Wolverine is crafty and Beast is a berserker, what's the world coming too?
Last time on X-Men: The Animated
Series, Rogue was haunted by a blonde. Mystique, in an attempt to get Rogue
to remember the past that Charles Xavier had repressed, took on the guise of a
blonde woman and stalked Rogue. This caused a psychological break in Rogue,
making her see this Blonde as a ghost and goblin chasing her. Ultimately,
Mystique leads Rogue to the hospital room of Carol Danvers, reveals herself to by
Rogue’s adoptive mother and touches Rogue to trigger her memory. Rogue
remembers her past, how she put her first boyfriend in a coma, her father
disowning her, and meeting Mystique in disguise. Eventually, Mystique and her
Brotherhood of Mutants faced off against Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers. She
convinces Rogue to grab onto Ms. Marvel and hang on. This caused Rogue to drain
Ms. Marvel’s powers permanently, but also lodged her mind in Rogue’s subconscious.
Ms. Marvel attempts to exert control over Rogue and flies off with Mystique to
get her revenge. Storm chases them, but it’s Jean using Cerebro that saves the
day. She projects her mind into Rogue’s and the two successfully repress Ms.
Marvel’s mind and get Rogue back in control. Rogue tells Mystique to buzz off,
as she now recognizes that Mystique was just using her. She later visits Ms.
Marvel in the hospital and it’s hinted that she might be waking up. Enough recap.
Let’s get to it.
We open with Beast aka Dr. Hank McCoy
doing some medical consulting with his friend Alec Bohlson at a local hospital.
Alan thanks Hank for the assistance on the patient he’s working with, and Hank says
it’s a group effort. As Hank is looking through a microscope, a few other
doctors come in and look… judgingly at Hank, but Alec waves them off. He asks
Hank if they should look in on their patient and Hank agrees. We’re then
introduced to Carly, a young blind woman that Hank is hoping they’ll be able to
return her sight to. Carly seems fond of Hank, and he blushes when she asks if
he’s there too. Impressive given his fur. Alec tells her that her tests are
looking good, and she should be ready for her surgery. She asks Hank what it’ll
be like to see and if they really think the surgery will work. Hank assures her
that Alec and he have been working on this for a while and they’re very confident.
The consultation is interrupted as the building shakes and a fire breaks out.
Hank quickly uses his agility and strength to get Carly and Alec out of the hospital
via a window. They’re then met by the rash of the X-Men Universe, Graydon Creed
and the Friends of Humanity. They obviously set off a bomb to drag Beast out
and accuse him of laying his filthy Mutant hands-on Carly. Hank passes Carly
off to Alec and asks him to get her out of there while he deals with the FoH. He
first tries to talk them down, but when they won’t listen to his lecture on the
importance of Mutation, he throws them all like ragdolls. It’s like they forget
he’s got literal superpowers. The cops arrive and the FoH run off.
Back at the Mansion, Wolverine is absolutely
disgusted to see the FoH has attacked a hospital for the blind. He wants to
tear into them, but Jean reminds him that X-Men don’t seek revenge. He asks if
that means just letting them get away with causing trouble, to which she says
no but they can’t just attack them. The group’s bread and butter is framing Mutants
like rampaging monsters, after all. Wolverine begrudgingly agrees to not
causing a scene, but he’s still going after them and if they can’t find a
non-violent solution to breaking up the group, he’s putting at least a few of
them in the ground. Jean wonders aloud where the Professor is, as they could really
use his mediation skills.
We cut to the Savage Land. Charles
and Magneto are wading through a swamp as Charles talks about this not being on
the list of what he wanted to do if he ever got the use of his legs back. They’re
suddenly caught in a net that raises up and holds them in the air. They’re
attacked by more of the Mutates, led by a humanoid frog named Amphibious. Charles
tells him to release them. Amphibious ignores the command, saying that he’d
feed them to the river beasts, but he has orders before knocking them out with
a ray gun. The men awake on Amphibious’ raft, the frog man saying that the Mutates
will never serve their creator again and that the Savage Land’s new ruler has
given them great power. Several Plesiosaurs attack the raft and Charles and
Magneto jump back into the water to escape. They make it to shore and free
their hands, but both men are exhausted.
