Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 50

 A monster comes out from the dark. 

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Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 49

 The fall of Asteroid M. 

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, Magneto unveiled his masterpiece. Having grown weary of life on Earth, Magneto and several Russian Mutant scientists built Asteroid M. Asteroid M will be a Mutant only nation that orbits the globe, and if anyone had a problem with that, he’s more than willing to fire some stolen nuclear warheads at them. He announced that the first nation that he would be gathering Mutants would be Genosha. Charles, Beast and Gambit all went out to meet him. Magneto brought them to the heart of Genosha’s Mutant detention camp and tried to free the Mutants, but Genosha wasn’t willing to let it’s Mutant population go. They pull out several Sentinels to try to keep their Mutants. They’re aided but a man named Fabian Cortez and his Acolytes, the combined forces defeating the Genoshans. Cortez uses his energy manipulating powers to revitalize Magneto and heal his fatigue allowing them to escape. On Asteroid M, Gambit meets with his friend Byron who is working for Magneto and has a look around. Cortez recharges Magneto again, which makes Charles nervous. Oh, and an ex of Charles’ is also part of the Acolytes. At a dinner where Magneto is hosting his guests, including the stranded astronauts he’d kidnapped while stealing missiles, missiles are fired on Asteroid M. Magneto destroys them and Cortez insists he retaliate. Magneto doesn’t want to and Byron lets him know that was probably a retaliation strike from Earth as someone fired a missile earlier at them. Magneto has a private meeting with Cortez in his room where he accuses Cortez of firing the missiles. Cortez admits it and says he renounces Magneto, saying that he’s too weak to lead them against the ‘flat line’ humans. He reabsorbs the energy he gave Magneto, saying that his power was the only thing that kept Magneto going since Genosha. He claims Magneto doesn’t even have the power to keep his atoms together for much longer. He jettisons Magento’s pod from Asteroid M, saying he’ll make a better Martyr than Leader and then frames the X-Men for assassinating Magneto. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

We open with the Acolytes and other Mutants trying to grab the ‘traitor’ X-Men. They run, and meet with the human astronauts. Charles tells them that they need to make for the shuttles, now. Gambit offers to stay behind to buy them time. Beast tells him that they might not have time to wait for him, and Gambit just shrugs and says he’ll be the first X-Man in Orbit then. He bunkers down and prepares to do some damage. He uses his cards to hold them off, but Amelia uses her power to turn to mist to sneak up behind him and distract him long enough for him to get grabbed. At the shuttle, Charles says that they’ll wait if they can for Gambit, but Beast lets him know the mob is on them and Gambit is nowhere to be seen. They take off. Cortez vows ‘vengeance’ for Magneto, against the Charles, the X-Men, and the Human tyrants on Earth. As they fall towards Earth, Charles sense Magneto’s mind in his pod as it hurtles towards Earth. Magneto says that he lives but he's clearly fading away into nothingness as we speak. Both shuttle and pod head for the planet.

 

On Earth, Rogue is flying outside the launch site and notes that they’re preparing for a crash. She sees the shuttle coming in hot, and because she’s a badass, flies up and alters their course just enough so they don’t crater at the launch site. They crash and fire and rescue arrive to put out the flames. Rogue lands and rips the door from the shuttle, asking where Gambit is. Charles tells her that he’s on Asteroid M, and after she freaks out at the thought of him abandoning her, tells her that he was captured by buying them time to flee. Hank promises that they’ll go back for him as soon as they get the Blackbirds engines upgraded. A General pokes his head into the shuttle and asks for Charles. Rogue wants to go after Remy, now, but Charles tells her they need to delay at least a few hours to get the world leaders up to speed. She starts tearing up at the thought of him behind enemy lines.

 

On Asteroid M, Gambit is dubbed at traitor. They stick him with a Genoshan power suppressing collar. Cortez is going to spare him, saying that he’ll serve them well as a member of the Acolytes. Gambit says that he’ll never do that, but Cortez swears that by the end of the day he will.

 

Charles, Rogue, Hank and Logan hold a brief memorial for Magneto, aka Magnus, aka Erik Magnus Lehnsherr. He tells the story of how Magneto lost his family during the holocaust and how Charles tried to help him but failed. He says that in his heart of heart, Magneto was just focused on sparing future generations his pain and suffering.  We’re shown him using his powers to lift a chunk of rock from the Earth that would become Asteroid M. He bids his friend farewell, saying that he has finally found peace. As they break up, Rogue admits she’s more worried about Gambit than Magneto.

 

Back with Gambit, Cortez is trying to torture a false confession out of Gambit. He uses his energy powers to cause Gambit mind melting pain to get him to say he did it. Gambit refuses because he is a badass. Amelia stops him from frying Gambit’s mind. Cortez warns her to not interfere again or he promises to use their new Court system to look into her helping an enemy of the state. Cortez sends a message to Earth, saying that all Mutant prisoners shall be freed, and restitutions paid to the Mutants for the crimes committed against them. If his demands aren’t met, he’ll start punishing countries, starting with Genosha. We’re shown several groups watching the address, including an Egyptian looking Pharoh, X-Factor, and the general populace. Cortez promises that he’ll punish anyone who resists and that they have four hours to comply. At the White House, Kelly is demanding action. Charles wants to go back, to at least try, but the Genoshan representative is being racist. Charles promises that they’re the best shot at stopping Nuclear war and that this time his people won’t be going up to talk.

 

Cortez is whipping up a populist mob on Genosha, promising retribution against Earth. Amelia calls him a reckless fool and that she knows humanity would have left them alone if they hadn’t kicked the hornet’s nest. In his cell Gambit it is tossing cards in a hat. Amelia slips into his cell using her powers and asks why won’t he just confess and get things over with. Gambit insists he’s innocent and asks her how Cortez got to Magneto’s room so fast when his room is on the other side of the station. She promises to find out. Two of the other Acolytes are talking about Cortez in the security room, one is worried that Cortez is going full dictator and the other is telling her to calm down. Amelia slips past them in smoke form and gets to the security cameras, saying it’s time to see who is telling the truth.

 

The Blackbird leaves Earth’s atmosphere and uses its new tech to slip past Asteroid M’s defenses. Charles, bedecked in a fancy space suit, quickly scans minds and determines that they are so far undetected. They dock with the station and Rogue and Wolverine slip into the station. Both are in kick ass space suits as well. Amelia searches the record room and notes that the video of the time of Magneto’s assassination, helpfully marked by number, is missing. She turns to smoke and slips away. Beast meanwhile hopes the hatch to one of the nukes and begins to disarm them, quickly ripping out the wiring. He does 2 of 250 in a few seconds, so a lot to go.

 

Inside the station, Cortex is using a hologram display to figure out what his king look should be. Amelia calls him and says that he’s needed in the control room. He calls her a disrespectful harridan and promises that she’ll be next. Ya know it’s bad when you’re plotting political assassinations. She finds the tape and plays it, confirming Cortez killed Magneto. Rogue flies Logan through the station so they can move silently. They reach the control room just after Cortex does and a fight breaks out. Rogue and Wolverine are tough but it’s four-on-one. They get thrown into a monitor and knocked out. Cortez sentences them to be jettisoned into space.

 

On Earth in a desert, two men and their camels are resting by a fire. They see Magneto’s pod crashed land and go to investigate. As they arrive, we see Magneto begin to reconstitute himself and announce that he lives!

 

Cortez uses Asteroid M’s technology to broadcast the execution of Rogue and Wolverine. He’s clearly super high on being the undisputed ruler here, saying that his people demand retribution be delivered. Amelia says that all he’s been delivering lately is lies and plays the tape of him draining Magneto. Cortez says it’s a trick, but the crowd turn on him. Wolverine says that he’s pretty sure he’ll enjoy this. Cortez throws a grenade at them, saying their new world will live. While they stop the grenade, he drops through an emergency chute. Rogue says she’s sure he won’t fire more missiles, but Amelia says that he can through the secondary controls. Cortez goes to Byron and tells him that Asteroid M has been infiltrated and they need to check the missiles. They find Beast has disabled 40 of them, but there’s 210 left. Cortez order him to fire them. Byron isn’t insane, though and says that if he did that, they’d wipe out most of life on Earth. Cortez pulls a gun on him and orders him to do it, Gambit comes in and says Cortez has lost his mind. Cortez tries to shoot him, but Byron melts his gun. He throws Byron off and activates Gambit’s collar. Or tries to, Amelia turns it to smoke and steals it, freeing Gambit. Cortez says he won’t be stopped and activates the Missiles. He launches them towards Earth. Charles and Beast use the Blackbird to shoot a bunch down but there are too many. Suddenly, Magneto arrives and stops the missiles. He says that the Earth’s magnetic field healed him, like a mother nourishing her son. (Again, not sure that sciences but whatever) He’s here for revenge. He uses his power to shift Asteroid M. Rogue and Wolverine rush to try to find Gambit. They radio to him and find that he’s with Amelia escorting Cortez. Magneto bursts in and demands vengeance. Cortez tries to beg for forgiveness, but Magneto wraps him in metal and gags him. They all fall back to the Blackbird and it takes off. Gambit playfully whines about having to hold the fort all by his lonesome and Rogue says next time she’ll come with to watch his bad.

