Craig Kyle, writer and producer for “X-Men: Evolution” and creator of X-23, reflects on Marvel’s mutant legacy
By Anna Vogt
Introduction
Craig Kyle, a writer for the animated series “X-Men: Evolution,” discusses the creation of X-23 for the television show and details his experience bringing these beloved characters to life.
X-23, real name Laura Kinney, is a popular character in the Marvel universe, having been featured in TV series, comics, video games and movies. Her most notable recent appearances have been in the films “Logan” and “Deadpool & Wolverine.” And her journey begins with “X-Men: Evolution.”
But what are the X-Men, and what makes them special?
“The X-Men are really the most perfect of the creations of Marvel, Stan Lee and all the folks that he worked with,” Kyle said.
Kyle explained that the X-Men characters were introduced during a time when Marvel characters found their powers through external means. Stan Lee and his team had to brainstorm new ideas.
“They came at a time where he had done all these different reasons behind the characters: spider bites or cosmic rays, or nuclear explosions,” Kyle said. “And he was running out of ways to come up with characters. So, he's like, ‘What if they were just born with powers?’ And it's such a clean and simple idea.”
Yet, the X-Men franchise explores deeper themes than just biological superpowers.
“And what’s beautiful about the X-Universe is that it’s 80 to 90 percent of the world that we live in, with this 20 to 10 percent extraordinary aspect to it, that just accentuates and deepens and expands the emotional impact of the world that these characters live in,” Kyle said.
Although the powers are secondary to character development, they are still important plot devices.
“The abilities are what add more pressure to the lives that we love and create more conflict and challenge for them, which forces these characters to truly reveal who they are,” Kyle said.
The X-Men franchise explores real-world topics and presents them in a more digestible manner.
“And what's also so beautiful in it is that you can take real-world struggles or issues — racism, sexism — and weave that into the example of how humanity looks at mutants. And it's a way to wrap those kinds of issues up in the humans-versus-mutant conversation, without it getting into a fight over real beliefs that people share and don't share in life. So, it's really a mirror of the world that we all live in,” Kyle said.
This ability to create characters that resonate with viewers is a significant factor in the entire franchise’s popularity.
“The characters are just so relatable because they are so much like us. And what makes them extraordinary is that if they have a fight, they can level buildings. The way that love and loss take place in that universe is just incredible,” Kyle said.
The incorporation of real-life experiences makes the characters feel more realistic, even when they possess supernatural abilities.
“It's the humanity. The relationships they share, the complexities and the tragedies and the highs and the lows, and it's all those lives that we fall in love with,” Kyle said.
Moreover, Kyle expressed that Marvel’s X-Men universe is home to the best characters, including the best villains.
“If you had told me at the time, 'You can pick the X-Universe, or you can have the rest of Marvel outside of it,' I would have taken the X-Men hands down because the characters are just rich. They have the best villains,” he said. “They have the best heroes. You could take any one of these characters' lives and spin them off into their own story.”
In fact, Kyle, who has made an entire career for himself in the Marvel universe, shared that the X-Men were his first introduction to comics.
“If the stories are done, well, X-Men will invite you and will immediately connect with you on some level and just sweep you up inside that journey. It was an X-Men book, when I was 12, that I picked off the shelf — my first comic ever. And it changed the course of my life,” Kyle said.
And it did, evident from his vast and fruitful portfolio — from comics to TV series and movies.
X-Men on television
("Wolverine and the X-Men" poster/https://wall.alphacoders.com/big.php?i=1120662
Craig Kyle, in addition to aiding in the creation of “X-Men: Evolution,” also worked as a writer and creative supervisor for “Wolverine and the X-Men.”
The differences between the series, including the original “X-Men: The Animated Series,” are vast — each series for varying demographics.
Kyle explained the differences among the three series, starting with “X-Men: The Animated Series.”
“So, the X-Men animated series was intended for a young audience, but it was really geared towards the comic book fans, because they really tried to adapt the comics in the best way they possibly could,” Kyle said.
While “X-Men: The Animated Series” was created for fans of the original comics, Kyle stated that he wasn’t necessarily a fan of the series.
“I personally was not a fan of that show,” Kyle said. “To me, animation had to be beautiful, as well as compelling.”
According to Kyle, the series was overshadowed by a different popular superhero series at the time: “Batman: The Animated Series.”
