Last time on X-Men: Evolution, Kurt
got sent to the Shadow Realm. Okay, it’s actually called the Middleverse, but
Shadow Realm sounds cooler. Rogue accidentally blasted him with a machine from
the late 70s that sent him into a pocket dimension. With some help from the
Projector’s inventor, the similarly stranded Forge (no last name), and his team,
Kurt was able to escape. Rather than join up with the X-Men fulltime, Forge
decided to see how cruel time can be after 20 years and left to track down his
parents. What? A LOT changes in 20 years. Just sayin’. He takes a card, though,
so I’m sure he’ll pop up again someday. Enough rehashing, onto the new. Let’s
get to it!
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| This one is on you, Summers. The moment you saw that hand you should have known something was up. |
We open on some sort of warehouse. They try to
play this like an actual mission, but when the two guards they take out are
clearly Ororo and Logan in jumpsuits and caps, it’s kind of hard to not lose emersion.
Still, it’s a kind of mission, so best go with combat callsigns. Spyke and Shadowcat
take out the guards with gas. Meanwhile, Cyclops and Nightcrawler bamf into the
building, while Jean (they really need to give her a combat callsign) holds
them up with telekinesis. Their goal is to free “Storm” who is unconscious and
chained to the concrete floor, surrounded by laser tripwires. Cyclops blasts
the chains, just before Jean is grabbed by a recovered guard, dropping Cyclops
and Nightcrawler into the laser tripwires. Cyclops runs over to grab “Storm,”
only for not-Storm to reveal that she’s Rogue and grab him. She hits
Nightcrawler with an optic blast just before Cyclops calls to end the
simulation. The simulation ends and Xavier and the rest of the crew roll in. He
chastises Cyclops for ending the mission early, but Cyclops has qualms with Rogue
being in the mission. I assume this Rogue is an LMD, a Life Model Decoy, an incredibly
realistic robotic copies of people. Fury uses them to avoid face to face
meetings all the time. Xavier says that he included her to add an element of
surprise to the mission. Xavier rolls
out, leaving Cyclops annoyed. He and Jean leave to prep for a field trip.
Scott and Jean make it to their geology
field trip bus. On the walk over, Scott explains that he’s not comfortable
trying to befriend and recruit Rogue while at the same time prepping to fight
her. I’d argue that’s just a logical precaution when you’re trying to make Rogue
go Rogue, but that’s just me. Jean encourages him to not stop trying to get
through to Rogue. Good gal, Jean. As they walk by, Mystique as Darkholme comes
out of the shadows and smiling evilly.
Meanwhile, Rogue is practicing
martial arts in the school gym. Or maybe she’s just punching the air in
frustration. You do you, Anne Marie. Anyway, she looks out the window to see
Jean and Scott helping get things prepped for the fieldtrip. She’s clearly annoyed
by the sight, but her glares are interrupted by Darkholme walking in. She reminds
her young charge about how the “X-Men” attacked her, and that she overheard the
discussion about the combat simulation starring her. The queen of manipulation tells
Rogue to never trust the X-Men, and that she should have fun on her trip.
We then jump outside, where the
one-off teacher, no I didn’t bother to learn his name, tells Jean that she’s
been cut from the trip. Apparently, miss overachiever has too many absences to
go. While they might have been able to clear this up, but Darkholme had already
filled the spot. Shocking. So, Jean is left behind while Scott has to go out
into the wilderness with someone that can steal his powers, that doesn’t sound
dangerous at all.
Back at the Mansion, Xavier is reading
in his office. Things seem fine, until he’s shoved to the wall by a burst of
repulsive magnetism. Magneto decided to stop by and chat with his best frenemy.
He compliments Xavier for how he’s trained his students, but chastises him for
keeping secrets. He pulls Xavier back to the window, shattering the glass, as
he departs.
