Oh, Canada, Logan's coming home.
Last time on X-Men: The Animate
Series, Omega Red rose again. Some USSR Generals defrosted their Super Soldier
in an attempt to reunify the USSR. Omega Red, pissed at being frozen for over
20 years agrees to help but it’s clear he’s like one order away from declaring
himself the new Soviet President from day one. Colossus, the Russian Mutant,
seeks out the X-Men’s help to stop Omega Red. He arrives when most of them are out
but gets Jubilee to help. They raid a prison that Omega Red set up, freeing Colossus’
parents in the process. Things might have gone badly when they faced off
against Red himself, as he’s extremely powerful, but Logan found a note Jubilee
left and rushed after them. They’re able to fall back and are quickly joined by
Rogue, Storm and Gambit. The group rushed Omega Red and try to stop him. With
help from Omega Red’s ally turned enemy Dark Star, they get the idea to freeze Omega
Red in a blizzard to stop him. He’s frozen and put back into storage by the Russian
government. Colossus is given another offer to join the X-Men but he declines
in favor of helping to rebuild his family farm. All’s well that ends well. Enough
recap. Let’s get to it.
The episode opens Wolverine looking
for someone named Heather in the Canadian wilderness. We know it’s the Canadian
wilderness as a moment later a man dressed in a white and red costume with a
maple leaf on one side burst from the ground and attacks him. This is
Vindicator, leader of Canada’s official Superhero team, Alpha Flight. Vindicator
reveals that Heather didn’t ask Wolverine out here, he did. Vindicator says
that it’s been a long time, Wolverine says it hasn’t been long enough, and Vindicator
reveals he’s here to forcibly reclaim Wolverine as a member of Alpha Flight.
Wolverine had quit the Canadian team a few years back to work for Xavier.
Wolverine asks him “you and what army?” He’s then attacked by Puck, another member
off Alpha Flight and learns that Vindicator brought the whole team to bring him
in. Alpha Flight consists of Puck, Sasquatch, Northstar, Snowbird, Shaman and
Aurora. Wolverine makes quick work of most of the team, being faster and more
willing to injure himself (since he can recover so fast) that anyone on Alpha
Flight. Siblings Northstar and Aurora try to take him in via flight, but he
breaks free and disappears into the trees. Vindicator is furious at losing
Wolverine again and tells the team to fan out. He says that the ‘lab’ is
expecting them. Logan overhears that order and says he’s done with labs.
We flashback to when Logan was put
through the Weapon X process. A pair of scientists, Dr. Cornelius and the
Professor watch over the experiment. The Professor asks how his readings are
looking, and Cornelius tells him that they’re fine, but Wolverine gave them trouble
when he was picked up. But since the damage was minimal, they begin the
process. Adamantium is forcibly infused into Wolverine’s body, turning his skeleton
metal. Once the procedure is over, Wolverine wakes up and the Professor
explains what was done to him. Ya know, nearly indestructible metal infused with
his skeleton, bones are now unbreakable, that whole speech. Logan briefly loses
focus, saying that his hands are inching.
His claws come out for the first time and visibly pain him. Pissed off,
Wolverine cuts his way free and starts cutting up anything that gets in his
way. He almost gets the professor but the old man makes it to the elevator
first. Logan escapes out a hole in the wall just before the lab blows. In the
present, Logan says no more labs.
… Oh, side note, I do believe this
is the show’s first time confirming that Wolverine’s name is Logan. I’d been
using it up to this point for convenience sake.
Meanwhile, Jean is using Cerebro to
try to find Charles. In her mind’s eye we get a few cameos, Domino, Archangel,
Nightcrawler, Cannonball, Psylocke, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch are all Mutant’s
she’s brain scanned in the hope of finding Charles, but no luck. Gambit, Rogue,
and Cyclops are watching. Gambit asks if she’s found anything, but Cyclops
tells him to keep quite as Jean needs to concentrate.
Back in Canada, Wolverine is
hunting his old team. Shaman detects him and uses his power over nature to cause
the tree Logan was hiding in to throw him to the ground. Vindicator flies in
and blasts him, and the twins hold him down with their blasts, Puck and Sasquatch
hit him one more time each to knock him out. They get Wolverine into a straitjacket
like device to hold him down. When he wakes up, he tells Vindicator that he won’t
work for Alpha Flight again. Vindicator reveals that they don’t want him, but
the secret inside him.
Logan wakes up shirtless and
strapped to a table. He demands to be let go but Vindicator says he’s not
authorized to do that. Logan demands to know who’s in charge, then, if not Vindicator.
A woman scientist comes in and says she is, this being the Heather he was
initially looking for. Logan is understandably infuriated by this, as he
thought Heather was his friend. She says she had no choice in this situation of
bringing him in, but Logan counters by saying she’s the one that taught him
there’s always a choice.
We flashback again to Logan just
after the procedure while he was wondering around the Canadian wilderness. He comes
across Heather and James (Vindicator outside his costume) as they were tracking
a Buck. He sees their guns and freaks out,
attacking them both. Heather shoots him with tranquilizer darts, knocking him
out. They take him to their cabin, strapped down to a bed. Heather wants to
talk to Logan, but he cuts himself free and menaces her with his claws. She talks
him down, and he starts crying about what happened to him. Heather and James
helped him recover and give him his taste for Flannel. Once he’s recovered,
they suggest him to a group they think that could help him more, Department H. He
meets with General Chasen, who explains about Department H and Alpha Flight,
Canada’s superhero team. Logan agrees to work with them under two conditions,
one, they help him find out who graphed adamantium to him and two, to not call
him Weapon X. He’s Wolverine now.
In the present, he accuses Heather
of betraying him. She says this is for national security, but he’s not buying
it. Chasen arrives and reveals why Logan was brought in. Namely, they’ve been
trying to repeat the bonding process since he left and haven’t had any success.
