The Sentinels are coming.
Okay, so X-Men ’97 came out
March 20, 2024, and was amazing. So much so that I’d like to talk about it… but
the completionist in me refuses to do so until I get at least some of the
classic show on metaphorical paper. So, let’s get on that. I give you X-Men:
The Animated Series
We open with the single greatest title
sequence of all time. Go watch it right now, I can’t do everything for you.
After that, we open with a news
story about a large hairy Mutant rampaging through town. The large hairy Mutant
is Sabretooth, a beast of a man with a healing factor and razor-sharp claws. A man
turns off the tv and he and his wife start arguing. About what? Their foster
daughter, Jubilation “Jubilee” Lee, is a Mutant. The wife is angry that he
registered her with the Mutant Control Agency. He insists it’s like an outreach
program to help Mutants. An obvious lie when “Control” is right in the name,
but I suppose if you’re desperate to help your kid you’re willing to believe anything.
Though he ruins that thought of mine when he says that he hopes the neighbors
never find out. Focus on what matters, bro! Jubilee overhears and starts beating
herself up, saying that she just wants to be a normal kid.
As her foster parents continue to
fight over whether she’s a Mutant or not, a Sentinel touches down in their
neighborhood. Sentinels, for those who don’t know, are large robotic humanoids
that were designed by Mutant hating scientist Bolivar Trask to track and “subdue”
Mutants. I put “subdue” in quotes because they seem to switch over to kill on
sight with about zero warning. Jubilee’s foster father unknowingly put her on
essentially a hit list, as the Sentinel is tracking Jubilee based on the data
he gave her. As her foster father says that he in no way regrets taking her in,
the Sentinel rams its hands into Jubilee’s room to grab her. Thankfully, Jubilee
had snuck out sometime before it arrived. The Sentinel activates its tracking
program and begins to search. Really
hope the US government is prepared to pay them for the damages.
Jubilee, being a 90s kid, snuck out
to an arcade in the local mall. As she plays a video game, the Sentinel follows
her tracks… somehow… and causes a real ruckus as it’s a two-story tall robot
that gives exactly zero shits about what gets under its foot as it walks.
Jubilee’s powers go off in the arcade and she destroys the game she was
using. She gets run out by the manager
and runs into two women out shopping. The women are a southern belle with a
white streak in her auburn hair and a Black woman with now white hair. They do
their best to grab their packages while wondering what’s up with that kid.
The Sentinel bursts into the mall,
loudly announcing that humans should not be alarmed, it’s here to serve and
protect. As Jubilee heads to the exit, the Sentinel finds her and announces it’s
going to capture its target. It wraps her in a metal cable and prepares to leave,
but it roused the attention of the two women from earlier. They are, in fact,
Storm “Mistress of the Elements” and Rogue of the X-Men. The Sentinel’s program
doesn’t recognize the Mutants and elects to ignore them for some reason. You’d
think it’d want to capture unidentified targets more. Storm, for this time and
this time only, somehow uses her powers to shift from her casual outfit to her
white X-Men uniform, lightning blasts Jubilee free and flies off with her.
Rogue rips the escalator off it’s track to block it’s energy blast before
flying at the Sentinel and starting to beat the crap out of it. She knocks it
over and ends up nearly crushing her teammate, Gambit, that had been buying packages
of playing cards and flirting with a saleswoman. The Sentinel blasts Storm and
Rogue out of the sky and tries to capture Jubilee again. It destroys the floor
she was walking on and she lands in Gambit’s arms. He uses his power, transferring
explosive kinetic energy, on some of the playing cards he bought and launches
them at the Sentinel, knocking it back. Jubilee runs off, saying life has
turned into a crazy video game. The Sentinel throws Gambit through a billboard
and into a car. It goes to terminate him, but Jubilee comes out and blasts it
with her powers. Gambit tells her to run.
