Viewer Log: Agatha All Along ep 2

 Time to get some Witches together.

Last time on Agatha All Along, we caught up with Westview’s favorite noisy neighbor. Agatha Harkness, witch, dog-killer, and all-around nasty lady, has spent the last three years believing herself to be Agnes of Westview. Her TV sitcom persona seems to have gotten a glitch in it, though, and now she’s acting like a grizzled police detective in her small town. She has a time investigating the death of a Jane Doe that’s clearly Wanda Maximoff from Minute 1 and has an antagonistic relationship with a woman named Rio Vadel. A mysterious Teen tries to break into her house to steal something, but Agnes catches him. The boy is the first person to tell her to her face that her delusion is a delusion. She’s drawn to the morgue to investigate the body one more time and Rio coaxes Agatha out of Agnes, helping her peel back the layers of her assumed identity and shed them until she realizes she’s naked in her house in Westview. After threatening her neighbor to get caught up on her situation, Agatha realizes she’s lost her powers and Wanda stole all of her magic stuff while she was in Lala land. She then also realizes the Teen is real and is locked in her closet. Rio then arrives, being a witch associate of hers. They fight but Agatha gets her to back off for a little while so she can try to get her powers back. Rio agrees but says that she’ll tell the Salem 7 where she is, and they won’t be so easy on her. They should be there by sundown. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Ep 2: Circle Sewn With Fate/ Unlock Thy Hidden Gate

 

Agatha finally gets dressed and starts packing a go bag to get out of Westview before her ‘friends’ arrive. The Teen from earlier struggles to be heard by her but the tape gag works better than a tape gag ever should. Agatha tells him the house is his and to tell her vengeance seeking friends she says hi. He gets the tape off and asks her to take him to the Witches Road, which sparks her interest. Agatha says that the Road isn’t real, but Teen says that he knows that’s a lie real witches tell normies to get them to back off. He says anyone who can make it through get their hearts desire. Agatha drops the pretense and says that the Road will kill him. He insists he can do it, and he wants Agatha’s help to prepare because she also went down the Road at some point. The Teen admits that he knows quote “an egregious” amount of her and loved her Salem era. That’s why he came to Westview to free her. She’s impressed that he had the goods to break a curse set up by the Scarlet Witch herself. The Teen says that he wants to go down the Road to gain power, and while he’s studied and knows quite a bit, he really wants someone with practical experience to help him out. Agatha says no, though, too risky. The teen points out that the other witches sound serious and asks her if she can outrun them without magic. Agatha sees her locket and after checking the hair is still inside, asks the teen his name. He says it, but when he does, his voice distorts and his mouth gets covered over, indicating a spell is keeping Agatha from learning his name. Agatha is very intrigued by this point and does agree to help. After a gaffe where she tries to drive off in the fake car from her hallucinations (it’s basically an exercise wheel stuck to a tabletop) finally frees the Teen and says he’s driving.

 

They head out, walking down the street. She asks the Teen what he knows about Covens. He rattles off a few facts, ultimate form of sisterhood, drawn together by mysterious forces etc. He gets excited that Agatha is taking him to meet her Coven, but Agatha says those harpies are dust, but they’ll need a cover to access the Witches Road. She stops at the foundation of the Maximoff/Vision house. Someone spraypainted ‘evil witch’ on the concrete. She spits at it and they head to the Teen’s car. They drive out of Westview. The Teen’s boyfriend tries to call him, but he ignores the call to focus on the mission. He asks how they’ll find a Coven and Agatha explains that there’s sort of a witch’s magnetism effect that draws these sorts of people together. She claims that this is the Covenstead rule, in any three-mile radius there’ll be enough people with talent to form a coven. He asks her to write that rule down in a notebook, but she is very much against that idea, throwing the pen out the window and offering to throw the book out too. He says it’ll be hard to find a coven of people on her level. Agatha scoffs at this and says that’s never existed. But all ya need is some folks with even a little talent and the group can form enough of a spark to get her what she needs. She tells him to stop, and they pull up in front of a psychic shop.

 

They enter the shop and meet with the owner (Patti LuPone) of the shop. Agatha spins a yarn about wanting to commune with her dead husband to locate some gold bars in their backyard. She says the Teen is her son, but he doesn’t talk due to social anxiety. They pay her to do the reading on the Teen’s debit card. They get a clearly fake reading saying the gold is in a bowling bag at the back of their closet. Agatah gets up to leave, but then the psychic does an actual reading, having figured out Agatha’s past and describes it in detail. How she hurt Wanda and was trapped for three years. The psychic, Lilia, says that she knows why they’re here, but she’s not interested. Agatha is not taking that for an answer. They follow her into the back, and Agatha says she hasn’t gotten the pitch yet. Lilia says she’d have to be nutty to deal with THE Agatha Harkness. She then screams bloody murder for a second before they continue the conversation. We find out that Lilia is roughly 400 years old. Agatha asks her if she doesn’t miss the Glory days when people respected her. Lilia says no, as back then she’d be chased out of villages all over for accurately predicting disasters. Agatha drops the Witches Road bombshell and she has Lilia locked in. But she’s still hesitant, saying that she’d be crazy to coven up with the most infamous witch on the continent. Teen is affronted by this and asks her to name a badder bitch from South America or Europe. When asked, Agatha introduces him as her pet. Lilia asks if Agatha really thinks that she’ll risk her life to get power from the road just to have Agatha steal it from her. Agatha lets her in on a little secret, that she can’t just steal power. She has to be blasted with it, and then she’ll suck it in and drain her. She’s an absorber in that way. So as long as Lilia shows some restraint, the power is all here. She also points out that Lilia is being evicted anyway, so why not join them. She still says no and starts to walk away, but then magic starts coursing through her, causing the lights to flicker and the tea kettle to boil. Lilia comes out of it and says “three of pentacles” and gives Agatha a list of names she’ll need. She tries to walk away again, but then they notice that Lilia is on the list too. Teen gives her Agatha’s address and says to be there by five. They’ve got their Divination Witch. They head out and Teen gushes about what just happened. He asks her who’s next on the list, and after being distracted by a crow for a second, they keep going.

 

We cut to a candle shop where our next witch, Jen Kale (Sasheer Zamaka), who runs a shop selling candles. Agatha comes in and causes a scene to make the customers leave. Jen says she ‘hasn’t see (her) since I made a very pointed effort to never see you again,” to Agatha when alone. Agatha tells her she’s assembling a Coven to Walk the Road and she needs a potions guy. She says that walking the road will break the binding that left Jen powerless for the last century, and then Jen notices that Agatha is also powerless. Jen says she’s not bitter and doesn’t to be a real witch again, Agatha calls bullshit and almost storms off. But Teen cuts in, saying firsts that he loves Jen’s products… but points out that she’s in a LOT of legal trouble right now after a product caused severe burns to several customers. Agatha has a great line about how historically they don’t do well in courtrooms. They point out a powered-up witch wouldn’t have trouble dodging the law and give her Agatha’s address and to be there by 5. Potions Witch, check. Teen says that’s 2 down, 2 to go, but Agatha says only one. When he asks to see the list because he’s pretty sure it had four names on it, she eats the note, and then says she’s actually hungry so they’re hitting up a food court.

 

At the food court, Agatha explains their third is a Blood Witch. That’s the child of a witch and that this one’s mom was a famous goddess of rock. Teen guess she means a witch named Lorna Wu, of Lorna Wu and the Coral Shore, a witch that wrote a famous various of The Ballad ever.  It took me a second to realize Rock Goddess in this sense meant Rock and Roll and not stone. Ha. Teen says that his mom loved her and got to see Lorne on her last tour before she died. Agatha sees a rat and rushes them out of the food court. They go to check out a Hot Topic… or a legally safe knock off, where Lorna Wu’s daughter Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn) works as a security. Agatha forces the Teen to fake shoplifting to get her attention, and then to get her fired when her boss thinks she assaulted a customer for no reason. Alice isn’t interested, saying that the road is a myth, a con. Agatha dangles the chance of figuring out what happened to her mother, who disappeared on the Road, but Alice walks off. Teen lament not giving her the address, but Agatha says they don’t need her.

 

On the drive back, Teen asks if two witches will be enough and how far the Road is. Agatha asks Teen where he’s from. He starts talking about himself, but Agatha can’t hear him besides he was born in Eastview. Like, she can hear herself snapping and the radio, but her brain can’t take in the information that the teen is giving out.  She tells him to drive faster.