A blizzard has started, which has
the geology teacher nervous. He skids on a patch of ice and nearly careens the
bus off the side of the mountain. Scott is able to get his head out and blasts
a furrow into the ground, giving the bus something to slam against instead of
the falling to their deaths. The teacher wants to turn back, but Rogue suggests
taking the snowmobiles they brought to ride to the cave they were going to
check out. What high school can afford multiple snowmobiles? No, not going off on
that tangent. The class use the snowmobiles.
Rogue and Scott race to the cave,
much to the terror of their respective passengers. Part way through the race,
Rogue nearly murders Scott and his friend Paul by knocking them down a ledge.
They make it to the cave, with Rogue telling Scott “No trophies for second
place.” Scott wonders where the anger is coming from. Oh, I don’t know Scott,
maybe the shapeshifting sociopath you know gives Rogue orders heard something
she shouldn’t? Oo, been a bit since Sarcasm hurt like that.
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| Wait, did none of the X-Men wonder why all the bad Mutants they didn't recruit ended up at Bayville? Evil Shapeshifter is principal seems obvious. |
Back at the mansion, Logan and Charles
are having a discussion in his office. Logan is suggesting that Charles finally
tell the students that Ms. Darkholme is Mystique. I don’t know, I think having
your charges know any calls to the principal’s office might lead to an assassination
attempt can only make their days go smoother, just sayin’. Jean and Ororo come
in, much to Xavier’s surprise. Jean explains what happened with losing her spot
to Darkholme’s Rogue, and Ororo mentions the big blizzard rolling in. These two
things do not make for a fun time for Scott Summers.
The students all made it to the
cave, and the teacher begins giving a lecture on metamorphic rocks. You know,
the ones that MUTATE from one state to another? That’s a pretty on the nose
joke, not going to lie. Rogue slips off from the group, Scott sees and follows.
Once they’re a way out, Rogue sneaks up on Scott and confronts him about the
training simulation. Again, were I Scott, I would point out that I objected to
it immediately upon discovery, and that training to handle an opponent that can
literally steal my powers is really just a necessary precaution. But that’s nearly
30-year-old me, not 17ish year old Scott dealing with 16ish year old Rogue. He
does try to talk to her about it, but she starts storming off. They’re
interrupted by Scott’s friend Paul walking up. “He” shapeshifts first into Principal
Darkholme and then into her true-blue Mystique form, much to Scott’s shock. She
explains that she took Paul’s place by lying about when the bus left, to make
it clear Mystique hasn’t murdered an uninvolved student. Mystique has a pretty
bad ass moment as she gloats about how she got to this point. She calls Scott a
puppet for Xavier and says she’s the blade cutting the strings, before shoving
Scott backwards over a cliff, seemingly to his death. Rogue runs to try and see
if she could save him and demands to know why Mystique did that.
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| Rogue has learned that it's best not to blindly trust the words that come out of Mystique's mouth. |
Mystique tries to brush it off as
she did it for Rogue’s own good and goes to tell the other teacher the bad
news. Rogue, having had it up to here (my arm up fully extended, we’ll call it
seven feet in the air) with Mystiques bs and decides to get real answers. She slips
off her glove and grabs Mystique’s arm. She absorbs Mystique’s powers and
memories, seemingly focusing on the night she went Rogue and learning about how
Mystique played her. She lets her boss drop and goes back to the cliff edge,
this time spotting Scott hanging on by his fingertips. She jumps down to him in
Mystique’s form… for some reason, before shifting back and pulling him up. The
real Mystique then rolls a boulder down on them, knocking the two down into an
underground river below.
They’re able to get out of the
river onto a ledge but then fall to a natural bridge of ice or stone below.
Scott hits his head pretty bad and gets a visible bruise. Rogue cradles him in
her lap, tries to be reassuring but when she looks around the landscape, sees
the storm and the fact Scott’s clearly got a concussion, can’t help from blurting
out “Oh man, we’re gonna die!” Real optimist, that Anne Marie Adler, real optimist.
