Like father, like daughter. Extremely simplified.
Last time on X-Men: Evolution,
Mesmero returned. The Mutant mind controller set up the Master of Magnetism,
Magneto, to help him unlock the second door that keeps the most ancient of Mutants
trapped. He feeds Magneto just enough information about his master and the ½ of
the Spider Stone he attempted to steal to make Magneto believe he needed to
destroy it. At the same time, the previous owner of the Spider Stone half,
Warren Worthington III, warned Xavier and his team about what is going on. As
Magneto and his Acolytes head to London to get the second half of the Spider
Stone, an X-Men team comprised of Xavier, Beast, Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Iceman
are in pursuit. The Spider Stone is reunited, a magic Spider construct is
created, the Acolytes attempt to destroy it while the X-Men try to save it.
Ultimately, Magneto gets in close and fries the Spider with highly concentrated
Magnetic waves. It’s only after the burnt-out stone drops that Charles is able
to tell his friend that the Spider was a guardian to keep Apocalypse contained,
and in destroying it, the next gate opens. Damn. Enough recapping. Let’s get to
it.
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Howlett's know how to dress.
We open on a masked individual breaking
into a laboratory of some kind. Our masked bandit accesses a computer terminal
and pulls up information on the known Mutants of this universe. They comb
through the data base for a moment before settling on and accessing the information
of Wolverine, aka Logan. Weirdly, the bandit reaches up and caresses the picture
of Logan before extending their claws and knifing the terminal’s monitors,
setting off alarms. As they run, we’re shown an unconscious SHIELD agent with a
metallic disk with a glowing red light on his forehead. More SHIELD agents
arrive, seeing the Bandit has slice their way out of the building Wolverine
style. They chase them to the roof, releasing dogs on them. They intimidate the
dogs with their claws, but then a chopper flies up. They slice some pipping to
make a smokescreen, run and jump off the edge, only to real they’re sliding
down the side of the building using their two hand and a single foot claw. As
the Bandit runs off, the SHIELD goons bemoan that Colonel Fury is going to have
their heads. We get a shot of the Bandit, having sliced an entrance into the sewers
under a car and run off.
There are never any Morlocks when
you need them, I swear.
We cut to the New Mutants Bobby and
Ray as they’re doing an early morning training session outside. They hear
someone skulking around nearby, freak out, and Ray falls into a pit trap that
has cage bars extend over him. Oh, and auto turrets firing rubber bullets pop up.
Bobby tells Ray he’ll find the others and come back for him. Bobby ices up and
slides off. He slides passed Roberto and assumedly the original Jaime as they hang
from a snare while two clones try to get them down, and Sam who is stuck under
a net as he races to the finish line. He runs into Logan. Bobby asks if he won,
to which Logan tells him that he can ask himself that as they’re all go through
the course again. As SHIELD copters flies in and Logan hands off training duty
to Hank while he goes to deal with whatever Fury wants.
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Long road back to recovery.
Back in the Mansion, Rogue is still
in bed but sitting up. Xavier tells her that according to the most recent
battery of tests, she’s fully recovered. Rogue hastily says that she isn’t
feeling completely up for being around people again. Xavier says that she can
take as much time as she needs and tells her he’s sure that this has nothing to
do with avoiding a Logan Training Session. The prof didn’t need mind reading
powers to get that one. Ha.
The copters touch down as Xavier
joins Logan, asking why Fury thinks he’s tied t o the SHIELD break in… that I
guess he preemptively read Fury’s mind about, since how else would he know
that? Anyway, Fury comes out, grabs Logan, and then takes off again, after
giving Xavier a nod that seems to suggest that he shouldn’t worry.
At the lab, Fury tells him that the
intruder had metal claws and, somehow, his DNA. Fury obviously doesn’t believe that
Logan is involved, but he does want answers. To get them, he introduces Logan
to a blonde, tan skinned doctor. She calls Logan “Weapon X” upon locking eyes
with him, which obviously pisses Logan off something fierce, but Fury tells
them to take it easy and let the doctor talk. The doctor reveals that she is Dr.