“And you know, 'Batman: The Animated Series' is what led the way for the X-Men animated series,” Kyle explained. “But 'Batman: The Animated Series' was a beautifully animated show, and I did not think that the X-Men animated series had that same beauty in it.”
While the animation of “X-Men: The Animated Series” may not have been as well done as its Batman counterpart, Kyle emphasized the complete importance of the series.
“Without the animated series, there would be no series of films, and so much wouldn't have happened. So again, I am very grateful that the show happened,” he said.
“X-Men: Evolution” was also created for younger audiences; however, Kyle said that it was a departure from the comics.
“‘X-Men: Evolution’ was a real departure from what was in the comics. It was geared for a younger audience and was really re-imagined to just be the easiest entry point for any child,” Kyle said.
In essence, the team behind this series had to conceptualize a show that could be immersive for children, regardless of which episode or season they began watching. To achieve this, the creators made a few major changes that set the series apart from previous adaptations.
“We took characters that were usually all within the same age range, and we made some adults, who would now be instructors. We made the core team younger — teens. And instead of them just being kids living and going to school at the institute, they actually went to school with normal kids.”
Kyle said that this allowed key themes and conflicts to manifest.
“What would happen if you had these kids who had to hide who they were and be facing normal day-to-day school situations — bullies, classes, heartbreak — whatever issues we could touch without ‘Broadcast Standards and Practices' yelling at us,” he said.
According to Kyle, this creative decision disappointed “old-school fans” who viewed “X-Men: The Animated Series” as the ideal portrayal of the characters due to its similarity to the comic books. Still, its format proved to be its advantage.
“It was a place you could come in and just enjoy and not be overwhelmed or wonder who all these characters are. And so, at the end of the day, it really worked, and we got four seasons of that show,” he said.
Kyle explained that while he was involved with the series beginning in season 1, he officially joined in season 2.
“I gave notes and helped develop it for the first season, but I officially came on board to Marvel in that show in season 2,” Kyle said.
And he underscored another aspect of the series: its clear progression.
“As you watch the show, every season it gets closer to kind of the core of the X-Men that people know from the comics and the movies, because they were progressing. They were aging, and the world was coming for them,” he said.
While “X-Men: Evolution” was the most “user-friendly” of the three series, “Wolverine and the X-Men” is profoundly important to Kyle.
“And then ‘Wolverine and the X-Men’ is a show that I'm extremely proud of. It's heartbreaking because it only had one season,” Kyle said. “But the reasons behind that were out of our control.”
The premise of “Wolverine and the X-Men” pulls from both of its predecessors.
“When we crafted that show, we wanted to do something that was, again, more reflective of the books. And the way that the X-Men animated series was, we didn't want to just take stories and just animate them,” Kyle said.
Instead of adapting the comics precisely, “Wolverine and the X-Men” was meant to offer a new and exciting take on these characters.
“We wanted to find bits and pieces, and refresh stories, and change things up in a way that would allow us to bring moments and characters that people loved but give them a fresh way to experience those things,” he explained.
Moreover, the team for “Wolverine and the X-Men” had the advantage of less stringent regulations compared to “X-Men: Evolution,” allowing them to address more issues and portray them more straightforwardly.
“We used a lot of the same process of storytelling we used in Evolution,” Kyle said. “They were very strict in Evolution about what we could do — no kissing, no punches in the camera. We had all kinds of straitjackets. ‘Wolverine and the X-Men’ didn't have those.”
It was this creative freedom that made “Wolverine and the X-Men” so special.
“So, I love what we were able to push and do what we did on ‘Wolverine and the X-Men’,” he said.
Many fans of “X-Men: Evolution” were quick to become vested in “Wolverine and the X-Men.” It turns out that there may be a reason for this.
“Some people really look at it like it's a continuation. And while it isn't really, so many of the people who worked on Evolution came on board to do ‘Wolverine and the X-Men.’ So, totally and narratively and visually, there are a lot of things that just connect to the people who loved Evolution,” he explained. “That was definitely a love letter to the fans and to the X-Men. And I'll always wish we could have done the rest of the stories we had planned, but I'm very proud of the one season we got.”
Bringing characters to life
Fans of Kyle’s work may be interested in which characters were his favorite to bring to life.