 

At the house, Agatha gets on her traveling gear and hears a wolf howl. She sees one on the suburban street and runs back inside. Teen sets up a welcome sign, that Agatha tears down in frustration just before her squad arrives, Jen, Lilia and Alice. Alice says that she used to be a cop and that somehow let her track them down. Agatha tries to get them to go right then, but the others point out that they need one more, a Green Witch. According to the Ballad they need Green witch as Earth magic is the most important skillset to use on the Road. Teen points out there was another name on the list, Agatha pretends to not know what it is, but Lilia says it wasn’t a name but a Black Heart. Agatha says she remembers now and goes to get her. Agatha runs across the street and grabs Kitty Foreman… I mean Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp). Agatha greets her as Mrs. Hart, but Sharon corrects her and says that’s the name Wanda gave her in the Hex. Agatha lies to her and says that she’d like her to join a party she’s throwing, to which Sharon is delighted as she hasn’t been to a party since her husband died… huh… that gives some credence to that fan theory that the “Mr. Hart” in Wanda’s hex was already dead.

 

Anyway, they go to Agatha’s basement where she explains to Teen that they’re not going to the Road but conjuring it here. She sends Teen upstairs and calls the witches to sing the Ballad to summon the road and get their dreams to come true. They try to figure out their parts, with Lilia shouting “get off me,” before they can really begin. Teen finds Agatha’s bunny upstairs and senses… something and goes to investigate. The witches start singing while Sharon looks on confused. As they sing, Teen goes outside and sees a cloaked figure waiting outside. John Collins the neighbor is also outside and asks Teen if he’s also seeing the cloaked lady. The cloaked figure splits into seven figures and John drops his groceries and runs inside. Teen also runs in to warn Agatha. The Witches and Sharon grab hands and chant as Teen blocks the open door to keep the Salem Seven out. They finish the song, but it doesn’t seem to work. The witches start arguing, Sharon saying that she thought they sounded great. The Seven start attacking Teen. Agatha starts yelling at the other Witches, and that seems to draw some power out of them. Agatha really gets into it, trying to get the others to blast her. Lilia catches on that Agatha actually didn’t intend to bring them on the Road, she just wanted to get enough witches together to get that magic spark she mentioned before, and then trick them into attacking her so she can steal their power and get strong enough to protect herself. Sharon then points out a pentagram has formed at their feet. Lilia tells her to open it. She tries but it takes all five of them to pull the doors open, revealing a staircase deep into the earth. Agatha grabs some dirt on top of the stairs as Teen runs in and says they really need to go now. Everyone runs down the stairs, Agatha quickly slamming the doors shut to escape the Seven. They find the Witches Road at the bottom. Everyone takes off their shoes and starts walking barefoot. Props on Sharon for just rolling with this.

 

This was a fun continuation of the story. I liked each of our new witches, and how Agatha has got such a reputation that even the witches that don’t know her personally are as guarded around her as those that do. I think at this moment Patti LuPone’s Lilia is my favorite, as her reacting to things that I assume are going to happen later is just a fun sight gag. From her screams it looks like walking the Road is going to be… exciting. The other two are also fun but I think that we didn’t get enough of them to get a good read on their personalities beyond fabulous witch and gruff witch. The fact that the whole gathering was just a ploy by Agatha to try to steal their powers was a nice touch.  Like, the plot to get three witches together to try to steal their powers so she faked getting them together to walk the Witches Road was just convoluted enough to cover her tracks. I do wonder if the Black Heart did mean someone specific or if Agatha was worried that the others would realize Sharon was just a rando, so she tried to misdirect them. I’ll probably learn more as we go. The mystery with the teen is interesting. The fact that Agatha seems to be incapable of taking in any information about him does suggest he’s important in some way. Plus it must be a doozy of a hex, spell, curse, or whatever that is keeping Agatha taking in detail as mundane as his first name. Props to Joe Locke, by the way. The kid has got such exuberant energy that I totally believe that he’s spending time with his idol right now. Maybe he actually is a big fan of Kathryn Hahn. Not saying that’s impossible, but she’s kind of an extremely specific actress to be fawning over into. Just saying. The song that the witches used to open the way to the Road was really well done. I wonder if they dubbed over the actors for that one or if it was their natural singing voices. If so those gals have pipes. And, loved seeing Debra Jo Rupp. What? I was a fan of That 70s Show growing up. Kitty and Red Foreman were basically what I imagined my Grandparents were like to my dad as a kid. Though Donn Johnson was much more of a jock than Eric Foreman ever was. Though I imagine if Kitty had to deal with four other kids on top of Laurie and Eric like my grandparents did her drinking problem would have been much more severe. … I’m getting off topic. Debra, she’s great. I totally buy that she just sort of wandered into this weird fantastical journey. Can’t wait to see more of her. So yeah, fun episode. Have a good night everyone. 

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Viewer Log: Agatha All Along ep 1

 What a strange three years its been.

Going to take a bit of a break from X-Men: The Animated Series to cover Agatha All Along. Ya know I have to keep on top of these Marvel Shows.

 

To reintroduce you to the title character, Agatha Harkness is a literal witch from Salem Massachusetts. Her coven, including her own mother, attempted to execute here for via magic for dabbling in the dark magic of the Darkhold several hundred years ago. She turned their spell around on them, killing the other witches. Centuries later she discovered the Hex, the huge barrier that Wanda Maximoff created around Westview, New Jersey. She wanted to learn how Wanda did it. Upon discovering Wanda is trying to hide from reality by living in her sitcom world, she inserted herself into Wanda’s world as “Agnes,” the noisy neighbor. She also recruited and bewitched an actor named Ralph Bohner into a recast Pietro Maximoff to further monitor Wanda. Wanda ultimately defeated her by carving anti-magic runes into her Hex, taking Agatha’s powers away. Thinking she might need Agatha’s help in the future, Wanda trapped her in her Agnes persona and left her in Westview. Alright, that’s enough recapping. Let’s get to it.

 

Ep 1: Seekest Thou the Road

 

We begin with Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) still believing herself to be Agnes driving a car down a misty road. She pulls over upon reaching a crime scene and gets out of her car. We see a police badge around her neck as she grabs coffees and brings them to her fellow detective Herb. We learn that she’d recently been suspended for punching a suspect but was called back in to investigate a Jane Doe murder the cops found. Herb brings her to the scene, telling her they got tipped off by an anonymous call. They have found a page from a Westview Library book in her pocket and evidence suggests she was crushed. They reach the body, and we see a woman in a gray track suit, not shoes or socks. Her toes and fingers seem weirdly blackened. Agnes starts rubbing her neck and tells them to bag evidence. She has a look around and finds a broach in a puddle that she pockets when Herb goes to talk to her. They return to examine the body. Agnes asks the body who she is and what happened to her, but obviously the body doesn’t answer. Herb notes that Agnes is acting weird. Agnes says that the dead body has her in the dumps, but she’ll act cheerier next time. She says to call her when they’ve got the body’s dental records and storms off.

 

We get the title credits of this ‘show’ Agnes of Westview. So it seems like Wanda decided to have a little fun with Agatha’s punishment and put her into a gritty crime drama. Neat. I snickered when the credits mention that this show is based off the Danish TV series WandaVision. Agnes goes to the Westview Library and cuts in line to speak with a librarian, Dottie Jones, about the library card they found at the scene. Dottie says that their system is all digital now so that card is basically useless. Agnes loudly starts questioning Dottie as if she’s a suspect, so Dottie runs the book title for information. The book is “Dialogue and Rhetoric: Known History of Learning and Debate by Andew Ugo.” Dottie tells her that the book wasn’t checked out, it was stolen three years ago. She does say they’re other copies, so Agnes goes back to check it out. When she gets back there, she finds the books burned, the ashes scattered on the ground. A man behind her whispers that there was a fire that burned every copy of Dialogue and Rhetoric.

 

Later Agnes arrives at the Westview Police Station. Inside, her Chief meets her and tries to talk to her about something, but Agnes keeps cutting him off until they reach her office. Agnes guesses that there’s going to be something that she doesn’t like about the news the chief has because he keeps letting her stall him. He tells her that the dirt under the Jane Doe’s fingernails have some microbes only found in Easter Europe. Before he can say more, the bad news walks in, Agent Rio Vadel (Aubrey Plaza) of the FBI. The Chief leaves and lets them talk. Agnes and Rio have history, but Rio says that she’s willing to follow her lead on this one. She then looks around and asks Agnes if this is really how she sees herself. When she doesn’t react, Rio gets back to the case, saying that there were no tracks leading up to the body. It’s like it just materialized there. Anges says that the key to the mystery is in the location. Rio says that since Agnes has lived in Westview her whole life, that makes her perfect to solve this case. She puts weighty emphasis on that line, and Agnes’ name. Agnes seems spooked by this and tells her to get out.

