Lets see if a paradox can fix a paradox.
Last time on X-Men: The Animated
Series, we had a time travel conundrum. Bishop returned to his future to
learn that the Sentinels enslaving Mutant kind were seemingly replaced by a
plague ravaging the world. He went back in time again to try to stop it. He
joined forces with the X-Men and learned that the plague was engineered by a
scientist working with the Friends of Humanity. Creed’s plan was to use the
artificial virus to ruin human/Mutant relations and maybe kill some Mutants
along the way. He attempted to poison Beast with it, but Bishop intervened and
got Creed poisoned instead. Knowing Creed would have a cure, the team followed
him back to base and faced off against him and the scientist. Who is revealed
to be Apocalypse in disguise. He engineered the plague to hopefully wipe out humans
and Mutantkind. The X-Men destroy his containers of virus, thoroughly pissing
him off and Apocalypse kills them all in his rage. While that sucks in and of
itself, it sucks even more because in the farther out future of 3999, Cable
learns that the plague is 100% necessary for stabilizing the Mutant genome and leading
to his future. He’s left with the dilemma of either letting his present be destroyed
or helping Apocalypse’s plan to spread the plague. Enough recap. Let’s get to
it.
The episode opens back in 3999 as
the time storm rages and reality is trying really hard to erase Cable out of
existence. He has his computer repeat the infuriating bit of information that
Apocalypse’ Plague has to exist to save their current timeline. Cable is
infuriated by this as literally his whole ‘thing’ is fighting Apocalypse. The
computer tells him that millions must die then to save the billions in the
future. Cable’s son, Tyler, then runs in as the energy from the time storm
follows him, the boy vanishing before Cable’s eyes. Hot damn. Cable runs to his own time machine and orders
his computer to send him to the past, NOW.
We cut to Bishop being deposited in
the Alley in 1993. He has just enough time to moan ‘Here we go again,” before
Bishop portals in beside him. Cable tells Bishop that he can’t stop the plague
his way, Bishop refusing to listen after he says that. They have a quick gun
fight which ends with Cable being blasted through a wall. Bishop runs to tell
the X-Men what is going to happen. Cable clears the debris off him using a
personal shield before telling his computer to “body slide” him ie short range
teleport him, to follow Bishop. He cuts Bishop off and starts firing on him,
saying that he can’t let Bishop stop the plague. Cable says that his future
needs the plague, while Bishop insists his future needs it gone. What a
conundrum. Bishop tries to shoot Cable, but he teleports behind Bishop and
shoots him in the back. Bishop just absorbs the shot and redirects it back at
Cable. He runs off in the confusion, Cable getting up and shouting that he
doesn’t understand what he’s doing.
We shift focus to the War Room and
the team gathering to watch the news, with Storm recognizing the protestor that
poisoned Adrian at the Mall. They head out.
Cable has his computer scan for
Bishop’s “temporal aura” to try to find him. It locks onto his trail. His
computer asks him why he didn’t just kill Bishop. Cable says he’s seen enough
death in his life and won’t kill a man for trying to save his timeline. His
computer urges him to finish Bishop off and be done with it. Cable says he will
do it, but only if there’s no other choice. He sees the quarantine news and
some FoH members saying to get rid of the Mutants. Cable is disgusted to think
that he’s technically on their side this time. He mutters to himself that there
has to be another way before teleporting.
We jump over to the apartment
building with the quarantined Mutants. Cable teleports to the top of one and
gets Bishop in his sights but finds he can’t kill Bishop. He can’t bring
himself to shoot someone trying to do the right thing. Bishop gets shot by the
FoH and uses his powers to force people back. Storm and Rogue fly in and report
Bishop is there. Rogue then sees Cable pointing a gun at Bishop and intercepts
him, asking “Member me, bright eyes?” before punching him. The two start
fighting, Cable saying that the X-men need to stay out of this. Rogue and Cable
duel as the others handle Bishop and the mob. He throws Rogue into a wall and
takes a shot at Bishop, just missing him thanks to Wolverine tackling Bishop.
Bishop tries to take out Cable but only shoots at a hologram. Cable tries to
take a few more shots but Jean warns Cyclops and he eyebeams Cable back. Cable
shoots at their roof, dropping Scott and forcing Jean to use her powers to keep
the Blackbird from dropping. Wolverine attempts to climb up and fight Cable,
but Rogue knocks him to the pavement before going to help Jean with the
Blackbird. He leaps over and tries to tackle Cable, but he shoots Wolverine
back. The X-Men all attack Cable at once, overwhelming Cable and damaging his
robot arm. Cable falls back to HQ to regroup, as the X-Men gather to figure out
what is going on, with Bishop, with Cable, and the plague.
At his HQ, Cable gets his arm
working again and then has his computer pull up info on the X-men. He gets
profiles on the X-Men, though he tells his computer to intentionally skip Scott
Summers and Jean Grey as he already knows about them. He gets a quick blurb
about Storm and Wolverine before he has an idea. How interesting.
