Lance tries to turn over a new leaf, and nearly gets run over. Metaphorically.
I’m aware WandaVision is out, but I
think I’ll be covering that in February. I wanted to avoid another Mandalorian
situation where not enough episodes came out in a month for me to do five
posts. I’m sure you understand. 😊
Last time on X-Men: Evolution, Ororo had to
deal with the double whammy of her nephew Evan having trouble in school and a
witch doctor called the Houngan tracking her down in a bid to steal her power. The
Houngan used Storm’s claustrophobia to break her spirit and then captured it in
his staff, allowing him to control her body. The X-Men, Evan specifically,
broke the Houngan’s staff and set her free. After blowing the witch doctor back
to Africa, Ororo and her sister agree to give Evan one more chance to turn his academics
around and stay at the X-Mansion, which he resolves to do. Enough recap, let’s
get to it.
I wonder what they thought was in the gym bag
before he made the big reveal.
This episode opens with Lance
Alvers aka Avalanche strolling up to the mansion with a gym bag over his arm.
He busts down the gate and knocks out the security weapons as they come online.
He makes it to the front doors and is greeted by Wolverine and the senior X-Men
class. Wolverine threat-asks if there’s something they can do for Avalanche and
he says that he wants to be an X-Man. Everyone is kind of incredulous at this,
but kindhearted Charles is willing to give him an interview. Lance is evasive
about why he wants to join, making Scott distrustful of him, but Charles thinks
they should give it a shot. He sends Kitty to show Lance to a guest room. Once
the others clear out, Scott voice his concern, claiming that Lance would only
be doing something like this because he wants something. Charles is quite
confident that what Lance wants is to be near Kitty, and sees no harm in using
that blatant desire to try to make Lance a better person… the ethics of this
thought is above my pay grade, so lets just move on.
Lance is shown a room, which he
thinks is nice but admits he’ll have to grunge it up to make it feel like home.
Kitty warns Lance that this won’t be easy, but Lance is confident. He eats this
feeling the next day when he’s put in a training flight sim with the New
Mutants. Bobby Drake aka Iceman is flying the simulator and crashes almost
immediately. Outside the sim, Logan rips into Bobby about crashing the sim, and
Lance is able to fake bravado to Kitty until she turns her back on him, where
he promptly runs off to throw up. Kurt is told to clean up the simulator, which
has some other bits of Lance’s vomit inside. I guess he’s still on probation
from that incident with Tabitha, but this is the first I recall hearing about
it since it happened… whatever.
He was able to hold his vomit down longer than
I would have.
We’re shown a few more training
situations. The kids are knocking buzz saws out of the air to test ranged
skills, Lance knocks the launchers down. After getting huffy at Scott for
complimenting how Lance looks in uniform without his fruit bowl helmet. Sensing
some hostility. They then run through an obstacle course in the Danger Room,
Lance is last to cross but does so in good spirits. Until Scott hits him with a
surprise trap as a bit of hazing. So, hostility is mutual. Jump to the mansion
pool where they’re tasked with saving a drowning upperclassman. Lance ends up saving
Kitty, leaving his drowner Rogue to ah, drown, as well as Kitty’s assigned
rescuer Sam to drown as well. Rogue pushes the two back into the pool in
revenge.
Later, everyone heads out for the
day, but to Scott’s shock his car has been covered in mud and the front grill
has fallen off. He immediately blames Lance as the former Brotherhood boy drove
off in his jeep. After class, Lance is approached
by the Brotherhood Boys plus Tabitha and they confront him about where he’s
been the last few days. He fesses up to staying at the Mansion, much to his
friend’s disgust. Toad straight up tells him Mystique is going to rip his arms off
when she gets back, but he’s not worried. Mystique is gone, the Brotherhood is
dead and they need to move on, according to him. Tabitha warns that he’ll never
fit in over there with the X-Men as he walks off.
That night, Lance sees some of the
New Mutants, Bobby (Ice Man), Sam (Cannonball), Jubilee, and Jimmy (Multiple)
sneaking from the rooms. He follows, sneakily. Kitty meanwhile is in the
kitchen getting a midnight snack. She somehow misses each of the student’s passing
by, and through an improbable chain of events ends up with her head through the
kitchen table and a plate, apple in her mouth as Lance walks by. He sees it and
promptly passes out.
... They have to know this is insane, right?
