Wolverine Fumes and Magneto broods.
Last time on X-Men: The Animated
Series, we were introduced to their greatest antagonist, Magneto. The Master
of Magnetism arrived to try to free Beast from prison, but the hairy X-Man refused
believing that he can win his trial and that will be a huge win for Mutants. Magneto
leaves but destroys several tanks as he goes. Beast is refused bail the next
day, in part due to Magneto’s shenanigans. Wolverine’s nemesis Sabretooth
suddenly throws a fit in the courthouse and is injured. Wolverine wants him to
die, but Cyclops takes him back to the mansion for medical treatment. Wolverine
tries to remove him from the mansion’s grounds but is stopped by Xavier. They
almost have a fight, but they get an alert that Magneto is attacking a military
base. Cyclops, Storm, and Wolverine head out to face him. Magneto tries to
convince them to join him, but they refuse. He uses his powers to fire off
several missiles. Storm is able to stop them, with help from Xavier’s mental coaching
to disable the warheads and then drive the missiles into the sea. The X-Men
leave, but Magneto makes it clear that he’s not done yet. Enough recap. Let’s
get to it.
We open with Charles digging around
in Sabretooth’s mind, attempting to help the violent Mutant get some clarity.
We see flashes of some people clearly important to Sabretooth, for good or ill,
including Wolverine, Deadpool Omega Red and others. Charles tries to coach him
through his rage, mentally combining with Sabretooth to try to help him find
the cause of his torment. We see something that might represent his inner rage,
it looks suspiciously like Logan, but Sabretooth breaks the link and hides
deeper in his own mind. Sorry if I’m being vague about this scene, it’s extremely
trippy. Charles concludes that with this much rage in Sabretooth from how he’d
been treated that it’s no wonder Magneto thinks there can’t be peace between
Humans and Mutants.
Later, Cyclops, Storm, and Wolverine
report in. Charles explains Magneto’s whole Mutant Superiority belief, that
they’re “Homo Superior” to the Homo Sapiens and that they’re destined to rule a
Mutant world, under him. Storm concludes
that fighting for peace has gotten that much harder. Charles says that he has
good news for them and leads them to the War Room. Inside we see Sabretooth
strapped down to a floating chair. Rogue and Jubilee are in there as well. Wolverine
wants him gone, now, but Charles ignores his outburst. He says he’s been
working with Sabretooth and trying to get him to control his rage, much as he
did for Wolverine. Wolverine threatens to kill him now, but Cyclops tells him
to stand down. Sabretooth taunts him, saying “no kiss and make up?” Sabretooth reveals that they used to work
together, and Wolverine roars that he killed friends of his for no reason. Charles
says that he needs Wolverine’s help with the next stage of Sabretooth’s therapy,
Wolverine tells him to stuff it and storms off. Jubilee tries to stop him, but
Rogue tells her that he just needs to cool off. Charles says that while they
wait for that they can’t be distracted from their more urgent problem, Magneto.
From his own lair, Magneto is
trying to find the target of his next attack. Interestingly, he wants Charles
to find him. He decides on a “Metro Chemical” plant, saying that there will be plenty
of humans there to use as bait. He attacks, using his power to rupture
containers and start fires. Cerebro detects his attack just as Charles was
explaining it would do just that. Charles orders Jubilee to stay behind and
look after Sabretooth. I feel like he should leave maybe one more guard than
the teenager, but that’s me. They load up into the Blackbird and take off.
Magneto muses how Charles will look
after all this time, perhaps he got a toupee. Storm, Rogue and Cyclops enter
the building to fight him. He’s able to block Storm and Cyclops’ attacks with
his electromagnetic barrier and knocks Rogue aside when she tries to drain him.
He says they’ve wasted enough of his time and that he’ll make Charles regret
his cowardice at refusing to face him. He unleashes some toxic gas to
disorientate Cyclops and buries Storm and Rogue under some rubble. Before she
goes under, Storm starts panicking, letting this audience know about her
intense claustrophobia. He blows up another chemical container, but Charles
arrives, telling him to stop this carnage. Reminder, Magneto’s helmet does not
protect him from Charles in this iteration. Rogue breaks herself and Storm
free, and then grabs Cyclops, having to give him CPR to get him breathing
again. It works, but unfortunately the two to three second touches she gives
him to get him going again is enough for her to drain some of his power away
and she starts optic blasting uncontrollably. Cyclops wakes up and tells her to
shut her eyes to turn off his power. So we have the issue that Cyclops is awake
but drained from smoke inhalation and power drain, Storm is knocked out from a
combination of panic attack and rubble, and Rogue is effectively blind until
Cyclops’ power wears off. Fun.
Magneto and Charles face off.
Magneto gives Charles a final chance to work with him. Charles refuses, saying
that after all the violence they’d seen in their lives, how could Magneto ask
him to cause more. Magneto counters by saying that his people used words while
others used tanks and they were destroyed. By Nazis, but the show doesn’t use
that word. He won’t stand by to let that destruction happen again, to prove his
resolve he flips Charles’ hoverchair and drops him on the ground. As Charles
tries to crawl away, Magneto says that he wishes it hadn’t come to this.
Magneto prepares to finish him off, but Charles hits him with a mental blast,
forcing his friend to relieve the Nazi attack on his home and the apparent
death of his parents as a boy. This is probably the darkest use of Charles’
powers, not going to lie. Magneto flies off in horror. Rogue flies toward him
while carrying Storm and Cyclops and lets him know about her temporary
blindness. He asks if there is anyone still in the plant. She says no. Charles sends
a mental command to his hoverchair, getting it to right itself and get close enough
for him to get back in. He leads Rogue out telepathically.
