It’s been several years now since Disney purchased Marvel and a couple more since Disney purchased Fox. It took those two deals together to bring the X-Men into the world of Disney, and while we’re largely still waiting to see what the inevitable future of the X-Men in the MCU will look like, thanks to a curious fan and AI art, we now know what the X-Men would look like if they were animated Disney characters in the classic House of Mouse style.
The X-Men are no strangers to animation, and the recent X-Men ‘97, available with a Disney+ subscription, reminded us just how great the team works in that medium. However, somebody decided to take things a step further and used AI to generate a look at several of the X-Men if they were drawn in the style of Disney animation characters, posting the results to Instagram, and considering Beast looks like he came right out of The Lion King, I’d say it works.
In addition, all the female characters have faces that resemble princesses from the Disney Renaissance movies. Rogue looks like Ariel, and Mystique is giving me “What if Belle was purple?” vibes. It's kind of cool.
Seriously though, the AI version who really looks like he was pulled from a Disney movie is Beast, who’s basically a bipedal blue Simba. It’s a take on the character that certainly works, though I’m not aware of a version of Beast that was given a feline design, so honestly I suppose it doesn’t feel quite true to the character. I still enjoy it from a fan perspective, however.
There are some other interesting takes. Nightcrawler has more of a “Disney Villain” vibe going than Magneto does. Gambit has the Disney Prince thing going on so well that he looks exceedingly generic. Cyclops and Wolverine at least have something more going on in the style department.
AI “art” gets a lot of (probably justified) criticism, but for stuff like this, it can be pretty fun. Like seeing the characters from The Boys recreated in Pixar's style.
The only Marvel characters that we ever truly got the “Disney version” of were the members of Big Hero 6. And since these artistic renderings are inspired by Disney’s 2D art, and Big Hero 6 was a 3D animated film, they honestly don’t look like they belong together.
Technically speaking, the real “Disney version” of the X-Men will come when they officially join the MCU in an upcoming Marvel movie. It will be the first time Disney, via Marvel Studios, takes their first stab at a version of the team that will be entirely generated under Disney. It should certainly be interesting.
