Viewer Log: X-Men: Evolution ep 5

A speed demon vs a living spike strip, should be an interesting fight. 

Last time on X-Men: Evolution, Fred “the Blob” Dukes was introduced and almost immediately formed an unhealthy attachment to one Jean Grey. Her attempts at being nice to help him adjust to his new environment and potentially get another Mutant to the Institute were misinterpreted as romantic interest. When she attempted to spurn his advances, he ends up kidnapping her and tried to force her to date him. The massive Mutant ended up beating Wolverine and Cyclops when they arrived to try to help, but was ultimately defeated by Rogue. While technically on the same team, Rogue doesn’t condone kidnapping a date. She used a combination of Scott’s optic blast and Blob’s own strength to send the tub of lard flying. She still doesn’t feel comfortable with swapping teams, but the X-Men agree they owe at least one member of the Brotherhood a favor.  Next, we’ll see what happens when a speedster crosses paths with a living spike strip. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We open, much like the first episode, with a sporting event. Though this time it’s basketball. We’re shown our two new characters, Evan Daniels and Pietro Maximoff playing a very close game of basketball. Evan’s aunt, Ororo Monroe, is watching with her sister and brother-in-law. The game ends with Pietro making a pass to Evan who makes the winning basket. He’s shoved while making the shot and as he tumbles spikes sprout from his forearms. He covers the spikes up, with only his aunt noticing. Evan is taken off by the team with cheers, with Pietro looking on angrily.

Imagine walking in on this scene!

 

After the game, Pietro confronts his friend about hogging the glory and says he should have taken the shot himself. Evan shakes his head at his friend and points out that there was no way Pietro could have made it to the other end of the court in time. Hm… He claims that he’s not going to “hold up” guys like Evan anymore and storms off. Ororo comes in to congratulate her nephew, drop some exposition that he and Pietro have been competing for most of their lives, and to ask about his spikes. It’s implied that they’ve had this conversation a few times, but Ororo must have dropped the subject to respect her nephew’s privacy. Evan tries to convince her the reactionary spikes was a one off, but then he sneezes and covers the locker room in spikes. He asks if he’s busted, to which Ororo simply says “Big time.”

 

At the Daniel’s house, Ororo and Evan discuss transferring him to the Xavier Institute. Evan isn’t completely on board with the idea, doing his best to derail the idea before it can begin. He convinces Ororo to let it go until the next day, so his parents can enjoy the night after his big win. Ororo contacts Xavier telepathically, tells him what happened and they prep Plan B, sending Scott and Jean to help Ororo sell the school to her sister and brother-in-law. Not sure why Ororo would need help convincing her own sister, but there you go. Xavier also tells Ororo about another Mutant Cerebro detected but couldn’t get a lock on. She clearly believes it to be Pietro, but is vague about it.

 

The next day, Evan goes to his locker to find that his cash had been stolen from his wallet. Pietro zooms over and informs us that this is the second time in a month that it’s happened to Evan. He wants to catch the thief, and Pietro loans him some money to use as “bait.” Evan tells Pietro he’ll catch him later, to which Pietro claims he won’t ever do, not even on his best day. Sinister.

This is where the story falls apart for me. Teenagers
get superpowers, you know what's the first thing they'd do?
Tell their Frenemies! No way this is how they'd found out.

 

In the evening, Scott and Jean arrive and they discuss the institute with the Daniels. Both of Evan’s parents are on board with the idea, but he’s still firmly against it. He goes to his room while the others discuss. That is until Jean senses his thoughts and they find out he’s making a break for it. Evan hops out of a window on his skateboard and zooms off. He makes it to his school with the intention of catching the locker thief and showing the thief his prickly side. The flaw in this plan is made readily apparent when a gale force wind blows through, causing the lockers to burst open and random objects to fly around. Evan creates a spike barrier around himself, and the wind dies down, revealing Pietro. He shows off Evan his new threads and claims that he’s Quicksilver now. Evan asks why he’d trashed the lockers, to which Pietro basically says, “Was bored, seemed like it’d be fun for a bit.” Evan is furious at Pietro, but not as much as when the speedster zooms off and leaves Evan to be caught in his place. He’s put in lock up, where his family and Scott and Jean arrives. Scott proposes he join the Institute and that then Xavier would handle bail and such, to which Evan reluctantly agrees.

 

The next day at the Institute, the majority of the students have breakfast and discuss Evan’s situation. Scott and Xavier suspect he knows more about the locker incident than he’s letting on, but Xavier isn’t going to “pry” on the subject. Logan suspects the kid is going to look to get personal payback. Xavier agrees and decides that they’ll try to give Evan other means of getting his anger off, such as getting him on Bayville High’s basketball team and training in the danger room. Evan hears all of this and seems miffed. And by miffed, I mean his spikes start extending.

They're like the Breakfast Club, but with a Toad.

 

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood kids, in their first group shot, are shown waiting outside Darkholme’s office for a team meeting. Inside, Mystique is getting the lowdown on a new recruit that Magneto is very interested in acquiring, his son Pietro. Okay, he doesn’t flat out say that but 1. Mentions his special interest in getting Pietro, 2. He knows an awful lot about Pietro’s thought process, motivations, and desire to run solo, and 3. Anyone who knows the comics knows the family connection. It was retconned out of existence a few years ago but for the vast majority of Pietro’s existence it’s been known that he’s the son of Magneto. Magneto suggests that they use Evan as bait to lure Pietro into a situation where he’ll need help to succeed, in order to get him on board with the team, and Mystique already has an idea on how to do it.

 

Evan meanwhile is doing training sessions in the Danger Room. He’s basically racing around a crazy skateboard obstacle course, trying to move and throw his spikes as quickly as possible. He wipes out on the last run, but Logan compliments him on his already marked improvement. Kitty comes on the intercom and tells him that he’s got a last-minute basketball game that Principle Darkholme through together. The fact it’s against his former school feels like it should be a massive clue to these kids that Darkholme might not be on the up-and-up but no one seems to question it.

 

The away team’s bus pulls up and Pietro steps out. Evan runs up and starts threatening his frenemy, but Pietro doesn’t seem worried in the slightest. Jean and Scott join Evan and pretty quickly key into the fact that Pietro is the one that trashed the lockers. Pietro freely admits it, as he feels like there’s nothing that they can do about it. He runs off at high speed, with Evan following on his skateboard and Jean and Scott following after a moment later. I guess we’re not going to the basketball game. Shucks.

 

Everyone switches to their uniforms, so we’re switching to combat codenames. Evan is Spyke, Pietro is Quicksilver, Scott is Cyclops, and Jean is… Jean. Yes, they still haven’t given her a new codename since she dropped Marvel Girl back in the day.

 

Call me crazy, but I don't think those spikes are
actually restraining him. Like at all. Just sayin'.