Jubilee runs outside but the
Sentinel follows her. It hits her with a knockout gas grenade. She starts to
pass out but not before being caught by another X-Man, Cyclops. He introduces
himself and helps her to the ground. The Sentinel fires an energy blast at him,
just barely missing them. Cyclops then decides to show it one from a pro. He fires
his optic beam at the Sentinel, cleaving its head from its torso.
Jubilee wakes up in a hospital room
hooked up to a device monitoring her vitals. She fries it and then uses her
power to break free of the room. She starts sneaking around the place, seeing a
blue hairy man mixing chemicals while hanging from pipes on the ceiling. Beast
maybe don’t say the chemicals you’re mixing with might explode in the future.
She then comes across Morph, a mutant shapeshifter, as he watches and then
takes on the form to mock Senator Robert Kelly, an Anti-Mutant politician. He
then takes on the shape of a model advertising cologne and then Jubilee herself
when a news report postulating if she’d been kidnaped starts playing. Jubilee
backs away and runs into the war room. She sees news stories playing about various
Mutants, turning them off when Senator Kelly appears again. She sees the giant Sentinel’s
head and then tries to hide when she hears voices. The voices, owned by Jean Grey
and Charles Xavier, come into view. Charles is worried, as he always knew that
the X-Men would one day be public knowledge, but he’d hoped it’d be less…
violent. Jean notices the monitors were turned off and Xavier does a mental scan
for intruders. He finds Jubilee and she runs off. Jubilee enters the “Danger Room”
trying to escape, as it’s running a training simulation for Gambit and Wolverine.
Whoops.
Gambit and Wolverine, as it turns
out, are playing a game of high stakes tag while dodging heavy machinery. Wolverine
tackles Gambit and suggests that Gambit surrenders with his Wolverine claws extended,
causing Jubilee to blast him as she thought he was going to hurt Gambit. Storm,
Beast and Morph join them, and everyone has a good laugh at Wolverine getting
his blasted. Beast explains that the Danger Room is part gymnasium part
survival course. Storm leads her out, saying she’ll explain what the X-Men are.
Storm explains that they’re all
Mutants, that they’re led by Charles Xavier (hence X-Men) and that no one knows
that much about Mutants or who will become one. You know, standard stuff. She
says they’re at Xavier’s School for the Gifted, and that this is a place where
Mutants learn to control their powers. Fun fact, at the time of this show’s
release, the “School for the Gifted” thing was 100% a front. They didn’t pivot
to an actual school to teach children until that was a plot point in the 2000 movies. To demonstrate her power, Storm calls up a
gale force wind and some lightning. Jubilee asks why humans hate Mutants so
much when they’re doing this for them, and Storm says that it’s because humans
fear what they don’t understand.
Later, the X-Men gather to discuss
the giant robot. Wolverine joins late and asks if anyone called Jubilee’s
parents, Rogue says they called but no one called back. Xavier says that the ID
photo in the Sentinel’s visual memory was from the MCA. Cyclops asks if the Government
is plotting against Mutants. Xavier says no, as it’s a “private” group that’s occasionally
supported by the government (got to love that 90s censorship). He announces that
someone at the agency has a hidden agenda.
We cut over to Jubilee’s parents.
They’re having a meeting with Henry Gyrich, a liaison between the government
and the MCA. He asks if they recognize Storm and Rogue as some of Jubilee’s friends.
They admit to not knowing much about her friend group, saying she kept that
stuff to herself, and they’ve only fostered her for about a year. Jubilee races
home to check on her parents and somehow misses the giant robot hiding between
apartment buildings. She tries to blast the Sentinel when it attacks her, but
it easily blocks her blast. Another Sentinel joins and knocks her out.
At the X-Mansion, Charles assigns
the team a mission. He’s sending Storm along with Beast, Wolverine and Morph to
break into the MCA facility and destroy all the files they have on the Mutants
that unwittingly made themselves targets of the group. The other X-Men will
serve as a distraction. He says that Cyclops will direct the mission overall.