 

Charles reaches out to Magneto and tells him that he needs to come with them. Magneto refuses, determined to see his dream to it’s end. He laments what was lost, thinking that humanity may have come to trust them with time but that is impossible now. He says that he’ll survive the destruction of Asteroid M and to not worry. He drops it to Earth, making sure it crashes into the ocean.

 

On Earth, Amelia asks why he tried to save Magneto. She asks what he has to live for with his dream dead. He says that he hopes Magneto could help Charles see his dream fulfilled. And offers a spot for Amelia as well. She thanks him, but says she’d tried to follow another man’s dream, and it failed, so it’s now time for her to find her own.

 

Sometime later, Cortez finds himself strapped down and with his head hooked up to some machines. He asks what happened to him and where he is. A familiar robotic voice says that he was spared from Asteroid M because he was determined to be potentially useful. From the shadows steps Apocalypse. And the Shi’ar royal family member Deathbird for some reason. Not sure what she’s doing there.

 

Overall, a solid two parter. I think that having Magneto just met Fabian Cortez just before Cortez’s attempted coup weakens the story ever so slightly, though. Like, the dude was on Asteroid M for like three days, but he’s figured out secret passageways, defense protocols, and gained access to the security system? If he’d been Magneto’s number 2 for a while, maybe say that he’d been sent ahead to prepare Genoshan Mutants to leave to explain why he was on the island and then this flows a little better. I want to give props to Fabian Cortez’s voice actor Jeffery Max Nicholls. The dude just has a voice that works well with screamed lines and moments of pure delusional grandeur. From a character standpoint, Cortez also works as a betraying successor, leveraging the ‘tragedy’ of Magneto’s death to whip his followers into a frenzy and keep them too hyper fixated on vengeance to ask important questions. Like how come you were near Magneto’s room? The episode also highlights Gambit’s strong strength of character and will. The energy Cortez uses looks extremely painful, so the fact Gambit was able to withstand it and keep firm to his innocence is impressive. Magneto recovering because he landed on Earth is a bit weird but fits with how his powers are often depicted. He’s able to generate his own magnetic fields, but his most impressive feats just about always show him merging his field with the planets to make the big, big effects. His dedication to his vision being so strong that he had to destroy Asteroid M since it was no longer a viable idea was pretty good too. Magneto is often on the wrong side in situations, but it seems clear that despite any bravado to the contrary he honestly thought that Asteroid M was as peaceful a solution as he was able to make. Yes, the nukes were overkill but I do understand his belief that he needed a deterrent bigger than his perfect defense. At least so long as they don’t make plastic missiles, that is. Next time, Charles vs. the Shadow King. 

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Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 48

Always beware the Zealot, even if they're working for you. 

Last time one X-Men: The Animated Series, Omega Red was defrosted again. The US Navy recruited him as part of a mission to move an abandoned USSR nuclear sub lost on the bottom of the sea. They offered him a means of returning him to human form in exchange. He agreed but on the condition Wolverine (an old enemy) and Storm (a new enemy) be forced to join him. They all travel to the ocean bottom and get the sub restarted and Omega Red immediately betrays the deal, ripping out the implant they put in him as an insurance policy. He’s going to launch the nukes at the fifteen most populated cities on Earth, hide beneath the sea for a bit, and then raise up to conquer the new waring world. Wolverine and Storm try to stop him but the toxic air in the sub and their fragile protective suits make that hard. Ultimately, they’re saved by Beast dropping depth charges from the Blackbird and Rogue bending the subs rudder to make it uncontrollable. Wolverine and Storm escape, and Omega Red is lost to the bottom of the sea. Enough recap. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

The episode begins out in space as a shuttle grabs a satellite. A Russian cosmonaut heads to the satellite and begins working on it. From his angry mutterings, it’s revealed this is a former Soviet Union weapons instillation, a satellite armed with nukes prepared to fire if the Cold War turned hot. He’s muttering about how disarming nukes aren’t like harvesting potatoes when he’s hit by familiar waves of yellow that send him flying away, snapping his tether. He, the satellite and the rocket are all pulled into a giant asteroid that seemed to appear out of nowhere. So… Magneto’s clearly up to something.

 

We jump to the UN where a huge argument seems to be ongoing about the disappearances. We learn that this is the fifth armed satellite to disappear in two months AND they’ve lost an astronaut and the shuttle with it. The USA representative is accusing Russia of knowing something about it, while Russia’s ambassador wants to know about their missing Aerospace scientists. USA says that all those missing Aerospace scientists were Mutants and accuses Russia of selling them to Genosha as slave labor. The Genoshan ambassador (Who sat these guys next to each other?) objects… to the use of the word ‘slave,’ he says they’re just ‘managing resources.’ Dude, slavery with extra steps. As if he was waiting for that line, Magneto comes crashing in from above, shattering the dome over the UN and floating inside. He announces that the Mutant race will no longer be managed. Some try to flee, but Magneto uses his powers to force people back to their seats, saying they can leave when he’s finished. He tells the UN that he’s announcing the liberation of Mutant kind. After yelling at the Genoshan delegate for his ‘management’ he pulls up a tv and shows footage of Mutant mistreatment in Genosha, the Friends of Humanity hate attacks, Sentinels and the X-Men doing their best to keep things together. He says specifically that the X-Men have tried to keep thing equal but have been only met with more hatred. He announces that the Mutant Scientists and himself have just finished their master work, a Mutant Only asteroid that he has dubbed Asteroid M. He says that the first exodus to his new nation will begin in Genosha in 24 hours. After that, he’ll set up other pickup sites around the world and they’ll be brought in after the first pilgrims are settled. We see that Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister and the Nasty Boys, and Storm’s godson Mjnari watching from their various locations. He says that his mission is peaceful, and that any interference would be… unwise. My guy has Nukes, and he is just itching for an excuse. He floats out of the UN. Charles and the X-Men are watching from the War Room, and Charles wonders if his failure to help is so complete.

 

We see hundreds of Mutants clambering to get to Asteroid M, with anti-Mutant groups cheering them on. Gambit does a search of a few known Mutants, all currently missing, and notes a friend of his named Byron Calley ran off with Magneto. He asks what Beast thinks they’re doing, and Beast says much of what he’s doing, namely retrofitting Shi’ar tech to make the Blackbird be able to reach low orbit, with Rogue assisting. He assumes they’re using the alien tech that Magneto found in the Savage Land to make his city in the sky functional. Gambit wonders why scientists, not soldiers, would work with Magneto. Rogue shrugs and assume they’re tired of being treated like trash on Earth. That doesn’t feel like much reason to leave, according to her, but Gambit points out, and Beast agrees, that staying and fighting the good fight doesn’t seem to get them very far. Rogue asks if he’s thinking about leaving, Gambit claims he’s only thinking out loud and says that Gambit follows her anywhere.

 

In his office, Charles is cautioning President Kelly from considering a nuclear option as that might cause World War III. Kelly knows that, but people are scared and are demanding he do something. Magneto’s got nukes and everyone is scared he’ll use them. Charles promises that Magneto won’t lie to him, and that if given a chance they can find a peaceful solution. Kelly agrees and gives him 12 hours to try. Beast was listening and offered to get the full team, Charles tells him no, that the full team would provoke Magneto. Beast and Charles are preparing to go, but Gambit insists on coming with him, he wants to check on a friend of his, most likely Byron. Rogue seems concerned that he might actually be leaving but he promises to come back, he’s just checking on his friend. They take off for Genosha and Rogue looks after them wistfully.

 

They land in Kenya for the first pick up and find a huge crowd of Mutants waiting, Gambit commenting that he doesn’t think he’s ever seen so many Mutants in one place. He wonders aloud how Magneto will transport so many, when Magneto comes out of the sky with several huge metal transports that he’s moving with his powers. He greets his new ‘children’ and offers the transport to them. He sees Charles and his team and greets them. He knows Charles is there to dissuade him. Charles says that he wants Magneto to just consider his actions, saying that everyone is on high alert about Magneto’s “Mutant Only” space colony. Magneto says he cares little for human government’s worries and has an appointment he needs to make in Genosha’s capital, saying that that’s supposedly an example of Humans and Mutants comingling. He offers to take them with him, and they agree. They enter the pods and Magneto lifts them all, while Black Panther watches from a distance. T’Challa doesn’t factor into this episode at all, I just felt like pointing out the cameo. Once they’re in the sky, though, Magneto faulters ever so slightly, nearly dropping the pods. Charles notes that it seems like he’s weakening. He corrects himself and they keep flying.