“For 'Wolverine and the X-Men,' I have a sweet spot for Domino. But I think that's just personal to me, that I just really love that character. We've worked with her in the comics, and having her be a big part of ‘Wolverine and the X-Men’ was special to me,” Kyle said.
But that isn’t all. Kyle is also especially fond of Lorna and her storyline.
“One of the storylines I really loved was Lorna's because I love the complexity of Magneto’s family,” he said.
Kyle said that of Magneto’s three children, Lorna served a different purpose. He stated that his son, while the oldest, is a disappointment to Magneto. Wanda, on the other hand, is viewed as a “master child,” or someone who “can take on the reins of what he’s built.”
“But what he did with Lorna was he wanted one child to be on the other side of the war, when it's over and come into it with innocent eyes. She never saw the work that it took to get there,” he said. “Then ultimately, we got to show what happened and how much that damaged her. It really broke her because she was thrust into a world where everyone she loved was killed, and she was all alone.”
Consequently, this permanently damaged the character, and it also revealed more about Magneto’s character.
“So, it shows you that no matter what Magneto's plans were, anyone in his circle would be forever damaged by the way that he operates,” Kyle said.
For Kyle, Magneto’s character faults do not detract from his ability to be a popular or liked character in the universe.
“And I love Magneto. He's a perfect villain. He's the Jew who became a Nazi, and there's no greater arc than that. And he's someone you can always agree with about half the way, and then he takes things too far.”
Aside from Domino, Lorna and Magneto’s complicated family in “Wolverine and the X-Men,” there is another character Kyle favors — one that many of us are familiar with and may even be the figurehead of the entire franchise, considering his widespread popularity.
“Wolverine is such a great character, and I think putting him in a place where he has to be a role model for students was the beginning of the idea of him ultimately becoming the leader of the X-Men, in which he's not cut out for,” Kyle said.
Wolverine’s role as a mentor in “X-Men: Evolution” helped progress his development and was a major contributor to the entire plot of the series.
“I loved what it forced him to be, and what working with these young kids brought out of him. And I thought his journey was just as great as we could make it,” Kyle said. “There's a reason he's so popular. It's not his claws, right? He's just this man who had his life stolen from him. He's on this journey to figure out who he was and who he is.”
Kyle highlighted another essential factor about the character and what makes him special to portray.
“And if they could never piece together everything that was lost, he could still come out the other side and be a fuller, more complete version of himself for the future,” he said.
Thematically, this characterization of Wolverine spans across both series Kyle was involved in. As a crucial character across all media, Kyle made one life-altering change to Wolverine’s story — the creation of Laura Kinney, which happened during “X-Men: Evolution.”
“It’s a place I got to come up with that character and put her in the world, which was amazing. And that episode opened so many doors,” he said.
X-23: The creation of Laura Kinney
(X-23 in "X-Men: Evolution"/https://x-menevolution.fandom.com/wiki/X-23
Kyle recalled his process of creation for X-23.
“So, it started with Kids’ WB again. We were moving from our second season to the third,” Kyle said.
He explained that during this period, one of the X-Men movies had attracted much attention, with Wolverine at its center.
“And so, the head of development that we worked with at Kids’ WB asked me, ‘Could we make Wolverine a child?’” Kyle said.
Kyle explained that this stemmed from the fact that the series focuses on the young X-Men, which raised the question of whether Wolverine could also be aged down.
“And the answer was no. No, you cannot,” he said. “You will break and destroy everything Wolverine is if you make him a kid.”
Kyle’s firm refusal to portray Wolverine as a child forced him to find a solution that satisfied Kids’ WB while staying true to his creative vision.
“So, we had to find a way to bring in a younger Wolverine, without destroying the character. So, I went back to my comics. I was reading all these stories, and I got to Weapon X,” he recounted.
His review of Wolverine's history through comics only further solidified his decision.
“I was right. We can't do this to the character. It will ruin who he is. There's no bettering Wolverine, because he's been written by so many brilliant people and drawn by so many extraordinary artists,” he said.
His approach was simple.
“I was like, ‘Screw it’. I'll just clone and make another one,” Kyle said.
However, there was a caveat.
“I am a firm believer that we don't need two Wolverines,” he said. “One Wolverine is great. Two Wolverines are too many.”
To avoid creating an exact clone of Wolverine, Kyle followed a specific process.