 

Agnes takes the broach to a pawnshop and has it looked over by a friend of hers, Norm. He says that it’s 17^th century locket from Massachusetts, it’s got the triple goddess on the cover (Maiden, Mother, and Crone) and inside it is a lock of hair. Norm offers to buy it, but Agnes takes it back and storms off.

 

Later at the police station, Agnes is trying to figure out how the book fits into things. She notes that the first letters of all the words in the title spell out Darkh- before she can finish the word she shakes herself, and then the chief comes in and tells her to go home for the night.

 

Agnes returns home. It’s a quite little house without anyone else in it. She enters a child’s bedroom and looks sadly at it. The name Nicholas Scratch can be seen on an award in one corner. She hears a knock and goes to investigate. It’s Rio. She says that it’s a universally acknowledged truth that a lady cop can’t be good at her job and have a healthy personal life, so she’s come offering Pizza. They have pizza and beer. They seem to have a fun chat, Agnes tells Rio that she might have a lead about the case. Rio says she’s not there for that but to continue. Agnes says that there was a car accident in Eastview not an hour before TOD. When Rio jokes that she didn’t think Agnes went that far from town, Agnes says she’s worldly and Rio asks her where she’s been. Agnes freezes up, so Rio tells her to continue. She goes on to say that airbags went off and that suggest there might be two perps. Agnes says her gut is telling her that it isn’t right. Rio asks if Agnes remembers why she hates her, and she can’t. She asks if Agnes is hiding evidence, which Agnes denies. Rio says she’s just lying to herself. They hear a noise upstairs and Agnes goes to investigate. She finds a thief (Joe Locke) in the kids room. She chases the thief outside and down the street. He gets hit by a car in the chase and knocked out. She checks to make sure that he’s okay before arresting him.

 

Agnes brings him in and goes to interrogate him. She asks him what he was looking for in her house and she gets snark back. She kicks the chair, knocking him to the ground, but Rio taps on the glass to tell her to back off. She pulls back and asks him what he’s after. The boy says he’s looking for the Road. Agnes notices his blackened fingers, but he says they’re covered in fingerprint ink. She asks where he was between 1 and 3 am, when the murder happened, and he says he was asleep. She makes an exaggerated note about him being a loser or liar. She slaps down the pictures and demands to know what he knows about the murder. The thief is extremely confused by this, saying that they’re just pictures of flowers. Agnes looks down and ya, the murder photos are now flowers. She then looks over at the window where Rio was looking from and finds her gone. He asks her why she keeps looking at that painting. She looks back and it is a painting. The teen starts chanting in Latin or something, and the interrogation room turns into an old parlor for a moment. Agnes grabs him and says he’s going to spend the night in the tank.

 

Agnes heads over to the morgue, chanting to herself that she saw a body. She goes inside and finds it empty. She walks to the back, and that’s empty too. She chants the victims stats and suddenly the body is on a slab. She goes over to look at it, on the toe is the library card from earlier, as she looks at it the name W Maximoff appears on it. Rio appears, asking if the case closed. Agnes asks how she died, and Rio says wrong question. Rio says that that witch is gone, and she destroyed all the copies of the Darkhold as well. She says that with that witch gone, Agnes is trapped in her distorted spell, but she doesn’t have to be. Agnes starts complaining about being hot and starts stripping. She shifts through all the disguises she wore as Agnes in WandaVision. She seems particularly affronted by her 70s/80s look. She peels back into the black and white version of Agnes from the first episode. Rio says that there is two Jane Does in this case, she knows one name, now she needs to remember the other. Agnes sees A Harkness appear on the library card and then peals off the final layer.

 

She wakes up in her parlor completely naked and then screams in fury. She goes outside and sees “Herb” from earlier, her neighbor. She learns from him that she’s been in Westview for three years and she angrily screams that this is Wanda’s fault. Herb, real name John Colins, says that they try not to say that name. Agnes, growing angrier asks what she’s been doing in this cesspool all this time. John says that she’s mostly been a good neighbor, but lately she’d been acting weird, like she’d suddenly gotten really into true crime. She looks around and sees “Dottie” and the Chief, and the pawnshop guy jogging. John tries to give her a coat to cover but she throws it off. John says that she seems weirdly lucid today besides being naked. She tells him that her name is Agatha and she storms back to her house. She finds she can’t use her powers and in the basement of her house her nexus of power is missing too. She finds a rabbit and she cuddle it, saying she was robbed. Wanda took everything she had and left her with household appliances. She needs to get back top. She hears a thumping and goes to investigate. She finds the Teen from earlier, tied to a chair with tape over his mouth. She realizes that the arrest was a bit more of a kidnapping. She realizes that if he’s real and not a figment of her imagination then that means… Rio bursts in and tries to stab her with a knife. The two fight, throw each other around. Agatha says that they can’t kill each other, but Rio will find ways to make her wish she was dead. Agnes finally says that this isn’t want Rio wants to beat her without her powers. Agatha says she just needs a little time to get her powers back. Rio suggests she just try to take hers, but Agnes says that’ll kill her. Agnes convinces Rio to give her a little time to get her powers back, but Rio says that she’ll tell ‘them’ where to find her. Who? The Salem Seven. They’ll be around soon to enact their revenges. She heals a cut on Agatha’s before walking off. Agatha finds the Teen till strapped to the chair and realizes she needs to handle him too.

 

That was certainly an interesting way to start a season. Kathryn Hahn is great as both the grizzled cop Agnes and the vindictive witch Agatha (The little we saw of her). She’s clearly having fun with this role. The idea that this version of Agnes, grizzled cop on the edge, was a recent cobbled together identity as Agatha tried to get her mind back together is really funny to me. Like, she spent three years as the Nosy Neighbor Agnes and then suddenly a switch is flipped and she’s playing detective. I do wonder how much of what we saw happened in her house and how much did she actually go around town doing? We’ll probably never know. The bit where she’s finally gotten her memories back and interrogating John while nude had me snorting. Anyway, Agatha’s back and now she needs to get her powers back. That’ll be a fun journey to be on. The reveal that Rio is in fact a witch was fairly obvious, as she seemed to be the only one that wasn’t completely playing along with the delusion, but the fact she tried to kill Agatha on sight was fun. I’ll be curious to see how that relationship develops. And I wonder how the teen will factor in. He clearly wants something if he's breaking into a crazy witch’s house, but what could it be? I suppose we’ll find out more next time. I’m looking forward to it. See you later. 

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Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 30

 Everyone's got a dark side. 

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, the X-Men set out to face their greatest foe yet. Charles Xavier had intense nightmares that warned him of a terrible doom that will soon befall the earth. His dreams convinced him that the X-Men need to get on a space shuttle and reach the Eagle-1 Space station or the earth is doomed. The X-Men break into the launchpad, leaving Jubilee behind to take the fall for the break in. They replace the crew except the head scientist Dr. Corbeau and Jean uses her mental powers to make him see the crew. They reach the station and learn it’s been taken over by Eric the Red, an emissary from the Shi’ar Empire. He’d come to capture a Shi’ar fugitive named Lilandra in a bid to impress his Emperor D’Ken. He tries to vent the X-Men into space, but Jean saves them with her mental powers. They stop Eric’s attack, and the station starts to fall apart. The X-Men and Corbeau fall back to the shuttle and they and Eric the Red’s ship chase after Lilandra. The shuttle is damaged in flight, and they’re stuck falling towards a contrail Lilandra’s ship is giving off. If they hit it, they’re going to be cooked. The team realizes they can hide in the probe the ship was carrying, but someone has to stay outside to pilot the ship. Corbeau volunteers to do it, but Jean decides to do it. She mentally downloads Corbeau’s training and knocks out Scott when he tries to stay instead. She throws up a mental barrier around the ship as it falls and screams in agony as a flaming phoenix envelops the ship. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

We open as the shuttle follows Lilandra’s ship as it falls to Earth. Jean is clearly in pain as energy encircles her and flows throughout the ship. The rocking of the ship throws her from the controls, but she’s able to crawl back in time to correct their course. As she does, she keeps seeing flashes of a phoenix. Jean begs for help from Scott, Logan, from anyone before she passes out and the Phoenix enters her body. Oh that’s not good. Starcore falls towards Earth, but Jean, now surrounded by an aura of energy corrects their course so they crash into New York Harbor. The shuttle breaks into pieces when it lands. The capsule starts to flood, Scott and Logan work together to break the door open and they escape. Scott instantly dives back down to look for Jean, and Logan calls out to her. They can’t find her, but that becomes a moot point in a second. Jean erupts from the water in a new green and yellow costume and announces that she is the Phoenix! She then drops back into the water as her power runs out, Scott and logan swim after her and dive down to get her. They’ll pull her up.