Cyclops follows Charles and asks if maybe this isn’t crossing a line with the
idea of Mutant/Human coexistence. Wolverine asks if the teacher’s pet got cold
feet and Cyclops tells him to back off. Before e they can fight, Jean runs in
and says that Jubilee is gone. Wolverine announces that he’s going after her. Cyclops
tells him to wait as they have a job to do, but Wolverine extends his claws in
Cyclops’ face and says he goes where he wants to go. He shoves Gambit as he
walks by, and Cyclops just barely stops the Cajun from blowing a card up in
Wolverine’s back.
The X-Men land their Blackbird just
on the outskirts of the MCA facility. Cyclops tells them to stay close, but
Rogue uses that as an opportunity to explain her whole thing about how she absorbs
life force, memories, and powers from anyone she touches. They arrive at the
facility and Rogue asks Beast what makes Mutants. Beast lists off some factors,
Gamma rays, Depleting ozone layer, television to say, “no one knows.” Wolverine,
sitting in a tree, tells the others they make a lot of noise. He joins Storm
and Cyclops and lets them know Jubilee’s train ran cold by her house. Cyclops
orders Storm to start. Storm calls up a Thunderstorm as Beast, Morph, and
Wolverine slip up to the fence. They throw Morph over the fence, and he knocks out
the guard. They all head towards the main building, Storm shocking a guard and Wolverine
slicing them into the building. He then stops the group, saying he smells infrared
beams. He smells the sharp ozone smell they give off. Storm calls up a mist to
make them see it. Beast leaps onto a pipe and gorilla crawls around to the
control panel and shuts off the beams.
Outside, Cyclops is anxious to know
what’s happening inside. And gets a tip off something isn’t right when an
armored troop transport rolls up. We see that behind a door Storm is about to
open that a squad off guards are ready with guns. Oh no. And the episode ends.
Damn two partners.
So, this series is a classic and
one of the most beloved Marvel franchises ever. It’s one of the most perfectly executed
adaptations ever. The theme song is amazing, I can guarantee you that you could
play those opening few seconds and you’d get most 90s kids humming along to
that beat. I also like the in medias res style of story telling here. In this universe,
the X-Men have indeed been a team for years and been doing missions to protect
people for a while. It’s just the Sentinels marks the first time they have a
threat that they have to risk being exposed publicly to fight them. The team
they have on hand is great too. You’ve got Beast, Wolverine and Rogue to handle
up close brawls, Jean, Scott, Gambit and Storm for distance and Morph for
distraction tactics and causing chaos. Plus, Rogue and Storm have unique
passive skills with Rogue’s lifeforce and skill draining touch and Storm’s weather
manipulation. The weak link is Jubilee, but it’s not completely her fault. She’s
a very well and accurately written 90s teenager… it’s just teens of any era can
be grating especially as written by adults. And her powers are weirdly inconsistent.
Sometimes her blasts are just bright colors, other times they’re as dangerous
as the fireworks display that she’s named after. Pick a lane! Some of the exhibitions
are a little clunky as well from a modern view. Like, in the 90s, as the first
real adaptation for the X-Men, I totally get having to explain Mutants occur
randomly and naturally and Rogue’s life force draining touch… but the touch
specifically comes across like something that the whole team knows, so why is
Rogue saying it. We’re she talking to Jubilee it’d make sense, to warn her not
to touch Rogue skin to skin but not to her team that she’s worked with for
years. I love the look of the Sentinels of this era as well. The attempt to
give them a human-like face with an articulate mouth just increases the uncanny
valley creep factor. Plus, their loud, thundering steps and public service
warning type announcements are just so iconic. I’m just shocked that the two-story
robots with literal rockets for legs can sneak up on people so often. So yeah,
it was fun revisiting this show. Have a
good night everyone.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101076286
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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