Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 48

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

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Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 46

 Omega Red's headed to Hawaii, be terrified. 

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Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 46

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

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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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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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Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 43

 The Shi'ar have come to end the Dark Phoenix.

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, The Dark Phoenix was born. Corrupted by the dark emotions and illusions introduced to her by Wyngarde of the Inner Circle, the Phoenix rebranded herself as the Dark Phoenix to embrace her new position as a goddess of death and evil. The X-Men do their best to stop her, but the power gap is so extreme that they are barely able to slower her down. After blasting her friends about, Dark Phoenix grew bored and flew off into space. The X-Men quickly form a plan to build a Mnemonic Scrambler to hopefully just disorientate Jean, the human half of the Dark Phoenix, long enough to drive the Phoenix force out of her. Meanwhile, Dark Phoenix flew across the galaxy to the D’Bari system, a Shi’ar star system and gobbled up their sun. Thankfully the solar system was devoid of life (not so in the comics) but the captain stationed there sent an SOS to the Empress. The Dark Phoenix returned to Earth and the bit of Jean within her was drawn to her childhood home. The X-Men laid a trap there, using Charles mind to lull the Dark Phoenix, Storm’s mists to hide their actions and Cyclops driving Jean’s father’s car to lure her out. While distracted looking for her dad, who was safe behind Charles, Gambit slapped the scrambler on her head. But she proved too powerful to incapacitate that way and now she’s pissed. She throws the X-Men around some more, Wolverine tackling her at one point and attempting to end this… but can’t because she’s still Jean. Scott reaches out to her one last time and gets her to hesitate long enough for Charles to mentally blast her. She recovers too quickly for them to stop her, but Charles pulls her into the mindscape, and they duel. Dark Phoenix is still too powerful for him to defeat, but he’s able to draw out Jean herself and the two together imprison the Dark Phoenix in Jean’s subconscious. High fives all around! The joy of the win is short lived, though, as Lilandra arrives and announces that the Shi’ar have decided to put Jean Grey to death for her crimes as the Dark Phoenix. Damn. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it.

 

We begin with Lilandra ordering the capture of Jean Gray. Things look bad as the Royal Guard aren’t pushovers, but Charles quickly reads Lilandra’s mind and announces something in the Shi’ar language. Lilandra’s men stop and Charles explains that the Shi’ar have an ancient tradition of trial by combat that cannot be refused. The X-Men are beamed aboard the Shi’ar ship, and it takes off. The Grey’s look on in shock, which makes me again say that this must be the weirdest day for them.

 

On the ship Cyclops asks what this is all about, and Lilandra reveals how the Dark Phoenix destroyed the D’bari star. They fear that soon the Dark Phoenix won’t be satisfied with single stars, and she’ll start destroying the whole galaxy. Scott goes to bat for Jean, saying that Charles cured her. But Jean does say that while the Phoenix is dormant again it’s still in her and could reawake. Beast is outraged at the idea of killing one being to get at another. Charles calms things down by saying he invoked the “Arin’nn Haelar” and she can’t refuse it. Lilandra says that he shouldn’t be smug about this, as he’s only compounded by the tragedy of these events. A little later, they’re walking together, and Lilandra admits that the Shi’ar aren’t operating along on this one. The Phoenix is so powerful she threatens all life, so she’s had to ally herself with other space empires and will need to get their input. She has video calls with the Supreme Intelligence of the Kree and Empress R’Klll of the Skrull, both of whom sign off on the duel. They judge us to be stubborn but honorable. R’Klll adds that she’s approved on the stipulation that the X-Men cannot be allowed to win.