 

We cut to Jean in a hospital bed getting checked out. Scott explains what happened to her from his perspective and Jean seems really out of it. She says that she feels like a different person, like she could reach out with a hand and crush the moon if she wanted. Scott asks what the Phoenix is, and Jean’s eyes flash with flames. Hank and Charles enter the room and let her know that they know something weird happened, even if they don’t know the scope of it, and suggests Jean stays in the hospital for a while. Scott goes to look out a window and Hank follows, telling him that Dr. Corbeau told him that NASA can’t explain what happened, the alien ship, or the bizarre readings, so they’re brushing everything under the rug to not cause a panic. But they’re detecting more unusual activity from the wormhole. Scott demands to know what Charles’ knows, and Charles angrily shouts back that he told them everything he knew. Well, everything that he could make sense of. Scott and Charles start getting into it, Scott blaming Charles for not preparing them and Charles angrily snapping back that a good leader shouldn’t need to be told to be on his guard. Beast gets their attention by leaping onto a pipe and hanging upside down before telling them they’re both feeling irrational anger due to what happened to Jean and there was literally no way to prepare for aliens. He then walks off to examine the implants Eric the Red put into the astronauts to control them.

 

He heads out and finds Logan in the alley across from the hospital, venting his anger by breaking things. Hank tells him that Jean’s doing fine and that maybe he should see her instead of vandalizing. Logan admits that he really doesn’t like hospitals after the whole “human experiment” thing. Beast sighs and tells himself science can wait and does the good friend thing of offering to take Logan to a Manhattan club or ‘night spot’ to help him cool his head. He hails a taxi but the cabby drives off in terror when he sees a blue beast looking in on him. Logan thanks Hank for the offer but says he’ll just spend time alone.

 

On the Hospital roof, Charles floats over to one off the X-Men’s smaller jets and tries to take off. He gets hit by a mental blast of some kind. He sees flashes of space, of a big crystal and the alien woman in bug armor. He screams in pain about trying to remain in control. His ship flies up and crashes. When it does, a mental projection of Charles in a cape floats out of him and smiles evilly. This clearly evil Charles does a mental sweep of New York and finds all of  the X-Men before fading out.

 

We shift to Logan riding a subway. He sees Lady Deathstrike in a joining car, but as pre-cyborg Yuriko. He cuts into the car and tries to talk to her, but she shifts into Sabretooth, who slaps him aside. He attacks Sabretooth, who vanishes and turns into… well, he’s credited as a mercenary but that’s Deadpool. Deadpool shoots him out of the car before transforming into Evil Charles.  Evil Charles calls him an animal, a monster that won’t follow orders. Logan prepares to attack Evil Charles, but the apparition makes him see Jubilee tied to the train tracks. He goes to try to save her, but Evil Charles traps his feet in glue. He cuts himself free and grabs Jubilee, who fades away. He’s nearly hit by a train, but he leaps away.

 

Logan comes out near a theater where Gambit and Jubilee are waiting in line to see a show. Gambit flirts with a lady in line, but Jubilee hits him and says he promised to take her to this show. Before they can argue further, Evil Charles arrives and starts blasting. Logan runs over to help. They all attack the wraith that looks like Charles, but while he can hit them, they can’t hit him. He smacks them around and announces they’re all fools. And that he created the X-Men and thus can destroy them.

 

We cut to Storm meditating on top of the Brooklyn Bridge. Jubilee calls to her over her communicator that they need help with a crazed professor. She flies off to help. We see Charles is still passed out on the Hospital roof. He’s watching the events in his minds eye and begs Storm to stay back as he can’t control what’s happening.

 

Evil Charles says that Gambit can’t be trusted and must be eliminated. He blasts Gambit aside. Cops arrive and tell the Mutants to get on the ground. Jubilee says to arrest him, pointing at Evil Charles, but this is when we learn that no one else can see Evil Charles. Logan says that they can’t see him because he’s not real. How does he know? He can’t smell him. Evil Charles fades away. More cops arrive and Logan prepares to fight his way out rather than try to explain this nuttery. But Storm arrives and gives them cover with fog. The X-Men fall back.

 

At the hospital, Scott is talking to Rogue on the phone and updating her on the situation. He urges her to get over here quick as they may need help. Evil Charles appears, calling Scott an incompetent fool and ingrate. He blasts Scott and announces he’s here to destroy him. Scott tries to blast him, but it doesn’t affect him. The evil Charles blasts Scott and tries to force him out of a window. Jean wakes up and says this isn’t real, that he’s making Scott think a force beam is pushing him towards a window. She blasts Evil Charles with her mind, the Phoenix manifesting around her head as she does. She forces Evil Charles away and explains that that was a projection from Charles’ mind. Jean tracks Charles mind to the roof while Scott calls the team in.

 

They find Charles and wake him up. He says that he felt a blast of enormous psychic power, the same force that warned him of the aliens arriving, but it dug deeper into him this time. As they talk, another mind-controlled minion of Eric the Red is watching them with a camera to the man himself. Charles says that that beam cut through all his defenses, the ones he erected to keep his powers in check. These barriers included a repressed dark side that is a manifestation of all his angry, violent thoughts that he represses. That caused an evil manifestation of him to appear and attack those who he loves most, his X-Men. Eric the Red realizes that Charles is the key to finding Lilandra and goes to prepare. Charles tells the X-Men that his orders can’t be trusted until he gets his head together.  He puts Cyclops in charge until he returns.

 

From where? Muir Island, Scotland, where his ex, Moira McTaggart, runs a research center. He arrives in another shuttle and meets Moira and her new fiancé Sean Cassiddy. An Irishman and a Scotswoman? Me ancestors are turnin’ in their graves. Ha. Charles is clearly offput by this but asks to be see his room to get some sleep. He floats off, Moira telling Sean she’d never seen him like this so his condition might be serious. That night, Charles reaches out to the alien that’s trying to contact him, saying he fears her but that she might be the cure to his loneliness.  Which… like Charles, I know dating apps are a few years out but surely a girl who’s birth planet is Earth is more your speed. He stares longingly at Moira and Sean standing outside on the cliffside. Sean asks if Charles still has feelings for her. She says she doesn’t think so, but he needs her. He’s given a lot to his X-Men but he doesn’t have many in the way of friends. While they kiss, Charles gets hit with another massive psychic blast. He says this is driving him mad but he realizes he has to stop fighting her. He reaches and mentally touches hands with the bug lady, somehow drawing her to him. She takes off her helmet and reveals a remarkably human face. She says she’s Lilandra, sister to Emperor D’Ken of the Shi’ar empire.  She touches minds with Charles to show him her history. She says she served her brother loyally for years until she learned he was trying to control the greatest power in the universe, the M’Kraan Crystal. She says he wants to turn it into a weapon, but it’s foretold that if the M’Kraan crystal is broken it’ll destroy both of our galaxies. She stole the crystal to keep it from D’Ken and fled to Earth to protect him. Charles asks why’d she come to him, and she says that the Shi’ar believe two people can be connected from the moment of their births and destined to seek each other out. She thinks she and Charles are that. It’s a bond like love, but deeper. She caresses his face and says she’s seen it a thousand times in her dreams. His door’s buzzer goes off and Charles tells Moira it’s alright. His door bursts in, revealing that it’s actually Charles’ dear step-brother, Cain Marko aka Juggernaut. He’s come calling for Lilandra.

 

Well, this took a turn. Jean’s been infused with immense psychic power and it’s clearly messing with her. We’re only seeing bits of it here as she’s recovering but it seems clear to me that it’ll get worse as they go. The Charles plotline was a little out of nowhere. I know it connects him to Lilandra and moves the Shi’ar plot forward, but one mental blast and Charles is making an evil clone? Weird. I do like how it attacked Wolverine, drawing him in and then attacking him with a pair of his frenemies and then putting Jubilee in danger to try to get him pancaked by a train. I believe I mentioned this before, but Deadpool’s cameo was very much inline with the production team skirting around bans on using certain Marvel characters in the show. He’s not credited as Deadpool, so he’s not Deadpool! Even if he’s in Deadpool’s costume and uses one of the rifles that he likes. I think I’d have liked to see Evil Charles mess with the X-Men a little more before being destroyed by Jean, but they can only do so much in twenty minutes. It was nice to get an info dump about what is going on the with the Shi’ar and what Lilandra’s whole deal is, but they really didn’t make it feel like anything besides a psychic info dump. Surely we could have seen some more of this situation acted out instead of being narrated by Lilandra, right? I know, kid’s show in the 90s. It’s already doing a whole hell of a lot. Teasing Charles having to deal with his brother was a nice touch. They didn’t meet at all the last time Juggernaut was in town, so they’ll be able to catch up while Cain crushes Charles’ universal soulmate. Just… fun brother stuff. See you next time. 