Deborah Risman, and she’s a HYDRA scientist. Fury gives the Cliffnotes version
of HYDRA, that they’re a spy organization that loves dropping operatives in
SHIELD facilities to do damage. She’s reveals that’s why she’s here, that the
bandit from the previous night was one of theirs. The Bandit is dubbed X-23,
they’d been sent to gather info from the SHIELD outpost, but suddenly went
rogue. Risman reveals that she’s a geneticist and that her job at HYDRA was to
create the perfect bio-weapon based on research that HYDRA stole from the
defunct Weapon+ Program, Weapon X. We’re shown X-23 fighting several massive
drones as Risman explains that she failed in this project, 22 times obviously, before
she had a lightbulb moment. That to make a new Weapon X, look to the original. X-23
obliterates that bots as Risman tells him that HYDRA “acquired” his DNA and
used it to make X-23. Logan thinks this means “clone” but Risman explains that
she needed to do some genetic variations to make the project work, and that may
have lead to X-23 having some… instability. Shockingly, attempting to remove
emotion for their pet project resulted in X-23 developing extreme anger issues.
The video ends as X-23 slices out of the training area and attacking the
doctors testing them. We cut to X-23 as they land on a tree and take off their
mask, as Risman reveals the twist that X-23 is a girl.
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She got her daddy's stank face.
If your mind is having trouble wrapping
around Logan having a genetically female clone… well, X-23’s darker skin tone
makes me believe that she’s more like a genetically engineered daughter of
Logan and Risman than an actual, factual clone.
X-23 spies on Beast and the other New
Mutant’s training session, flashing back to how she was forced to slice
sandbags in the rain until she dropped. Seeing Beast and the New Mutants enjoying
their training seems to visibly upset her. She almost attacks Sam after he
crashes into a tree near her, but stops when she hears Beast whistling for
them.
Back at the lab, Risman explains
the insane levels of child abuse that HYDRA put X-23 through to make her a sociopathic
killer. Isolating her as an infant, putting her through literal life-or-death training
procedures at the age of about 5, and training her to act normal in public
situations. This is the point that was hardest for her, as X-23 has kind of an
issue with seeing loving families. Shock of shocks, she didn’t like being
reminded of what she didn’t have. We see a moment where she was observing
people in a park, where it’s implied she went berserker on the whole place with
a smashed ballerina music box a kid tried to show her. HYDRA then put her through
the Weapon X procedure, a process that I’ll remind you involves coating human
bones in metal, when she was 12! Logan screams at Risman that X-23 is a child
not a weapon, and asks how she can sleep at night. Risman reveals she doesn’t and
is here to try to undo some of the damage she’s done.
We jump back to the Mansion as X-23
spies on the X-Men and remembering her isolated, emotionally abusive childhood.
Later, Xavier hears a X-23 crying and goes to investigate. He asks her what her
name is, and she gets up and slaps one of the metal balls on his forehead. This
seems to shock him and knock him unconscious.
As Logan prepares to leave, Fury
tells him that they were able to repair the computer that X-23 destroyed, and
they learned the last files accessed were on the X-Men. Logan demands to go in
alone, he gets Risman’s backing too. Fury gives him an hour before SHIELD comes
in fast and hard.
We’re shown X-23 slowly exploring
the mansion. It’s kind of a jarring moment to see her do things like rub a
teddy bear against her face and being confused by perfume, it highlights that
this unstoppable berserker is completely baffled by creature comforts. She’s
examining Jean’s room when Sam comes in looking to borrow something. She slams him
through a wall and sticks him with another shock disk. Bobby hears the rumble,
thinks nothing of it because X-Mansion, and goes to ask Kurt if he knows what’s
going on… only to discover Kurt, Kitty and Jean all knocked out in Kurt’s room,
metal disks on their heads. X-23 then drops on him and sticks him with one.
Scott and Ray find Xavier, Ray revealing that he’d found Magma aka Amara in a
similar state. They hear someone creeping around, open a door and almost
eyebeam/lightning blast Rogue. Damn. Ray goes to zap the disk off Xavier’s
head, but Logan arrives to tell them that the disks are wired to explode. He
tells them to run but they refuse. They find Ororo and Roberto, Jaime, and Hank
all taken out. Scott demands to know what’s happening, but Logan just says it’s
complicated. X-23 then cuts a hole in the ground to separate Logan from the
others just before leaping in and beating the three remaining Mutants up. She’s
incredibly fast, agile, and is skilled at using her senses in combat. She also
shows great tactical thinking with the data she stole, grabbing Rogue, being
careful not to touch her skin to skin herself before ripping the sleeves of her
shirt off and shoving her into Scott and Ray, taking them both out and slapping
a disk on Rogue before she can react.