 

They arrive at Genosha in their “Mutant resources Division” which looks like a detention camp, which… ya know, is accurate. Magneto lands the pods and announces to the Mutants to come out and throw off their yokes. The Genoshan military, which includes a lot of high-tech guns, aircrafts and not-Sentinel giant Robots appear to try to stop him, but Magneto warns them not to interfere. Andersen, military leader of the nation of ‘Free Genosha’, says that their Mutants aren’t going anywhere and are placing Magneto and his cohorts under arrest. Magneto’s squad prep to battle, but before they can react, a third party starts blasting people. These are the Acolytes, a Mutant resistant group on Genosha and self-described servants of Magneto. Their leader, Fabian Cortez, announces that Genoshan Mutants will be held in bondage no longer and a fight breaks out. Charle’s hover chair gets damaged, and Gambit throws a card to keep a Not-Sentinel back. While the tech Genosha has is impressive, they really can’t stand up to a lot of pissed off Mutants. That is until Andersen activates their last-ditch defense protocol, waking up actual Sentinels. I guess there were a few left over after the most recent Master Mold fiasco. The Sentinels, as perfect anti-Mutant weapons, do turn the tide against Mutants. The Sentinels target Magneto specifically and try to capture him, but Cortez destroys the squad trying to grab him, and then uses his powers to heal Magneto. Magneto is energized by Cortez and fires off an electromagnetic burst that fires all the technology. Cortez encourages Magneto to destroy the “Flat scan human tyrants,” but Magneto claims to be here to free his people, not avenge them. He frees many Mutant captives, loads up his pods and takes off.

 

They return to Asteroid M. Gambit meets with his friend Byron, who is in the Acolyte’s purple and red. He asks when Gambit signed up, but he says he’s just here to look around. Charles and Cortez lead a group to meet Magneto. When he enters the station, he stumbles, clearly exhausted. Cortez ‘heals’ him again. Beast, watching with Charles, notes that doesn’t seem to be healing Magneto so much as recharging him. Charles worries that Magneto might grow dependent on that recharge like a drug. He asks to speak with Magnus, noting that Magneto is dangerously overextending himself. Magneto doesn’t seem too concerned, though, and extends a dinner invite to them. As Magneto walks off, another Acolyte recognizes Charles. This is Amelia, an ex. She says they have nothing to discuss, but he wants to talk. Beast knows her, saying that of all Mutants he didn’t’ expect to see her.

 

Later, Cortez offers his Acolytes service to Magneto. Magneto accepts but tells them to stand up, as he needs hard workers not sycophants. Byron arrives and says that the shuttle repairs are nearly done, and they’ll be ready to send the Astronauts back soon. Cortez is furious to hear that Humans are on Asteroid M. Magneto says that they are his guests, and he backs off. Magneto has his dinner with the X-Men, Acolytes, and Astronauts. He's also wearing this open fronted toga to show off his hairy chest which I just do not understand. Before they can eat, though, Magneto notes rockets coming at them from Earth’s surface. Magneto throws up a barrier big enough to cover Asteroid M, angrily shouting that they ask for so little, they just want to be left alone. His barrier destroys the satellites with ease. Cortez insists that he counterattack, but Magneto says no. He then tries to turn the idea to punishing the astronauts. Charles insists that non-Mutant humans are just scared and act out of fear. Byron adds that they might be acting out of self-defense, actually, as one of their missiles was launched earlier. Magneto is furious to hear this, saying he gave no such order. Cortez insists that the ‘flat scans’ Humans will not rest until all Mutants are destroyed. Magneto tells him to back off, and for Byron to move Asteroid M to a new orbit. He says that he’ll give restitutions to President Kelly as well, which makes Cortez’s expression darken.

 

Later, Gambit asks Beast about Amelia. Beast explains that Amelia Voght was a nurse that Charles had met while recovering in India. He’d just suffered a major injury battling Magneto and lost the use of his legs. She’d help him through his physical therapy and adjustment to being a paraplegic. They developed a relationship, and she came with him back to America. But it was Xavier’s dream of Mutant/Human cohabitation that drew them apart. We’re shown the OG team (Cyclops, Jean, Iceman, Angel and Beast) training as Beast says that Amelia hated being a Mutant and wanted to keep their powers on the downlow. She tried to convince Charles to just live a normal life with her, but he couldn’t stand by and do nothing. She left and Charles was depressed for years, saying that he lived only for the X-Men after that.

 

We cut to Charles meeting with Amelia. She’s still angry with him and accuses him of ruining her life. He says that he just wants to help Mutants. Amelia accuses Charles of making life harder for Mutants on Earth as it’s impossible for them to live under the radar anymore. She says that Magneto built Asteroid M, but he made it necessary. She storms off.

 

Magneto finds Cortez in his room. Cortez says he doesn’t seem surprised, to which Magneto says he isn’t. He pushes Cortez back with his powers and accuses him of firing the missiles. Cuz… duh. He calls Cortez a young fool, and Cortez calls him a coward. Magneto says that he will not tolerate dissension on his Asteroid. Cortez says he renounces him, and to prove it, he absorbs the energy he’d given Magneto. All of it. He says that Magneto used up his power on Genosha and without Cortez’s energy sustaining him, he doesn’t have the power let to even hold his molecules together. … I don’t think that sciences but whatever. He leaves a drained Magneto on the floor and steals a key from him. He opens Magneto’s emergency ejection system and launches his pod into space, saying that he’ll sever better as a martyr to the cause. Cortez starts screaming bloody murder, drawing everyone to spot. Beast and Gambit arrive first and Cortez immediately accuses them of jettisoning Magneto’s pod. He whips up a mob and demands revenge for Magneto.

 

Man, never trust a zealot. This is an interesting episode for a number of reasons. It’s one of the first that I can think of that shows off that Magneto is a political creature as much as a revolutionary. While he is often brash and speaks with a lot of bravado, he understands the concept of mutually assured destruction and clearly understands that even with a ton of Mutant power under him that fighting with the entire would be a fool’s gambit. He’s doing what he thinks is best for Mutant kind, but he is not one for extermination campaigns. Believe it or not, but the Holocaust survivor would prefer not to start another one. He is completely honest that the missiles are a deterrent and that he has no interest in actually using them if that can be avoided. Which obviously rankles Cortez. We don’t get much of his background in this, but it’s clear that he harbors a deep hatred for humans and probably was on Genosha for a while. He clearly wants to watch the whole world burn to wipe out humans and install Mutants as the only species of humanity on Earth. I feel like his pejorative of “Flat liner” is a bit awkward, but I get the idea. They can’t use a term like ‘normal’ so he uses the fact that they don’t set off a Sentinels detection system to differentiate them from Mutants. It’s awkward for sure, but it shows a level of hatred that doesn’t really exist in Magneto. He sees Mutants as superior, yes, but he doesn’t clearly thinks words like human or normal are derogatory enough on their own. I like the twist about Cortez’s power as well, in that he clearly tricked Magneto into growing depending on him extremely quickly as an insurance policy. I’m not sure if he knew about Magneto’s stance on humans and thought them too soft before hand or he simply wanted to ingratiate himself into Magneto’s good graces and the potential to double cross him was an unforeseen bonus, but it sure worked out for him. Draining Magneto of all his gifted energy and leaving him to disintegrate is coldblooded. The line that Magneto will be more useful as a martyr than a leader was particularly chilling. I do wonder if he was planning to blame the X-Men specifically or if he was going to yell murder at the first person at the scene and he just lucked out. And it was cool to see Asteroid M. Magneto had a few plans for Mutant only nations in the past and I think Asteroid M is one of the most ambitious. It’s in space, so he controls who can come and go, it’s almost entirely metal so he can manipulate every inch of it, and because it’s in space he has the added threat of just dropping it on Earth if he ever wants to hit the extinction button. It’s a multi-use asteroid. The bit about Charles and Amelia feels kind of unnecessary. Oh look, here’s another past relationship Charles had that was soured because of his mission of human/Mutant relations. That makes like 47. Next time, we’ll see the fallout on Asteroid M. 

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Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 47

 Omega Red's headed to Hawaii, be terrified. 