Quicksilver runs through downtown, with Spyke more or less on his trail. To show off, Quicksilver runs even faster, causing a sonic boom that wrecks a bunch of cars and store fronts. Jean and Cyclops join them, and the more experienced X-Men come up with a simple plan. Basically, Jean lifts Quicksilver into the air telepathically. It works, for a few seconds, but Pietro is free enough to spin himself around, causing a massive twister. The X-Men are blown around a bit, but Cyclops is able to hit Quicksilver with an optic blast and Spyke pins him to the side of the building with some spikes. Quicksilver is still rather smug, though, as while he was caught they still can’t prove he was the one that trashed the lockers. You know, like they don’t have him trapped at the scene of a much bigger case of property damage. But, he’s actually wrong about that, as Spyke reveals he recorded Quicksilver’s confession before the chase began. The X-Men scamper as they hear sirens approach.

 

In lockup, Pietro is already going stir crazy and demanding to be free. Lucky for him, Daddy arrives to bail him out. Again, not revealed but it’s heavily implied with how much extra effort Magneto is going through to get Pietro. The speedster agrees to join his team if he’ll let him out, which the master of magnetism does.

 

The episode closes on the young X-Men enjoying an afternoon in their pool, celebrating Evan getting the charges against him in the school vandalism case dropped. Xavier tells Ororo that her nephew should fit in well here, with Ororo jokingly musing if that’s a good thing or not. All’s well that ends well.

 

Again, this is a fine episode but I think it’s a bit weaker than the last two. That’s probably because it’s pulling double duty trying to showcase enough of Quicksilver and Spyke in a very short runtime. It feels like we’re running at breakneck speed from plot point to plot point from the moment Pietro and Evan talk at his locker onward. That being said, I do like what we saw of both Evan and Pietro. Fun fact, Evan is an original character created for the show to add a bit more diversity to the cast. He replaced original X-Man Iceman as the eighth member of the team (once Rogue switches sides). His spikes are a fairly useful and versatile, giving him both ranged and melee options. I liked his characterization as a stubborn, headstrong kid that needs to learn the value of teamwork and all that jazz. Makes him a nice foil to Pietro. Interestingly, while Pietro has appeared in a few X-Men shows, this is the only one to my knowledge that brought up one of the key aspects of his personality, namely that he’s too fast for the world. While he can force his body to move at normal speeds, his brain operates on a much faster level than most peoples. This is how the comics and X-Men: Evolution explain his habit of cutting people off verbally, why he’s always impatient and causing mischief. From his perspective, he’s being very patient waiting for everyone else to catch up to where he’s at. The other shows where he’s appeared, X-Men: TAS and Wolverine and the X-Men never seem to mention this problem of his. How odd. I also really liked how they stopped Pietro in the last encounter, combining skills to overwhelm someone that was proving too difficult for even the team’s heaviest hitter to disable on her own. It makes for neat visuals. With the introductions of Evan and Pietro, I believe that’s all the totally new characters that will be added to the roster this season. Well… there’s one more, but he’s a guest character at best. But we’ll talk about Forge next time. Have a good night everyone. 

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Viewer Log: X-Men: Evolution ep 4

Nothing is quite as dangerous as unwanted advances. Especially from someone who hits like a truck.

Last time on X-Men: Evolution, a young woman’s powers manifest and she drains the strength and memories out of a hapless football player. The young woman runs from the scene and is dubbed Rogue from this point on. She’s chased by the X-Men, whom want to help her, and Mystique, who is using her powers to convince the X-Men are out to get her. Rogue ends up snatching the powers of Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler) and Ororo Monroe (Storm) during the extended chase. She’s almost overwhelmed by the power she took in, but teleports away before she causes irreparable damage. After the chase concludes, Rogue transfers to Bayville High, Mystique believing she’d created enough doubt in Rogue’s mind to ensure her loyalty. But it’s revealed she kept a communicator that Jean Gray had given her, implying she’s not completely on the Brotherhood’s side. That was an emotional rollercoaster, let’s see what happens when the Blob appears, shall we?

While the added BMI still makes this power undesirable,
I can't deny that his strength is impressive.

 

We open on a Texas Monster Truck Rally. One of the evening’s entertainment is a performance by Fred “The Blob” Dukes, an enormous rotund young man. He’s able to hold and pull together two speeding monster trucks, to the crowd’s applause. But he ends up stumbling and hitting his face in the dirt, causing everyone to burst out laughing, to his fury. Logan and Jean are watching from the crowd, looking concerned, while Mystique looks delighted. After the rally, Fred smashes up his dressing room in a fury, hating the fact he was laughed at. Mystique in her guise as Raven Darkholme, approaches Fred with an offer to join her team and attend Bayville high. Fred is initially skeptical, but agrees to listen, about 5 seconds before Logan and Jean make it back stage. Looks like the X-Men lost another one.

 

A few days later, Mystique welcomes Fred to Bayville, giving him a schedule and assuring him that as Principle, she’ll protect him from any… issues that may pop up. Outside her office, Fred is almost immediately confused by his schedule and grabs a random kid to demand to know where he’s supposed to go. Said kid is Jean’s scummy boyfriend Duncan whom immediately makes a fat joke. Fred freaks out and nearly crushes Duncan with a locker but Jean runs in to stop him from murdering the git. Jean does her best to help friend and be nice to him, but even a complete social idiot like myself could tell she’s really uncomfortable around him. Fred doesn’t notice this and seems instantly smitten. Or the stalker equivalent.

 

We cut over to a Drama course that Scott is apart. He’s randomly assigned a play that he’ll read a scene from, King Henry V by Shakespeare, opposite Rogue. Well, isn’t that inconvenient, what are the odds? Scott does his best to play it cool, and Rogue agrees to a truce, so long as Scott keeps the other Xavier kids away from her. Sounds reasonable… though I wonder why they aren’t trying harder to convince Rogue that her shapeshifting boss is the reason why it looked like they were attacking her. Ah well.

 

At lunch, the Xavier kids, Kurt specifically, are poking fun at Scott for having to work opposite someone that’s convinced they tried to kill her last week. It’s not that funny, but you do have to find humor where you can. Fred walks in with an extremely overladen food tray and is immediately put on edge by Kurt’s laughter. How sad. He accidentally launches his tray when he sits down at a lunch table too hard, dosing asshole Duncan in food. Everyone starts laughing, other than Duncan who looks murderous, which set’s Fred off. He triggers a massive food fight with most of the kids bailing. Most of the X-Men bail too, but Jean tries to calm Fred down. In his anger, he almost smashes Jean, but Scott blasts the table he was holding to rubble before hitting her. Jean asks for time to talk to Fred, which Scott gives though he promises to be nearby if things get heated again. Outside the lunchroom, Rogue is clearly impressed by the X-Men’s camaraderie, and dare I say, the chivalrous actions of one Scott Summers? Mystique arrives in her Darkholme guise and breaks things up before Scott can try to mend the bridge between Rogue and the X-Men. In the lunchroom, Jean does her best to try to convince Fred to work on his anger issues. She goes so far as to show off her powers and mention the Xavier Institute as a place where Fred could learn control, if he wanted to. Fred seems open to the idea, well, specifically Jean talking to him about the idea. Dude has one thing clearly on his mind and it’s not training. She leaves with Scott, which Fred isn’t super happy with. He steals a photo of her and Scott from her backpack, rips the Scott half off and keeps the Jean half. Yeah, that’s not a good sign at all.

