normal student/kid stuff. Beast takes many of the kids on an Earth-science field trip to the California redwoods, and bigfoot trackers end up hunting poor Hank. The X-men save him, but that's an organic adventure that really works.

The characterization of Magneto as an absentee father too obsessed with the mutants to raise his own children was also pretty interesting and pulled directly from observations in the comics.

Magento's real Brotherhood (maybe up of young adults as opposed to children) just showed up at the end of s02. The team is Colossus, Gambit, Sabertooth, & Pyro. Needs a woman or three, but overall I dig the idea of this lineup. Shifting allegiances ups engagement.

Jean’s shitty human boyfriend trying to exploit her mutant powers to cheat on tests in high school is a nice touch.

Kitty Pryde/Avalanche is an interesting romantic pairing.

The show does a pretty good job of streamlining Apocalypse’s origin/backstory w/o losing a lot of what makes the character cool. The lead up to the Big A over s02 was also pretty good.

The cast was stacked. There were primarily four groups of mutants: X-Men, the ’New Mutants’ at the Xavier, the Brotherhood (mostly run by Mistyque and more neutral/mischievous than antagonists), and Magneto’s Acolytes who were legi bad guys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-Men:_Evolution_characters#New_Mutants

HYDRA also being responsible for the creation of X-23 is also perfect for the #MCU. Her one-girl-war against Hydra is a ready-made subplot and ties Wolverine/the X-Men to a larger #MCU villain.

And this is easily one of Wolverine’s best looks. Iconic and simple