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Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 29

 And now there's aliens.

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, the X-Men came face to face with a monster from beyond the stars. The creature is called a Spirit Drinker and seems to suck the minds and lifeforce out of anyone that touches it’s tentacles. Jubilee, the Reavers, and Morlocks are all dropped fairly quickly and Deathstrike not long after. Thankfully, Charles gathered some of the team and joined Wolverine and Gambit along with Beast, Cyclops and Jean. Charles and Beast examine the alien spaceship and Charles seems to gain a weird insight into the people that sent the alien after touching a sign. The zap he received seemed to teach him the alien’s language and he’s able to get info on it. The team faces off against the Spirit Drinker as it attempts to leave the sewers via the subway. Their powers seem to slow it down but can’t stop it. After trying to slash it with his claws again, Wolverine is knocked aside and notices the creatures body disintegrates if electrified. Gambit hurls his staff through the monster, striking the electrified third rail and destroys it. The spirits are all returned to their bodies. Deathstrike decides to let Logan go this time but swears vengeance. After checking to see that the rest of the victims recovered, Charles confirms that he isn’t sure this is over yet. He had a vision of an alien culture with massive warships and a galaxy spanning empire when he touched the sign and fears this is only the beginning. The episode outright stating in the end the Phoenix Saga is about to begin. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

The episode opens in space. We’re shown a brightly burning sun and then several spaceships fleeing giant warships. A voice calls out to Charles, begging for his help. We’re shown that Charles is asleep, so this is a very intense dream. He demands to know how he could possibly know the woman asking for help as we’re showing the alien ships battling. He demands answers but the woman won’t respond. Several of the fleeing ships are captured and the rest destroyed. One ship remains, it’s pilot seems to be the one calling out to Charles. She tells him, for the sake of the future, to help me. Oh, and her armor looks like a giant bug for some reason. Charles wakes with a start. He announces that ‘they’ are coming.

 

Charles wakes his team and calls them to the War Room. Nearly everyone arrives in their pajamas, save Rogue who is on a mission, and Gambit, who is clearly just getting in. Charles explains that a space shuttle called Starcore is scheduled to launch the next morning. Beast actually knows one of the astronauts, Dr. Corbeau, who says he’s headed into space to examine a solar vortex phenomenon. Charles gets another flash of his vision, seeing several aliens, including a dude who looks like king and a man in a red mask. He tells the X-Men that they NEED to get on that ship and go to Eagle One Space station. Gambit points out that breaking into government instillations isn’t usually their style. Scott and Logan also object. Charles says that all he knows is “something” astronomically big is going to happen and if they aren’t there for it, the world is doomed. Logan shrugs and says that it makes about as much sense as some of their other missions. Charles calls Storm back and tells her that she’ll help the others get on the shuttle, but she should stay planet side.

 

Later, Charles stares out to the night sky and sees a star twinkling. Cyclops comes into his room in full gear and asks Charles what is going on. Is he not saying more because he doubts Cyclops as leader or something. Charles says he does trust Scott, but he doesn’t have more info to give. He feels like he’s losing control but knows this is the right thing to do.

 

The team took off. They land just outside of the launch pad. Storm calls up a fog bank to hide their break in. Beast helps everyone leap over the fence and they had for the base. Wolverine cuts through the door and gets them inside. The team says by to Rogue, who they leave behind to get caught. She’s the scapegoat to explain the alarms going off. Cyclops promises that the Professor and Storm will free her later. The team finds the astronauts suiting up. Cyclops knocks them all out with an optic beam. They lock the unconscious crew in the isolation chamber and suit up. Dr. Corbeau walks in on them, but before he can react, Jean hits him with a mental blast that has him see the team as his crew. They get aboard the shuttle, and it takes off. As they fly off, Charles and Storm watch, Charles saying that he just wished he knew what they were facing. Storm says they just need to trust them like they trust Charles. He and Storm then break Jubilee out of custody in a cyclone.

 

The shuttle heads towards Eagle One base. Beast examines the equipment they’re transporting, a solar probe designed to withstand solar radiation. Cyclops tells him and Wolverine to strap in as they’re approaching the base. The crew disembarks, as they reach mission control, Jean senses something off and realizes it’s a trap just before knockout gas gets pumped into the chamber. All the X-men try to bust down the door to escape but pass out before they can do anything. The door opens and a man in red armor and mask comes out. He introduces him as the emissary of the Shi’ar empire, Eric the Red, and welcomes them to the station. It’s a pity they won’t be staying long. He radios to his leader and says that he’s captured the team… but then realizes that the crew are stowaways. His boss thinks they’re here to meddle with his plans for the ‘crystal’ asks how Erik didn’t prepare for this, and Eric says he’ll handle it. He orders Corbeau to be brought to the control room. It looks like the other astronauts have some kind of disk on their necks controlling them. He orders them to open the airlock and vent the X-Men into space. He says it’s to show the galaxy what happens if they side with Lilandra. The crew open the hatch, but an exhausted Jean is able to stop them. The crew then try to kill them, but the others wake up and put a stop to them. Cyclops orders the team to rescue Corbeau without injuring the crew.

 

Inside mission control, Eric the Red explains the anomaly that Corbeau came to study is a wormhole. He says the Shi’ar can make them when needed. He’s here to intercept a Shi’ar criminal, a rebel named Lilandra. He says he mounted an energy cannon onto the space station that’ll stop her cruiser. He pontificates when probed that he’s the Shi’ar agent for this part of the galaxy and how badly he’s hoped for something to happen so he can impress the Shi’ar emperor and get assigned to a more important part of space. The X-Men come in and battle with Eric. He gets an alert that the ship is coming through the wormhole, and he prepares to fire the cannon. Corbeau lets the X-Men know what is going to happen and Cyclops blasts the controls, destroying them. The shot misses and Lilandra’s ship keeps flying. Eric the Red falls back to his own ship, bringing his mind-controlled minions with him. Wolverine frees Corbeau, who says the ship is breaking up. The X-Men fall back to the shuttle, grabbing the other crew as they go.

 

Eric’s ship takes off. The emperor calls and demands to know if the deed is done. Eric says no but her ‘agents’ will soon be dealt with. Eric shoots at them and Lilandra’s ship but can’t stop them. The shuttle is damaged in the exchange. Their course is locked in and they end up stuck headed for the Shi’ar ship’s chemtrail. It’s giving off a ton of radiation and other warning signs.  Beast suggests that they could be protected in the probe, which Corbeau agrees but says the autopilot is shot so he’ll have to stay out and fly manually. Jean says that she can do it, as she mentally absorbed Corbeau’s flight training and can put up a barrier to protect herself. Cyclops refuses to consider that, saying he can fly the ship and he’s in charge of the mission. Jean knocks him out with a psychic blast and the team moves to the probe. Jean straps Cyclops in and caresses his face. Logan tries to talk to her; she tells him to not to try to stop her. Logan says he just wants to wish her good luck. She kisses his cheek and heads out. Jean flies them through the chemtrail and gets hit hard by the radiation. The episode ends with Jean screaming in pain and a giant phoenix forming around them.

 

Well, this was a great start to one of the best multipart series of television. It’s mostly set up, introducing us to the Shi’ar Empire, a few of their key players like Emperor D’Ken, Erik the Red and Lilandra. They’ll be important going forward. Charles’ visions are clearly important and they’re suitably cryptic. All they know is something BIG is coming and they’ll be screwed if they don’t head into space. I do love the designs of the Shi’ar’s technology. There’s a lot of bug theming for their tech, which is somewhat ironic as if I recall correctly the Shi’ar are Bird people. It’s funny that this is the most Jean has had to do in an episode and yet she still was knocked out in the course of events. Sure, everyone else got knocked out too, but Jean passes out a lot. Her powers were pushed to the limit trying to break through Erik the Red’s mind control and then forcing the radiation away from her. And all that psychic power being thrown around is bound to draw… something. (Phoenix shriek) But we’ll see more of what’s going on here next time. Have a good night. 

