Roberto Da Costa may feel like he’s alone and try to run away from the X-Men in Disney+’s X-Men ’97, but his connection to the team feels eerily similar. And Jubilee talking to him about it really makes the pilot of the show reminiscent of the original series.
In X-Men: The Animated Series, Jubilee is a foster kid who is being chased by Sentinels at the mall and running away from the X-Men in the process. She’s just a kid who is struggling to understand what it means to be part of this team and doesn’t have a family to help her figure out what was happening to her in her new life as a mutant. She’s fighting the same evil that is facing Roberto, and the lack of acceptance has been a common theme for the characters of X-Men: The Animated Series from the start.
In the original pilot, Jubilee is struggling to find her place in the world and finds hope in the X-Men, so it is very interesting to me that Bobby’s role in the pilot of X-Men ’97 seems to fit that same theme. He does have a family; they just don’t know about his mutant powers, and he doesn’t feel like he can share it with them. He runs off to go to the club (which is genuinely fun to see) and to feel like a teenager. He ultimately leaves the school and gives Jubilee his card.
Getting to see a new mutant dealing with the same issues that Jubilee did in the original series shows just how much X-Men ’97 recognizes what fans want from the series while also making this show something entirely new.
What Sunspot and Jubilee’s connection shows in this episode is how the series is bringing back our love for X-Men: The Animated Series but making X-Men ’97 new and exciting at the same time.
Jubilee and Bobby makes sense
The parallel between Jubilee’s journey to becoming a member of the X-Men and what Roberto is going through pairs so nicely with the original pilot of the series. I hadn’t watched it in years, and when my niece wanted to dive into it, I put the original series on and found a striking similarity between the two episodes that all boiled down to Jubilee showing the love and care for another mutant that was shown to her by Charles Xavier and the X-Men when she felt just as lost.
To see her growth and how she recognizes aspects of Bobby’s journey in her own life and is there for him? It is just so beautiful to see play out. We get to see not only how Jubilee can be an even more important member of the team but also how X-Men ’97 is willing to connect to storylines and themes from The Animated Series and connect the thread between the two shows.
I loved seeing Bobby and Jubilee together, and I hope we get more of that in the future, but I loved seeing her take the lessons of the X-Men to heart and show someone that same kindness she got from the team she now calls family.
(featured image: Disney+)