 

We cut to the Team training in a Shi’ar gym. Beast runs an obstacle course when Storm joins him and asks his thoughts on what’s happening. He’s vehemently against this whole thing, as he thinks punishing Jean to stop the potential crimes of another. He thinks the trial by combat is a mockery of justice and that Lilandra is wrong. Below, Wolverine and Gambit are fighting drones. Gambit also asks if they’re in the right. Wolverine says that the Shi’ar might be right, that the Phoenix is too dangerous, but if push comes to shove, he’ll stand by Jean now and forever. Charles reaches out to Lilandra’s mind, saying that they shouldn’t let these events wither their love. Charles tries to convince her to help him, but he takes his mental probes as an attack and casts him out. Even Cyclops is unsure of what they should do. Rogue says that she admires the love between him and Jean and knows that questioning what to do about Jean is tearing him apart. Scott believes that in Lilandra’s shoes he’d choose different, but he’s not sure. Jean joins them, not in her current costume but her old “Marvel Girl” suit. Ya, I bet you didn’t know she used to have a codename. She says it felt right to face this as Scott first knew her. Rogue leaves them to work things out. Jean is also scared that she’ll lose control, and the Dark Phoenix may destroy Earth. Scott tries to reassure her, but Jean insists he sees her fears before answering. She makes him see the Phoenix raging as an inferno across the Earth and destroying them all. She asks Scott if she’s really worth it, and he says yes.

 

The X-Men are gathered to perform their trial by combat. Lilandra explains that they’ll fight the Royal Guard on the Blue Zone on the Moon. Any who survive will be set free, and if the Guard wins, Jean will be surrendered to them. The Blue Zone is a section of Earth’s moon that has a breathable atmosphere, it’s where Uatu usually hangs out. They get beamed down. Lilandra’s advisor Araki says

 the odds are against the X-Men, but what if they win? Lilandra says they will not, that they can not.

 

The X-Men take a moment to marvel at the Blue Zone and the fact the moon used to be inhabited before the Royal Guard beam in. The plan is to divide and conquer. Jean, Rogue, and Cyclops end up fighting Starbolt, a Shi’ar with Human Torch-like powers. Beast, Storm, Wolverine and Gambit do battle with a pair of Shi’ar in a battle suit named Warstar and Gladiator, who separate them further. Storm and Gambit are finally taken out by Hussar, a being with energy whips, and Earthquake who has Geokinetic powers. Scott, Jean, and Rogue continue battling Starbolt, Smasher, and Oracle. Rogue tricks Starbolt into smashing into a few canyon walls as they fight. Wolverine and Beast take out Warstar but Gladiator throws them around. Wolverine is taken out by a woman named Astra, getting blasted into unconsciousness but he moans Jean’s name as he drops. Rogue tries to fight Oracle but gets mind blasted and drops into a match with Gladiator. She drops a few buildings on him, but Gladiator is a tough customer. Another building drops on them both, knocking her out.

 

On the ship, Charles laments his X-Men being defeated one by one. Araki asks why Lilandra doesn’t go to Charles to speak with him. She reveals that the part of her that is a person wants to comfort him with every breath she takes, but the Empress must be more than steel.

 

Jean tells Cyclops she’s lost contact with the others and is afraid they’re the only ones left. They run into a building, and she makes a wall of moon dust to hide them. Cyclops laments that they don’t have much time, and he can’t put into words what he feels about her. Jean says that where she’s concerned, thoughts matter most and his are beautiful. They kiss and head into battle. It’s like 6 on 2, so while Scott and Jean do well, they’re quickly overwhelmed. A pillar lands on Cyclops, knocking him out and driving Jean into a fury that turns her back into the Dark Phoenix. Lilandra orders her people to destroy the Dark Phoenix and Charles with a heavy heart agrees. The X-Men quickly overwhelm Jean, dropping rubble on her and seemingly killing her, but Jean breaks free one more. Scott begs her to fight it but she can’t, not every second of every day. She begs him to end her, but he can’t she blasts him away. On the Shi’ar ship, their weapons suddenly come online, Charels realizing it’s Jean’s work. She pushes Scott away before Lilandra hits the button and obliterates Jean.

 

Lilandra and Charles beam down. Lilandra tries to give her condolences, but Scott won’t hear it. The Phoenix arises once more. She explains that she used to be a guardian but the emotions she tapped into through Jean drove her mad. Killing Jean set her free and she’s able to protect once again. Scott, heartbroken, demands to know what happens to Jean or if the life of a mortal is beneath her. The Phoenix reveals that she can bring Jean back, but it’s a one-for-one sort of thing, life has to be given to revive her. Both Scott and Logan offer to do it, but the Phoenix then reveals that she can take just a little from a few people, but their lives will still be shortened by the amount she takes. All of the X-Men agree with that deal, the Phoenix draws life from each of them and Jean wakes up. Jean and Scott embrace as the Phoenix flies away. She beams them back to Earth.