Logan returns and demands to know
what X-23 is after. She leads Logan away, attacking him with ferocity. Logan
refuses to fight back, because obviously he knows she’s not the bad guy here,
not really. He tries to talk to her, trying to empathize with her. Obviously,
if there’s a character that knows about being put through inhuman conditions to
turn him into a living weapon, it’s James “Logan” Howlett. He says that no one
should have gone through that, especially not a child. This pisses off X-23 beyond
belief as she shrieks “I AM NOT A CHILD!” and tries to stab him. Logan grabs
her wrists and tries to tell her that she is and they tried to take that from
her. X-23 breaks Logans grip, slashes at him a few more times before kicking at
him with her toe blades, knocking him outside.
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Family bonding at it's finest.
Logan asks why she’s come after the
X-Men, to which X-23 tells him that she’s just going after him. She blames her
genetic template/father/delayed twin brother for everything that had happened
to her. In the old “this wouldn’t have happened without you!” sort of mentality.
Logan tries to tell her he didn’t know anything about this. She says he’s lying
and actually, factually cuts him with her toe blade. Logan unsheathes his own
claws, but only uses them to block X-23’s slash. He tries to explain to her
that they’re both victims, that he’s the one person on Earth that understands
her, and the closest thing she’s got to family. This seems to break something in
X-23, who starts crying as Logan hugs her, encouraging her to stop fighting her
feelings and just let them win. SHIELD copters fly in, Logan tells her to run
and that he’ll take care of this. She runs. Fury disembarks, Logan tells him to
let it go. Really speaks to how much respect and/or fear Fury has at Logan that
he does so.
The next day, Logan, and Xavier
check on Rogue, who is feeling fine but claims she’s still not up for a Logan
Training session. But Logan insists. Outside, the New Mutants are having fun, but
begrudgingly stop and sigh and Logan walks out. He tells the students that the
course has a new objective today… Mutant dodge ball. He offers extra credit to
anyone who can take out a boastful Bobby. Xavier asks his old friend why he
decided to change tactics, to which Logan just replies that sometimes you just
have to let kids be kids.
This is one of my favorite episodes
of X-Men: Evolution as X-23 is such a damn badass. I like the design of
her original costume, with the mask and it’s telescopic irises. Was the jacket
and mask designed to make it a big “Whaaaat?” moment when it’s revealed that X-23
is a girl? Yes. Is it still extremely well done? Also, yes. It’s hard to talk
about how big a moment that this was in part to the fact that X-23 is such a
big character now. She’s the current Wolverine, is one of the most popular
X-Men of the 21st century and was one of the best parts of 2017’s Logan.
She’s extremely recognizable now, so I don’t think people appreciate how much teenage
me’s jaw dropped when this original character was revealed to be a girl. It was
especially cool to see how X-23 fights. She has all the speed and dexterity of ol’
Logan but seems to be more strategic in her thinking. Logan, while intelligent,
usually prefers to rush is opponent and sort of make things up as he goes. How
does she take on someone more powerful than her like Xavier? Use his desire to
help people in distress to lower his guard and ignore good sense to get him
close enough to slap something on his head to disable him. Same with Rogue, use
her own power to disable her back up and then take her out before she can adjust.
It’s strategizing Logan is capable of, but he rarely bothers with. Speaking of,
I also enjoyed how Logan handled this fight. Namely, he let her work through
her emotions and tired to talk to her the whole way through. One of the Hottest
heads in Marvel history remains calm during an extremely emotional situation.
Why? Because that’s his “kid” going through a lot of personal traumas, and he
recognizes that. Classic Logan, showing off way more emotional intelligence
than you’d have guessed. Or think he’s capable of, given his past. So yeah, I
enjoyed this one. I’m sad to say that X-23 only gets one more appearance during
this shows run. But that’ll be next season. Next time, it’s the beginning of
the end. Apocalypse… arrives.
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