Come to Genosha, all Mutants are welcome. You'll never want to leave.
Last time on X-Men: The Animated
Series, Wolverine sought some peace in the frozen north. He is almost immediately
jumped by his nemesis Sabretooth. He gets thrown to the icy water but is saved
by a local Inuit tribe. Wolverine forms a bond with the elder of the tribe, a
man named Pooyetah, but the animosity of Kiyoek, the local hotshot that he sort
of usurps. Kiyoek meets Sabretooth and agrees to help him get rid of Wolverine.
He leads Wolverine away from the tribe assuming they’re going to jump him, but Sabretooth
instead kidnaps the tribe and burns their homes down. Wolverine and Sabretooth
face off again, this time with a ticking clock as the villagers are tied to an
ice bridge. Wolverine is almost thrown to the water again, but Kiyoek helps
distract Sabretooth long enough for Wolverine to win the day. He parted with the
tribe on good terms. Meanwhile, Storm, Gambit, and Jubilee head out to a resort
in Genosha. The island nation claims to be a Mutant haven and they’re there to
check the validity of that statement. It seems like paradise at first, but
Storm is recognized, and that group is attacked their first night by the
Genosha army before being captured by Sentinels. Oh no. Enough recap. Let’s get
to it.
We open in a detention facility.
Storm and her team are being held by the Genosha military and being kept in
line with inhibitor collars. These devices somehow repress their abilities,
leaving them powerless. They’re being used as a labor force to build a ‘better
Genosha’ for their leader. Some fun
background character Easter Eggs we get in the group shots: You can see Pyro, Avalanche,
Mystique, Wolfsbane, Warpath, Sunfire, and Blob as fellow captives.
They’re forced to help build a dam
for their captors. They get told that the collars will be turned off so they
can use their powers to help with their work but if they try to escape the
collars will be reactivated and detonated. Damn, overkill much? The second
their collars are turned off, Storm leaps into the air and attacks, Jubilee
tries to help too but Gambit stops her. She destroys one of the control remotes,
but another is used to reactivate hers. She falls into the river and is fished
out by a Sentinel that was hiding in it. The Sentinel returns Storm to the
group. Bolivar Trask comes out and tells them that their Leader has promised to
release the captives when the dam is finished, but if they try to escape again,
they will be held indefinitely. The biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard but
dictators gotta dictate. Trask orders Storm to be executed, but Gambit runs
forward to beg for her life. He reveals that she can control the weather, and that
she’ll be able to fill their artificial lake in no time. Trask agrees that she’ll
be useful and orders her put in ‘the box’ until the dam is finished. Putting a
claustrophobic into a tight space… brilliant idea, Trask you psychopath.
Jubilee and Gambit are forced to lay
rebar for the damn. Jubilee says she feels horrible for Storm being locked in
the box, but Gambit points out that’s still better than dead. Blob walks over
and yells at Gambit to put his back into the work before a guard orders Gambit
to go break rocks. We see another Mutant, Sunfire, being forced to rapidly dry
concrete just before an attack starts by a rebel Mutant. Sentinels are sent out
to deal with it and the Mutants are forced back to their cells. In the shuffle,
Jubilee pockets some cable fibers.
Back at the Mansion, Cyclops is frustrated
that he can’t get in contact with Storm. Jean reminds him Ororo grew up on the
streets of Cairo, so she’s probably fine even with bad reception. Wolverine
returns, the other’s ask where he’s been, and he just says somewhere cold.
At the prison, the lights and
cameras start flickering on and off. Jubilee, seeing an opportunity, pulls out
the fiber and uses it to pick the lock. She goes to Gambit and tries to
convince him to help with her plan. It’s a simple one, to just wait for the
guards with the control to come in and jump them right at the gates. Gambit
refuses, he seems resigned to serving for some reason. Jubilee tries to get the
other Mutants on board but they’re about as apathetic as Gambit. The lights
start coming online and Jubilee has to race back to her cell.
Cyclops, Jean, and Rogue enter the
War Room and they tell Charles they’re going to head out to check what’s
happening on Genosha. Cyclops asks if the Professor is sure he doesn’t want to
come. Charles tells him that there is probably nothing going on in Genosha and
that he has things to cover here. After they leave, he dials up a place called
Miur Island and asks to speak to Dr. Moira McTaggart. The others fly off.
The next day, the Mutants were woken
up. Jubilee goes to check on Gambit, but he was taken in the night. Sunfire
tells her that the others have agreed to help, they just need her to say when.
She starts the attack, kicking the lead guard and taking the remote control.
The others try to fight back, but they still can’t access their powers. Jubilee
is caught by a Sentinel, the controller dropped and revealed to be fake. The Sentinel
announces it caught the leader of the rebellion and the Leader reveals a ‘Fellow
Mutant” sold her out. She’s thrown into the box. She’s next to Storm in the cell.
She’s clearly freaking out, and disassociating, saying that she’ll summon a blizzard
in the morning and that Gambit will save them.
At the main Genoshian building,
Trask shows Gyrich his latest invention, the Mastermold. It’s a truly colossal
robot that serves as the main control system for the Sentinels and a mobile Sentinel
Factory. It fully assembles the Sentinels within it’s body and the finished
robots just need an outside power source to activate. The Leader and his aide Cameron
Hodge arrive, saying that the Mastermold needs too much power, and they blacked
out half the island last night. Trask says that once the dam is built, they’ll
have enough power and then the Sentinels can be sent out to round up all the
Mutants. The Leader asks about the slave revolt, Trask says that they let the revolt
happen to break their spirits, revealing it was indeed Gambit that betrayed
them. Gyrich asks if Gambit was involved with the factory after recognizing him
as one that helped Jubilee at the Mall. Gambit confirms this, says he’s an
X-Man and offers to take Gyrich to the X-Mansion in exchange for his freedom.
