Unstoppable Force meets Immovable Object.
Last time on X-Men: The Animated
Series, Gambit, Storm, and Jubilee had a bad trip. … not a drug trip, they
went on a vacation to Genosha but were captured to serve as slave labor. Genosha
had advertised itself as a Mutant supporting tropical paradise but that was
just to get a superpowered slave labor force. Genosha’s Leader, the Leader (Not
the Hulk villain, he’s just a guy) has the captured Mutants build a dam. Why? Because
he’d aligned himself with Bolivar Trask and Henry Gyrich and they needed the
dam to power their next project. This project being the Mastermold, a
supersized Sentinel that served as a factory and main control module of the Sentinels.
Storm tried to escape but was taken down by the inhibitor collar that took
awawy her powers. She would have been executed but Gambit told them about her
weather control powers and how she could fill the damn in hours instead of years.
She was thrown into solitary confinement, which kind of sucks for her. Jubilee
tried to institute a revolt, but Gambit sold her out. This turns out to be a fact-finding
mission on Gambit’s part, acting the traitor to get close to Genoshian leadership.
He’s taken to the Leader and shown the Mastermold, he offers Gyrich the X-Men,
to which Gyrich agrees to the deal but orders Gambit returned to the prison for
now. He attempts to escape, is almost recaptured but is ultimately saved by Cable,
a Mutant soldier with heavy weaponry. He wants to kill the Leader, as he helped
him take control of Genosha, having been promised the Leader would make it
safer. Gambit returns to the prison, freeing everyone and giving Storm the
chance to destroy the dam with her powers. The Mastermold, Leader, his aide and
Cable are all hit with the wave. The other X-Men arrive in the Blackbird and
the team returned to base… only to discover it had been destroyed in their absence.
Oh no. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.
We open on the X-Men approaching the
Mansion. Cyclops can’t get in contact with Xavier, which is worrying, a fear
proven justified when they find the ruins. Jean, Rogue, Storm, and Wolverine get
out to search through the debris but are unable to find him. Jean even calls
out to him telepathically but can’t get an answer, meaning he’s either not
nearby, unconscious or dead. Cyclops and Jubilee entered via the hanger and
found it in perfect shape. He then radios the others to join them in the War
Room, as he found something. Inside there’s a recording from Xavier, telling
them he’s left on a trip and will be back in a few days. He says the results of
his journey may change their lives forever.
On the top side, Wolverine is still
searching the rubble. He finds some supersized tracks as Cyclops joins him.
Cyclops says they need to come up with a plan, but Wolverine says Cyclops can
do what he likes and storms off. Cyclops, while still miffed, tells Storm,
Rogue, and Jubilee to follow him, as whatever made that track will be a lot
even for Wolverine.
The ladies take Rogue’s car, Storm
lamenting that Wolverine always rushes headlong into things. Jubilee says that
it’s because he’s worried about the professor, but Rogue thinks he’s just out
to kick butt. They find his jeep, but he’s not in it. They split up, saying to
keep in contact with each other. Jubilee finds a group of men muttering at a
construction site. She asks what’s up and one tells her that the workers are
upset they’ve been replaced by a foreigner, who they think is a Mutant. Jubilee
asks if the Mutant is really big. We see the Mutant enter a dilapidated building,
there’s a flash of light, and then the building comes tumbling down. Jubilee is
almost crushed but is saved by Wolverine. The Russian Mutant comes back out,
returning to his human form and says the building has been crushed. He
introduces himself as Colossus (real name Piotr) and asks if there’s any more buildings
that need crushing today. The rest of the construction crew are pissed that the
Mutant scab stole their work, which… I mean… point, but the guy who tries to
hit him with a truck might be going a little too far. Colossus steels up and
isn’t phased by the truck. He’s extremely befuddled by their reaction and asks
what he did wrong. Wolverine says the first thing he did wrong was wrecking the
mansion before landing on him. Colossus tosses him off into the rubble, saying
these Americans are all crazy. Jubilee throws blasts at his face but he’s unphased.
He picks her up and wraps a steel beam around her to keep her in place, saying
Americans are very strange. Wolverine leaps on him again, Colossus pulls him
off and says he doesn’t know anything about a mansion. Wolverine sniffs him and
agrees, before Colossus throws him aside. Jubilee frees herself and is shocked when
Wolverine says it wasn’t him. He says that Colossus doesn’t smell like the
thing he smelled at the mansion, and he could have wasted them if he wanted to
but didn’t. Rogue then radios in and tells them to get to the First National
bank. It’s being robbed by a big guy.
Wolverine and Jubilee pull up to
the ruined bank. Rogue tells them the police caught the guy who did it. Turns out,
the guy they’re arresting is Colossus, who insists he was there to open an
account and that he tried to stop the robber. I just have to ask, did the dude superman
jump to the bank? Because there’s no way he arrived there soon enough to be a
suspect from leaving Wolverine and Jubilee. Wolverine says that he’s always in
the wrong place at the wrong time and tells the others he didn’t do it. Rogue and Storm follow the police van to talk
to Colossus and Jubilee and Wolverine follow his nose to find the culprit.