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, Juggernaut stopped by for a visit. He attacked the X-Mansion and very nearly killed Charles but then an archeologist named Eugene found the incantation and Ruby of Cyttorak and stole Juggernauts powers. He was nearly killed by falling rubble, but Charles had the X-Men save him and attempt to get the ruby back for him. Wolverine and Cyclops find Eugene and steal the Ruby back from him and bring it home. Via mental flashbacks as Charles checked on his stepbrother’s condition, we learned that Cain hates Charles because he resents his father favoring Charles as part of a plan to steal the Xavier fortune. Ultimately, they get the gem to Cain, and he uses it to regain his powers. As a not-actually-a-thank you, Juggernaut elects to leave and fight another day. Enough recap. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We open in the Caucasus Mountains in Russia. A team is out there digging for Omega Red. I for one think that if a super soldier was dumped in the middle of nowhere it’s a good idea to leave him, but what do I know? The colonel in charge tells his men to be careful and get the restraints before Omega Red wakes up. Omega Red is taken to a base and the US colonel wants to make a deal with him. Omega Red says that he doesn’t deal with imperialists, but he changes his tune when the colonel offers to make him human again if he does a task for the US Government. He’s willing to ask what the task is. The colonel tells him that there’s a submarine just off the coast of Hilo, Hawaii, it’s a Soviet sub with nukes on board. It’s stuck just on the rim of a deep-sea trench and runs the risk of tipping over. Because Omega Red is resistant to radiation, they want him to go in and use his Soviet codes to get it moved. Red asks why they’d risk trusting him, and the Colonel says that they don’t, he’s got a bunch of liquid nitrogen implanted in his body that they’ll set off if he betrays them. Red agrees, but he wants his own insurance policy to make sure the US doesn’t just freeze him when the job is done or blow up the sub on him. He wants help to get the sub up and he chooses Wolverine and Storm.

 

At the X-Mansion, Logan is not happy at the thought of working with Omega Red. Basically everyone agrees with him that this is a stupid idea, but the US needs that sub removed and he seems to be the only option. Charles offers to go in place of Logan, but Logan refuses, saying that he knows Omega Red is going to perform a double cross and he wants to be there when he does. Storm and Wolverine join Omega Red at the Naval base. Red and Logan go a full 2 minutes before they start threatening each other, which I think is a record for them. Storm stops Logan from causing a scene, as she tends to. They’re brought onto the sub and sent down.

 

On the way down, Logan asks Red what fairy tale he told the Colonel to get them to trust him. He gestures at his restraints and asks if they really trust him. Logan prepares to attack Red again more or less on principle but Storm asks him to behave. Red reveals the deal that he struck with the government, that if he’s a good boy he’ll get to be human again. Logan thinks it’s a crock, but whatever. He almost attacks Red again, but Storm begs him to just deal with his words, reminding him she’s claustrophobic and that this mission is a LOT for her. Red smiles evilly before the scene changes, so we can infer this is part of his plot.

 

They reach the sub and dock, Logan telling her to be careful as the Soviets built subs like they built Chernobyl, so he’d prefer it not going up. They land hard but the ships stabilize. Red’s restraints are released, and they head in. Red gets the sub running again with a few keystrokes. He activates the sub and takes off. The Colonel tells him to bring the sub home… but Red asks what the rush is. Wow, dude didn’t even wait five minutes. The Colonel warns him that they will set off his implant, but Red casually reaches through his hair to the back of his neck and rips the nitro glycerin implant from his back. Wolverine is ready to throw down, but Storm stops him. Why? Omega Red explains, the air inside the sub is toxic and tearing their suits will be all Omega Red needs to do to expose them. Logan might survive due to his healing factor, but Storm is much more vulnerable. Omega Red starts to gloat about his new used sub and missiles, which pisses off Logan enough for him to say screw it, extend his claws and attack. Omega Red throws him off and Storm blows him back with a hurricane blast. She knocks him down, grabs Logan and heads for the mini-sub. Omega Red grabs them with his tentacles. He tells them that he’s not interested in being made human again. He’s got 15 missiles, he’s targeted the 15 largest cities on Earth, and he wants to watch them burn.

 

The X-Men head in with the Blackbird to hopefully salvage this mission. Beast says that they may all pay for not trusting Wolverine’s foresight. They’ve got depth charges locked and loaded to drop on the sub when it gets high enough to try to launch the missiles. Rogue asks the eggheads if this is really the best plan, dropping bombs on their friends. Beast insists that they’re just a means to delay the sub, in the hopes that the Navy can get out there fast enough to try something else. Meanwhile, we learn that the Navy has sent ships, but they’re ten minutes out. The sub will be ready to launch the missiles in five. The aide tells the Colonel that they could have been better prepared for this if they’d gotten some kind of warning.

 

Inside the ship, Omega Red is gloating about his imminent victory to his captive audience. He says that the Soviet Union made many wonderful weapons, but they never had the stomach to use them. He asks Storm if she appreciates how sad the life of an unused weapon is. She says weapons don’t have feelings, and he says if only that were true. Storm warns him that every ship in 1000 miles will be on them when he launches the missiles and asks if he’s really tired of living. Red tells her on the contrary, after being denied any real life for 50 years, he’s ready to live it up. He’s going to launch the missiles and then dive before anyone can stop him. After, he’ll wait things out at the bottom of the sea and arise in the chaos of the new world to reign supreme. The X-Men drop a depth charge, knocking everyone to the ground. Rogue jokes that that should get Omega Red’s attention, and Beast agrees, saying that he’s pretty sure Omega Red forgot that Storm and Wolverine’s mics were on. He hopes they can delay him just a few minutes longer.

 

Omega Red begins to surface. The X-Men drop more charges, dropping Storm and Wolverine. He tries to grab them again and Storm lightning blasts him. The officer at the Navy base says they have an additional problem. Namely, if Omega Red works fast enough, he might be able to reprogram the missiles. Why is that bad? Nukes by design don’t arm their warheads until they’re near their target, this is a safety precaution to make sure a faulty launch doesn’t kill everyone who fired the missile. If Omega Red is as crazy as they’re worried that he is, he might just decide that that’s good enough revenge. Charles tells Rogue and Beast to be ready to drop the charges to delay him if they can.

 

Omega Red launches the missiles. F-18s are on their way but are a minute out. Five missiles launch, Beast and Rogue take out one and are overjoyed to learn they’re in pre-detonation mode. They take out two more but miss the last two. Omega Red ties Storm up in some pipping and is infuriated when his last two missiles are taken out. Red starts flipping out and smashing things. He remembers the other missiles and warns the Navy that he’s arming the missiles. Rogue has decided that she’s tired of this and leaps into the water. Beast tries to warn her that it’s too deep even for her enhanced body but Anna Marie doesn’t give a damn. She reaches the sub and starts ripping it to pieces, distracting Red long enough for Storm to grab Wolverine and get to the minisub and surface. Rogue surfaces too and says that she bent his boat. The X-Men fall back and head home. We learn that Rogue focused on damaging the rutters, making it impossible for Omega Red to steer the sub. He tries to move it, gets alters that navigation isn’t working and plunges into the depths of the sea.

 

Back at the Mansion, Beast is pretty sure that the immediate danger is passed but Omega Red is still a threat. He thinks Storm will recover from any claustrophobic panic she’s feeling, but Logan’s anger at not taking Red out permanently could fester. We see Logan going for an evening walk and muttering to himself that he’s sure Red is still out there, he can smell him. We cut to the sea floor where Red is indeed alive and most likely plotting vengeance.

 

Well, that episode felt super rushed. I feel like this was envisioned as a two-part episode, but they didn’t get the budget for it, so they had to cram the story into one 20-minute episode instead of 40-minutes. We just went from recruitment, to sub, to betrayal way too fast for me to believe this was the intended version. Still, it must be nice for Logan to be proven right within like 20 minutes of this mission starting. Like, there wasn’t even really a fake out where we’re tricked into thinking that Omega Red might be willing to do all of this to be made human again. I suppose when I was younger, I might have believed he was willing to deal for that… but as an adult watching this show, Omega Red has been shown to revel in his power too much for me to believe that he’d truly like to be returned to factory setting. My only other thought is that while they mention Storm’s claustrophobia several times in this episode and even do a weird frame of animation to show that she’s extremely apprehensive of going into a tight space… it ultimately didn’t matter even a little bit. Like, at no point did she panic or scream or try to free herself from the sub, she just kind of stands there a lot. I suppose her unwillingness to use her powers in the sub might hint at that but that’s a weak connection in my opinion. It’s a little thing, I know, but when Storm’s claustrophobia is usually so bad that any enclosed space that she can’t immediately leave leaves her trembling on the floor, I feel the need to call it out, ya know? Next time, Magneto’s back and he’s got a new team backing him up. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 46

 Imagine the problems that could be solved if Cain Marko went to therapy.

Last time one X-Men: The Animated Series, there was some non-Shi’ar alien shenanigans. An alien species known as the Colony landed on their space whale on Earth. These bug-lizard-cyborgs reproduce parasitically and came to Earth to assimilate humanity. To do this, they made contact with and used Rogue’s ex-boyfriend/first accidental energy drain victim Cody to contact Rogue and make her lower her guard. She was infected with their spores and began transforming into a member of the Colony. Logan had found their ship independently and the X-Men headed out to try to save him. He was infected earlier and began transforming into a Colony member too, fleeing the fight and the others are captured. Logan’s healing powers let him expel the parasites and he shares his immunity with Rogue as well. They free the others, but the Colony take off and try to reinfect Rogue. Professor Xavier, who’d been watching via Cerebro, made mental contact with the space whale, the Acani, and freed it from the Colony’s control. Acani drops the X-Men off, Rogue tries to get Cody to come with them, but he’s already been completely assimilated into the Colony. The Acani takes the Colony back into space and Rogue morns her lost love yet again. Enough recap. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We start with a quick recap of Juggernaut’s previous appearances, ending with Gladiator hurling him into the ocean outside of Castle Cassidy. After crashing to the bottom, we see an aura engulf the Juggernaut, protecting him from the water and pressure. He gets up and starts walking towards shore.