After, Senator Robert Kelly holds a
press conference, Henry Gyrich watching with the reporters. The anti-Mutant Senator
disparages the President’s choice to rescind the Mutant Registration Act and announces
that he’s running for President on said Anti-Mutant platform. He straight up
says that he’ll see every Mutant in the US put into internment camps and “help”
them. Jubilee is watching his speech from the War Room and Kelly’s rhetoric
seems to be driving Sabretooth into a rage. He says he just wants to get his
claws on Kelly’s throat. Jubilee turns it off and goes to talk to him.
Sabretooth says that he’s still trying to control that. Jubilee notices that
his wrist looks bad from his struggling against his shackles. They look fine,
but I imagine without censorship he’d at least have some blood on them. Jubilee
asks if he’ll keep his cool while she fixes it and he promises he will. I’m not
sure if this is just me because I know Sabretooth but it’s astounding how sarcastic
he sounds while making this promise. Jubilee frees him and he immediately grabs
her. He reveals he’d been faking getting ‘better’ from Charles’ treatment and
that he was sent by Magneto to infiltrate the mansion. Which makes sense, as I
really couldn’t see Sabretooth attending a court hearing just for shits and
giggles. He announces that he’s going to enjoy wrecking the place. He gets
Jubilee to release his other arm. He says that he wishes Wolverine was here so
he could finish him off. Thankfully, Wolverine was there, having only gone a little
way away to cool off. Sabretooth tosses Jubilee aside, smacking her head
against a wall and knocking her out. Sabretooth admits to Wolverine that he’s
working with Magneto mostly because he heard Wolverine had gone soft and wanted
to see for himself. Wolverine draws his claws and says that Sabretooth always
liked picking on those smaller than him, and as a short guy he takes offense to
that. They start brawling, Wolverine does well but Sabretooth gets him pinned
and starts pushing his claws toward Wolverine’s throat.
The other X-Men arrive home and get
coffee, Cyclops mentioning that he feels much better now and that his powers have
returned. Rogue returns his shades and teases that they need to do that again
sometime, right as the whole room starts shaking… for some reason. Sabretooth
is strong but he isn’t like Juggernaut strong, nor doing something that would make
a room shake. Whatever, Charles comes in right after Wolverine threatens to
kill Sabretooth and misunderstands the situation. He shouts at Wolverine about
the poison of revenge and of endangering the team to get it, just before
Jubilee wakes up and says Sabretooth nearly killed her. Wolverine says the professor
is out of line, but the distraction was enough for Sabretooth to attack him and
knock him aside. He goes to attack Charles but Jubilee blasts him back with her
firework blasts. She knocks him through a wall to the outside and he runs off.
They rush Wolverine to the infirmary;
his chest and arms are heavily bandaged but he’s stable. Charles apologizes to
him. He admits he should have listened to Wolverine but let his dream of
Mutant-brotherhood cloud his judgement of an objectively evil Mutant in their
midst. He says that he’s failed twice today. Storm comforts him, saying they
all failed. Charles says that he won’t let that happen again. He drove Magneto
off this time but he’ll be back. We cut out to Magneto standing on a hill overlooking
New York. He says that Charles has cast his lot with the humans, but the other
Mutants will rally to him. He says that thousands will flock to him, and they will
destroy Charles and the Humans. Dun dun dahhhh.
I always find it funny in the 90s
when shows would routinely use the word destroy in place of kill, despite both
words being about the same level of violent.
This was a good follow up to the previous
episode. I would say that going from attacking a military base to a chemical
plant is de-escalation of Magneto’s plans, as destroying a chemical plant will
screw up at best a few blocks verses the miles missiles can destroy, but that’s
just me. Seeing Charles and Magneto face off was fascinating from a modern,
post-Helmet shield perspective. In all their meetings in all media post that
change, the power dynamic is squarely in Magneto’s favor. I wouldn’t say that
it makes Charles’ speeches more pleading, but it does add a bit more tension to
them as they’re literally the only thing stopping Magneto from pushing the ‘end
the world’ button on his latest scheme. In this confrontation they’re much more
evenly matched, and you can feel it by how quickly Magneto acts once he knows
Charles won’t side with him. He was about 5 seconds from burying Charles in
metal before he got hit with Charles’ trauma beam. And like, yeah, Charles was desperate
and needed to drive Magneto off… but maybe try any other memory besides the
destruction of his small Polish town next time Chuck. We got more of Wolverine and
Sabretooth’s history in this episode too. For as long as I’ve seen the
characters, this dynamic of the big bully and the little guy who isn’t taking
that shit anymore has been standard. Sabretooth is an apex predator; big, mean,
likes to play with his food, and is almost irate with how often he loses to the
short king that is Logan. While most Sabretooth’s go for the deep, powerful roar
of a voice, I like Don Franck’s slightly higher pitched version. It gives
Sabretooth this sneering quality to everything he says that I think fits really
well with the giant bully. The only real issue with this episode was the stupid
censorship back then, which made it impossible to even include a drop of blood
on Sabretooth’s arm. Like, Jubilee looks so incredibly stupid here when there
is literally no difference in how Sabretooth’s right arm normally looks and her
being like “oh that looks bad.” Just dumb. So yeah, good conclusion to this
second two parter. Next time, we’ll get introduced to the Morlocks. See you
then.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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