I'm not sure I can think of a scarier place to be than to
be looking directly into the shaded eyes of a distraught Scott Summers.

 

After class, Fred approaches Jean and tries to ask her out. Jean does her best to disengage, claiming she has stuff to do without slowing down. Fred doesn’t like being told no and starts yelling at her to go out with him. When she continues to try to talk him down, he grabs her and tries to force her go. I think that officially makes this a kidnapping. Jean eventually decides talking isn’t helping, so she tries to make Fred drop her by throwing some concrete bricks and scaffolding from a construction project they passed at him. He’s got too tight a grip, though, and all she does is cause a bunch of the scaffolding to fall on them. She’s knocked out and Fred takes this as a sign he can take her. Yep, 100% kidnapping. He takes her to an abandoned foundry that he’d tried to spruce up with candles and seems to be under the delusion that he’s taking her on a date. The fact she’s strapped to a chair with iron bars holding her in place doesn’t affect the delusion at all. Not being able to bend her restraints herself, Jean calls out to the Professor telepathically.

 

Back at the Mansion, Logan is running a training exercise for Kurt and Kitty. They’re basically playing keep away with their powers, to help them hone reflexes and strategic thinking, I assume. Xavier is watching happily, but then get’s Jean’s call. He tells Logan, who suits up and drives off to get the trail almost before Xavier finishes speaking. The prof says he’ll gather the others to follow.

 

At a park, Scott and Rogue are running lines. Rogue is clearly enjoying the lines “You are like an angle, Kate” from Scott. How interesting. Their rehearsal is interrupted by Kurt Bamfing in. Rogue observes that Kurt is “like an annoying little brother” before Kurt tells Scott the news. Hearing that his friend and not-at-all-secret-except-to-her crush has been kidnapped clearly pisses off Scott. He rather angrily asks if Rogue knows anything, but she claims ignorance of the new Brotherhood boy’s antics. Scott and Kurt make time to make a Star Trek teleportation joke before bamfing away.

 

Guys like this could probably save construction companies
millions, me thinks. Forget supervillainy, start building.

Logan makes it to the school, finds the scene of the scuffle and seems to have no trouble picking up the trail. Xavier is having a slightly harder time, as Jean doesn’t know where she is and he can’t lock onto Fred’s mind, so he can only find a general location for where they might be. Scott takes his car, which they seemed to have done an amazing job fixing after Sabertooth’s bike was dropped on it a few weeks back, while Kitty and Kurt take one of the X-Men’s vans.

 

Jean keeps trying to reason with Fred, to make him see that this creepy, kidnapping behavior is no way to “make friends,” but the big guy is fairly lost in his delusion. He walks off to get her a “surprise.” It turns out to be a record player instead of something bizarre.

 

Logan makes it to the dilapidated foundry and calls it in. Not waiting for backup, he bursts in and immediately attacks the Blob. Unfortunately, Blob’s superhuman strength combined with his nearly uncuttable skin mean that Wolverine is at a severe disadvantage. Blob tries to smash him with an old furnace, but misses. He ultimately stops Wolverine by, I kid you not, falling onto him and causing the raging Canadian to suffocate under the Blob’s blubber. Probably the Wolverine’s single most embarrassing defeat. Cyclops bursts and blasts Blob off Wolverine. Unfortunately, it seems like the force of Cyclops’ optic beam is more irritating than debilitating to Blob. He picks up Wolverine and throws him at Cyclops, knocking him out and causing both to fly out of the foundry. We then see Rogue walk up and absorbs Cyclops’ power.

 

I do declare, Miss Rogue seems to have had it up
to here with your Bull#%^@, Mr. Dukes

Blob goes to try to restart his date, but Jean instead hurls a filing cabinet she’d mentally removed from the it’s place screwed into the wall. This, again, really only annoys Blob and he starts screaming at Jean about being “the worst” because she only tried to pretend to be his “friend.” Oy, this guy. He goes to crush Jean, but is stopped by an optic blast from Rogue. She pretty much tells him he either leaves quietly or violently. Blob isn’t too concerned. Rogue asks him if he knows what her power is. He doesn’t. She runs to grapple him while shouting “Yer power is mah power, and I can take more ‘en one!” I hope I was able to copy her southern accent in an understandable way here. She hurls Blob aside with her stolen strength and optic blasts him into some rubble. Blob gets up and announces that he’s too powerful to have his abilities completely stolen. He’s “The Blob!” To which Rogue scoffs and say, “Nah, yer just garbage that wanted a date.” She hits him hard again, launching into the air and optic blasting him up and out of the building. He slams into a pile of literal garbage a ways off and screams at the seagulls there to stop laughing at him.

 

Folks, show of hands, how many of you have had or know someone
who's had an, I'll be nice since my mom and sister follow me
an overly aggressive suitor that they'd like seen literally taken out with the
garbage? I'm assuming it's most of ya'll

Back at the foundry, the other X-Men have arrived and are helping Cyclops and Wolverine recover. Rogue returns Cyclops his visor, it having fallen off when he hit the ground earlier and he repeats the ‘You’re an Angel, Kate,” line. When they asked why she helped them against Blob, Rogue says she doesn’t know and runs off before they can ask more questions. Jean looks like she was going to follow, but Wolverine stops her, advising that he doesn’t think Rogue is ready yet. The team though collectively agrees they owe her one.

 

This was an interesting episode to watch. In some ways, I do find myself feeling bad for Fred, as he’s a big dude with anger problems, few social skills and is in an entirely new and kind of scary environment. I, at least, can kind of understand why he’d form a strong attachment to Jean, who is a very pretty young woman who is probably one of the few people who tries to be nice to him. And yet, even from their first interaction, it’s clear that Jean is very uncomfortable around Fred. Either from telepathy or by gut instinct she senses that he’s dangerous, is interested in her in a non-friendly capacity, and does her best to keep him at a distance once he gets more aggressive with her. I found it very interesting to see someone as powerful as Jean be bested by someone whom simply is too heavy and durable for her to hurt. While she never flaunts it, you do get the sense even by this point that Jean knows she’s strong and is confident in her strength, so seeing her strapped to a chair and largely powerless was an odd experience. And, not going to lie, I give the show major points that it was Rogue to come in and save Jean when her two usual “heroes” were bested. Feels like a very feminist message, where even a woman that is technically Jean’s enemy isn’t going to let her “ally” force himself on Jean. Strong character moment. I did also like see that Rogue is observing the X-Men from a distance and seems to get that her “first impression” as it was wasn’t completely accurate. She seems to like the groups closeness and the general family vibe. And it’s pretty obvious that she’s got a soft spot for Scott, something that will be explored a bit as the series continues. She still doesn’t trust the group, after Mystique’s antics, but you definitely see the cracks in her defenses already. Her character growth over the course of the show is one of the best I’ve seen, and I’m looking forward to experiencing it a little more. Also, while it’s a minor plot point, I loved seeing Logan’s reaction to Jean’s kidnapping. Seeing him rush to try to save Jean, not because of any romantic interest in her, but because someone F-ed with one of his kids and he won’t stand for that, was really refreshing after many, many, many stories that seem to push Logan and Jean together over Scott and Jean. It’s good to see his guardian side is all I’m saying. Alright, so now that we’ve gotten some solo Mutant recruiting episodes out of the way, we’ll return to double features with the introduction of Quicksilver and Spyke. Woo. 

