The Morph actor from X-Men ’97 wants him to find love, but not with Wolverine

Voice performances have become isolating work over the years—these days, for an actor like JP Karliak, a day “on set” is completed from a home studio, with notes coming in via Zoom calls. But the goals are the same: to find the perfect sound to suit a character, and to relentlessly search for the perfect recording. Karliak has done voice work across the animation and video game spectrum, and is no stranger to IP requirements. He’s been in everything The Boss Baby: Back in Business Unpleasant Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, where he played Batman’s arch-enemy Joker. Taking over the role of Morph in Marvel Animation’s X Men ’97, voiced in the original series by actor Ron Rubin, put him under a lot of pressure from nostalgic fans. Yet he found it, alone in the room: his own pure voice.

“My natural speaking voice doesn’t sound that different from Ron’s original rendition,” Karliak tells Polygon, “(and Morph) has a new look, it changes. And all these characters go through this whole plot. For me it was something like: Why don’t we just put it in this grounded space and slap a character voice on top?”

In addition to giving Morph a character redesign, the X Men ’97 writers developed them into the animated property’s first non-binary character. Karliak, who identifies as genderqueer, welcomed the change. In the 1990s, the use of he/them pronouns was less common, but the fact that Rogue made a point of properly addressing Morph in 1997 fits right into the show’s approach to doing what feels good emotionally, continuity and era be damned.

“We didn’t fly around and shoot lightning out of our fingers (not in 1997 either), so whatever!” says Karliak. “I still think the rendering is incredible. And I don’t think it takes anything away from who Morph is. Morph is on a gender journey that will unfold as time passes and he moves through the eras of terminology we have already experienced.

With such a stacked cast, the show doesn’t give Morph much airtime, but their history on the series is deeply felt and considered with every line reading. X Men ’97 remains in continuity with X-Men: The Animated Series, which saw Sentinels kill Morph in the first episode, only for Mister Sinister to resurrect the shapeshifter as a brainwashed X-adversary. When his friends save him, he disappears from the show again to deal with that trauma.

Morph returns X Men ’97 like a crazy but troubled soul finding a place in the world. Karliak says that even when Morph has three lines in an episode, he found himself going through every variation — pure anger, joking, bawling his eyes out, almost deadpan — with voice director Meredith Layne (Castlevania), to give the director and writers what they need to connect the past to the present. “As the comic relief of the show, I think he buries a lot of things,” Karliak says. “It was actually the smarter way to have him say less for someone who internalizes a lot.”

In addition to voiceover work, Karliak leads the LGBTQIA+ nonprofit Strange Vox, which strives to train aspiring queer VO artists and educate the industry about working with queer talent. He says one quirk of current Hollywood casting is that the group often encounters auditions asking for “non-binary voices,” which he finds amusing despite the attempt at allyship. “It’s like, What does that mean? “There’s a lot of confusion between ‘non-binary means androgynous’, which is not the case,” he says.

And what makes it fun for Karliak to bring to life isn’t how the character fits into a specific identity slot — it’s how his identity fits into the day-to-day drama at the X-mansion, and the larger global drama of X Men ’97.

“He’s a superhero who’s been through trauma, he’s got friends, he shows up, he does the thing,” Karliak says. “He’d probably like to have a partner at some point – you know, hint, hint, nudge, nudge – and all that stuff happens. But there’s never anything special Jesse Spano episode of, like, This is the non-binary episode. Because we don’t need it.”

Many fans have wondered if Morph’s friendship with Wolverine could develop into something more romantic in future seasons X Men ’97. But Karliak hopes not, as much as he wants his character to find love.

“As someone who has consumed a lot of queer media over the years – the coded stuff that we had in the 90s – I think there have been so many stories told about the queer person pining for the straight best friend. Mwa!” he says. “It’s a bit meh for me! I think it’s so much more interesting that they love each other like they’re Frodo and Samwise, and that’s great. It doesn’t have to be more than that. And they can support each other. It makes Morph infuriate Wolverine by turning into Jean Gray so much less, like: Oh, I’m jealous, so I’m going to piss you off about your girlfriend that I hateand more about, Hey friend, I think this is harmful to you, and I just want to alert you that you may need to move on.”

Karliak praises the X Men ’97 writers have room to break with obvious stereotypes and traditions to do their own thing. And the work can withstand all kinds of criticism. When news broke that Karliak would be voicing Morph as a non-binary character, the usual corners of the internet erupted with vitriol and made its way to his mentions. But now that the season is over, he hears little reluctance.

“There are properties, films and IPs that have tried to do queer representation and did it more like checking a box, and that was poorly received when it was announced, and continued to be poorly received when the thing was bombed,” says he. “And I think what’s great about this is that it’s done authentically, not just based on the image, but also based on the text, like Beau (DeMayo), but also Charley (Feldman) and all the other writers. There’s a strange pedigree that goes into this to make up for this. So the people who were screaming about it before it came out – once everyone saw it, and it was so universally praised, everything really quieted down. There is no arguing with excellence.”