Returning to New York we see Logan
in civilian clothes, muttering to himself that he will try this delicate technique.
He makes a whole bunch of noise outside an FoH base before knocking himself to
the ground. When the guards come out to look, he tells them he’d been fighting
a filth Mutant. They bring him inside and Logan smirks to himself.
Hank returns to the hospital and asks
Alec how Carly is. He says she’s fine, but after the FoH attack yesterday, the Hospital
Board has voted to bar Hank from continuing his work with Alec. Hank asks if
there isn’t someway around this, but Alec also reveals that Carly’s father is a
bigot and is railing at the Hospital director to keep the Mutant from his
daughter. Hank is willing to do what’s best for Carly and leave but wants to
say goodbye first. He visits her room, and she recognizes him as he opens the
door, from his aftershave’s smell. She says she’d been worried about him since
the anti-mutant group attacked. Hank is a bit shocked to learn she knew he was
a Mutant… but bro, you’re big and hairy, she can notice that by touch. Still,
he’s touched that she knows, and it doesn’t bother her. He tells her that he can’t
be there at her surgery, lying that he has another case. He promises that he’ll
be thinking of her every moment she’s in surgery and kisses the back of her
head before leaving. As he does, Carly whispers that it was him that she wanted
to see.
At the Mansion, Hank looks through
his family photo album. We see how he was born a normal little boy before his
powers manifested some time in his teens and from then on, he was blue and furry.
He tosses the album aside and sighs. Jean brings him some lunch, but he says he’s
not hungry. He looks in a mirror before screaming in rage and throwing the album
at it, shattering the glass. He asks why this had to happen to him and why he
couldn’t just be normal. Jean reminds
him to think about what good his powers bring to the world. Hank asks her “what
good?” lamenting the fact that he’s one of the most obvious Mutants out there
and that because of that he’s had to cut off ties to his entire family since
being near him could put them at risk. He’s had to forego relationships with
his parents and siblings, and now the woman he loves. Jean admits she didn’t
know Carly meant that much to him. He says that it was easier when he was
wrapped up in a project, as he could pretend that what other people thought
didn’t bother him. Jean asks what Carly thinks of him, and he thinks she’s fond
of him, but he won’t let her get close to him and get hurt. Jean tells him that
he really should let Carly decide that.
Hank arrives at the hospital as
Alec starts snipping the bandages from Carly’s eyes. He initially tells him
that he shouldn’t be there, but Carly recognizes his after shave and is excited
that he’d made it. One of the orderlies asks if they should remove Hank, but Alec
says that the doctor that invented the procedure should get to see it
completed. He snips the last bandage and Carly see’s Hank. I’m willing to bet
her favorite color is officially blue, despite not knowing that word connects
to Beast’s fur just yet. She says he’s beautiful, and when Alec asks about himself,
she says he’s not bad. Her father then comes in and starts screaming at Beast
to get out. He says he’ll be in touch with her, but her dad says she will not. Alec
tries to stick up for Hank, but Hank decides it’s better to just leave. He says
that Carly can see, so they can at least agree today is a joyous day. Outside
the room, Hank says he’s not sure if he’ll ever get through to people like that
and asks Alec to give Carly the present he got for her. Alec goes back in and
immediately screams for Hank. Inside, somehow without their notice, someone had
attacked Carly’s father, knocking him and the nurse out and kidnapping Carly. Hank
is furious at her being taken. Hank wakes up Carly’s father by pouring water over
him. He starts accusing Hank of causing this, but Hank’s had all he can stand
and he can’t stands no more. He shakes the man, saying that ignorant Mutant
haters like him are the ones that took Carly and he’s going to get her back. Hank
storms off and Carly’s dad chases after him.
At the FoH base, Logan has already made
his way up to Graydon, charming the Mutant hater with his good ol’ Canadian boy
smile. He introduces himself as John Logan and claims he punched the Mutant that
attacked him before he was knocked out. He says all the right things about hating
Mutants and calling for their extermination. He suddenly points out to Graydon
that he seems familiar. He claims to have known a Creed about 20 years ago, and
that he looks like he could be Graydon’s dad. Graydon, clearly nervous, asks
for more. Logan says the Creed he knew was a Coal miner out in Kentucky.