 

Late that night, Lilandra says goodbye to Charles via telepathy. Charles says that he senses a part of her mind is closed off to him now. She never blocked him before, and he wants to know why. She says that as an empress a part of her has to be alone, always, but it doesn’t affect her love for him. The arc ends with Scott putting Jean to bed and kissing her forehead.

 

I’m sitting here and marveling at how this is still the best adaptation of the Dark Phoenix storyline despite 30 years and three other attempts to do so. Don’t be mad if you’re a fan of Wolverine and the X-Men, that’s the number two on the list. Part of what makes it superior to either X-Men: The Last Stand or X-Men: Dark Phoenix is simply time. I’ve followed Jean through 40+ episodes of TV, that’s like 12 hours of content, a movie is just never going to measure up on a character development standpoint. But I think a more important element is how they characterized the Phoenix. In both the live action versions, Jean is characterized as growing more reserved, cold and aloof while Phoenix empowered, or lashing out trying to protect herself. I really don’t recall a moment where either version of Jean just gets to revel in her power like the Dark Phoenix does in this string of episodes. There are parts where she’s clearly loving every second of flaunting her immense power and beating up her friends. The whole point of the Dark Phoenix is that she’s a cosmic neutral being addicted to negative impulses and emotions, so having her actually have fun with her immense power is a better way to go in my opinion. The closest I can think we saw this happen was how Famke Janssen’s version used her immense power to almost bang Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and that’s hardly the same thing. I think what I’m trying to say is that the tragedy of the story is magnified by seeing a character we love acting evil and enjoying it, not in her just fighting with herself and her friends the whole time. But, anyway, ya, this was a good arc. We got to see the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Jean Gray as the Dark Phoenix grew stronger and took over. It’s a shame that this is the strongest we’ve ever seen Jean be. But that’s par for the course with her. In any given episode she’s the strongest being on the field unless Magneto or Apocalypse is around and then she’s tied for first, so they must knock her out, exhaust her, or otherwise remove her for the story to have any narrative tension. The need for that is removed when she’s the big bad that needs to get taken out. She gets to unleash all the power she’s forced to hold back most of the time and it’s terrifying. It was fun to see the Kree and Skrull as well, just for the worldbuilding… cosmos building. It’s just nice to remember that the Shi’ar aren’t the only space game in town is all. The Dark Phoenix has been defeated and Jean is back home safe and sound. Good way to end the arc and this month of content. Have a good night, everyone. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 42

 The Dark Phoenix raises! 

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, The Phoenix joined upper echelon of society. Held in an illusion by Jason Wyngarde, she was brought into the Inner Circle and celebrated as a queen. Much to the annoyance of Emma Frost, a previous Inner Circle Queen. The X-Men were held with inhibitor collars and forced to watch Phoenix in Jean’s body ingratiate herself with these weird cosplayers. All except Wolverine, who is damp, angry, and looking to scrap. Scott attempts to reach out to Jean mind-to-mind, but Emma Frost senses this and pulls Wyngarde into the mindscape so they can duel each other. Scott almost beats Wyngarde but Phoenix steps in and says that she’s been liberated by the Inner Circle, and she likes it. Wyngarde stabs him and pronounces Scott dead, but he hangs on thanks to his connection to Jean. There’s a hostile takeover as Wyngarde uses his position as puppet master of the Phoenix to usurp Sebastian Shaw’s position, but that’s interrupted by Wolverine bursting in. While the Inner Circle bicker, Phoenix scans Wolverine’s mind and a memory of their… spark, breaks Wyngarde’s control for a second allowing the Phoenix to say, ‘screw all of you’ and fly away. The X-Men fight and humble the Inner Circle, all its members beating a hasty retreat except Wyngarde, who thinks he can fix this. He tries to enthrall Phoenix again, but she’s had it up to here with his BS, breaks his illusion to reveal his real self and then fries his brain with her real self. Scott arrives in time for the Phoenix to announce she’s rebranding as the Dark Phoenix! Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

