Punk rocker vigilantes, I like it.
So, we’re going to take a little
break from MCU stuff for a bit. Mostly because it’s been a while since I’ve
talked about the X-Men, and I have plans for a special October theme. More on
that later, though.
Last time on X-Men: Evolution, Beast
is getting stir crazy in self-imposed lockup in the mansion and leads an extra
credit group to the California Redwood Forest to help him embrace the beast a
little. He gets the attention of some Bigfoot enthusiasts, and a pair of
hunters with said enthusiasts capture him. He befriends a scientist with the
Bigfoot enthusiasts, whom helps him escape and cover up his existence when the
X-Men free him. As they leave, the scientist tells Beast he’d love to know more,
and Beast tells him that he’ll explain some time. It was a nice Beast centric
episode. Enough recap, let’s get to it.
Brain and fire power together.
We open with Cyclops going down to
a basement sublevel. He spies from above Jean working with one of the New
Mutants, Amara aka Magma. They’re practicing with her pyrokinesis. Jean breaks
down some rubble from an excavation site above them. She forms a bridge with
her telekinesis and tells Amara to melt the individual stones into a solid bridge.
Amara flames up and heat blasts the rubble, forming a pretty solid bridge. Scott
radios down to Jean, reminding her that they need to wrap this up to ensure
that Amara isn’t late for her first day at Bayville high. Jean tells him not to
worry and begins grading Amara’s work. She notes a single crack in the bridge,
which makes Amara feel like she failed the exercises. I think she’s being too
hard on herself, personally, one crack is like A- at worst. Jean tells her not
to be too discouraged as the whole point of theses exercise is to help them
practice in a more controlled environment. A boulder breaks from the wall and
drops toward them. … huh, kinda ruins Jean’s earlier point, no? Jean tells
Amara to blast it. Amara tries, but misses. Jean grabs the boulder with telekinesis,
but before she can do anything else, Scott blasts it to rubble.
When they come up, Scott does the
stupid teenage boy thing and congratulates himself for saving these “damsels in
distress.” Oh, Scotty, you dummy-dumb. Jean is clearly furious about this and
stomps toward the elevator. They head to the upper floor to prepare for the
day. Scott doesn’t get why Jean is mad, so she spells out that she was trying
to teach Amara how to handle unexpected situations and there’s no part of that
lesson that involves being saved by a “big strong man,” the last bit said
condescendingly. She and Amara leave in a huff.
We cut over to the Brotherhood House.
Tabitha aka Boom Boom bursts into the bathroom while Toad is having his monthly
shower to steal mouthwash. She throws one of her bombs into the shower with him
when he whines. On the way out, she tells Freddie Dukes that the mohawk look is
out and asks Lance if there’s gas in his jeep. When he confirms, he hears the
engine rev and gets outside just in time to see her drive away. The lesson here
is just don’t answer Tabitha when she asks questions about your car.
We jump to Bayville High where Kitty
shows Amara to her first class. Amara goes in and Tabitha joining her a moment
later. Tabitha is still in her weird neutral space, where while she might be living
with the Brotherhood Boys, she’s still pretty chummy with most of the New
Mutant X-Men. She and Amara chat, with Tabitha clearly only hearing like every
other word at best, about Amara’s training and how she’s feeling a bit stressed
out. Tabitha suggests they have a girl’s afternoon after school to unwind, which
Amara hesitantly agrees.
After school, Jean comes out just
in time to see Amara and Tabitha drive off in Lance’s jeep. Tabitha throwing
more of her bombs and blowing some trash cans. Do… people just assume she
carries Firecrackers all the time? Whatever. Jean tells Scott to give him her
keys so she can stop Tabitha from getting Amara in trouble. He tells her he’ll
handle it, which clearly pisses her off more, so he backtracks, apologizing for
assuming he’d handle this and for interrupting the training with Amara earlier.
Jean begrudgingly accepts his apology, saying that she’s just getting tired of
being viewed as the weaker sex by default. That feeling is only exacerbated
when her idiot, I mean boyfriend, Duncan runs up, telling her he got them Sadie
Hawkins Dance tickets. Jean, tired of this crap, grabs Scott’s keys and storms
off. Duncan has his best line ever, “Man, I’m glad she took your keys.”
Boom boom goes bang bang
Tabitha and Amara pull up behind a car
just as two guys come up to it, throw the driver and drive away. … huh. So,
after the least violent carjacking in history, Tabitha chases after them in the
Jeep. Jean pulls up just as the carjackers almost hit a mother and her
daughter. She stops it telekinetically at the last second, the mom and daughter
getting out of the way. The car drives off, and she sees Tabitha and Amara
following so she follows them. Amara blows out the car’s tires and then Tabitha
blows out the whole backseat. Huh, I guess screw the guy that got his car stolen.
The car crashes and the thieves try to run, but Jean arrives and traps them
using cinderblocks and her telekinesis. The trio run off when they hear sirens approaching.