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Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 28

Spirit Drinker on a rampage.

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, Logan caught up with an old ex. Yuriko Oyama, the girlfriend Logan had had right before being taken and turned into Weapon X, is now a cyborg called Lady Deathstrike. She and her mercenary henchmen, the Reavers, were robbed by Leech of the Morlocks. Leech stole a weapon from them on orders of Callisto, who wanted to use it to get ‘treasure.’ The Reavers tracked them down, captured them and learned their treasure was an alien spaceship. Deathstrike couldn’t approach the ship as it reacted to her cyborg components, but she decided adamantium bonded to an organic system might work. She has Leech lure Logan into the Morlock tunnels to face her, and Jubilee forced Gambit to come with her in stalking Wolverine. Logan faces off against Deathstrike, learning that her father was a scientist that worked on the Weapon X program. Dr. Oyama had figured out the bonding process with adamantium and died in his frenzied escape. A brawl breaks out, Logan ultimately slashing the barrier around the ship to save Yuriko. Right as Xavier, who was instigating the ship on his own after getting hit with a psychic pulse from it when Yuriko touched it earlier, shouted for him to not do that. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

We open with the ship opening. The Reavers open up on the hole in the ship, but that doesn’t seem to affect the creature inside. A giant green monster made of energy comes out of the hole. Everyone shoots at it, but it doesn’t notice. The creature grabs the Reavers and seems to put them in a coma, their eyes glowing green but are otherwise unresponsive. Logan tries to get everyone to leave despite Deathstrike’s protests. Gambit tries to stay behind to hold it off, but Jubilee jumps in the way and gets knocked out instead. Wolverine screams bloody murder, and we cut to Charles in Cerebro also screaming before asking himself what they unleashed. Wolverine jumps at the creature and slashes it, his claws unaffected but he seems to actually hurt it. They grab Jubilee and run. They make it out of the tunnel, stopping just briefly to check on Jubilee. She’s still out cold. Wolverine tries to throw this at Yuriko, but she insists that because he murdered her dad this is on him. Gambit tells them to shut up and run, so they do.

 

We cut to Beast at an art museum talking with a woman that’s clearly uncomfortable to be around him. He’s interrupted by the professor’s mental call and quickly runs to answer it.

 

The creature comes across the Morlocks and touches them with its tentacles, putting them in the trance. Some ways away, Deathstrike says she’s sure they’ve lost the creature, but Logan can still smell it. Gambit asks if she even cares about her men, which she doesn’t because they’re mercenaries. And she cares even less about the Morlocks. Gambit tries to figure out what happened to Jubilee. Deathstrike tries to leave, but Wolverine grabs her and tells her they aren’t leaving while that creature is walking around. He knows if it gets out of the sewer, it’ll have 8 million victims to snack on. Deathstrike mocks him for helping people that despise him. The creature bursts through the wall and attacks them. It shows them Jubilee’s face in it’s form, crying out for help. Gambit throws a card at it, holding the creature off long enough for them to run.

 

Topside, Cyclops and Jean are enjoying a night out right as Xavier calls out to them. They have their dinner turned into a to go order.

 

Wolverine and co keep running, the beast chasing and now using Deathstrike’s henchmen to call out to her. This actually enrages her and she charges it. Gambit follows her and knocks her out of the way of its tentacles. He throws some cards at it and causes a cave in to block it. Deathstrike asks him what go that does, and Gambit points out it buys them time to figure out a plan. Wolverine gives him Jubilee, telling him to get her safe while Deathstrike and him fight it. They seen adamantium hurts it, so they’re the best chance to stop it. Gambit doesn’t want to leave him, but Wolverine tells him he can play cavalry once Jubilee is safe. Gambit runs as the creature starts to glow brightly. It’s glow suddenly vanishes. They cut through the rock and find a big hole in the ground, right before the creature circles around and cuts through a wall to attack them. They use their claws to slice it’s tentacles, but Deathstrike gets caught by the ankle and pulled into it. It uses Yuriko’s voice to call out to Logan. He prepares to go down fighting when one of Cyclops’ optic beams causes the creature to dissipate. Gambit says he found them on the way up, them being Beast, Cyclops, Jean and Charles. Wolverine asks why they brought Jubilee back, the Professor saying that she’s as safe with them as anyone. He places Yuriko next to Jubilee on Charles’ chair, explaining that she’s an old friend that wants him dead. Cyclops isn’t shocked by this info. The creature reforms and attacks. Jean tries to read it’s mind but get’s a nasty psychic shock that blasts her back. She claims that the creature’s mind was so repellant it almost overwhelmed it. Cyclops goes to blast it, but Wolverine pushes him down, letting it escape. Cyclops demands to know why, Wolverine explaining that a lot of people’s minds are mixed up in it so they need to be careful. Beast, Charles and the victims head down to investigate the ship while Wolverine, Gambit, Jean and Cyclops go after the monster.

 

Beast and Charles enter the ship. They find a large glass containment sphere that most likely held the creature. They find writing on the sphere, but can’t read it Charles touches it, gets zapped, and suddenly he can understand the writing. The sign on the cage read “danger.” Charles tells Beast to go help the others while Charle’s uses his new insight to research the creature.

 

Charles reaches out to Jean a short time later, telepathically explaining that the monster is called a “Spirit Drinker” and was captured in the ship to send it out into deep space forever. They have no idea how it got to Earth. They hear screams and know the Spirit Drinker found it’s way topside. It attacks a subway and drains it. They catch up to the creature but don’t know what to do to stop it. And Jean adds that the minds inside are getting weaker so they’re on a time limit. Logan decides to charge it with his claws at that is the only thing they’ve got to hurt it. He tells the others to give him cover while he slashes it. He hurts the creature but can’t stop it. It slaps him back with it’s tentacles. Beast joins them and grabs Logan. Logan notes that a bit of tentacle fell on the electrified third rail and was destroyed. Of all the times for Storm to be on vacation, I swear. Thankfully them have another way to expose it to electricity. Gambit extends his staff and spears it with it, stabbing the third rail.  The creature is shocked into oblivion and barfs up the spirits it ate. Everyone recovers, and Jubilee, Charles and Deathstrike join them. Beast notes the Spirit Drinker seems to be gone and Logan says it’s dead. Logan asks where he stands with Deathstrike. She says she’ll leave for now, but this changes nothing between them. When she’s strong enough, she’ll be back to kill him. She bows and leaves, Logan is clearly choked up by this farewell.

 

The X-Men check on the Morlocks and the ship. The Reavers are gone, but Cyclops is sure it’ll take them time to repair their cybernetics and be a problem again. Charles tells his team that he’s glad they’re all safe. Jubilee asks if this is all over, but Charles has bad news on that front. When he touched the sign, he got zapped with information his mind his having trouble processing. He saw visions of a space empire with warships and power beyond their understanding. He fears this is only the beginning. The episode ends with a view of earth, flames erupting around it and text that promises that the Phoenix saga is coming soon.

 

This was a fine introduction to the X-Men mythos beyond Earth. If you’ve seen this or later seasons, you know that the X-Men are very closely tied to an Alien race known as the Shi’ar. The design of the ship was already a hint but Charles’ vision was of the Shi’ar empire and their galaxy conquering exploits. If you’re new to this corner of the Marvel universe, the Shi’ar are up there with the Skrull and Kree empires, it’s not in direct conflict with either but like… empires conflict with other empires almost by definition. So yeah, finding one of their prison ships is most definitely not good. The Spirit Drinker itself was an interesting monster. Eating life essence, or minds, or whatever word you want to use other than Soul is pretty standard but it’s green energy form was neat. Using its victims images to enrage or lure other victims to it was a nice touch. I thought it was a fun weakness to make it adamantium, but as I listed above this was a hell of an episode for Storm to be busy for. Like, I know she’s not there so the plot can happen, but imagine how the team felt when they realizes this thing was weak to electricity and that their member who throws lightning as one of her basic attack is MIA. I don’t have much to say on Deathstrike, beyond that her Beef with Logan is a nice shift from Sabretooth. O’ Creed kind of, sort of just hates Logan, while Yuriko used to love him, so her anger and hate is just that much more potent. She’ll obviously be a sore spot for him when she returns. So yeah, fine episode. Next time, The Phoenix RISES!

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Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 27

 Wolverine always has the strangest exes. 