 

The episode proper begins with an archeologist, Eugene Torbett Widerspahn, excited cheering in an ancient ruin. He’d dug up an ancient tablet, exclaiming that he was right and everyone else is wrong. We learn that this the temple of Cyttorak, and that the tablet is the Tablet of Cyttorak. Oh this doesn’t bode well for Cain Marko. We’re shown Juggernaut walking along the sea floor as Eugene describes the powers that were fabled to be given to the followers of Cyttorak, immortality, near invincibility, and overwhelming power. Eugene begins to read the tablet but then remembers he needs the Ruby of Cyttorak to make it work and hurries to find it.

 

Juggernaut, meanwhile, had just reached New York. He climbed up from the sea floor to reach Brooklyn Bridge. He causes some damage to cars stuck on the bridge before stealing a cab, sheering off the top so he could fit in it. The cabby screams at the filthy Mutant to return his cab, to which Marko screams he’s not a Mutant, but he knows where one lives. Cops chase him as he drvies off but he quickly loss them by dropping a streetlight in front of them.

 

At the Mansion, Charles has learned his brother is on the way. He calls Beast for help. Beast is a bit worried about this as members of the team are away so they’ll need an inventive strategy to stop him. Juggernaut breaks onto the grounds, the defenses slow him down but only a little. Charles makes a call out for the X-Men, and we learn how screwed he is this time. Rogue and Storm were in town shopping, so that’s a ten-minute flight at minimum. Cyclops and Wolverine, meanwhile, were on Muir Island! So that’s a couple HOUR flight right there. They were visiting Morph, though, so can’t blame them for that. He was in a wheelchair with Dr. McTaggart and waved them off as they took off. Jubilee is with her folks, and Gambit has his coat off as he’s helping fix a bus for some school kids. Juggernaut breaks into the lower levels of the mansion, calling out for “Charlie.” Charles leads him into the Danger Room and uses the holograms and robots to slow his brother down and try to force him to talk it out. He breaks most of the robots, including a robo-Hulk, and says Charles knows why Cain is so dead set on killing him. He starts smashing up the rest of the Danger Room and causes a minor cave in. Meanwhile, Eugene reads from the Tablet of Cyttorak while holding the Ruby. “Whosever possesses the sacred gem, shall prepare himself to receive the power of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak. Read these words and go from this place a human Juggernaut!” As Eugene finishes the incantation, Juggernaut is stripped of his powers and reverted into his human form. Which was convenient for Charles, as he was about to cave Charles’ chest in. Beast helps get Charles out of the Danger Room as it collapses and buries Cain. Beast asks what happened and Charles says he’s not sure, but Cain was absolutely terrified.

 

Rogue and Storm arrive, and Charles tells them to dig out Cain. Rogue initially says no, but Charles is adamant that they save his brother, ordering them to go in there and dig him out. Rogue finds him, and Cain is human and in his military fatigues. They get him to the medical bay and Beast does an examination. He says that Cain’s strength is fading fast and without his healing powers as Juggernaut, he’ll be dead in a few hours. Charles says that they’ll have to restore them. Storm, Rogue, and Beast aren’t super happy with this idea, but Charles tells them the classic “he hates me but he’s my brother!” speech. He tells them to contact Cyclops and Wolverine and to check out the Cyttorak Ruins.

 

Cyclops and Wolverine both aren’t happy with this either, but the ‘he’s the professor’s brother’ speech also sways them. We see Eugune return to his home in a nearby village and see him comically break things as he’s not used to the Juggernaut’s strength. He breaks his car, couch, sink, fridge and floor in quick succession. Meanwhile, with no other ideas, Charles’ mind scans Cain to try to figure out a way to help him. Cain resists, because of course. We see a flashback to when the step-brothers met as boys, where Charles was excited to have someone to horseback ride with but Cain was obviously a dick even when he was like 10. He knocks Charles to the ground and promises that he’ll step on Charles with every chance he gets. He’s pulled off of Charles by his father, Dr. Kurt Marko. Kurt acts kind to Charles, helping him up and saying he’s going to talk with Cain. Once alone, he screams at Cain for messing with Charles, saying that if his mother divorces Kurt they’ll be out all that money. He says he’ll need to get rid of Cain before he messes up his plan. Future Charles is confused at hearing his stepfather had a ‘plan.’ Later, Cain tells Charles he’s being sent to Boarding school which seems to bum Charles. Kurt says that this’ll be less of a burden on Charles’ mom, who was extremely ill. Charles telepathy starts going off and he learns that his mother’s illness is worse than his stepdad let on. Kurt has the maid take him to his room. When alone, Cain asks how long he’ll be at that School and Kurt tells him he’ll be there until he can learn to be nice to the geek. He’s sure Mrs. Xavier won’t be around much longer. Cain seems to relish this memory of his father maneuvering Mrs. Xavier to steal Charles’ family money. Charles breaks the connection and must process the fact that despite his mother loving Kurt, that Kur had just been using her.

 

Eugene, meanwhile, got dressed up and headed out to the club. I’m shocked there was a Men’s Big and Tall out here but what are ya going to do. He tries to show off with his new power, but he just keeps embarrassing himself. Cyclops and Wolverine arrive and try to ask him to give up his powers nicely. He refuses. There’s a quick scuffle where he throws them around, but they knock the ruby from him, grab it, and run. Eugene tries to stop them but they throw him off and into a studio filming a Power Rangers series it seems.

 

Hearing they have the Ruby; Charles tries another mind probe. This time he remembers Cain returning from Boarding School and the two of them playing polo. He tries to ask about why Cain didn’t visit them during the summer. Cain says that he had better things to do. Charles telepathy kicked in again and he saw Cain remembering sitting in his room and crying about his father liking Charles more than him. Charles tries to comfort Cain, revealing that he can read minds. Cain knocks him from his horse and starts calling him a Mutie. Charles apologizes to Cain, saying that he didn’t have control of his powers back then. Cain can’t believe Charles is still on his martyr complex, saying that he’s an idiot and that Cain spent years making sure everyone hated him, including a girl named Sondra that he’d had a crush on in high school. Charles breaks the connection and is clearly in pain knowing that Cain hates him so deeply.

 

Later, Storm joins him and Charles dumps some of his trauma on her. He knows that Cain Marko is a sadistic bully and that he deserves no sympathy. He knows that Cain is a monster and tells her not to ask him to forgive Cain. Storm says she’d never do that, but does ask him to understand Cain and to not let their grudge make him worse. The X-Men gather, and Charles connects to Cain’s mind again. The man keeps mentally diving in perhaps the most hostile location for him, props to Charles. He tells his brother that they got the Ruby for him. Cain demands to know what’s in it for Charles to help him, and Charles says just the satisfaction of having saved him. Cain swears to always be Charles’ that he will always hate him and be a living nightmare to him. Charles says that that is his burden to bear. This seems to piss Cain off more, he grabs Charles and says that he doesn’t care and why can’t Charles get that through his skull. Charels that maybe someday he will care. He vanishes and Cain recites the incantation, transforming back into the Juggernaut. Eugene, who was wrecking that club, reverts back to normal. He drops the tables he was holding and everyone runs off. He pulls a broken table off the woman he’d tried to flirt with earlier, who thanks him with a hug, and he passes out. At the Mansion, Cain announces that no one will ever take his power from him again and hurls the Ruby of Cyttorak into orbit. I’d have kept it with me but whatever. The others expect a fight, but Juggernaut tells them to buzz off, he’ll be back when he feels like a fight. Cyclops asks if they should follow him, but Charles says to let him go as this might just be his brother’s bizarre way of saying thank you.