Bobby and his squad make it to the
garage and take the X-Van out for a joyride. They also accidentally cause a
bunch of damage to the area as they push random buttons, activating the van’s
weaponry and destroying things like telephone poles without noticing. Oy, kids
these… twenty years ago. Bobby and his group make it back to bed just as Charles
calls them down into the hanger for a special training session. We’re taken
down into the X-Jet hanger, where Kurt is washing said jet and complaining
about it. Scott notes the sleepy New Mutants and asks Logan if maybe they’re
working the kids too hard, but Logan doesn’t think so. He shows them the jet
and talks about how cool it is, really getting them interested. Bobby asks if
they’re taking it out for a spin, but Logan shoots that idea down, saying they’ll
start simpler… with the X-Van. Said van is of course completely trashed from
the joyride the night before. Nobody fesses up, but Scott has a theory on who
took the vehicle out unauthorized. He’s completely wrong though, as Lance was
on the kitchen floor when this was taken out.
The next night, the same squad
minus Jimmy (guy makes clones whenever he gets hit, so I can see why they might
ditch him) go to Lance and offer to take him with on their next ride. They
figure if he’s going to be blamed anyone he might as well have fun with them.
He says no and tries to get back to sleep, Bobby saying fine, but he’s going to
miss out on them taking something big and wild out. It takes him a few minutes,
but Lance realizes they mean to take out the X-Jet. He gets Kitty and they make
it to the hanger as the Jet starts taking off, Kitty phasing them into it as
sit rolls by.
The take off is not smooth, with
Bobby scraping the wing against the hanger tunnel and almost smashing them
against the bay doors. Once they’re in the air, though, they have a wild time.
They jet through the nearby city, Jubilee opening a hatch and tossing her
personal fireworks into the air via her powers. Lance and Kitty make it into
the cockpit, kind killing the vibe. And almost killing them, as Jubilee in her
shock causes a short in the controls with her fireworks. They start rocketing
out of control, and into restricted airspace. Attempts to contact the two
fighter jets they run into end badly, as Lance accidentally launches a rocket
at them trying to get the radio to work. They hurtle passed the jets, who pursue.
They make a mess trying to get the Jet working again, Jubilee using her fireworks
to save them from some missiles, Bobby using an Ice Slide to get them airborne
again when they almost crash, and Lance causing a minor rockslide to slow the
jets pursuing them. Unfortunately, they can’t lose the last set of heat seekers,
but Kitty gets them away by phasing the whole jet through a Mesa. The Airforce
pilots agree that they didn’t see anything. Not sure how they’re going to
explain the missing rockets, though…
I can feel his soul being crushed when he thinks
he'll have to clean that.
Back at the mansion, Scott almost immediately
starts laying into Lance. Lance is willing to take the blame but the others
fess up to all the joyrides that week. Even admitting to using Logan’s motorcycle,
brave morons, but lie and say they didn’t when they see his face. Kurt comes
down to wax the jet, in good spirits because it’s the last day of his
probation, but is crushed to see how wrecked it is. Charles lets him off and assigns
the trio to start cleaning. Scott tries to apologize to Lance, but he’s had
enough. He claims the X-Men are too high maintenance for him and starts storming
off. Charles lets him know that the door is open if he changes his mind and Kitty
gives him a kiss on the cheek as he leaves. Kind of a bummer ending.
This episode is just kinda okay. I
think the concept was a good one, Lance trying to join the X-Men in an attempt
to woo Kitty is a solid idea, but I think this could have been a multi-part
concept. They had to cover a lot of ground with this one, fast, with Lance joining
the team, showing what areas of the training he excels in and what he does even
try, the hazing, how his Brotherhood friends react and all that on top of the plot
about Bobby and co joyriding and wrecking vehicle. Sidenote, I’ve never taken a
car on a joyride, but surely kids know the point is to bring them back in one
peace, yeah? I guess Bobby lost the memo. And it was interesting to see Lance
and Kitty seem to try to pursue something. It’s not addressed directly but the
flirtation between them does seem a bit more serious this time. Or maybe that’s
just me. Unfortunately, I know that this doesn’t really go anywhere, so it’s a
bit of wasted plot potential. Some Romeo and Juliet romance would have livened things
up a bit. I did like seeing more of the New Mutants in this episode, and
characterizing Bobby, Sam, and Jubilee as kids more interested in having fun
than respecting people’s property was at least a memorable way to use them. Still
think that they should have had the braincells to know taking a jet out is
significantly different than a car. Just saying. And I think Scott or Logan
should have been more visibly hostile or strict with Lance to make his walk out
seem more believable. I know, kids cartoon from the 2000s, they needed a plot cul-de-sac
but they could have been less obvious about it. So yeah, a so-so episode, not
great but not terrible. Next time, a
much more interesting concept that introduced some fans to Warren Worthington
III, aka Angel.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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