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Viewer Log: X-Men: Evolution ep 3

Rogue's on the run. 

Last time on X-Men: Evolution, Jean Grey and Prof. Xavier flew out to try and recruit the phase shifting Kitty Pryde onto their team. Their efforts were hampered by the Pryde’s discomfort with talking about the subject, Kitty’s fear of her own abilities and the interference of another young Mutant named Lance Alvers. Lance was manipulating Kitty to use her powers to help him steal midterm test answers for him to sell. This all lead to a confrontation where Lance caused a massive earthquake that destroyed the building they were in, but Kitty used her phase shifting to save her parents and Jean from the falling rubble. Kitty was ultimately recruited by the X-Men as Shadowcat, and Lance was nabbed by Mystique to join her Brotherhood as Avalanche. Oh, and Scott and Kurt followed Logan as the Wolverine faced off against Sabertooth for the first time in a while. They’re able to scare off Sabertooth by attacking as a group, but Logan isn’t thankful for their help. So, it was kind of a hectic day for everyone. Now, let’s see what new troubles arise in Mississippi, shall we?

 

We open on a school dance, where a football player named Cody works up the courage to ask a pretty goth girl to dance. This may come as a shock to you, if you know her only from X-Men: TAS or the comics, but this girl in black is in fact Rogue. Yeah, the southern belle with a big smile and sunny disposition has gone through a makeover for this series. Anyway, she at first looks like she’s going to turn him down, but then agrees, saying “one dance couldn’t hurt.” Oh, sweet summer child, how wrong you are.

 

While her look isn't exactly comic accurate, her issues
are, so she's still very Rogue. 

Back at her home, her guardian Irene Adler, not to be confused with the Sherlock Holmes character, has a vision of her charge being grabbed and some of the events that are about to occur. In summation, the one dance hurts, a lot. At the party, things are going reasonably well with the dance, until Cody stumbles and knocks Rogue to the ground. He tries to help her to her feet, but unfortunately, his hand touches her bare arm and her powers kick in at this most inopportune time. She absorbs Cody’s memories, strength, and other physical skills, knocking Cody out and leaving Rogue addled. Turns out, suddenly having a second lifetime’s worth of memories really confused Rogue, causing her to seemingly forget her own name and not know what is or isn’t her actual identity. Rogue, I’m fairly confident your name in this universe is Anna Marie Adler. Focus on that, and maybe things will go better for you. Oh right, she can’t hear me. Moving on. Cody’s friend tries to stop Rogue when she tries to run out, but Cody’s memories and strength allow her to shove him out of the way and she sprints down the street.

The face you make when you're certain "It" has
hit the fan.

Returning to her house, Irene calls Mystique to report. They treat this like it’s some kind of reveal later in the episode, but come on, there are two groups recruiting Mutants in this series and Xavier would’ve brought Rogue in before her powers manifested if he knew what sort of power she’d have. Irene explained that while her foresight let her know what Rogue’s power ultimately would be, it wasn’t precise enough to know when and where it would manifest, so she didn’t try to keep Rogue locked down. She’d assumed telling Rogue she had a skin condition and encouraging her goth look would keep her from touching folks. Parenting fail. Mystique is coming in, and Irene warns that Xavier’s team will be close behind.

 

At the X-Mansion, Logan is infiltrating the mansion in a ninja gi for some reason. Storm attempts to stop him, but he’s able to make it to the Danger Room through the vents and trashes some of their defenses before Xavier tells him to stop. Turns out the exercise was to show the fledgling X-Men how to test the Mansion’s security system for weaknesses. They workshop a few changes to make to the system before being interrupted by Xavier rolling in. He lets them know thar Cerebro had detected a Mutant with an unstable mind and powers, a “Rogue” if you will, running around Mississippi. The whole team is being dispatched this time as it’s a weekend night to collect her. Also, did Cerebro not know her name was Anna Marie Adler? Feels like something Cerebro would be able to pull up.

 

The team gets into the Blackbird and fly out, with Scott piloting and Kurt copiloting. There’s a mild kerfuffle as Kurt, attempting to impress Kitty after hearing her complimenting Scott, teleports out onto the nose of the Blackbird, nearly gets knocked off, teleports back in and slams into Kitty. Oo, sorry Kurt, that sort of failure hurts the pride as well as the body. Logan snorts and says “Kids” and I’ve never identified with this Canuck more.

 

Meanwhile, Mystique lands in Mississippi and gets into a limo with Irene. She makes a veiled reference to her group’s “founder” providing her with resources… but I don’t know why she doesn’t just say Magneto. Like, who else would be buying you stuff, Mystique, besides the master of Magnetism? Anyway, she’s furious that Irene lost track of Rogue, and vows to reclaim her. Because of Irene’s visions, they know Rogue is going to be a powerhouse, so Mystique isn’t willing to let her go easily. She asks Irene where Rogue will go, and she responds with “She’s going home. Or what she thinks is home.” Meaning Cody’s house. Rogue uses Cody’s memories to get inside the house and tries to refocus her thoughts.

 

The X-Men, not being able to track Rogue’s mind due to how her power addled her psyche, go to the hospital that Cody is staying. Jean infiltrates the room disguised as a nurse, touching Cody to provide a link for Xavier. Apparently, a comatose mind requires a bit more effort to connect with… or something. Anyway, Xavier gets an impression of Cody’s mind and starts tracking Rogue.

 

At Cody’s house, Mystique and Irene pull up. Irene is apprehensive about what will come next, as she’s shocked at the thought of Mystique harming Rogue… because reasons… but Mystique promises that Rogue will come running to them given the right incentive. She shapeshifts into Wolverine as she does so. Inside, Rogue is trying to organize her thoughts but is having difficulty. Her eyes tell her she’s obviously not a six-foot blonde football playing male, but her memories insist otherwise. “Wolverine” attacks, claiming that the “he’s” one of the X-Men and they’re hunting Rogue. Rogue dodges “his” claws and runs off. Mystique shifts from Wolverine to Storm before following. A few streets over, Wolverine (Logan), Nightcrawler (Kurt) and Shadowcat (Kitty) are on the trail. Wolverine picks up a fear scent and runs towards it.

