Marvel made a live-action TV show about mutants during the 2000s … without Wolverine or Magneto or any other X-Men. Technically, it wasn’t even an adaptation of “X-Men” comics … but the studio making actual “X-Men” movies at the time wasn’t happy and sued Marvel over licensing rights.
“Mutant X” premiered in syndication in October 2001, a little more than a year after 20th Century Fox released its first “X-Men” film. The show follows a team granted superpowers from ethically dubious genetic experiments who find and help other mutants before the evil agency Genomex can get to them first.
Though there was a comic titled “Mutant X,” the TV show had no explicit connection to any comic. Fox, which bought the film rights to the X-Men from Marvel in 1993, sued for breach of contract and false advertising in 2001. Marvel countersued, arguing the characters were different and that it didn’t violate Fox’s licensing agreement to use the “X-Men” characters.
After a judge ruled that the series could continue as long as it never made reference to the X-Men or Fox movies, the two sides amicably settled the lawsuit in 2003. Terms were not disclosed.
Corporate mergers eventually would’ve made this rights dispute irrelevant
“Mutant X” ran for three seasons and was on its way to a fourth before one of the main production companies behind the series, Fireworks Entertainment, fell apart, ending the show. What became the series finale ended on a cliffhanger. Today, “Mutant X” is remembered as one of the worst superhero TV shows of all time.
Twentieth Century Fox eventually made two live-action shows based on “X-Men.” “The Gifted” and “Legion” premiered on Fox and FX, respectively, in 2017. Neither show cleanly fit into the famously convoluted chronology of Fox’s “X-Men” movies, and both ended in 2019. There have been five animated “X-Men” shows, too.
Amusingly, if a similar situation happened today there wouldn’t be anything to sue over. The Walt Disney Company bought Marvel in 2009 and in 2017 it acquired 20th Century Fox. With all the rights under one roof, Marvel could make a “Mutant X” show — or an actual “X-Men” show — without issue.
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