 

This was a fun look back on the lives of Charles Xavier and Cain Marko. The only other show I saw that ever acknowledged their fraternal status was X-Men: Evolution, and they always kept it vague, only saying that Cain’s hatred of Charles stemmed from a failed relationship with their father (in that universe they’re half-brothers that share a father). As far as I’m aware, this is the exact relationship that they have in the comics, stepbrothers who grew to resent each other due to Kurt Marko being a colossal dick. Though, I believe he’s even worse in the comics, with the implication he’d actually killed Charles’ father to maneuver himself into the Xavier family wealth. And I like that they stuck to this, that the blame for Cain’s relationship with his dad sucking is because Kurt objectively sucks as a man and parent. But like many a neglected and emotionally abused child before him, it’s easier for Cain to hold onto the hate he feels for Charles than it is to analyze his feelings with any depth. And I ultimately liked that Cain was willing to call a truce for now as an indirect thank you for saving him. Theirs is a relationship that will never be much more than it is, but Cain is a big enough man to give a good turn when he receives one. And Eugene was fun, a man that took on the powers of Cyttorak just to try to seem cool and fumbling about it the whole time. I don’t think this would have worked in comics, as Cyttorak is a more active being on 616 Comics Earth. I just don’t see a god of chaos and destruction jumping vessels mid-destruction, that’s not his usual bag. And it indirectly shows how important practice is when it comes to superhuman powers. Cain Marko as Juggernaut can dish out however much force he wants, where I don’t think Eugene Widersahn ever figured out how to grip something without breaking it. Hope he had fun with his limited time with superpowers. Next time Omega Red’s back and looking to cause some damage.

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 45

Love Hurts, as do giant alien Cockroaches. 

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, Corsair stops by to get some help. The space pirate is on the run from a Shi’ar Commander named Raknar that accuses him of kidnapping a witness. Scott and Storm are initially hesitant to help Corsair as they don’t want to piss off the Shi’ar, but then Scott learns Corsair is in fact Christopher Summers, his supposedly long deceased father. Scott agrees to help him just to get more info on what happened and Storm just kind of rolls with it because she’s a good wingwoman. As they escape Raknar to get to the rest of Corsair’s Starjammers and the witness, Corsair tells us about his and Scott’s past. The Summers family had been returning from an Alaskan camping trip in their personal cargo plane when it was attacked by Shi’ar. Their parachutes had been destroyed, all but one, and Chris and his wife Rachel elected to strap their sons together and use it to try to save them. They sent Scott and Alex off with it, just getting to see the parachute catch fire just before being teleported onto the Shi’ar vessel. Corsair says they were going to be kept in a Shi’ar zoo, but he escaped thanks to the Starjammers. Rachel was unfortunately killed just before his escape, however. They head to South America and get separated, Storm going ahead. Raknar arrives and tells Scott that Corsair is doing this for the money, saying that the witness knows where the Shi’ar Lord Chamberlain’s hidden horde is. Corsair does confirm that he wants to get paid but insists he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart. Scott captures Corsair and turns him over. He’s almost immediately betrayed by Raknar, who is indeed trying to kill the witness for the Chamberlain. He’s freed by the ship’s navigator, who was the one that tipped off Corsair, and they both free Corsair and flee. Storm and the Starjammers set a trap for Raknar, setting up a refraction device and hiding it in fog. Corsair dives under it when Raknar’s ship fires, the beam gets sent back and cripples the vessel. After, Corsair and crew are all set to take the witness to court… but elects to stay a few hours to catch up with his son. Enough recap. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We open on the X-Mansion as Scott and Jean head out for a date. They share brief a kiss and we shift focus to Rogue watching them from her bedroom window and sighing with longing. She mutters that they don’t know what they’ve got and laments the fact that her powers keep her from being able to touch people, she snaps one of the posts of her four-poster bed in frustration before crying.

 

We head out into space for a minute to see a… giant…space…whale? Okay. A giant space whale enters the solar system and then crash lands on Earth in New Mexico. Coincidentally, Logan is there. The episode doesn’t explain why, he’s just on one of his Lonewolf walkabouts I suppose. He examines the crashed space whale, which opens up and unleashes these cyborg lizard creatures with Doc Ock tentacles. He fights these lizard cyborgs but gets overwhelmed as it’s like 25 to 1 and they’ve got stunning weapons. The lead alien, you can tell because he’s wearing a red hat, is impressed by Logan’s vigor and orders him brought onto their ship to be kept as a specimen.

 

Jumping back to the X-Mansion, Rogue is reading a book in her room when Gambit pops by. Remy LeBeau is a determined fella, as he’s here to try to sweet-talk Rogue out on a date. The whole ‘if she touches you, you might die,” thing never seems to faze him, so good on ya, mate. Rogue gets a call and answers it, it’s Cody. If you don’t recognize the name, he’s the boy that Rogue kissed and put into a coma when her powers kicked in. She hasn’t seen him in (guessing her age around 28) around a decade, so she’s excited to see him.

 

She gets dressed and flies out to meet him at a movie theater. She sees him and is obviously smitten from first sight. She calls out to him, and we learn that Rogue’s nickname back in Mississippi was Possum as Cody greets her. Probably due to the white hair streak. He’s almost hit by a car walking over to see her, but he leaps over it, and she catches him. He is a good sport about the near-death experience, though, as he’s happy to just see Rogue again. He teases her about not having a forwarding address and asks if they can catch up over dinner. Rogue starts tearing up a bit at this reunion and agrees. They catch up, Rogue telling him everything as he’s already aware that she’s a Mutant. She makes a comment about how the team doesn’t get their knickers in a twist about her like other people, and Cody seems a little hurt by that remark. He says that she never gave him a chance and that she ran off before he got out of the hospital so he couldn’t show her he was fine with her status. He goes in for a kiss, but Rogue stops him, saying one coma a lifetime is enough for most fellas. Somewhere, Gambit is annoyed.  Cody says that he’s ‘figured it out’ as to how they can be together. She tries to put him off, as she’s been hurt a lot, but he insists, asking her if she still loves him. She nods. While her back is turned, one of those lizard things comes up on the rooftop behind them and blasts them with something. Cody doesn’t react but Rogue’s vision goes blurry for a second. He then kisses her, and she doesn’t drain him. Rogue is obviously overjoyed about being able to touch someone again but then passes out. Cody asks himself what he did when the aliens come to grab them.

 

In the space whale, Logan wakes up and frees himself from a floating table he was strapped too. He examines the whale and realizes that it’s, ya know, alive. The aliens start rushing him, but Logan cuts his way through them and exacpes to outside the space whale. He gets chased by another of the aliens and gets stung but toughs it out and keeps escaping. The Red Hatted one returns to the ship and tells his queen that Logan is stronger than they anticipated. The Queen says that is good and that he’ll make a strong addition to their colony, the first of many. She plays footage of the X-Men doing X-Men stuff to highlight her point. She stops at Rogue, saying that ‘especially this one.’

 

We jump back to Rogue as Cody wakes her up. She’s confused about how she slept all night in the park. Cody says he didn’t have the heart to wake her. He asks her to run off with him, she’s hesitant at first but then agrees, but says she needs to return home and tell the others.

 

We find Logan at an abandoned gas station in the desert. He quickly uses a payphone to call the mansion and ask for backup before passing out. Beast is able to trace the call, and the team prepares to head out, but then Rogue comes in to ask for some time off. Charles is hesitant to let her go as the Logan situation just came up, but Rogue insists she get the time. Gambit is feeling hurt that she’s dropping everything for Cody, which pisses Rogue off, who then storms off. Gambit, again, feeling insecure, asks why this guy just showed up out of the blue and what could he want with Rogue. The others tell him to focus on less personal matters as they need to save Logan. They get in the Blackbird and fly off. Rogue and Cody take one of the minijets, Cody saying that their destination is a surprise.

 

The X-Men find Logan passing out near the space whale. He is sweating profusely and tells them to stay back for some reason, telling them they need to worry about these aliens. More of the aliens come out, their queen ordering them to not hurt the X-Men. Rogue and Cody touch down as the others are fighting these aliens, Rogue is shocked to see the others, as is Cody, who says that they didn’t tell him about the others. Rogue demands to know what Cody knows, and he says that the aliens promised him that they wouldn’t hurt anyone and that this was the only way for them to be together. Logan suddenly transforms into a green buggy-lizard form and runs off. Well… that’s weird.  The X-Men are captured and Rogue accuses Cody of working for the aliens. He says it was the only way. She starts to scream in pain and both she and Cody turn green and grow horns like the aliens. Storm calls out to the professor as she passes out.

 

Meanwhile, Logan finds himself in a cave and basically wills the infection out of himself, morphing back into his usual look.

 

In the space whale Rogue demands to know why Cody did this to her. He insists it was the only way they can be together; they can touch and kiss like this. The queen joins them, saying that Rogue can’t fight this, she was dusted with their spores while she slept. The Queen explains that they are the Colony, a race of parasitic insect-like aliens, they’ve been watching Earth, the X-Men, and Rogue for decades. She claims that they’ve chosen Rogue to be a queen like her, and that the colony will depend on her once the old queen is dead. She also tells Rogue not to blame Cody, as they infected him and used him to get to her. Rogue apologizes to Cody for getting him into this, as without her, he’d be safe at home. He insists that he loves her and wouldn’t want to be without her if he could help it. Logan slips in and attacks. Cody morphs further into his Colony form and fights Logan. Rogue begs him not to hurt Cody. Logan shoves Cody aside and grabs Rogue, telling her to absorb his power and force the infection out of her. Cody begs her not to, as they can be together like this, but she forces the infection out.

