X-Men ’97 has what Master of the Universe is missing
X-Men ’97 has what Master of the Universe is missing
《X战警 ’97》拥有《宇宙的巨人希曼》所缺失的东西
The two projects highlight how it takes more than nostalgia to reinvigorate a franchise. 这两个项目凸显了一个道理：重振一个系列作品，光靠怀旧是远远不够的。
In 2026, Marvel and Mattel are both releasing projects designed to capitalize on people’s love for iconic animated heroes from their childhoods. Masters of the Universe has put a live-action He-Man on the big screen, and the second season of X-Men ’97 is about to fling some of Charles Xavier’s mutants into an apocalyptic future. Both projects were clearly made by people who love the source material, and they are similarly filled with nerdy Easter eggs meant to get hardcore fans hyped up. X-Men ’97 and Masters of the Universe are both nostalgia plays, but the biggest difference between the two — and arguably the reason one of them hasn’t been all that much of a success — is the work that has gone into keeping their respective characters and worlds alive in the pop culture consciousness.
2026年，漫威（Marvel）和美泰（Mattel）都推出了旨在利用人们对童年经典动画英雄喜爱之情的项目。《宇宙的巨人希曼》（Masters of the Universe）将真人版希曼搬上了大银幕，而《X战警 ’97》第二季也即将把查尔斯·泽维尔（Charles Xavier）的一些变种人抛入末日般的未来。这两个项目显然都是由热爱原作的人制作的，并且同样充满了旨在让硬核粉丝兴奋不已的极客彩蛋。《X战警 ’97》和《宇宙的巨人希曼》都是怀旧之作，但两者之间最大的区别——也可以说是其中一部作品不太成功的原因——在于它们在保持各自角色和世界在流行文化意识中鲜活度方面所付出的努力。
In its second season, X-Men ’97 splits its team of mutant heroes up into multiple teams that find themselves stranded at drastically different points in history. While one group winds up in ancient Egypt, another is transported thousands of years into the future. Though both teams want to get back to the ’90s, they’re also desperately searching for a way to stop the virtually immortal mutant villain Apocalypse (Ross Marquand) from destroying the world. And because Apocalypse happens to be alive in both time periods, the two X-Men squads agree that it’s worth spending some time exactly where they are.
在第二季中，《X战警 ’97》将变种人英雄团队拆分为多个小组，他们发现自己被困在历史上截然不同的时间点。一组人来到了古埃及，另一组则被传送到了几千年后的未来。尽管两支队伍都想回到90年代，但他们也在拼命寻找阻止几乎永生的变种人反派“天启”（Apocalypse，罗斯·马昆德配音）毁灭世界的方法。由于“天启”恰好在两个时间段都活着，两支X战警小队一致认为，留在各自所在的时间点进行抗争是值得的。
Rather than adapting a single storyline from Marvel’s comics, the new season of X-Men ’97 combines narrative elements from a number of different limited series — chief among them The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix from 1994 and 1996’s Rise of Apocalypse. Using beats from those specific comics to expand its story makes some sense given the ’90s of it all. But more surprising is the amount of relatively recent X-Men comics lore the show introduces in order to flesh out the world around its core characters.
《X战警 ’97》新一季并没有改编漫威漫画中的单一故事线，而是结合了多部不同限定系列的故事元素——其中最主要的是1994年的《独眼龙与凤凰的冒险》（The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix）和1996年的《天启崛起》（Rise of Apocalypse）。考虑到该剧的90年代背景，利用这些特定漫画的情节来扩展故事是有道理的。但更令人惊讶的是，该剧为了充实核心角色周围的世界观，引入了大量相对较新的X战警漫画设定。
While X-Men ’97 is a continuation of X-Men: The Animated Series, Marvel has made it feel fresh by reworking the established canon in significant ways. Taking that approach is part of what made the series a ratings hit when it first premiered in 2024, but fans’ long-standing fondness and familiarity with the X-Men were also key factors in the equation.