We return to 1993 and the Senate
hearing. Beast tells some reporters just before the hearing that his research
says that the plague was lab created and there are no signs of Mutants carrying
it. As a reporter uses a phone booth to call this tip into his office, Cable
uses another booth to teleport in. He makes it to the hearing just as Creed
tries to poison Beast. Security is ordered in to clear the camber, but Cable
stops them from interfering. He heads in and starts taking out FoH members.
Wolverine sees Cable and decides he’s going to be the one to take him out. He
and Cable face off, but the future warrior’s tech out maneuvered the ancient
one. In the scuffle, Creed is once again exposed to the virus and blames
Mutants. Cable grabs Wolverine by the throat and tells his computer to body
slide them both back to HQ. Jean reads his mind in her attempt to stop him, but
gets flashes of things like DNA, her and Scott’s faces, Apocalypse and the
virus. Cyclops order the team to the Blackbird, they need to stop the plague.
Cable teleports them to a motel. He
tells Wolverine that he needs his help to stop the Techno-Virus and that Apocalypse is behind it. When Wolverine doesn’t believe him,
Cable shoots Wolverine, knocking him out.
We shift to the Blackbird and the
team getting the info that Creed is the one spreading the virus and that he
tried to infect Beast. Scott asks Jean if something is wrong when he notices
her spacing out. She says she touched Cable’s mind, and that he’s more
important to the future, their future, than Scott could imagine. Like… Jean,
just tell him that Cable is your time traveling son. It’s not that mind
blowing when you think about it. They figure out that Creed with have the cure
and aim the Blackbird at the FoH HQ.
Back at the Motel, Cable wakes
Wolverine up... by throwing water in his face. He keeps Wolverine at gun point while
ordering his computer to teleport them to Creed’s Virginia based headquarters.
The X-Men touch down outside the
FoH compound and raid it. Jean finds Creed’s secret lab and sense’s
Apocalypse’s mind as well. Cyclops blasts them into the lab, with Cable and
Wolverine teleporting in as well. Cable introduces himself to Apocalypse,
telling him to remember the name before shooting his side and forcing the
ancient Mutant to reveal himself. He says Cable’s weapons can’t hurt him, and
Cable says they need to test that out. A fight breaks out, Apocalypse quickly
overwhelming the X-Men with his power. Apocalypse shoots at Wolverine, Bishop
tries to pull him aside but Cable stops him. Wolverine gets hit into a
container of the techo virus. Cable tells Bishop that this is the only way.
Wolverine quickly succumbs to the virus, before recovering. Cable throws a forcefield
generator at Apocalypse that slows him down long enough to explain how
Wolverine’s healing factor cured him of the virus and more importantly rapidly
created antibodies to cure the virus. Cable tells Apocalypse they have the cure
now, so the virus is useless, and the X-Men destroy the lab. Cable reminds
Apocalypse of his name and Apocalypse angrily shouts, “I shall not forget this
IMPUDENCE!” Cable and Wolverine teleport away and the others run outside, Beast
grabbing Creed. Apocalypse decides to just bail this time instead of destroying
the X-Men.
Bishop teleports back to the
future. It looks to be about the same as he left it. He enters Forge’s lab to
find him tinkering with Wolverine’s skeleton in a tube again and asks about the
plague. Forge asks what plague and Bishop offers to tell him all about it.
In 1993, Wolverine’s blood is
looked over by Beast. Beast says that he’s cured and that the antibodies his
body created to fight the plague are unlike anything he’s seen before. He’s
curious as to what scientific advancements studying the antibodies will lead
to.
Cable returns to the future to find
his son Tyler waiting for him. As father and son hug, Cable says that he knew
Wolverine’s antibodies would do the trick.
A solid finale. It was interesting
to see how Cable’s involvement in the past changed things, and what things
stayed the same. Like, regardless of Cable’s actions, a fight broke out in
front of a quarantined apartment building, and the US senate, and Ceed’s
attempted poisoning of Beast ultimately lead the X-Men to his lab. Neat. It’s
always fun to see Cable get involved and for him to show off all the weird and
crazy future tech he’s got up his sleeve. Dude only uses his powers like twice
in this whole episode. I enjoyed the little nods and hints of his parentage,
like how he didn’t need Scott or Jean’s profiles read to him or how Jean’s mind
reading lead her to think he was super important to them without her saying it
out loud. I liked seeing Cable have his lightbulb moment to use Wolverine’s
antibodies to make sure the virus got out but kept it’s casualty count at zero.
Wolverine’s healing factor is always useful, but seeing it be used for medical
science instead of just keeping him going longer than he has any right too was
a neat twist. The episode doesn’t say why Cable needed to knock Wolverine out
for a few hours, which I felt odd. Like, I can guess that he needed to wait for
the in universe time elapse instead of time traveling to when Apocalypse
revealed himself… it just would have been nice to hear that. Also, don’t know
what Apocalypse was less pissed this time that he decided to just bail instead
of attacking the X-Men one last time, but I guess he just didn’t want to deal
with them anymore. It was also fun to see Cable start the paradox that is his
rivalry with Apocalypse. Since, ya know, he won’t even be born for a few more
years in universe and then won’t meet Apocalypse again for centuries, but
Apocalypse will remember the name Cable for all these centuries. And that’s all
I have to say about that. See you later.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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