 

Outside, “Storm” uses a flashbang to simulate lightning and “nearly” hits Rogue. Rogue jumps over a fence and runs into Irene. Her guardian lies that the X-Men are Mutant hunters and they’re after her. Fortunately for Mystique, it’s at that moment that Wolverine’s trio runs up. Rogue pretty instantly freaks out at seeing Wolverine and runs off. Nightcrawler noticed that she reacted to Wolverine specifically, and offers to talk to her while Wolverine reports back to Xavier and the others. Wolverine agrees, but points out he should probably go in under his Kurt Wagner hologram. A little easier to process than the blue demon.

 

It really should have been a rule after this that Kurt
is the one to make the initial sales pitch. He's really
good at it.

Kurt makes his approach, showing off his teleportation and trying to approach Rogue as calmly as possible. His tactic seems to be working, but then Kitty walks up. She decides it’s a good idea to try for a grapple, but only ends up ruining Kurt’s approach and gets the blue elf drained by Rogue in the scuffle. Rogue teleports away while Kitty cradles an unconscious Kurt. Whoops.

 

Rogue bamf’s to a graveyard and processes the new information. She now can teleport, speak German, and is reasonably certain she’s not Cody. Apparently, her level of control has increased significantly after draining Kurt as she teleports incredibly fast and doesn’t seem as addled as she did with just Cody’s mind. Weird.

 

Back in the backyard, Kitty is kind of freaking out that she might have accidentally helped kill Kurt. She’s able to focus, though, and bases her next actions on what Logan would do, and calls out to the Professor with her mind. At the same time, Xavier is with the others and is perplexed that Rogue’s mind is getting harder to track, as if Cody’s mental patterns have faded. He theorizes that the transfer must wear off on its own. Wolverine arrives and gives them a status update. A moment later Kitty’s thoughts reach him and he learns about what happened to Kurt. He sends the team ahead, with Wolverine running back to help Kitty and Kurt, and tells them he’ll guide the group to her telepathically.

 

Mystique watches from the shadows as Jean arrives and makes an approach on Rogue. Rogue is still skittish, but I guess Kurt’s memories of Jean keeps her from running immediately. Jean offers Rogue a communicator, as a no commitment offer to talk with the X-Men whenever she feels ready. Rogue takes it, but then sees Storm walking up with Cyclops (Scott) and freaks out again and bolts. Mystique, smiling evilly, follows. In a mausoleum, Rogue is hiding when “Cyclops” comes in. “He” attacks her, but Rogue runs, running into the real Cyclops and shoving him out of her way. He falls, his optic beam goes off and he hits some power lines, damaging them. Mystique quickly switches to Jean’s form and attacks Rogue again, who teleports away.

 

This would probably be so much cooler if she knew
what the off switch was!

She bamf’s in front of Storm, and Rogue grabs her. So… in about a… we’ll say three- or four-hour time period, Rogue has absorbed the mind and abilities of a football player, a Mutant teleporter, and now a Mutant weather manipulator. Talk about power spikes.  Rogue is somewhat overwhelmed by Storm’s immense power and starts creating a massive thunderstorm without trying. Jean protects her and Cyclops long enough for them to save Storm from the falling powerlines that Cyclops damaged earlier. Rogue is clearly losing whatever little control she has, but is able to teleport away before she causes too much more damage. The team reconvenes. Now that all the excitement has died down, Xavier theorizes someone else was complicating this mission, and Wolverine confirms Mystique’s presence. While her shapeshifting fools the eye or ear, her scent doesn’t change, so it’s kind of easy for Wolverine to uncover when he’s not worried about his charges. Kurt’s up and about again, and seems to have earned points with Kitty… so I’ll give this mission a D-. It might have gotten a higher grade if this Kitty-Kurt thing went anywhere at all. As the Blackbird flies by, we get confirmation that Cody woke up, so that’s good.

Two things: 
1. How does he keep getting in here unnoticed?
2. Why is he always playing with those paper clips? 

       At Bayville High, Ms. Darkholme welcomes Rogue to the school. I guess she didn’t remind Rogue what her real name is? How odd. Once Anna Marie (dammit) leaves, Magneto reveals himself and he congratulates his lieutenant for collecting her. Mystique assures him that the confusion of absorbing all those minds coupled with Mystique’s shapeshifting ensured that Rogue won’t ever trust the X-Men… But we’re shown that she still has the communicator Jean gave her, so there’s still hope.

 

This is a great introduction to this series's iteration of Rogue. I like the goth look, I loved the background of how it was encouraged to keep her more isolated than normal, and how she reacted to her powers manifesting. Most shows and stories I’ve read have had Rogue more or less established right from the get go, she knows her powers, their effects and has some level of control, so seeing her first reaction is a bit of a different spin on her story. And I think they did it better here than, say, in X-Men (2000) as that seemed to imply that after sucking the life out of her boyfriend, Rogue stuck around for a few weeks to confirm he was okay before running off. Granted, the movies seemed to have dropped the memory absorbing aspect, so her lack of confusion works fine there, but it makes for a more interesting chase plot here. I also thought it was cool how they showed off Mystique’s tactics. Since her transformations are only skin deep, we saw her utilizing gadgets to simulate more impressive powers or just rushed Rogue when she couldn’t to keep Rogue off balanced. Plus, while she didn’t know how the teams would be broken up, she initially focused on mimicking the mentors Storm and Wolverine, expecting one or the other to be apart of the team to first discover Rogue. Thus, guaranteeing that she’d have a bad reaction to whomever found her first. While it isn’t said outright in the episode, it does highlight that Mystique is a very skilled manipulator and tactician. And the ending about Rogue going with The Brotherhood, but her loyalty not being as iron hard as Mystique assumes was a nice touch. In fact, my only complaint about this episode is the Kurt trying to impress Kitty subplot, because it feels unnecessary during the story, and I know for a fact it goes nowhere. Why waste my time like that writers? Oh, and while I harped on the name thing, it doesn’t bug me that much. I don’t think Rogue’s name was confirmed when this show aired, I just always found it odd that no one questioned her about the name or what she remembered about herself once her mind settled. You think she’d want to be called her legal name out of habit if nothing else, but I guess that’s just me speculating. In short, a very good episode. Let’s see if they can keep the ball rolling with Blob’s intro next time. Have a good night. 

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Viewer Log: X-Men: Evolution ep 2

A Shadowcat vs an Avalanche, it's less lopsided a fight than it sounds. 

Last time on X-Men: Evolution, we got a crash course in what it means to be an X-Men. Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler is brought into the mansion for the first time and is pretty stunned by all the opulence, and that’s before he’s given a watch that makes him look… more traditionally European. The X-Men also attempt to recruit Toad, but the slimy dirtball is more interested in fight Kurt. There’s a major scuffle in the Danger Room, but things get sorted out. Kurt tries to bale but is convinced to stay by Scott Summers. Toad reports back to Mystique who is furious, but is ultimately stopped from freaking out by her boss, Magneto, telling her to take a chill pill. I’m paraphrasing slightly. Let’s get to it.