After Jean and Amara are watching a
news report about their exploits with Scott in the kitchen. Apparently, the two
least violent carjackers ever were “notorious” thieves and were stopped by “good
Samaritans.” I’m guessing they didn’t interview the car’s owner. Jean whispers
to Amara that they should probably keep this escapade to themselves, which
Amara agrees, as it’s not like they’re going to do this again. Scott, whom had
been trying to eavesdrop, falls out of his chair as they leave.
We then cut to Jean, Amara and
Tabitha dancing to a music video about them going out to do the vigilante thing
again, and also recruiting Kitty and Rogue to be part of their crew. They start
dressing in kind of punk rocker gear and using their powers to stop various crimes
around the city. At the end of the Music video portion, we see Mystique in her
Risty guise watching and looking pretty pissed. Oh, that can’t possibly be
good.
We get another news report of Jean
and her new team, dubbed the Bayville Sirens, having somehow cut crime in half
in the week or two they’ve been in business. I don’t think you can get crime
statistics that quickly, but we’ll roll with it. WE see the chief of police
vowing to stop theses vigilante activities.
At Bayville high, the Sirens have a
slowmo walk down the halls… kay… where they’re the center of everyone’s
attention. Scott, at his locker, overhears someone saying that there’s a rumor
that the Sirens have power. He looks at his friends, thinks for about 4 seconds
and then slaps his head for missing the obvious. He grabs Kurt and tells the fuzzy
dude that they’re going to have a late night mission.
That night, Boom Boom breaks into
the bathroom again for mouthwash, throws a bomb at Toad for complaining again,
sort of apologizes to Freddie for shaving his mohawk (technically she just says
she was wrong and that he looked better before, but that’s probably the best she
can do) before going outside and blowing the chain off the Jeep that Lance put
on. Outside the Mansion, Kurt and Scott spy the X-Men quartet sneaking out and
meeting up with Tabitha. Jean spies them just as her group drives off. Scott
and Kurt follow at a distance for a bit, but lose them when Tabitha out drives
them, thanks in no small part to Kitty phasing the whole car through a passing
train.
Punk rock meets vigilante justice.
Later, there’s a pretty funny bit
where Rogue suggest they find a better place to change, with Tabitha scoffing,
saying “No one will believe that toll booth guy” that actually got a loud snort
from me. They drive around for a bit and see another completely non-violent carjacking.
They chase after the carjacker, lose him for a second but then see him duck
into an abandoned factory. They slip inside and find the chop shop at the center
of the carjacking ring. They get ambushed by the guy in charge and about two or
more dozen goons. Oh, no, close to 30 guys against five women with both combat training
and superpowers, whatever shall they do? Yeah, the ladies have a very one sided
fight with these guys, the only wrinkle of which being that the commotion plus Boom
Boom and Magma cause a pretty serious fire. It’s big enough the smoke catches
Scott and Kurt’s eye.
The boys arrive. Kurt wants to jump
in, but Scott recognizes the lesson he needed to learn this week and holds him
back, letting the Sirens do their thing. Mostly. Kitty traps the boss in a car
trunk, Scott optic blasting it away from some oil cans right before they explode
as well. He tells Kurt “you didn’t see me do that.”
The cops pull up as the Sirens put
out the fire and restrain most of the goons. A lady cop comes in and tells them
they’re under arrests. Jean and the others try to talk her out of arresting,
which she agrees to, so long as they promise to retire the Sirens. They agree,
and the officer points to a subbasement they can slip through. The girls run
off and Kurt and Scott teleport away as the police come in. The officer tells
the chief there’s no sign of the Sirens, then slips behind a car and reveals
she’s Mystique. Huh.
That night, Jean and Scott share a cookie
and chat. He tries to be nonchalant about her activities this week, but Jean
calls him out right away. Sort of, she tells him she knows he followed them,
but thanks him for not getting involved. She admits that the Sirens may have
let the girl power thing go a LITTLE overboard, but that it was exhilarating using
their powers to help people. She hopes that someday that they can all use their
powers to help people in the open. The episode ends with Scott and her toasting
to Someday.
Okay, that was a fun episode. I
liked the girl power message, one that was and still is needed today. The fact that
the whole thing started because of Tabitha being… Tabitha was kind of perfect,
with the two good girls Jean and Amara focusing Tabitha’s chaotic energy to
something useful. The gag about her routinely blowing stuff up, messing with
and stealing from the brotherhood boys never fails to get a snicker out of me.
Jean’s decision to rebel a little and lead a girl power vigilante crew is a
little forced in the episode, I think, but there’ve been hints here and there throughout
the series that she feels belittled at times so I’m more than willing to let it
slide. I think I’m just confused by Mystique’s involvement. I think it’s implied
that she does so to protect Rogue, possibly to end an ‘extracurricular activity’
that has kept them apart, but it’s never expressly stated why. Hell, as far as
the episode tells us, she might have just done it because she’s a buzz kill.
Who knows? Oh, and the way they present crime in this whole episode is really
weird. I just don’t see a city of any size having multiple carjackings that just
involve grabbing a guy and throwing them out of their car. But maybe automatic
locks have killed that method of theft. So yeah, this was a fun little romp for
the ladies of the X-Men. Next time, we’ll see the origins of a legend. See you
then.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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