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, the X-Men finally tracked down Xavier. Sinister lured the team to the Savage Land and attacked the group with his combined forces of Mutates and Nasty Boys. The X-Men are easily captured as they’re powers are repressed, but Wolverine is able to escape thanks to his claws (they weren’t a mutation in this era) and his willingness to throw himself off cliffs to escape. He runs into and teams up with Ka-Zar to free his friends from the Citadel. Everyone else is brought to the Citadel so he can experiment on mixing and matching their powers with his men. He transplants Magneto’s strength into Vertigo, one of his henchmen. Wolverine attacks and is able to free Morph and the Professor. Vertigo unleashes a massive psychic blast to disorientate them, but Morph and the Professor smash up Sinister’s Mutation suppressing device. With their powers active, the X-Men quickly rout Mr. Sinister and his men. Cyclops attempts to finish the mad scientist off with his optic blasts. Sinister activates his control implant in Morph and tries to get him to shoot Cyclops. Xavier speaks to Morph telepathically and convinces him that he’s still a part of their family. Morph adds the laser fire to Cyclops’ beam, and they shatter Sinister into pieces. Jean then hurls the pieces into the air and incinerates them. After the fighting, Magneto says that it was good to work with Charles again but turns down an offer to join the X-Men. The teams fly off, with the episode hinting that Sauron will be up to something in the Savage Land and that Mr. Sinister will return. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

We open in New York as Leech of the Morlocks runs from some assailants. He’s chased into the sewers by these goons, but once in there he leaves them in the dust. It’s a mysterious woman, their boss, comes out and orders her men to find the boy using their motion trackers. She wants what he has, badly. It’s also revealed that the entire group is made up of cyborgs, everyone has either machinery attached to their chests and faces or full prosthetic arms. Their boss comes out of the shadows, announcing “No one steals from Lady Deathstrike, and lives.” Leech runs, carrying the bundle in his arms. He returns to the Morlocks and gives it to Callisto. The former leader of the Morlocks thanks him for his service, saying this device, a sci-fi looking blaster, will unlock a treasure great enough to let Callisto rule the Morlocks again. The cyborgs attack, Callisto tells them to stop the invaders to keep them from the hidden tunnel. The Morlocks are quickly captured, the cyborgs use energy nets to immobilize them. Deathstrike grabs Leech and demands to know why he robbed her. He says Callisto made him do it, as the tech from their lab would let them access a great treasure. He gestures down a tunnel and Deathstrike and her men go to investigate. They find the Morlock’s treasure, a massive spaceship. Deathstrike is impressed by the craft, claiming to feel it’s power. She hopes that this will help her exact her revenge. She touches the craft or tries to. She gets zapped by the ship’s shields. This sends a massive wave of energy out. It scrambles computers, and when it hits the X-mansion, it makes Xavier scream with pain at the immense power off the thing. Charles recovers a moment later and uses Cerebro to try to fin it’s origin.

 

Back in the tunnel, Deathstrike recovers, saying that the ship reacted to her cybernetic components. They felt like they were on fire. One of her men tries to shoot the ship to get it open, but she slashes him, saying that they might break it. Deathstrike reasons that the Morlocks were able to touch the ship, and while she can’t get too close, her adamantine claws were able to damage the hull when she tried to enter it. So what they might need is a human set of adamantine claws.

 

We cut to Wolverine playing basketball with Gambit and Jubilee. He spears the ball with his claws then Gambit tries to shoot, classic Logan. Their game is interrupted by a message on their video screen. They answer and see Leech on the other side. He says that he’s not looking for Storm, the leader of the Morlocks currently, but Wolverine. He says Yuriko told him to tell Wolverine that she’s in the Morlock tunnels. Before he can say more the message cuts out. Having done what Deathstrike asked of him, she has Leech bound in an energy net like the others and tells her men to prepare for Wolverine’s arrival. Back at the court, Jubilee asks who Yuriko is. He say that she’s someone from a long time ago. He storms off, saying that this is personal business. Jubilee says they need to go after him, Gambit disagrees, but she says she’s going alone if she has to and Gambit is forced to follow.

 

Wolverine arrives in the city and cuts his way into the Morlock’s underground, leaving a fine trail for Gambit and Jubilee to follow. He has a flashback to Yuriko as they walk. He remembers a pretty, normal woman he had to leave some years ago. He says that he doesn’t want to go, but some guys in Canada are calling him out and they’re not the type to be ignored. He swears that he’ll come back for her. He then went on a mission with a special forces team. He’s separated from his copter and captured. He’s brought into a lab by the “Professor” (Not Charles) and a Dr. Cornelius, who put him through the Weapon X procedure. He draws his claws for the first time and cuts himself free. He wrecks the lab chasing after the professor, but he escapes. Wolverine runs out of the lab and into the wilderness. He returned to Yuriko’s house at some point, either during his time with Alpha Flight or sometime after, but found the house abandoned.

 

The cyborgs, the Reavers, get orders to take Wolverine alive. Wolverine slices through the Reavers, drawing Jubilee and Gambit towards him by the fight. As he slices through Reavers he demands to know where Yuriko is. Deathstrike comes out and faces off against him. He asks what she did to herself. She explained that she had redesigned herself, for revenge. She worked for years to make herself powerful enough to kill Logan, and that the Reavers gave her the best option. He begs to know why. Yuriko reveals that she’s the daughter of Professor Oyama, the scientist that developed the bonding process that let the adamantium stick to Logan’s skeleton. She claims that Logan destroyed him for what he did to Logan and she wants payback. The two fight, Deathstrike slashing at him and Logan defending himself. He says that he didn’t kill Oyama and that he loved her once. The Reavers catch him in a net. Deathstrike goes to finish him, but the Reavers stop her, reminding her that they brought Wolverine here to open the ship. She doesn’t care about that now, but the Reavers promise her that she’ll have Logan after the ship is open… or they can shoot her and be on their way without her. The villains move out, Gambit and Jubilee following at a distance.

 

They follow the Reavers into the bowels of the Earth. They see the captured Morlocks, but Gambit says they’ll help them after getting Logan. The Reavers wake Wolverine up, and Deathstrike says that he will open the ship or die. Wolverine chooses to fight, Jubilee and Gambit arriving to even the odds. They fight valiantly, but Gambit and Jubilee get captured. Deathstrike tires to kill Wolverine, but he dodges around her and throws her at the ship. She gets zapped by the field of the ship. Back at the Mansion, Xavier senses that the field is keeping something in and then shouts for them to not open it. Wolverine slashes the barrier to free Deathstrike. This causes a rip in the field that grows as everyone watches in horror. As the episode ends, Jubilee asks what happened and Wolverine says he doesn’t want to know.

 

This was a fine start to season 3. A bit of Logan’s origin story is always a crowd pleaser. Sure, it’s a little weird how to figure out when Logan would have had time to go back to Yuriko. From episode 18, we know that after escaping the Weapon X Lab, Logan lived in the wilderness for a bit before meeting the Hudsons and recovering. He then went on to join Alpha Flight. So, he either went to see Yurico again while a member of the group or sometime after he left. Depending on how long that was, a few months or a few years, I kind of get why Yurico might have left even before finding out about her dad. Imagine the bad luck of getting kidnapped, wrecking the workplace of the kidnappers, only to find out you might have killed your girlfriend’s dad in your escape. Second only to your ex-boyfriend being the only one to get you access to a treasure, I suppose. The ship is intriguing. Everyone wants in on it, which makes sense as the Reavers are all Cyborgs, but no one is asking why a ship might be buried beneath the planet. Ya don’t bury something that deep because it’s full of candy or something. We’ll see what happens when Logan slashes something that should have remained unslashed next time. See you then. 

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Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 26

A final battle in the Savage Land.

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, a final confrontation with Mr. Sinister began. Cyclops, Wolverine and Jean tracked down Morph to Branson, Missouri and confronted their former teammate to find out what happened to him and what happened to Xavier. Mr. Sinister and his Nasty Boys attacked them. The X-Men put on a valiant effort, but Jean is kidnapped. Meanwhile, Charles and Magneto were being taken to the Citadel by the Mutates, the two old friends being controlled by hypnosis. They’re saved by Ka-Zar, a Tarzan like Wildman, and his sabretooth tiger companion Zabu. Ka-Zar demands the two help him break into the Citadel to save his wife Shanna who had been kidnapped at the end of last episode. The four do make it to the Citadel, but only to discover the Mutates waiting, as their master had found Magneto’s secret back entrance when he took over. Ka-Zar and Zabu flee, but Charles and Magneto are captured. Mr. Sinister then arrives and is revealed to be the Master. He also explains that he’s using a device derived from Sauron’s tissues to repress Mutant Powers. Morph tries to break out of Sinister’s control but get’s his mind fried for disobedience. Sinister has Sauron use his hypnotic powers to take control of Charles and then have him contact the X-Men and lure them to the Savage Land. The X-Men noticed that Charles seemed odd in his message, but they had no real other option. They headed out to find their missing mentor. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

We open on the Citadel as Sinister brings his captives (Jean, Charles, Magneto and now Morph) to their prison cell in the bowels of the building. He tells them not to worry, as they’ll only be in their until the X-Men arrive. And he promises them that their genetic material will live on in his armies of Super Mutants. Real comforting words, there, Nate. He slams the door on them. Magneto rushes to the door, shouting at Sinister that his plans are doomed and that he underestimates the X-Men. Magneto’s an excellent hype-man. Charles then comes out of his trance and groans about leading his X-Men into a trap.