虽然《X战警 ’97》是《X战警：动画系列》的续作，但漫威通过对既定正史进行重大重构，使其焕然一新。这种做法是该剧在2024年首播时获得收视成功的部分原因，但粉丝们对X战警长期以来的喜爱和熟悉程度也是关键因素。
One of the main reasons that fans have been foaming at the mouth for new X-Men projects like ’97 and the upcoming X-Men MCU film is that Marvel has never really let this property fade into the background. Even though 20th Century Studios’ X-Men features tended to be terrible, there were always enough X-Men comics and TV series in the mix to give fans hope that a studio would eventually come up with something excellent. And if Marvel spent less time cultivating the X-Men’s brand, the franchise might have found itself floundering the way Mattel’s Masters of the Universe currently is.
粉丝们对《’97》以及即将上映的漫威电影宇宙（MCU）《X战警》电影等新项目如此狂热的主要原因之一，是漫威从未真正让这个IP淡出大众视野。尽管二十世纪影业（20th Century Studios）的X战警电影往往表现糟糕，但市面上总有足够的X战警漫画和电视剧，让粉丝们相信总有一天会有制片厂能做出优秀的作品。如果漫威在培养X战警品牌上投入的时间更少，这个系列可能也会像美泰的《宇宙的巨人希曼》目前那样陷入困境。
There have been a handful of newer series inspired by the original Masters of the Universe cartoon. But on the whole, He-Man’s pop cultural prominence has waned in the years since Prince Adam and his friends were explaining the lessons behind their adventures on television every weekday from 1983 to 1985. This is likely part of why Mattel’s new Masters of the Universe movie has been underperforming at the box office since its release last week. So far, the movie has raked in a paltry $54.4 million against a $200 million production budget, making it a massive financial dud.
虽然有一些受原版《宇宙的巨人希曼》动画启发的新剧集，但总的来说，自1983年至1985年亚当王子（Prince Adam）和他的朋友们每天在电视上讲解冒险背后的道理以来，希曼在流行文化中的影响力已经减弱。这很可能是美泰的新版《宇宙的巨人希曼》电影自上周上映以来票房表现不佳的部分原因。到目前为止，该片在2亿美元的制作预算下仅收获了微不足道的5440万美元票房，成为了一次巨大的财务失败。
Masters of the Universe has become a case study in Hollywood’s tendency to learn the wrong lessons from its previous successes. People flocked to theaters to see Barbie because it was a funny, feminist deconstruction of an ever-present icon, but Mattel interpreted that a sign that viewers are hungry for stories about toys in general. Masters of the Universe attempts to do some mildly critical exploration of toxic masculinity, but that clearly hasn’t been enough to convince audiences to care about He-Man. Aside from hardcore fans, many people simply aren’t that invested in or emotionally connected to He-Man’s world, and Mattel hasn’t done enough to convince audiences that there’s anything interesting about this latest film.
《宇宙的巨人希曼》已成为好莱坞从过往成功中吸取错误教训的典型案例。人们涌入影院观看《芭比》，是因为它对一个无处不在的偶像进行了有趣且具有女性主义色彩的解构，但美泰却将其解读为观众普遍渴望看到关于玩具的故事。虽然《宇宙的巨人希曼》试图对“有毒的男子气概”进行一些温和的批判性探索，但这显然不足以让观众关心希曼。除了硬核粉丝外，许多人对希曼的世界并不那么投入，也没有情感上的共鸣，而美泰也没能让观众相信这部新电影有什么看点。
If He-Man was a fixture in more people’s imaginations the way the X-Men are, the conversation around Masters of the Universe would likely be very different. Mattel would do well to internalize this as a valuable lesson, but there have yet to be signs of that being the case. Between X-Men ’97’s second season and Avengers: Doomsday, Marvel is rolling into a year of massive stories that put mutants front and center. And it’s a moment that the studio has been building toward for years.
如果希曼能像X战警那样占据更多人的想象空间，那么围绕《宇宙的巨人希曼》的讨论可能会大不相同。美泰最好能将此作为宝贵的教训铭记在心，但目前还没有迹象表明他们做到了这一点。随着《X战警 ’97》第二季和《复仇者联盟：末日》（Avengers: Doomsday）的到来，漫威正迎来一个以变种人为核心的大片之年。这是该工作室多年来一直为之铺垫的时刻。