Gyrich asks why he should believe that Gambit would sell out his ‘friends’ but
Gambit claims they don’t like or trust him. They use him like the Genoshians
do. Gyrich agrees, but orders Gambit to go back to the prison until they’re
ready for him. On the drive out, Gambit offers to show them a card trick,
hitting both guards while they’re distracted and tries to make a run for it.
They try to follow but their car is destroyed. Gambit goes for one of their
rifles but a white-haired Mutant step on it and tells him uh-uh. He says he’s
looking for the Leader before they’re attacked again. The man destroys a tree
to drive the guard off. Gambit asks who he is, and he says, “The Wild man of
Borneo,” before leaving. I’m shocked Gambit doesn’t point out the obvious X on
the dude’s armor, but what are you gonna do? Gambit asks for his help; the man gives
him a key that he got off one of the Leader’s goons and says he can make use of
it before disappearing. In a voiceover, we learn from Hodge that this is Cable
(yes, that Cable) a US mercenary that used to work for the Leader until he
leader the dude was an authoritarian dictator. They think that he’s a Mutant,
but they aren’t sure. The Leader claims that Cable lives by his code but not
for much longer.
Gambit returns to the dam and frees
Jubilee and Storm. Jubilee is pissed that he didn’t tell her he was acting but
before she can yell at him the guards start attacking and the group make a run
for it. We switch between a scene of Gambit freeing the other two and the board
room. In the board room the Leader reveals that he got the collars from a Scottish
scientist and Trasks wonders if they can get a bulk order. He thinks that when
the dam is complete, and they can mass produce Sentinels they’ll need quite a
few. The Leader learns Gambit freed the others as Cable attacks them,
destroying their power source in the process. The X-men return to the damn,
freeing the other Mutants and leading another revolt. They try to get the other
Mutants to help them destroy the dam and Mastermold, but they refuse, saying
they’ll take care of the Sentinel problem once Genosha is theirs. Gambit points
out dam busting is a bit beyond them, but Storm creates a massive storm to destroy
it.
Gyrich says that the situation is
falling apart and threatens to fall back to Washington, Trask saying that
Gyrich better not abandon him. Cable slips by them and to the Leader’s rooms.
He’s only stopped from killing the Leader by a half-finished Sentinel the
Mastermold sent after him. He crushes the incomplete robot by blowing a hole in
the ceiling and letting heavy machinery land on it.
Jubilee isn’t sure that Storm is
strong enough to destroy the dam, but Storm orders them back. She summons a
massive thunderstorm that destroys the whole thing. Her strength spent, she
tumbles with the rubble, but is saved Rogue flying in.
The Leader and Hodge try to flee,
saying they’re headed to Switzerland, but are stopped by Cable destroying their
car. He is about to shoot the Leader when Hodge draws a gun on him. The standoff
is cut off by the wave Storm created cresting and swallowing them all up. The
Mastermold, meanwhile, gets up and tries to walk away but discovers it is still
plugged into the wall. It and its Sentinels seem to be washed away in the wave.
The blackbird touches down and
Gambit, Rogue, Jubilee, and Storm get in. They take off. Cyclops tries to radio
into the professor but they’re just getting static. Jubilee apologizes to
Gambit for not trusting him, but the Cajun says that maybe he’s just tricking her
into thinking he’s an upstanding dude. They reach the mansion but are horrified
to discover that it’s been completely destroyed. Oh no.
Another solid episode. Seeing Mutants
being lured in by the promise of acceptance in Genosha only to be used as a
slave labor force was depressing as hell. Particularly when we learn it’s to build
a damn that will power the Mastermold and lead to a mass kidnapping of Mutants
across the world. Salt in the wound. The Mastermold is a truly terrifying bit
of machinery for the X-Men to face, being a walking Sentinel factory that can
mass produce Sentinels if left with enough time and resources. The fact it
needs an industrial amount of power and that most industrialized nations might
not want to publicly fund an evil robot factory is probably the only reason the
Sentinels haven’t been unleashed just yet. While it was washed away in the
flood, it won’t be the last we see of the mega machine. And this was a cool introduction
to Cable. The mysterious Mutant is an extremely important member of the X-Men
universe. He’s an incredibly powerful psychic and has extremely advanced
weapons at his disposal. I don’t feel like I’m spoiling anything to point out
that he’s actually a time displaced X-Man from the Future and is the son of Cyclops
and Jean. The show never outright confirms this identity but heavily imply it
in future appearances and his origins are a big part of X-Men: 97. The Leader
should be thankful the wave did Cable’s work for him, as the Mutant supersoldier
is not kind to those who he thinks wronged him. My only complaint about the episode
is that the Gambit betrayal is introduced and resolved in like four minutes tops.
I think they intended for Gambit keeping Jubilee from helping Storm to be the
first indicator that Gambit might be willing to sell out his friends for a
better deal… but he’s telling a teenager
to not get involved in something that would get her hurt. Hardly backstabbing right
there. I don’t want to hate Gambit, but if that’s the cover for his actions then
give me a chance to do that is all I’m saying. Oh, and the cameos are fun. I
read recently that the X-Men: The Animated Series team worked a lot of unofficial
cameos into their story by just modeling background characters after the Marvel
characters they wanted without naming them. That’s probably not the cases with
the cast here, as all are X-Men related characters, but I’ll call out a few that
I remember when we get to them. And that’s all I have to say about that. Have a
good night.
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