 

Rogue and Logan find the others hooked up to pods like Logan was originally. They try to leave but Cody returns with the Queen. She says that they don’t have a future without her. Rogue tells her that they don’t have a future, then, as they didn’t even bother asking her to be a part of this. The Queen refuses to let them go, ordering the whale to take off. Logan and Rogue run, a semi-conscious Storm calling out to Charles for help. He is revealed to be using Cerebro to do just that, but the Colony’s minds are impenetrable to him. But he’s able to sense another mind, the space whale! He says it’s called an Acanti, it’s a normally free-floating space whale but the Colony captured it to use it as their ship. He uses his powers to free the Acanti’s mind, asking her to help him. Rogue and Logan fight the Colony but are quickly disabled by their knockout tentacles. The Queen orders Rogue to be reinfected by spores and to get rid of Logan as he can purge their spores. The Acanti starts singing, the space whale’s voice hurting the Colony’s ears. The freed Acanti swings back to Earth and lands, dropping the X-Men off. Rogue tries to get Cody to come with them, thinking the professor could cure him, but Cody just snarls at her. He’s been assimilated. Gambit tells her to leave it, and they fall back. Logan thanks the Acanti before it flies off. He tells Rogue that she did all she could. She starts sobbing and Gambit does her best to comfort her.

 

This episode was a bit surface level, but it was interesting to see Rogue interact with someone from her pre-Mutant days. Cody in just about every other version of Rogue’s story that I’ve seen pretty much is just there for her to have that ill-fated kiss, knock into a coma and then to be the main reason she starts running. Anna Marie’s dear papa didn’t take kindly to his baby girl being a Mutant or knocking out the quarterback. I think it’s partly because Cody only exists to give Rogue a tragic backstory that he comes across as such a nothing burger in this episode. Think about it, look back over my write up and count how many of his lines are just about how much he loves Rogue and how he wants to be with her. It's 90% of his dialogue. And that 10% of other stuff is him turning into a bug monster. That’s just not a lot to go on. Think they could have at least included a football reference to remind us he played. But, like, I can’t be too mad at the episode because it does just sort of sum up the ’first crush’ so very, very well. Unless you’re completely uninterested in relationships or were unfortunately never in a place to be in one, I think any and all of you can think of that one person from your past that made your brain take a day off and you’d have done a lot to be with. Would it be smart? No, but everyone’s got that person me thinks, and Cody is very much that to Rogue. An argument could be made that that might be due to her absorbing his mind and some lingering part of him in her psyche draws them together… but that’s a metaphysical and psychological discussion I’m not equipped to handle. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree after all. The Colony was an interesting group of alien antagonists, mostly based on their space whale ship and design, since I have seen better versions of the infectious alien monsters. The Last of Us sort of forced everyone to fight for second place after all. Their partially organic, partially tech bodies were really gross to look at and I have got to applaud their choice in future matriarch. What? Rogue would kick ass as a Queen bee and you all know it, heck I think that’s her current job in the most recent Marvel run. I assume that even in a Colony form Rogue would keep her powers, just because it’d be a bit weird to target her specifically if any female of the dominant species of a planet would do. I liked the Acanti a lot… but then I like whales a lot so that should come as no surprise. I do have to question how any animal could work better as a ship than an actual ship… but this is a space whale we’re talking about, sometimes ya just got to accept the rule of cool. It’s sad that they couldn’t save Cody, but I agree with Logan that Rogue did her best to save him. And at least she was able to have one good night with him, it’s a little thing but it’s something. And that’s all I have to say about that. Next time, Juggy is back and he’s actually in need of his brother’s help. How odd. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 44

 They fought the law, and the law lost!

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, the Shi’ar came to Earth to fix the Dark Phoenix problem. And by “Fix” I mean “End.” Rather than let them execute, let’s be real, Jean, Scott and Logan (at bare minimum) Charles invoked the “Arin’nn Haelar” a trial by combat. Despite their fear of the Dark Phoenix, the Shi’ar’s allies, The Skrull and Kree, agree to this challenge, but the Skrull Empress and Kree Supreme Intelligence make it clear that the “Earthers” cannot be allowed to win. The X-Men face off against the Shi’ar Royal Guard in the Blue Zone, a portion of Earth’s moon that has atmosphere. As this alien team has several members inspired by the Justice League, including the Big Blue Boy scout himself in Gladiator, this goes about as well as you can imagine. The X-Men aren’t pushovers but the Guard just sort of overwhelm them. The team gets whittled down to just Scott and Jean, and when Scott is nearly killed by falling rubble Jean’s switch flips and she turns back into the Dark Phoenix. Do not mess with her man. The X-Men and Royal Guard try to stop her, but the Dark Phoenix is too powerful. To Charles and Lilandra’s shock, Jean uses what little control she has of her phenomenal cosmic power to force the Shi’ar warship’s weapons to arm. Lilandra hits the button to blast her with their main cannon, and Jean uses the last of her strength to mentally shove everyone out of the blast radius. She’s killed in the blast, but this frees the Phoenix from Jean’s mind completely, purifying it. The Phoenix offers to revive Jean when prompted but must take life to give it. The X-Men all offer up a portion of their lives to bring back Jean. The X-Men return home and Jean is finally, truly able to sleep in her own bed. Enough recap. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

WE open on a green plane flying through a cloudy sky. It very nearly collides with a pair of Shi’ar vessels that are dogfighting across the sky. The fighting ships nearly collided with a cruise ship and then a downtown area. We cut to X-Mansion as Storm and Cyclops are going to answer an incoming call, the two cracking that it can’t be an X-Man thing as none of the team get up that early. The video call is from Commander Raknar of the Shi’ar Intergalactic patrol. He’s seeking their help apprehending a ‘criminal vessel.’ He says he doesn’t know why the criminal has come to Earth, but he warns them that the crew is heavily armed and dangerous. He seems to neglect two very key bits of information in my estimation, the name of the vessel and the captain of it. They head out.

 

We cut to the Starjammer and its Captain, Corsair. The ship is currently on fire and Corsair is muttering to it to just hold together as crashing into ‘their house’ (X-Mansion) is no way to say hello. He just dodges hitting the ship and crashes into the river behind the mansion. Cyclops and Storm arrive, Raknar tells them to let the Shi’ar handle this, but Scott insists that if hey don’t hurry there won’t be survivors. Scott swims in and grabs Corsair, while Storm uses her powers to keep the ship from sinking long enough to grab them both. After coughing up some water, Corsair says he needs some help. Scott isn’t sure they can as they’re on good terms with Lilandra and can’t imagine that she’ll take kindly to them harboring a fugitive. Corsair rather angrily says whatever, but demands that Scott give him back his dog tags as they’re all he has left of his family. Scott accidentally broke the chain from Corsair’s neck when Corsair fell over. In the most ham-fisted way to reveal this, Scott accidentally pops open the locket that was with the dog tags and sees a picture of Rachel Summers along with a childhood version of himself and his brother Alex. Like, Scotty could have just looked at the dog tags and learned Corsair’s name is Christopher Summers. Scott demands to hear Corsair say his name, despite it being obvious at this point, and Corsair confirms his legal name as Major Christopher Summers. Scott is, frankly, furious to learn that his father is alive having thought him dead for 20 years. Their reunion is interrupted by Raknar who is here to take Corsair into custody. Scott just wants to have a few minutes to clear the air, but Raknar is the sort of guy who takes any delay in capturing a fugitive as helping said fugitive. Corsair is apparently wanted for attempted murder and kidnapping. Raknar sends troops to apprehend Corsair. Corsair asks where the other X-Men are, and Scott says they’re on a mission helping people that aren’t wanted by interstellar police. Scott demands to know why he’s here and Corsair says that he was framed and thought the X-Men would help him prove it. He rather snidely adds “I guess I was wrong,” to which is say, Dude, there is no situation where you get to take that tone with your son who is angry at you for abandoning him. They start running, Storm taking to the air to slow the guards and saying she’ll meet them at the monorail. She summons a whirlwind and knocks several ships together. Scott and Corsair drop into a secret underground monorail terminal, Storm dropping in after them.

 

They start up the monorail and Corsair asks where they’re going. Scott tells him they’re headed to one of the Mini-Jets, saying that if Corsair is telling the truth they’ll use it to get out of there. Corsair is clearly hurt at the accusation that he’s lying and starts by asking his son how he could think that, to which Scott shouts at him to “Never call me that!” He trauma dumps a little on how it feels to learn his father, who he idolized and looked up to, was alive and never came for him. He accuses Corsair of abandoning his family to knock around the galaxy. He’s also not really in a talking mood as when Corsair tries to explain what happened, saying “You got it all wrong,” Scott screams at him, demanding to know if he just ‘imagined’ the orphanage or the foster homes that never wanted him because of his powers. The Shi’ar, meanwhile, detect the monorail and blast into it to try to get Corsair, Raknar saying that he wants Corsair dead or alive. They make it to the jet, but several robots burst in and knock the Summers on their asses. Storm blasts them and carries them to the jet before they take off. Scott recovers and takes the controls, saying that if they stay low that should keep them from the Shi’ars sensors for a bit. Corsair then takes the stick from him, saying that Scott probably won’t like what he has to say.