 

Shifting focus, we see the Blackbird touch down in the Savage Land. They find Charles’ jet, Wolverine snarking that that wasn’t the prof’s best landing, and Cyclops orders the team to search. Gambit and Rogue try to investigate the plane, but quickly discover both of their powers aren’t working. Bet Beast is a little annoyed that he’s still Blue and Furry, but before they can analyze their feelings at being powerless, they’re attacked by the combined forces of the Mutates and Nasty Boys. Ruckus tells them to surrender and maybe Sinister will let them live. A hugely one-sided fight breaks out, as they’re effective humans fighting Mutants and Dinosaurs. Beast does pretty well, as he’s still an incredibly fit animal man, and is able to take out a pterosaur rider before being captured. Wolverine faces off against a white wolf man and Hairbag. Hairbag says it’ll be a pleasure to tear Wolverine apart now that he doesn’t have his powers. Wolverine extends his claws and says there’s nothing Mutant about that power. … Yes, at this point in the comics Wolverine’s claws were 100% something the Weapon X Program added to him, it was only after the movies that they retconned it, so Wolverine has natural bone claws. He fights them off, but Vertigo uses her mind-bending powers to disorient Wolverine. She tries to make him surrender, but because this is James ‘Logan’ Howlett, he does the insane but stubborn thing of leaping off a cliff down a waterfall to escape them. He pulls himself from the water, grumbling that he could use his healing factor right about now. He limps away from the fight and Ruckus sends Pterosaur riders after him. Ruckus tells the others to cooperate with Mr. Sinister and they might live longer. Cyclops tells him to screw off, more or less, but they’re taken away.

 

Wolverine spends a not fun time running from Pterosaur riders and their bow and arrows. Thankfully the Canuck is still incredibly fit and he’s able to dodge them until he loses them in the forest. He gets a moment to breathe before a dinosaur attacks him. He starts fleeing again, escaping the raptor when a T-Rex starts chasing it. He runs for a bit and is tracked by Ka-Zar and Zabu. He’s able to sniff them out… somehow and confronts the Wildman. Ka-Zar assumes all Mutants work for Sinister and demands that Wolverine take him to his master. Wolverine tries to blow him off, but Ka-Zar attacks him. He fights Ka-Zar and Zabu of, angrily saying that he has no master. Ka-Zar asks him if he truly doesn’t work for Mr. Sinister, and Logan says he’s here to tear him a new naval. They’re attacked by the Pterosaur riders again, but they’re able to fight them off and steal a Pterosaur to ride. Wolverine officially introduces himself to Ka-Zar as they mount up. Ka-Zar tells Zabu that he’ll have to stay behind, and if they fall, he must avenge them. Tall order to give your cat, bro. 

 

At the Citadel, Sinister has all of his prisoners brought to his lab so he can experiment on them and gloat. He chastises his prisoners, telling them that they’d rather waste time sniveling to the Humans to reach coexistence or fighting an unwinnable war. Well, an unwinnable war unless they’re able to push their powers to the next level. He’s extremely creepy to Scott and Jean for a minute to say that he’s been waiting to ‘create’ with them. Weirdo. He then unveils his gene-splicing machine, saying that with it he can add Mutant genetic sequences to other Mutants, combining their powers in unique and unpredictable ways. He has Vertigo strapped in first and chooses to use Magneto’s DNA in his experiment. Magneto tells him to just shut up and do it. The device painfully drains Magneto and pumps up Vertigo. She announces that Magneto’s strength now flows through her, and to show off her powers she uses a massive hypnotic blast on the X-Men, dropping the whole group as Sinister laughs.

 

Wolverine and Ka-Zar land on the citadel and break in. In the lab, Sinister orders Rogue to be taken next. She tells Gambit that she’s scared as she doesn’t know how to fight without her powers. He tells her to be brave and says that he’s never told anyone this before, but he loves her. They get a quick kiss in before Slab and Gorgeous George grabs Rogue for Sinister. Wolverine and Ka-Zar split up, the Wildman going down to where his people are being held and Wolverine towards the lab. Wolverine busts in before they can experiment on her. Wolverine tries to free his friends but the villains throw him around pretty easily.

 

Meanwhile, Ka-Zar reaches the cells. He is able to signal Shanna, who distracts the guard for a second so Ka-Zar can knock him out. Vertigo keeps blasting Wolverine, telling him to surrender or be destroyed. Wolverine refuses to be a slave. He’s saved by the Savage Landers charging the lab, distracting Sinister and his crew long enough for Wolverine to free Morph and Charles. Vertigo blasts them all, but they’ve got enough coordination to smash some of the lab equipment, disabling the anti-power field. Another one sided fight commences, but this time it’s the X-Men and Magneto outclassing the Nasty Boys and Mutates. Sinister blasts Magneto, saying that if he rejects Sinister’s future, then he won’t live to see it. Cyclops blasts Sinister from behind, saying that he warned the mad scientist to leave them alone. Sinister says that we won’t, ever, as he needs both Scott and Jean for his plans. Cyclops takes this as an excuse to keep blasting. Sinister has enough time to hit the device on his wrist to trigger Morph’s control implant. Morph grabs a blaster on Sinister’s order and prepares to shoot. Charles reaches out to Morph’s mind and reminds him that he’s an X-Man. That’s enough to get him to change targets and shoot Sinister along with Cyclops. They obliterate Sinister, breaking him into pieces. He says that the future can’t be destroyed so easily. Jean says Bet. She uses her powers to hurl Sinister’s pieces into the air and then blow them up, saying that he won’t recover from that for a while. We see Sauron’s scaly green arm flip a switch and the Citadel implodes. The X-Men and Magneto are able to hold it together long enough to escape.

 

Returned to his hover chair, Charles muses that while he didn’t have fun on this excursion, it did prove the X-Men can handle things without him. We see the Savage Landers start to rebuild their homes as Charles says that when they get home, they’ll remove the control device from Morph’s brain. But he thinks the psychic damage of his enslavement will take much longer to recover from. Magneto admits it was good to fight alongside Charles again. Charles offers him a spot on the X-Men, but he refuses, saying they have their own destinies to pursuit and only time will tell who’s is right. He creates an electromagnetic barrier and flies off and the X-Men take off too. As they leave, we cut to Sauron, who announces that the Savage Land has been cleansed of outsiders and it’s true destiny can begin. As he flies off, we see the fragments of Sinister body coalesce into his face and laughs evilly.

 

This was a solid finale for season 2. The X-Men got to reunite with their long-lost mentor, and we got hints of what Sinister’s designs were. He wants to push Mutant evolution to the limit and doesn’t care what happens to anyone to reach that goal. He’s weirdly obsessed with Scott and Jean, that’s a plot point that will come up in future episodes, as I’m sure many of you are aware. Seeing him cross Mutant DNA was neat in theory, though I wish we could have seen something weirder than just making Vertigo stronger. Like, maybe we could have seen what happened when ya add Beast’s DNA to Amphibious. Like does amphibian plus bear equal like a furry frog? A scaly bear? Or something? He could have given Slab explosive powers or something. No? Just a power boost? Great. I do wish that this could have been a three parter, just to give us more time with Wolverine in the Savage Land. The man loves wilderness survival, so even without his powers I imagine he would have had fun out there. Plus, he and Ka-Zar could have been a fun team up. The final fight with Sinister was satisfying, getting to see Scott vent his frustration against the jerk was cathartic as hell. And I like that they let Morph be a part of the win, as he’s easily been the most screwed over by Sinister in this universe. So the team has been reunited and Sinister has been disabled for now. Things should be calm for the X-Men for a while. But something is on the horizon for them… Phoenix Force. But more on that next time. See you then. 

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