X-Men '97
We are back, baby. It's time to wrap up "X-Men '97" and man, watching these last two episodes just made me so excited for season 2. Even with the drama regarding Beau DeMayo's exit from the series. If you don't know about that, you should Google it. But let's now waste any time. Let's get right into things.
"Tolerance Is Extinction" - Part 2
Storm: [to Jean] "I thought of you while away. Of when my sister faced her darkness and emerged stronger. A survivor. A phoenix. All this change? It's all the same. Let us do what we do. Believe not in a dream or our gifts, but in each other."
Jean Grey: "Make them mind your weather, sister."
Storm: "And them weather your mind."
After the Prime Sentinels attack and Magneto's reversal of the magnetic poles, the X-Men and mutant kind are in dire straits. As the team regroups and forms a plan to stop Bastion and try to reason with Magneto, the latter shows up with an offer for the team to join him. While some do choose to join, the rest are left to do what they always do. Try to save the world and their kind from extinction, no matter the cost.
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| There were never such devoted sisters. |
Honestly, I forget sometimes how phenomenal this show is. Then, I watch episodes like this and I am reminded. The live-action MCU could learn something from "X-Men '97." One of my common complaints about those movies is that they sort of devolve into a two dimensional, special effects heavy mess in the third act. There is a ton of action here that is superbly done and superbly choreographed, but there are still character moments that hit hard particularly if you're a long time X-Men fan. It finds that balance that can be really difficult and it never lets you go for the entirety of the episode's runtime.
If there is one thing that X-Men fans are used to, it's that the team is at it's best when they have their backs against the wall and at the start of this episode that is exactly where they are. The mansion is in ruins. Xavier is using his old wheelchair because his hover wheelchair has been destroyed. Mutants are being terrorized on the streets including Roberto and Jubilee who are saved by Storm and Forge. It's a small moment but Jubilee collapsing in Storm's arms was so good. It's just a reminder what a lynchpin of the team our resident weather goddess is. Rogue is having night terrors and is forgetting that Gambit is dead. Wolverine is ready to kill Magneto.
The first half of this episode is dedicated to the soap operatic drama that we love from the X-Men. Xavier faces a reckoning with the team based on the decisions that he made when he left for the Shi'ar. And while Cyclops and Jean are maybe too quick to forgive him for turning the school and the team over to Magneto, Rogue is definitely not here for Xavier's platitudes. Lenore Zann continues to really kill it with her voice performance of Rogue. There is a consistent ache and brokenness in her voice and delivery. When Xavier laments that Gambit should have been buried on the school grounds instead of with the Thieves Guild, the way she is oozing bitterness and contempt when she snaps back at Xavier hits your soul.
It's at this moment that Magneto shows up with Asteroid M with an offer for the entirety of the team. You can join him. Rogue and Roberto are the ones that take him up on the offer. It's not shocking that she is willing to do that. She has a past with Magneto. She's lost the love of her life. Xavier and his dream have failed her. I have less sympathy for Roberto. I get that his mom did try to turn him over to the Prime Sentinels, but it still comes off a little poor little rich kid. They've tried really hard with Roberto this season and I am a fan of Gui Agustini's voice work, but it's falling a little flat for me. That might be my one minor grip with the season.
The Storm/Jean content we are getting here is phenomenal. From their reunion at the Mansion to their final words to each other before they split up, everything works. There is an argument to be made that the writers here are relying more on fans affection for the pairs sisterhood in the comics more than anything that the series showed but you know what? In this case, I don't really care about that. The "mind your weather" and "weather your mind" comment is right up there with the "what is grief but love persevering" comment. This is something that will be repeated ad nauseum until you are sick of it and I love that it came from my girls.
The action in the back half of the episode is unparalleled and it's what you've come to expect from this series. Every member of the team gets their chance to shine. Jean, Storm, Morph, Beast, Cable and Forge go after Bastion. Storm and Forge deal with the flying Sentinels while the rest hit the ground. Morph shifting into Hulk and smashing Sentinels is so much fun and just a great example of how the show has really elevated the character throughout this season. We sometimes forget that Beast is not just Bill Nye but he's also a powerhouse in his own right. Him ripping off the arm of a Sentinel and smacking others with it's hand was badass.
I have to gush over my girl. "X-Men '97" has done such a good job of re-writing the fainting narrative from the original series with Jean. She is killing it here. I love that she faces off with Sinister. I love that we see a great example of how her powers work with her chucking trucks at Sinister telekinetically. Even though things are extremely serious, we still get some fun. I mean, how can you not be grinning from ear to ear seeing Jean chucking bowling balls at Sinister?
This is the penultimate episode of the season so we have to have some killer cliffhangers, right? Just when things are looking up for the team, things start going terribly wrong. Bastion destroys the modified pneumonic scrambler that Beast and Forge cooked up. Sinister activates a literal kill switch in Cable and it looks like he's killed Jean. On Asteroid M, the team gets Magneto's helmet off, but it's short lived. Cyclops wants to give the other half of the team more time to stop Bastion and that allows Magnus the upper hand, until Wolverine stabs him. And we see animated one of the most horrific moments from the comics. Magneto rips out the adamantium from Wolverine's skeleton and that freeze frame is what we leave on which is crazy. I'm not sure how I waited a week for the final episode honestly.
Grade: A
"Tolerance Is Extinction" - Part 3
Rogue: "His name was Gambit! Remember it!"