 

This episode opens on the Pryde household. The important Pryde to this story, Kitty, is having a dream of flying that turns into a nightmare of falling, which ends with her hitting the floor of her basement. Her parents come in when she screams with shock. They arrive and believe that she must have sleepwalked… until they see her sheets and pillow partially phased through the ceiling. At the same time, Cerebro goes off and tells Charles about Kitty’s basic stats and mentions that this is the second hit they’ve gotten in the area of possible Mutants. As cool as Cerebro is, this sort of violation of privacy feels troubling, especially given current events. Just saying. Xavier orders the Blackbird prepped.

 

The next day, Kurt attempts to sneak into school after running late due to getting a breakfast burrito, … kay. He bamfs to the doors to try to slip in, but is stopped by Ms. Darkholme. The shapeshifting villainess is pretty set in her role as an administrator, and threatens to give him detention if he’s late again. Scott saves him, and also sets up their B plot for the rest of the episode.

Of all the ways for powers to first manifest, I have
to imagine falling out of bed and out of a locker
rank up there with the "Least fun to explain" list

        Across the country, Kitty attempts to slip out to go to school, but is stopped by her mother. The Prydes had ‘decided’ that she was going to stay home, but Kitty’s going stir crazy. The “not talking about it’ mentality of her parents is so draining she’d rather be at school. Her mother empathizes and lets her go. A few thousand miles up and over, Xavier is flying in with Jean. He brought his top student along to try and sell the Pryde’s on the concept of the Xavier school. Jean is apprehensive about being the lead on the Pryde pitch, but Xavier has confidence in her. He also plans to look in on Lance Alvers, the other ping that they’d gotten on Cerebro earlier.

          Jean and Xavier make it to the Prydes and attempt their sales pitch. Mr. Pryde in particular is defensive, telling them to leave his family alone. Xavier only makes it worse by mentioning what happened last night. Shockingly, a defensive parent is only freaked out more by someone somehow knowing something that they couldn’t possibly know. Charles, how long have you been doing this? Since talking to the parents didn’t work, Xavier tells Jean to meet Kitty directly while he looks into Lance Alvers.

 

Back at the mansion, Logan is working on his motorcycle when he detects a scent on the wind. His nemesis, Sabertooth, has just ridden into town. Knowing that a clash is inevitable, Logan suits up in his Wolverine gear and rides out to meet him. He drives passed Scott and Kurt as they arrive home. They decide to follow after Logan, because, you know, teenagers. They hop in Scott’s car and follow.

Lance, I know earth puns are your thing, but you should
really think before saying you're going to rock someone's
world. Oy. 

          At Kitty’s school, she gets forced into a locker as a prank. I’ve never understood why this is such a horrible prank, the button to open the locker from the inside is fairly obvious. Apparently, Kitty’s locker either doesn’t have it or she’s freaking out too bad to find it. We’re then introduced to Lance Alvers, who slipped out after the bell to spray paint the lockers. Kitty hears him, tries to get his attention, and ends up working herself up enough to phase through the locker. She crashes into Lance, who’s super stoked to meet another Mutant. He shows off his seismic powers to Kitty to try and impress her. She instead freaks out and runs off. He tries to stop her, but she phases out of his grasp. He vows she’s not getting away. Dude. Take a God. Damned. Hint!

 

Kitty makes it to her gym class, while Lance creepily watches from above. We find out why he’s interested in particular with Kitty. He and his two goons are trying to break into the school’s administrative office and steal midterm answers to sell. The office has enough security that they can’t walk in, and Lance is smart enough to know that causing a quake will be pretty noticeable. The solution to his problem? A girl who can walk through walls. He tries to earn some brownie points with Kitty by using his powers to screw up the long jump of one of the girls that locked her in her locker, but that just scares Kitty and she runs off again. She bumps into Jean but doesn’t stop.

 

While the yellow suit will always be my favorite,
Logan does look good in orange.

Kitty slips into the school auditorium and tries to hide on the set. She accidently knocks over a prop bowl of fruit, tries to grab it but phases through it instead. She experiments with her power just a little and phases through it for the first time on purpose. Jean walks in and tries to talk to her. Like her Dad, Kitty is pretty defensive about the whole thing and tries to get Jean to just leave her alone. She puts her feelings about her power fairly succinctly, “it’s hard enough just being normal, you know?”  Jean shows off her telekinesis to move the fruit bowl and tries to give her the “you’re not alone” speech. Kitty is impressed, tries to deny it, but Jean then reveals she knows Kitty is denying because telepathy. Kitty freaks out at having her mind read and runs off. Seriously, how often have the X-Men gone out recruiting because they’re SUPER bad at it. Lance sneaks up on Jean and tells her to back off because he’s all she needs. That’s not creepy at all.

 

Lance approaches Kitty again and tries a softer approach with her. He’s able to get her trust a bit by hitting her feelings on the head. Namely, that she’s scared, she’s worried about being different and at about not having control. He offers to teach her and asks that she meet him outside of the administrative building. Well, crap.

 

Jean called Xavier for advice. While the episode doesn’t say it expressly, it looks like Xavier was at the local child services building to get info on Lance, who is in the Foster Care system. He warns his student that she needs to be careful to not allow Lance to “bond” with Kitty, for fear of him taking control of her entirely. There’s a pretty good line from Xavier about how all obstacles are meant to be overcome, but that some are more irritating than others, as he rolls up to the stares down from the Child Services building. Though I have to wonder how he got his wheelchair up there in the firsts place…

 

Back in New York, Scott and Kurt have lost Logan… though only for a minute, as the short Canadian in orange got to the top of a parking structure to call out his nemesis. Sabertooth drives up from the roof of the other building and the two of them start brawling. Sabertooth is thrown off the top and ends up crushing Scott’s car, but they escape thanks to Kurt’s bamfing them away. Logan and Sabertooth smash up some cars in the parking structure before Logan gets pinned to a pillar by a car. Scott and Kurt rush in… after getting in the costumes really fast for some reason, and help save Wolverine. Scott blasts him and Kurt teleport attacks him. Sabertooth is knocked into an elevator and escapes, promising Logan that this is only a taste of what’s to come. Kurt is pretty smug about the X-Men stopping Sabertooth, but Logan rather angrily tells them both to stay out of his business. Go team!

Yeah, I think Avalanche is an excellent name for
someone that caused this much damage. 