Storm and Rogue break into prison,
Rogue tricking a guard into touching her skin to drain him, and Storm blowing
out some cameras with lightning to let them pass through. They find Colossus in
his cell, as it turns out he was next to and chatting with Beast. He tells the
ladies that Colossus says he didn’t do it, and they say they believe him. They
offer to take Beast with them, but he wants to stay for his day in court. He
says for them to come back during visiting hours and to thank Jean for sending
him cookies. Storm slows some guards with a tornado, letting Colossus break
them free of the building and Storm freezing the hole he made.
At another bank, we see the thief,
Juggernaut. Which should have been fairly obvious with an episode title like ‘The
Unstoppable Juggernaut.’ Cain Marko rips off the bank vault and starts nabbing cash.
Wolverine and Jubilee watch from a rooftop waiting for backup. Juggernaut
breaks through the side of the building, Wolverine telling her who he is. Juggernaut easily walks through police cars
and tanks. They sneak around behind Juggernaut, Wolverine slicing the bags he
filled with cash. Jubilee quickly grabs an arm full, runs it back to the bank,
says the rest off the money is in the alley and goes to follow Wolverine.
Wolverine confronts Juggernaut. The
big bruiser asks where Xavier is, as he knocked on his door but no one was
home. He tosses Wolverine aside, saying he was breaking into banks to try to
get his attention. Jubilee keeps him from knocking Wolverine’s head off,
blasting him from a roof top and then shattering the pavement beneath him, but
Juggernaut says she’s acting too big for her britches. He lifts the building
and shakes he down. Before he can take her head off, Rogue flies in and knocks
him into a wall. Colossus runs up and asks why Juggernaut would frame a fellow
Mutant for his crimes. Juggy reveals that he’s not a Mutant, his powers are
Magic based and they’re too much for them to handle. Colossus says we’ll see
about that.
Colossus and Juggernaut throw cars
and tanks at each other for a minute before Juggernaut crushes Colossus by throwing
a tank back at him. Cyclops, Jean and Storm arrive, Cyc blasting him to
distract Jugs and Storm dropping a building on him to stop him for a few minutes.
Jean says she’s trying to stop him with mental blasts but can’t get through. Cyclops
says they’ll need to work together to stop him.
They use their combined skills to
slow Juggernaut down and peel his helmet off. Rogue grabs him and tries to
drain him, unfortunately, Juggernaut seems to have more power than she can
handle. She starts screaming that Charles had it easy and that now she (he) is
the strongest, she (he) will crush the X-Men. She flies off, but Storm grabs
her and tells her to let the power go. Juggernaut, despite his bravado, is
drained by the experience. Jean flies in and uses Cerebro to overwhelm Juggernaut’s
mind, forcing him to drop. Rogue seems to be overloading from the power she
took in, but is finally able to release it, blasting it out into space. She
drops but is caught by Colossus. Jubilee checks on Juggernaut, who is confused,
clearly not remembering what happened here. He stumbles off. Cyclops cradles
Jean and asks if she’s alright. She says she’s as well as she can be. She says
she hypnotized him into forgetting who he is and what he was doing. He stumbles
off, Jean saying that the downside is they don’t know when it’ll wear off.
Wolverine tells Cyclops there might be something to the teamwork idea.
At the Mansion, Colossus and a
construction crew are helping to rebuild it. Wolverine tells Colossus he’s
always welcome at the Mansion. The metal titan thanks them, but says he needs
to find his little sister and explore America a little before he’s willing to
settle down. They thank him and Wolverine and agree that they feel like the
mansion is their first real home. Wolverine says that he bets the professor would
like to hear her say that, and Jubilee tells him they’ll find the ol’ prof.
I think this episode is just okay.
It feels like a really weak introduction to two of the X-Men Franchises heaviest
hitters. Colossus working in construction is good, he’s always wants to be
helpful, but he comes across as very dumb in most of this. Plus the really weak
mystery just makes it feels like we’re wasting time with Colossus when we the
audience know the episode is called “The Unstoppable Juggernaut.” And robbing
banks is so… simple, for Cain Marko. Dude could just walk across town breaking
things as he does if he wants Charles’ attention. And using Colossus as a scapegoat
would make Charles finding him less likely. It’s silly. It was fun to see the
whole team come together to take him out. Sans Gambit, who must have been hung
over from the Genosha trip or something. I will say, I did laugh out loud when
they just had Juggernaut flat out explain that he’s not a Mutant and his powers
are magic. It’s just… such awkward exposition. I did like the bit where it’s
clear his power was enough to overwhelm Rogue’s draining touch, even if it
still almost took him out on it’s own. The idea that there are Mutants too
powerful for Rogue to drain will be important later. So… yeah, a simple episode,
okay not great. Next time, we’re gonna meet a real monster. See you then.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/103001047
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
No comments:
Post a Comment