“When I was coming up with Laura's story, for every left in Logan's life, I made a right,” he explained. “He's older than we know. She's a child. He's a male. She's a female.”
Kyle drew parallels between the two characters while also highlighting their differences.
“He had a life before the program of Weapon X, and then it was all stolen from him. She's never known life except within the program,” Kyle said. “And where he's more of an animal, she's more of a machine.”
In creating X-23, Kyle had to consider many aspects of her life.
“Once I kind of came up with who she is, the first question that I had to answer is, ‘Who the hell would make a baby into a weapon?’ And that answer became the story of the doctor behind her creation,” he said. “And she was someone who was abused as a child and really hated family.”
According to Kyle, this doctor would have been Laura Kinney’s mother, having given birth to her.
“But that was a slow growth process across her arc in that story where she watched the child she created and gave birth to, slowly be shaped into this perfect killing machine,” he said. “That was the version of the story that I came up with.”
There was a problem: Kyle’s initial storyline was too explicit for children’s television. It was with the help of Chris Yost that Laura Kinney’s character developed into what viewers saw in the Season 3 debut episode titled “X-23.”
“So, I reworked my pitch with Chris, who was a friend at the time. We had never written together, and it took several or more iterations where we had to keep pulling and pulling and pulling stuff out because it was still too much,” Kyle recounted. “But we were able to get a bare bones version of that storyline into the show where we could put her in and not have any of the child abuse.”
Kyle and Yost could not just create and air the episode. Instead, Kyle had to pitch his creation to Joe Quesada since he was making significant changes to Wolverine’s backstory.
“So, Joe was in town, and I was taking him from the office of the hotel, and I gave him the elevator-pitched version of her backstory, and he said, ‘In a page, you've just cracked the problem we haven't been able to solve in 15 years’, which is how do we do more Wolverine without using Wolverine?” Kyle said. “And, so I got his blessing.”
Kyle’s journey with the character was far from over. In fact, only two weeks later, Quesada approached Kyle with an offer.
“Two weeks after that, Joe called me and said, ‘Hey, would you mind if I put your character in the comics?’ And I'm like, ‘Would I want my character to put like in the Bible?’ Yeah, I would.”
Kyle did have one stipulation: The character’s debut episode on “X-Men: Evolution” had to air first.
“All I said was I wanted the episode to come out first so that people would know where she started and who made her,” Kyle said. “Then, when she hit, people loved her. They wanted to know more about her. It was a huge smash from the comics.”
After, Kyle began writing comics with Chris Yost — except this time, the story aligned with his original draft.
“Chris and I got to tell the story that I originally created for her. That is what you see in ‘Innocence Lost,’ which is her real backstory. So, that was joy. And doing ‘Target X’ to follow up with Mike Choi and Sonia Oback was incredible,” he said.
Kyle stated that he and Yost continued to write the character together for years.
“And eventually, you know, we wrote her so much, I was like, ‘I got to let go.’ Otherwise, I'm going to get to a place where I'm going to end up destroying the character that I love so much,” Kyle said.
Once established on television and in comics, Laura Kinney’s journey continued on the big screen.
From comics to cinema
(Laura Kinney, as portrayed in "Logan"/https://screenrant.com/logan-james-mangold-x-23-spinoff-plot-details/)
Imagine creating a character and seeing it come to life on the big screen.
This was Kyle’s experience with the release of “Logan” in 2017.
“I just finished the second Thor movie, and I was working with Chris on Ragnarok when I found out that James Mangold was going to make a Logan movie,” he said. “I got to meet with him, and he gave me the elevator pitch of that movie.”
Kyle was highly impressed with Mangold’s pitch.
“You take that story, you leave out the mutants, you've got an Academy Award film. You put mutants in it, and it's going to blow up,” he said. “The movie was amazing. When I saw that first trailer where she was revealed, I cried on a sofa for like 30 minutes.”
Kyle expressed that “Logan” is special — even compared to “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
“It’s very special, because no matter what happens now with Marvel having the X-Men back, they will never tell a story so brutally honest and raw as Logan. ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ had lots of violence, but everyone heals, so there's no loss. There are no real stakes,” he stated.
Kyle considered “Logan” to be the best film for Laura Kinney to make her introduction in.
“As a creator, I'm blessed,” he said. “I was lucky enough to have her come out in arguably one of the best X-Men films ever created, and for that, I'll always be grateful to James.”