X-Men The Animated Series - Title Sequence Villain Lineup (Brotherhood of Evil Mutants pencil art)

From my favorite animation series growing up, I am very excited to post some original pencil art from the opening sequence featuring the Villain Lineup from X-MEN THE ANIMATED SERIES.

This lineup included some weird participants for the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, led by Magneto (not seen in this art, but was a separate piece that flies above this group as they run/collide into the X-Men), seen are: Juggernaut, Thunderbird, Mystery Alien, Pyro, Mystique, Sabretooth, and Avalanche. Thunderbird, who is not an X-Men villain but instead a member of the second class of X-Men appearing in the relaunch of their team/series in the mid 1970’s, and the Mystery Alien villain were thrown in to beef up the villain side because at the time these were the only characters they were thinking to use (other than Blob, Apocalypse and Sentinels, which didn’t physically work in lineup). Originally those spots were going to be Sunder and Callisto, but a last minute change to swap out for Thunderbird and the animation house accidentally moving forward on a temp mystery character that was initially designed for something else.

It’s a fun piece of animation history, featuring an odd mix characters that weren’t necessarily meant to be in the final animation, but somehow made it.