      Kitty meets Lance outside the administrative office. He is able to push her into using her powers to get inside, framing it as some sort of empowerment thing. She gets in and lets him in. Meanwhile, the Prydes and Jean and Xavier meet outside the school. The X-men warn the Pryde’s about Kitty breaking into the office, much to her parent’s shock. The Prydes and Jean run ahead with Xavier saying he’ll catch up. Back at the office, Lance shows his true colors and downloads the answers to the big midterms. He also starts to change Kitty’s grades, but she’s had enough and tries to bail. Her parents and Jean arrive and try to get her away from Lance, but the geokinetic causes a massive quake to stop her. Kitty’s dad gets buried under a bookshelf, but he’s still able to apologize to Kitty for just trying to ignore her Mutant status. Jean uses her powers to free Mr. Pryde. Jean tells Kitty that if she goes with Lance then her power really will be a curse. She phases out of Lance’s grasp. He freaks out and causes a massive quake, leveling the building. Jean is able to protect the Prydes with her telekinesis, but Kitty is buried in rubble. Xavier rolls up and does his best to coach Jean from a distance. Kitty is able to phase through the rubble, grabs her parents and Jean and phases them all out. Kitty and her parents reconcile and agree to talk to Xavier about the Institute. Meanwhile, while emergency services clean up the rubble, Mystique approaches Lance. She tells him that she’s made a space for him at Bayville High, and that she’s got a lot to teach her “Young Avalanche.”

 

Hm… again, this is a good but not great episode. While it touches on one of the core concepts of the X-Men franchise, powers being as much a burden as a blessing, the general confusion and anger that can pop up while a young person process the changes, and seeing how a toxic relationship might have formed if someone with ill intent wormed his way into a troubled student’s good graces, it was just a little too light of a touch to be good, ya know? I feel like ten to fifteen minutes of this episode was cut for some reason. Like there should have been another scene or two of Mr. Pryde’s denial of what’s happening to his daughter, or maybe of him freaking out if the M word was uttered in his presence. And I think those hypothetical cut minutes included more of Xavier’s research into Lance Alvers. We could have used a scene of him getting info from the Foster Care people, learning about Lance’s past and or how he’s using his powers in ill deeds. Something to make his comments about keeping him and Kitty from connecting seem less like a rash snap judgement and more of a well-informed analysis of a predatory personality. I enjoyed Kitty in this episode, though. Fun fact, this was her first animated appearance in about 11 years. She was supposed to be a central character in the original X-Men cartoon, dubbed Pryde of the X-Men, but the pilot wasn’t picked up and was later reworked into X-Men: TAS. In which she never appeared. Weird. I liked how they characterized her as being more scared than thrilled at getting her Mutant powers. It was a simple, but incredibly accurate line when she points out that it’s hard enough being normal. And I liked how they portrayed her relationship with Lance. She’s scared, vulnerable, and ends up going along with someone that promises to make it all better. I mean, I think anyone with an ounce of sense could tell he was manipulating her, at least from the outside looking in, but I could see why the person getting targeted might fall for his lies. As to Lance, I hate him, but in the sense that he’s characterized really well as a scummy dude. Power to generate earthquakes aside, he just oozes this vibe that were I a parent of a young girl, I’d  be using Lance as an example to Liliana of the type boy to avoid. What? Yes, I have names picked out for non-existent kids. I’m a writer, I think about names a lot, leave me alone. Oh, and Scott and Kurt’s side-story were short but interesting. It helped establish their relationship, that they are fast friends and the general dynamic of Scott getting Kurt out of trouble and Kurt getting Scott into it. We’ll see that Kurt bonds with most of his team fairly quickly but he and Scott always have a fairly strong brotherly bond. And the introduction to Sabertooth and Logan’s feud was cool, even if I was questioning how quickly Scott and Kurt got into their X-Men uniforms. Just saying. Anyway, this was another good not great episode, but thankfully we’ll have a great episode coming up next with the introduction of Evolutions version of Rogue. They took a few more liberties with her, but it makes for an interesting version of everyone’s favorite southern belle. 

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Viewer Log: X-Men: Evolution ep 1

A toad and a demon wrestle for dominance. Because why not?

This is Xavier's concerned face. Get used to seeing it.

 

Hey everybody, how’s it going? Good, I hope. I’ve spent the last few weeks wracking my brain trying to figure out what I want to cover now that we’re taking a bit of a break from My Hero Academia. While a few topics crossed my mind, I settled on talking about a Marvel show from my youth that I remember quite fondly, X-Men: Evolution. You might be asking yourself, why am I doing the 2000 era X-Men show instead of the vastly more popular X-Men: The Animated Series? You answered your own question. Everyone who knows Marvel cartoons knows X-Men: TAS, loves it and suggests it to those who haven’t seen it. It’s easily the best adaptation of a Marvel property to date, and one of the best shows of all time. Not much point me adding my voice to the tumult already saying “Watch this!” X-Men: Evolution, on the other hand, I don’t think gets enough recognition, so I want to talk about it. That’s enough pre-preamble, let’s get to it.

 

Somethings to note about the series before things get started. In this iteration of reality, Mutants exist and are known to a few individuals like the Charles Xavier, Magneto, and Nick Fury of SHIELD. They are largely unknown to the populace, due no doubt in part to the efforts of SHIELD and Xavier to keep them that way. Most of the X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutant characters you know have been reimagined as teenagers. They are living at either the Xavier Institute, or the Brotherhood boarding house, to help them train with their powers and attend the local high school Bayville High to help them interact with normal and teach control and discretion. In the firsts season, notable exceptions to the age reduction are Xavier, Storm, Wolverine, Magneto, Mystique, and Sabertooth. The three X-Men and Mystique serving as mentors to their charges, and Magneto acts as the looming threat in the shadows, and Sabertooth mostly just shows up to wreck stuff. I think that’s enough basic set up, let’s get to it, for real, shall we?

We open on a football game. Jean Grey is taking pictures for the school paper of her boyfriend Duncan making a touchdown, Scott Summers is watching angrily from the stands, and Todd Tolanski aka Toad is pickpocketing game attendees. Duncan, who is a major asshole from the get go, grabs a few of his teammates and follows Toad under the bleachers to teach him a lesson. Scott noticed Toad’s antics as well and went down to investigate. Scott tries to defuses the situation, saying that they can just have Toad return the money and wallets and call it good, but Duncan and his crew don’t want to. Scott is clearly tempted to blast Duncan with his optic beams, but instead tackles the jock and tosses him into his two buddies. Said buddies chase after Toad when he scampers, but Duncan and Scott wrestle. Jean arrives and tries to stop them, but is too late, as Scott is thrown hard against a support beam, his glasses are knocked off and his optic beam flies out and blasts a propane tank, causing a massive explosion. Damn, I wish Football games at my high school were half as exciting.

 

After the opening credits roll, we see a fancy car pull up to the football field, Professor Charles Xavier in the back. And he doesn’t look too happy. Back under the bleachers, Jean uses her telekinesis to recover Scott’s glasses and tells him to skedaddle while she handles things. She goes to Duncan, who’s being treated for a mild concussion and rewards his stupidity by doting on him. I’ll get back to this later, but note that I’m annoyed by this. A police officer was questioning Duncan, and seems to be thinking something wonky happened here… until Xavier mindwipes him into believing that a faulty propane tank was the cause. Toad thanks Scott for his help, but Scott’s a little too pissed at seeing Jean and Duncan together to pay it much mind.

 

Xavier has his driver, Ororo Monroe aka Storm, take him to the train station after he’s sure his charges won’t be attacked by a mob. They’re met there by the Xavier Institute’s latest charge, Kurt Wagner, who is swathed head to foot in a massive black cloak. You know, because Nightcrawler.