We return to the story to see Dark Phoenix announce herself, revealing her giant fiery form to Scott, the X-Men, and all the random bystanders outside the Inner Circle club. She announces that she’s never giving up this body or returning to the cold void of space. The others join Scott on the roof as he tries to reach Jean. He begs her not to leave and Jean breaks through for a second before Dark Phoenix launches them clear across the city to Central Park. The fliers save the non-fliers, and they regroup. Wolverine asks why Dark Phoenix is attacking them, since she used to be on their side, and Beast says that the professor was probably right. The emotions the Phoenix felt through Jean corrupted her and drove her mad. The Dark Phoenix finds them and announces she’s here to destroy them. Scott orders the team to defend themselves but to be careful. Storm summons up a hurricane to stop her, but she’s barely inconvenience here. They all try to stop her, but Dark Phoenix seems to barely notice as she redirects lightning, transmutes trees to gold and smacks her friends around. Rogue tries to drain her, but Dark Phoenix fire seems to hurt Rogue more than Dark Phoenix. Dark Phoenix asks why he’s trying so hard save her, and Scott announces for the hundredth time that he loves her. Dark Phoenix can’t seem to process that answer so blasts him. Jean breaks through for a moment and tells Scott she loves him and asks him to remember that regardless of what happens next. Dark Phoenix takes over again and morphs into her giant bird form, sending off psychic shockwaves that draw the notice of bystanders, Dr. Strange, Thor, and Uatu on the moon. She flies off into space.

 

We see the Dark Phoenix fly through the cosmos, passing the physical manifestation of Eternity itself as she leaves the solar system. She’s detected by some Shi’ar scouts mapping the D’bari star system. She pops in right as the captain complains about how they’re being tasked with the boring job of mapping a dead star system. They detect the Dark Phoenix enter the D’bari’s star and feed upon it. They flee before the star can go supernova. Fun fact, while the episode goes to great lengths to tell us that the planets in the D’bari system are lifeless… in the comics they very much were not. Gotta soften Dark Phoenix’s fall to madness for the kids. The captain of the survey ship orders they stop and try to destroy the Dark Phoenix before it can do more damage. But she easily slices through their ship’s wing, leaving them stranded. The Shi’ar loses track of the Dark Phoenix, and he contacts Empress Lilandra. She orders her cruiser and guard be made ready, as their greatest fear has come to pass.

 

Back at the Mansion, Charles debriefs his team on his fears concerning Jean and the Dark Phoenix. Namely that that cosmic entity has clearly eaten Jean’s mind. Scott refuses to stop trying so long as Jean’s alive. Charles does agree that he won’t give up on her either, but they do need to face the reality that unless Dark Phoenix drops Jean’s body willingly, then they really don’t have another option to save her. Scott gets a painful headache and senses the Dark Phoenix returning. Charles promises that they’ll try to save Jean, but they need to protect the Earth. Wolverine asks how they can even fight something that can melt them in a second. Scott thinks that’s the key, that while the Phoenix has the power to do that, the fact it hasn’t clearly means Jean has some control left. Beast and Charles postulate that they could beat the Dark Phoenix by targeting Jean, using a Mnemonic scrambler to temporarily disorientate her and hopefully cause the Dark Phoenix to bail out of her. Charles kicks himself for not realizing that the therapy that they were giving Jean earlier was just making her a more perfect host for the Dark Phoenix to inhabit.