 

The Shi’ar investigate the wreckage of the Starjammer. The soldier says that the ship is empty. Raknar is furious to learn that Corsair was alone and demands to know how no one noticed that he ejected the witness. They fly skyward, back into space.

 

Corsair begins his story, saying that the family was flying on their way back from a camping trip in Alaska when it happened. Their plane was attacked by a Shi’ar vessel and shot several times. They only had a few minutes, and since the attack destroyed all but one of the parachute, the Christopher and Rachel elected to strap their sons together and have them jump out of the plane in the hopes they’d survive. Scott got the parachute strapped to him and then his younger brother Alex. To the horror, though, they saw the parachute catch on fire. And a moment later they were teleported onto the Shi’ar ship. They were captured by Emperor D’Ken and his other sister, a lovely sociopath by the name of Deathbird. He says that they’d been ‘collected’ as part of a Shi’ar… well, zoo for lack of a better term. He was freed by the Starjammers, but he saw Rachel killed by D’Ken before he left. He says that he thought his entire family had died, hence why he never came looking for his boys. Scott gives him back his locket. He asks if Corsair had known that he and Alex were alive, and Corsair cuts him off by saying that had he’d known the Shi’ar slavers wouldn’t have been able to stop him from getting back to them. Raknar’s ship catches up to them and shoots them down. Corsair performs a controlled crash, and the team are able to flee as safely as they can while being shot at. Raknar radios the X-Men and says that he’s not sure why they’re helping Corsair, but accuses him of kidnapping a witness that knows the location of the “Lord Chamberlain’s horded fortune” and is keeping the witness from Raknar so he can steal the money. Scott demands to know if this is true. Corsair is more honest than he probably should be, saying that he’s helping the girl, Jandra, because he cares about her, but like… ya, he could use the money to keep his starship running. Scott is furious at this reveal and tells Storm to find Jandra and protect her from everyone while he sorts this out. She flies off and he goes to yell at the space cops. He orders the patrol to hold their fire and grabs Corsair’s gun, saying he is Scott’s prisoner and he’s turning him in.

 

Corsair tries to convince Scott that he and his crew are protecting Jandra, but Scott seems to not be listening. Scott tells him to get in and shut up, they’ll find Jandra and then talk. On the ship, Raknar thanks Scott for his cooperation, but Scott clarifies that he’s agreed to nothing before they find the girl. He radios Storm, who is flying through a South American jungle from the look of it, following the beacon that Corsair gave to Jandra before jettisoning her escape pod. She’s then attacked by Hepzibah, the wolf woman alien from the Starjammer’s crew and possibly Scott’s step-mom? I remember a lot of affectionate touches between her and Corsair the last time she showed up… Storm blasts her back with a whirlwind but then is grabbed by Raza (one eyed alien cyborg) and Ch’od (big lizard man). Raza cuts her communicator off her uniform.

 

On the ship, Raknar has Scott imprisoned in a stasis beam and orders the navigator to keep an eye on him. He finds Corsair strapped to a chair in the brig and asks to know how he learned that Raknar had been hired by the Lord Chamberlain to kill the witness. Corsair says he’d never tell and Raknar admits that he’d hoped Corsair would say that and dons an electrified glove.  

 

The Starjammers have Storm trussed up and are carrying her to their base of operations. She asks why they’re treating her like an enemy when they worked together fighting D’Ken. Raza says that they’d been kept abreast of the situation by Corsair keeping his communicator open, and they know that Scott turned Corsair over to Raknar. They reach their command post, which seems to be in some Aztec ruins. Jandra is revealed to be, like, 14 at most and asks why the lady is tied up. Ch’od explains how she helped betray them to the false Shi’ar commander, but Raza adds that given the lies they were told, she and Scott can’t be looked at too harshly. He grabs a device and hits a button.

 

On the ship, the navigator frees Scott and asks if he’s really Corsair’s son. Scott begrudgingly confirms he is, and she shows him the ship’s log for three days from that day. He’s shown a video reporting that Jandra was killed by an electrical storm enroute to their destination, proving to him that his father was telling the true. The navigator reveals she leaked the info to Corsair, knowing that he was the only one brave enough to stand up to a commander like Raknar. Scott is horrified to realize that he may have gotten them all killed by interfering and she tells Scott that that remains to be seen, but he should put a little more faith in his dad. Scott and the Navigator free Corsair, Christopher saying that that’s the Scott Summers he gave the last parachute to. They flee on some Shi’ar hover bikes as the ship pursuits them. Ch’od radios into Corsiar, telling him to alter his course by 13 degrees north and to remember Alderbaran 5. Storm also radio’s Scott and says that Professor Xavier sends his regards. Raknar, who’s crew is listening in, does wonder what their obvious code could mean, Alderbaran in another galaxy and Xavier is half a planet away but orders them shot down. Scott and the Navigator’s ships are shot down, but they land on Corsairs. He says he doesn’t know what happened on Aldebaran but hopes it was good, Corsair acknowledges it was.

 

Their last bike is shot down and they make a break for the ruins. Raknar orders them to take out Corsair, they shoot, but then Storm pulls back the fog revealing an alien device. Corsair dives under it as the shot hits, reflecting the plasma blast back at the ship and causing it to crash. They join up with the Starjammers and Ch’od hugs the Summers men in joy. Corsair apologizes for his friend, but Scott says he thinks he gets Ch’od’s feelings.

 

Later the Starjammer has been fished out of the water and repaired. The Starjammers are preparing to take off to bring Jandra to the trial she’s supposed to be a witness in. Corsair asks what made Scott change his mind about him, and he says that he just likes long odds. Scott admits to wanting to know more about his father, and Corsair promises that they’ll get to it soon. Scott asks if maybe he could stay, just for a few hours, so they can catch up. Corsair agrees to it, much to Ch’od’s dismay, who says to break out the cards because they’ll be here a while. As they walk in, Corsair tells Scott that that feisty red head that beat the pants off the Shi’ar that Scott’s engaged to reminds him a lot of Rachel. Scott asks how so, and Corsair jokes about saving that info for after they’re married. Somewhere on Earth, Havok is feeling annoyed he’s being left out of father-son time. Ha!

 

Honestly, my biggest gripe about this episode is about how forced the reveal that Corsair is Christopher Summers is. Like… seriously, the dog tag should have been enough for Scott to be like “Oh, you’re Major Christopher Summers from the Airforce? That’s funny, my dad’s name was Christopher,” and Corsair to be like, “Wait, Cyclops, what’s your first name… and how old are you?” The picture was just too much for me. Otherwise, I liked this episode a lot. As you saw from my previous posts, not mentioning that Corsair was Scott’s father was one of the things that annoyed me about the Phoenix saga as something that shouldn’t have been ignored. Jean, just take the two minutes to tell Scott who his daddy is. Jeeze. The background on how the Summers got split up is nice and does rationalize why Corsair never came back looking for his boys. The whole “the last time I saw you, you were strapped to a burning parachute” thing does at least make it seem reasonable that he assumed his boys both died. And I liked that despite how reasonable that explanation is, Scott still didn’t completely forgive Corsair until the end. The 20 years of bitterness and loneliness he’d been dealing with isn’t something erased with words, and I mean, his dad is a self-described space pirate, I’d probably assume the worst as well. Scott’s abandonment issues are something that other series touch on, but I don’t think are ever that fleshed out outside the comics. Like, they touch on him being an orphan, they touch on him missing Alex, but they rarely have him get the kind of catharsis I assume he got when he was able to shout at his father for leaving. Emotional outbursts are healthy, it’s bottling them up that lead to issues, that’s my philosophy, so seeing him get to blow up before tempers cool and he can hear the story was a good bit of story telling in my opinion. The whole ‘the space cop is the real bad guy’ twist is fairly obvious from the moment you learn for sure that it’s Corsair piloting the ship, but at least they tried to make Corsair seem a little bit sleezy before the reveal. Corsair might be in the scoundrel archetype as a pirate, but there’s no way he’d be portrayed as an out-and-out villain. Not in this story. He was being perfectly honest with Scott when he essentially said, “I’m helping because it’s the right thing to do… but obviously I want to get paid for my efforts,” it was just the absolute worst time to say it. Or phrase it like that. So yeah, an overall good episode about finally addressing one of the three unknown-to-Scott Summers relationships. Cable and Havok just have to wait their turn I suppose. … It’s been 30 years, and they just got to Cable in X-Men: 97. Sorry, Havok. Lol Next time, some more alien shenanigans… but not the Shi’ar this time. Neat!

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social