The X-Men face their final battles with both Bastion and Magneto. Xavier fights a battle to restore his friends mind from within while the rest of the team tries to put an end to Bastion and Operation: Zero Tolerance, once and for all. Will President Kelly allow the team the time they need or will he enact the Magneto Protocols? What will become of our favorite band of merry mutants once all is said and done?
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| Hang it in the Louvre. |
I'm just going to say this from the start. This was really a stellar finale. It did everything that a good finale needs to do. It wrapped up the overarching stories and sent us in interesting directions for the next season. There are some very minor things that I might have changed but overall this was a fitting finale for one of the best superhero animated series out there. This may be controversial but I'd say that this season is right up there with the very best of "Batman: The Animated Series" and if you're familiar with this blog or just me in general, you know that is high praise.
The ideological differences between Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr have always formed the spine of the X-Men story so it's only natural that it also forms the backbone of this finale. It can sometimes feel that Xavier and Magneto are so far from each other that it can be difficult to imagine them being friends at all. So, it's nice that the episode begins with a flashback of them working together. Xavier his optimistic self and Magneto the pessimist but not as jaded as he has become. There is an easy camaraderie between the two of them that is nice to see. And even though we know that it's just an illusion it is still a bummer when the facade falls away.
And it falls away in a major way with Xavier forcing his will on Magneto in order to get him to put Earth back to normal knowing that it will fracture his friend's psyche. And even though Charles stays in Magnus's mind to help put things back together, putting them both at risk, it doesn't take away what Charles did. The first part of the episode is kind of split between what is happening with Magnus's mind and what is happening outside. I think there is some compelling stuff going on in there. I like the imagery of the rising waters to illustrate things slipping away and it's cool to see Rogue, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Polaris on the boat as things Magneto cares about, but sometimes these flashes back rob the episode of some of its excitement and forward momentum.
The action in this episode is once again top notch as the team extricates themselves from the precarious predicaments that they have found themselves in. The Phoenix Force returns to resurrect Jean and give her a boost which is so fucking badass. I love that she uses this boost to really just fuck Sinister all the way up. She puts the scrambler back together and then extracts all the mutant DNA from Sinister that he's stolen to keep him alive and young. It's a big fuck you to the evil scientist and just really drives home how vain he really is. Is this kind of petty? Certainly. But you know what, he's fucked with Jean so much over the years, I think he deserves some pettiness.
After the Phoenix departs, Bastion gets the upper hand and then heads to Asteroid M, intent to crash it into Earth. We get a Bastion/Rogue showdown and it is everything that you can want it to be. Rogue doesn't always get to really let loose with her powers and it's really nice to see her finally get the opportunity. She opens a full can on him and even though you know that he's going to at some point gain the upper hand, it's still nice to see her do this for Gambit. Even Roberto gets some time to shine in this fight and he finally chooses the moniker, Sunspot.
There are a lot of fun cameos in the episode from various Marvel characters. We see Doctor Strange, Captain America, Iron Man, Black Panther, Cloak and Dagger. My favorite cameo was seeing Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson along with Flash Thompson from the 1994 "Spider-Man" animated series. That series ended on a cliffhanger with Peter searching for MJ and it's great to see that they did find each other. Because humans are kind of the worst, President Kelly enacts the Magneto Protocols and fires multiple missiles at Asteroid M. Wild that they'd do this not knowing what could happen or if it would work, but it tracks. It's great that Captain America is against this. It's very on brand.
I liked how the X-Men tried to talk Bastion down but of course, he's not having it. I do feel like the fate of Bastion is a little rushed. He gets a bit of the short shrift so the action can turn to the team working together to stop Asteroid M from crashing into the Earth and doing to humans what a different asteroid did to the dinosaurs. I give Cyclops a lot of shit (and he deserves it) but I will say I did enjoy and was genuinely moved by his speech to Cable as a goodbye. Maybe he's not the worst dad after all. Morph shifts into Jean to comfort Wolverine which is lovely and another example of how Morph is queer and super into Wolverine.
The X-Men, of course, stop Asteroid M, but it looks like it explodes and the X-Men are dead, aside from Forge, Jubilee and Sunspot. Six months later, Graydon Creed is running for president against Kelly and seems to be gaining ground and Forge hasn't seen hide nor hair from the team. Then Bishop shows up and drops the bomb that they are lost in time, because of course they are. The last few moments of the episode set up what we can expect from season two. Xavier, Magneto, Beast, Rogue and Nightcrawler find themselves in ancient Egypt and face to face with a young En Sabah Nur aka Apocalypse. Jean and Cyclops are in the far future and are confronted by Mother Askani, leader of the Askani clan and also a young Nathan Summers. The big question though is where are Morph and Wolverine?
The post credit scene shows Apocalypse sifting through the remains of Genosha and finding one of Gambit's playing cards. He comments there is "so much death." If you're not a comic reader, maybe skip this, but this definitely feels like next season we will see Gambit resurrected as Apocalypse's horsemen, Death and that could be pretty cool.
Grade: A-
What a season! It was really everything I could have asked for. Season two is supposedly dropping next year so hopefully we won't have long to wait to find out what happens next.
Next up, we are going to start the next X-Men animated series, "X-Men Evolution."
What did you all think? Was this everything you wanted and more? What are you looking forward to in season two? Let me know in the comments.
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