 

Beast gets to work on the scrambler, designing a tiara to place on Jeans’ head. I’d prefer a ray, ya know to keep a distance, but what are ya gonna do? Beast asks anyone if they want to test it out. On the roof of the mansion, Scott gets another mental burst from Jean and realizes that the Dark Phoenix has gone back to Jean’s childhood home, a place full of childhood emotions. Dark Phoenix touches down and walks into the house calling for her family, who aren’t home. She sees her old pet cat, but he doesn’t react like he knows her, running off. She finds her bedroom and just sits with a doll of hers. It’s pretty clear that Dark Phoenix is in some kind of fugue state and acting more childlike right now. A car pulls into the lot and she assumes it’s her and rushes down to see him. As she runs out, we see that this is a trap set up by the X-Men. Charles seems to be using his powers to make Jean see what he wants her to while he protects her family and Scott is driving the car. This has got to be a weird family reunion for the Grays. He pulls out and drives away, distracting Jean long enough for Gambit to slip the scrambler onto her head. He apologizes as he does it, saying it’s the only way. Dark Phoenix takes over and hurls Gambit away. Rogue grabs him and demands to know why the gismo isn’t working. Beast tells her to be patient. Storm tries to talk to her, but Dark Phoenix away, Rogue catches her too. Beast says she’s stronger than he’d imagined and she’s frying the scrambler. Wolverine decides he must make the hard choice, tackling Dark Phoenix and preparing to execute her. Jean comes out and begs him to do it, now while she has control. Wolverine seems to earnestly try to cut her throat, but he just can’t do it. Dark Phoenix blasts him away and prepares to kill them all, but Scott interrupts her. He uses their love, all of their love for each other to bring Jean back. Charles mentally blasts her, to stun her. He says that he only bought them a few seconds of peace, they need to destroy the Dark Phoenix, now! Dark Phoenix recovers, blasts everyone away and destroys Charles chair.

 

Not one to surrender, Charles pulls Dark Phoenix into the mental plane and the two do battle. He swears that in the battlefield of the mind he will not be defeated. The Dark Phoenix is unimpressed by Charles’ attempt, saying that arrogant humans could never be strong enough to stop her. Charles grows fatigued I their mental battle and calls out to Jean for her help. They combine their mental powers and Bind the Phoenix in the confines of Jean’s mind.

 

On the outside, Jean’s Dark Phoenix outfit revers to her heroic green instead of the villainous red. Charles tells them that the Phoenix is contained, for now, and says that he was only able to beat the Phoenix with Jean’s help. Jean and Scott have like 15 seconds of peace, before the Shi’ar arrive. Charles asks why Lilandra didn’t contact him, and she reveals its because the Shi’ar high council have voted to destroy the Phoenix and Jean Gray once and for all.

 

Again, imagine being the Grays. Your baby girl comes home for the first time in years, possessed by a corrupted god, and then aliens show up and say they’re going to execute her. Super weird.

 

Damn, that was a lot to take in a 20 minute episode of television. It makes me laugh that even when Jean is at her most powerful as the Dark Phoenix, she can’t go an entire episode without someone knocking her out. She swoons in a stiff breeze sometimes, I swear. The phenomenal power of the Phoenix was brilliantly shown throughout this episode, from her casually redirecting energy, to transmuting matter, to eating a damn star, we really get a good sense of how powerful this being is. And how monumentally bad it is that she’s gotten a taste for blood. The whole, destroying a star system to show that she can, thing was a particularly vivid moment of power. Again, it makes me laugh that the show goes out of its way to say multiple times that Dark Phoenix destroyed the star of an uninhabited system when that was just not the case in the source material. I guess writer Chris Clarmont has said that it was an accident post Dark Phoenix saga, but still, my girl killed a solar system. That’s not something any mortal being should have the power to do. Using her childhood home as a trap was a clever idea. Using the fact that Jean and Dark Phoenix are separate entities, and that Jean is the weaker of the two against Dark Phoenix was brilliant. Using the house and Charles’ mind beam to lull Jean into a vulnerable state and slap the band on her head when distracted were all well thought out. Sure, the plan failed because Hank underestimated her, but the trap was smart. The thing I like most about this episode is that Scott never once stopped believing that he could bring Jean out of the Dark Phoenix. In a lot of stories like this, even the steadfast hero tends to have a moment when they break and admit to feeling like their friend/love has been consumed by the dark being possessing them. But not Scott Summers. His power might just be punch-vision, but I believe that this man would move stars if he thought it would bring Jean back to him. Which, ya know, he might have to do now that Jean is on trial by the Shi’ar. Those bird-people play hardball when it comes to defending their empire, as you’ll see shortly. Have a good night. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social