Scott, clearly out of whack but lucid, apologizes to Rogue for the simulation
and getting them into this mess, and Rogue apologizes for not trusting Scott
and the others. She mentions that she really thought Mystique cared about her,
knowing now that she was just an attractive prize to Mystique’s team. But Scott
does believe that maybe Mystique does care, but has a weird way of showing it,
as adults have trouble telling the truth sometime. Oh, Xavier there will be
words with your de facto son if he gets home, I tell you what. Mystique watches
this exchange from above.
Meanwhile, Wolverine, Xavier and
Storm are racing to the field trip site in the Blackbird. They’re being slowed
down by the blizzard; which Storm is attempting to handle but apparently this episode
she can’t just change weather patterns with a thought and a wave of her hands.
(eye roll)
Mystique decides to be done with
this whole Scott Summers situation, and shapeshifts into a wolf to finish the
job. So, you’re going to rip his throat out personally, Mystique? That’s pretty
Metal. Xavier reaches out to Scott telepathically, warns him that they’re having
trouble locating him in the blizzard, and noting his head injury. Scott tells
Rogue what’s up. Thinking fast, Rogue takes off Scott’s sunglasses and tells
him to open his eyes. He does, giving the Blackbird their approximate location.
Wolverine hands the controls to Xavier and gets up.
Rogue absorbs just a bit of Scott’s
power and uses the optic beam to knock Mystique off the bridge they’re on.
While she falls a good way, Mystique shapeshifts into an eagle and flies up for
another attack. The Blackbird descends at that point, and through an open hatch
Wolverine tells her to beat it or tangle with him. Mystique elects to retreat. Wolverine
leaps over, there’s a slight moment of tension between him and Rogue before the
he just grabs her and Scott and leaps back into the jet. Inside, Storm
administers emergency aid to Scott. Wolverine goes over to a terrified Rogue
and asks if her allegiance is with the X-Men or Brotherhood. Rogue asks what
happens if she says Brotherhood, will she be thrown out of the plane? Wolverine
laughs at that and tells her, either they have her trust now or they don’t.
Either way, she’ll get the ride home at least. Rogue says that she’s with the X-Men
now. Gee, I hope she didn’t have much stuff at the Brotherhood house… that’ll
be an awkward move.
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| Good to see the whole team finally together. |
After they get Scott’s head patched
up, Xavier has the students gather and he reveals to them that Ms. Raven
Darkholme is Mystique. The kids are rather upset that this info was kept from
them, with good reason, and wonders why he didn’t trust them. Evan, I think,
puts it best, saying that if Mystique is playing it straight at the school,
then so will they. When Rogue is asked her opinion, she’s hesitant but says that
honesty is important to her. Xavier apologizes for lying to them about this. He
makes it clear he keeps secrets for a reason, and there are more, but promises
to be better about what information he gives them.
I think this is a very solid episode.
I’m finding that I like Rogue’s story arc in this first season way more than I
remember doing when I saw this show as a teenager. She’s introduced as a power Mutant
that gets hoodwinked into joining the villains by Mystique. She puts on a strong
front, but from basically her second appearance onward clearly has doubts about
which group she signed on with. Things come to a head when Mystique sees an
opportunity to remove Scott from the equation, and when push came to shove, Rogue
would rather have the truth than Mystique’s version of it. I liked the battle
through the cave, I like that Scott was kind of the moral compass that helped
bring Rogue to her new home, and I liked that final exchange with Wolverine
before Rogue made her choice official. Really, my only complaint was the
inconsistency with Storm’s weather powers, and Magneto’s appearance. Like… why
did he come to the mansion to yell at Charles for NOT exposing his lieutenant.
I’d think he’d be more like “That’s a good call not telling your students their
principal is my #2. It keeps them from attacking her office. Good call Charles.”
He really gains nothing by telling Charles to do otherwise, other than getting
the moral high ground for once. But that’s never really mattered to Magneto,
now has it? It was weird. Also, did anyone tell the Geology class about what
happened, or did that teacher spend the whole rest of the day thinking three
students were lost and died? I hope someone told him something. Anyway, good
character episode. Next time, Evan has to get a little artsy while Sabertooth
is on the prowl. It’s less idiotic than it sounds.
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