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X-Men: Marvel DVD Comic Book Collection Volume 1
R1 - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment - Volume 2 Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (18th May 2009). |
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The Film
 Following up from the previous "Volume 1" release (reviewed here), this second volume continues the series in chronological order (the series was not broadcast in this order originally, for reasons unknown...), while we were given a great introduction to the characters and their world in the first 16 episodes, this collection deals with the further adventures of our heroes, more stories featuring Bishop, Jubilee and Gambit as well as series favorite Rogue. But this series is noteworthy mainly due to the inclusion of the excellent 5-part "Phoenix Saga" story line that faithfully recreates the story from the comic pages into an exciting way to end this second volume and certainly leaves fans wanting more. If the Phoenix story line was a little lackluster for fans in the underwhelming "X-Men: The Last Stand" (2006) then this should suffice. Much like the previous episodes the animation is a little on the 'rushed' side, I suppose the production company wanted to push through as many episodes as possible, and while the look is very dated it still holds up for the most part with its colorful and vibrant style. The characters costumes are modeled from the comics unlike a more realistic look the filmmakers took with the live action films, but after all this is an animated series. Furthermore the closer it looks to the comics the easier to cross promote and sell as much goodies to kids as possible. After all most animated shows are just an excuse to sell more comics, toys, video games, lunch boxes etc. And as a child of the 90's I can certainly attest that this strategy worked... to this day I still have my "X-Men" related memorabilia and comics. The series does a fairly decent job of providing enough entertainment value into a short amount of time, the scripting is tight but well structured even through there are often lots of characters to deal with. The voice acting is fairly on par with other shows from its era such as "Batman The Animated Series" (1992-1995) and "The Tick" (1994-1997). If you picked up the first volume then I can't see any reason why you wouldn't pick this edition as well, let's hope that Buena Vista will release more episodes in the near future. This 2-disc features 16 episodes that include: - "Red Dawn" - "Repo Man" - "X-Ternally Yours" - "Time Fugitives: Part 1" - "Time Fugitives: Part 2" - "A Rogue's Tale" - "Beauty & The Beast" - "Mojo Vision" - "Reunion: Part 1" - "Reunion: Part 2" - "Out of the Past: Part 1" - "Out of the Past: Part 2" - "The Phoenix Saga: Part 1 - Sacrifice" - "The Phoenix Saga: Part 2 - The Dark Shroud" - "The Phoenix Saga: Part 3 - Cry of the Banshee" - "The Phoenix Saga: Part 4 - The Starjammers" - "The Phoenix Saga: Part 5 - Child of Light"
Video
Presented in the original broadcast ratio of 1.33:1 full screen. Much like the previous episodes on Volume 1 release the show looks like a 90's series, it appears as though the transfers for these episodes tend to include dirt and specks that pop up occasionally. Furthermore animation lines can be blurry or slightly pixelated at times. The positives are that colors hold up well and look pretty good, blacks are bold and the image is bright and vibrant.
Audio
Three audio tracks are included in English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround, French Dolby Digital 2.0 surround and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 surround. These are likely to be the show's original broadcast audio, the surround mix is pretty good considering we're talking about an early 90's animated series. While the first batch of episodes on the Volume 1 release displayed good sound these episodes here feature more action packed moments and allow for more dynamic sound but the same problems are present in that depth and range are limited. Dialogue, action sounds and music are rendered well. There are optional subtitles in English, French and Spanish.
Extras
Much like the previous Volume 1 release, there are no extras present on these discs.
Overall
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