 

Sabertooth wastes no time letting us know he's a stalker.

We then cut to upstate New England where a certain biker with anger issues is riding through. It’s Logan, I’m referring to Logan if that was too subtle. He spies a newspaper headline about the explosion in Bayville and decides that he might have to stop at home soon to scope things out. But not before freaking out the clerk at the gas station he stopped at by slicing the top off a bottle off water with his claws. Classic Logan. As he returns to his bike, we’re shown that he’s being followed by a massive man in biker leathers, with fangs and a caveman hair style. That would be Logan’s nemesis, Sabertooth, if you’re new here.

 

The next day, Scott and Jean are about to head out when they’re called into Xavier’s study. The good professor introduces them to Kurt Wagner, and gives the basics of the Xavier School, that it’s a place where individuals with unusual gifts can learn how to use them properly. It’s here that the two senior Xavier students learn that the blue fuzz ball can also teleport. He scolds Scott for a few minutes about the explosion, before sending them off to School while he shows Kurt around the mansion.

 

At the school, Toad is called into the principal’s office. There the principle, Ms. Raven Darkholme, asks him about Scott Summers and what Toad knows about him. Toad is at first apprehensive about talking about someone who helped him out, but Ms. Darkholme is quite insistent that Toad do what he’s told and use this opportunity. She does this by shapeshifting into an alien monster and screaming at him. Did I mention that Raven Darkholme is the preferred alias of Mystique?

Yeah, no, I don't think anyone was shocked to learn
Toad is a Mutant. 

Xavier and Ororo show Kurt his room. While we never get the specifics of his homelife in this series, he’s clearly not used to having a large room all to himself. But, all thoughts of the room are dashed from his head when Xavier reveals another gift to Kurt. It looks like a fancy watch, but it’s an ‘image inducer’ a machine that creates a holographic image around Kurt, allowing the incredible Nightcrawler to pass as a more normal German exchange student. Woo!

 

At the school, Toad approaches Scott, showing off his powers and trying to get info out of Scott. While clearly disgusted by Toad’s slime, body odor and general “eww” factor, Scott says he’ll think about “getting to know” Toad. At the same time, Xavier gets some sort of alert in his office. He opens the secret entrance to Cerebro, the machine that amplifies his telepathy and helps him detect Mutants all over the world. The alert and the call from Scott confirm to him that Toad is openly using his powers and calls Ororo up to lead an “audition” for Toad.

 

That evening, Toad breaks onto the grounds of the Xavier Institute.  A few seconds later, Ororo in her Storm gear flies out to “Greet” him. She summons a thunderstorm and flings lightning at the man-phibian, leaning him toward the mansion. Nightcrawler, in his spiffy new X-Uniform, enters the foyer just before Toad is thrown into it. The two almost immediately start fighting and name calling, Kurt teleporting circles around Toad. Xavier rolls in as Storm lands. He tries to call the boys off and offer Toad a spot in the X-Men, but he’s more interested in fighting Nightcrawler. He grabs the blue fuzzball and the two teleport down into the Danger Room. The Danger Room is the onsite obstacle course and training room designed to push the student’s powers to their limits. Oh, and it has automated defenses… crap. Xavier mentally orders Jean and Scott in to help Kurt and Toad. The two more experienced Mutants help the rookies survive long enough for Xavier to arrive and deactivate the security protocols, although not before Kurt accidentally blasts Scott and Toad when he tries to help disable a laser cannon.  Toad runs off, as things proved to be a little too exciting for him. While no one blames him for what happened, Kurt teleports away, believing himself unworthy of his new home.

An imp and a Toad, a hatred that will last... until
the end of the season, and then they kind of 
forget about it... 

     Outside, Toad runs smack dab into a recently arrived Logan. Logan, not liking the look or smell of this kid, unsheathes his claws and looks like he’s ready to slice Toad up when Xavier calls out to him and tells him to let Toad go. He does, tells Charles he came back because he smelt danger and isn’t 100% certain it wasn’t Toad’s BO. Charles smiles and welcomes his old friend home.

 

Back inside, Kurt “bamfs” into the hanger and spies the Blackbird, the X-Men’s stealth jet. Scott joins him and offers to let Kurt fly the jet if he’s willing to stay with the team. It only takes a little finagling on his part to get Kurt to agree. 

 

We jump back to the school, where, for some reason, all of the bikes outside shake and then fall as Mystique berates Toad. She’s… miffed that he bailed on a golden opportunity to spy on the X-Mansion, and that Xavier obviously used his telepathy to repress and/or erase Toad’s memories of the place so he can’t even tell her where anything was. She angrily dismisses Toad, and screams in further frustration, revealing her true-blue self. She only stops when her boss, Magneto, tells her to calm down. The master of magnetism was watching the interaction from outside… I guess? He tells her not to accidentally thin their ranks with her anger and that this is only the beginning. Dun dun dahhhh!

 

Okay, as starter episodes go, this was only okay. Certain bits of exposition were really clunky, like Xavier explaining what the X-Gene was and how it pertains to Mutant powers in the middle of Toad and Kurt’s wrestling match, of Storm making comments on Xavier’s “Kind heart” instead of just letting Xavier’s actions show case said kindness. And, looking at this show as an adult, it raises a lot of questions that I know they’ll never answer and that bugs me. Such as… how long has Xavier been training Mutants? Are Scott and Jean the only ones? Or are they just the only ones still at the Mansion? Are there fully grown, fully trained non-X-Men Mutants running around NOT doing superhero stuff? That’d be boring. How did Mystique get Toad? How long has Toad worked for Mystique? Is he literally the most disappointing henchman ever? Sorry, that train of thought got a little off task. But, yeah, there are unanswered questions that I wished they’d delved into a bit. And I’ll go on a tirade about the Jean-Scott-Duncan love triangle in an episode where we have to deal with it more, but in brief, I’m annoyed by it. Other things were really good, like Wolverine’s introduction, and the implication of his rivalry with Sabertooth. The two aren’t shown meeting in this one, but you can tell there’s hate there just by seeing the scary mountain man stalking Logan from afar. And Magneto’s introduction, while short was just cool. You don’t even see his silhouette until the closing few seconds. You just see the metallic objects in the room move, Ms. Darkholme’s name plate moving, her paperclips start swirling around, the aforementioned bikes, and then you hear Christopher Judge’s POWERFUL voice chastising his subordinate and telling her to do better. It’s very Magneto. And I only call out Christopher Judge’s performance specifically because, while everyone else I know is good to great in their roles, he’s phenomenal. You just get a sampling of it here, but he’s amazing. It’s his performance here that I thought of when it was announced he’d be playing an older Kratos in the 2018 God of War and thought “Yeah, that’s kind of perfect.” Enough gushing. Was this a great episode? No, but it was an acceptable start to an adaptation that I know will only improve as time goes on. Have a good night everyone. 

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