So, they’re going to use him to figure out how he survived the process. Logan,
irritated by this, says he survived it because he’s a Mutant and he
regenerates. Chasen says they can’t know that for sure. … Bro, it’s worked ONE
time and the ONE time it worked it was on a Mutant with healing powers. You can
be fairly certain that’s a key factor. Heather cuts in saying she only agreed
to help so long as she oversaw the experiment, she wants to make this as
painless on Wolverine as it can. And he points out this didn’t have to be at
all. Vindicator tells him to cut Heather slack, as he is the one that
abandoned them. He claims all of Alpha Flight is still his friends. Vindicator
asks why he left, but Logan’s not talking. Heather promises to try to be gentle,
Chasen saying to not be too gentle.
We jump to the Savage Land where Charles
and Magneto are crossing a rickety bridge. Charles says that he wishes Magneto
would tell him more about the place, as it is a wonderland. They’re interrupted
by a woman in a green dress, saying they’re trespassing. Charels asks who she
is, and she says to ask Magneto. She claims all the Mutates of the Savage Land
were his creations. She claims they serve a new master now. Charles wants to
talk, but she throws up her hands aand fries off a mental blast that seems to
disorientate them. Both men fall back to the bridge, cutting the line and
dropping to a pass closer to the river. The woman, Vertigo, swears they’ll
never leave the Savage Land alive.
Back in Canda, the procedure begins.
Chasen is impatient to get things moving, but Heather says she was promised
time to make sure they do this right. The machine powers up, and it starts to
cause Wolverine pain. Jean suddenly senses his pain at the X-Mansion. Cyclops
is concerned for Wolverine and asks Jean if she can find him. She can’t, saying
he’s too far away. She asks Heaven to help him. The pain is getting more intense
for Logan. Puck and Snowbird hear his screams and listen in. Heather decides that’s
enough and powers down the machine. She gives him water, and Chasen insists
they begin again. Heather says that she scanned as deeply as she could and got
nothing. She now thinks this is a waste of time and worst of all they’re
hurting Logan for no reason. Chasen decides they need to do this the hard way.
Surgically removing his skeleton. Heather says he can’t do that, and Chasen
says it’s Logan’s own fault. Him leaving weakened Department H. To which I say,
bro, everyone loves Logan, but if he’s the lynchpin of your team you need
better recruits. Logan draws his claws and says Chasen can come and take his
bones. Heather agrees with Logan and quits. Vindicator tries to talk her out of
quitting, but she says they both know this is wrong. Outside, Puck indicates
the vent and Snowbird uses her shapeshifting power to turn into an owl to fly
to it. She sees Vindicator and Chasen struggling to move Heather from the
machine. Chasen slams the machine and gets water all over it. Wolverine swears
to make Vindicator pay if Heather get’s hurt. Vindicator starts yelling at
Logan, asking how he could leave them when he and Heather saved him. Logan asks
if they saved him just to be his weapon. The rest of Alpha Flight bursts in,
revealing that the team was under the impression that the long term goal was to
get Wolverine back, not slice him up. Chasen calls in security to subdue Alpha Flight.
Puck knocks into one, revealing that security are all a bunch of androids. Alpha
Flight takes down robots, freeing Logan and he joins in the melee. A hole
breaks in one of the walls and Logan runs for it. Vindicator gets in his way,
saying Chasen was wrong, but Logan is staying. They fight, Logan actually
disabling Vindicator’s force field, and getting a claw to his neck. Heather stops
him, asking him to spare Vindicator as she still loves him. He agrees to, for
her, but makes it clear that Alpha Flight should not try this again. If they
come for him, for any reason, all bets are off. He runs off into the wilderness.
This was a fun look at Wolverine’s
past. Most of the time when we get stories about Wolverine’s pre-X-Men, they focus
on his time during World War II. While exciting, when a character has been
alive for 200+years, focusing on just 6 years is a bit limiting. So knowing that
he served on a different superhero team for a while before joining the X-Men is
neat. Alpha Flight is one of those teams I know the general idea around but don’t
know many details. Namely that it’s Canada’s main team, lead by Vindicator
(sometimes he’s also gone by Guardian or Weapon Alpha), and they’ve got an
on-again-off-again relationship with Wolverine. Seems like a good group, when
not being lead by their crazed general, and when Vindicator isn’t still broken
up about the break up. On the one hand, I did like that Vindicator was
personally hurt by Wolverine leaving, ass that does suggest Logan was very
close to these guys at one point, but damn does it almost seem like Vindicator
was more in love with Logan than his wife. Basically, every other line was
asking why did he leave. And, yeah, I can see why Logan had been close with
these guys at one point. The Hudson’s helped him recover after the worst
experience of his life, obviously there’d be some loyalty there. I think my one
complaint is we didn’t get an answer as to why Logan left. Maybe he was tired
of pining for Heather (unlikely given how much time this man spends pinning for
red heads), maybe Charles offered him a better ideal to live up to with the
Mutant rights angle, who knows? I did laugh at this idea that Logan leaving Alpha
Flight actively weakened the team when they’ve got two other physical
combatants (Puck and Sasquatch) and they’ve got a shapeshifter, three energy
manipulators, and a damn shaman. I think they honestly didn’t need Wolverine,
the General just wanted an excuse to cut him up. The Savage Land story here was
short but does raise a lot of questions. Namely, how did Magneto make a bunch
of Mutants in the middle of a dinosaur rainforest? Seems like something Charles
should grill him on later. Not who their new boss is, though, as it’s obviously
Mr. Sinister. So yeah, Wolverine has officially cut ties from his old team and
Charles and Magneto are more lost than before. See you next time.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/105136902
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
No comments:
Post a Comment