Graydon visibly relaxes and let slips that that couldn’t be his father,
as his family is from Canada. Logan mutters to himself that he is too.
Beast and Carly, I’ll call him
Carl, race through town. Beast radios into the team and asks Jubilee where the
FoH base Morph sent her to is. She tells him it’s at the abandoned veterans
building and he tells the X-Men to meet him there. Before Jean, Cyclops and
Jubilee can leave, they get a radio call from Wolverine. He’s whispering to not
draw attention to himself, but he tells the team he’s also at the FoH building.
Cyclops tells him about Carly being captured and he promises to find Beast’s
girl. He asks them to grab the portable Cerebro hologram generator and a file
on an ‘old buddy’ of his.
We shift to Graydon interrogating
Carly. He demands she tell him about Beast, and when she refuses to talk, he
accuses her of being a Mutant lover and how Mutants and everyone that
associates with them need to die. Beast brakes into their base and starts
tearing through FoH. Logan goes to Creed’s guards, asking where he is as he
needs to talk to him. The Guards say he’s busy, but then they get the call
about Beast’s rampage. As they run off, Logan chuckles about his good fortune
as he cuts into the interrogation room with his claws. Creed yells at him,
saying new members aren’t allowed in the back room. Logan tells him to let
Carly go, and when he demands to know what right Logan has to talk to him like
that, Logan extends his claws and say they give him plenty of rights. Creed
pulls a blaster on Logan. He easily dodges Creed’s shots, but then Creed puts the
gun to Carly’s head. Logan starts taunting Creed, asking why “daddy’s little
boy’ is afraid of claws. Creed immediately starts shaking but says he doesn’t
know what that means. Logan keeps taunting and Creed shrieks at him to shut up.
An FoH guard runs in, trying to tell Creed about the intruder, but Logan grabs
him and hurls him at Creed. He grabs Carly and they run. Beast reaches them,
but passes out from exhaustion. Logan grabs him and the three run. FoH members
corner them. Creed tells ‘Mr. Logan’ that since he hates Mutants so much, he’ll
give him the pleasure of watching one die. Logan promises to take few of these
boys out with him. Cyclops eyebeams them from the street, causing a distraction.
Outside, Cyclops wonders aloud why
Logan wanted a hologram projector and Jubilee adds that it’s weird to see Beast
going berserk and Wolverine using his head. She powers up the projector and it plays
the recording Logan wanted, of Sabretooth. The recording is a profile of the beast
man, mentioning he was last seen in the Baffin Island region of Canada. Creed
starts panicking, demanding that they shut the hologram off. He pulls a blaster
and starts shooting it blindly. It gets to Sabretooth’s real name and Creed dives
at the hologram screaming NO! as he does.
And then it’s revealed that in this universe his name is Graydon Creed, Sr.
They changed it from the usual Victor Creed to make it obvious beyond doubt
that he’s Graydon Creed’s father. Logan says “like father, like son,” smugly. Creed
screams at his men that he HATES Sabretooth. The FoH members are shocked to
learn their boss is the son of a Mutant. Creed begs that they listen, that he’s
not like them, he’s a normal man. They keep walking away. Creed turns to the hologram
and shoots at it some more, screaming at the top of his lungs that Sabretooth
is NOT his father. Wolverine pics Beast up and helps him and Carly leave. They
join the X-Men and Wolverine says, “Scratch one friend.” Beast pulls Carly aside
and breaks up with her, saying that they live in a world where people fear and
hate Mutants, and he can’t give her a normal life as he is. He hopes that
someday the world will change, and until then, he hopes she can carry his love.
Carl pulls up and hugs his daughter, asking if she’s okay. She says she will be
but cries a little. He asks Beast, Dr. McCoy, how he can ever thank him, and Hank
tells him this is a beginning. They leave while Beast watches them go with
longing.
This was a great episode. It was fun
to see Beast act more on emotion than logic and for Wolverine to act tactically.
For Beast, plots about his physical appearance and how life is so much harder
for him as a Mutant that can’t blend in is a fairly standard plot. I think just
about all his focus episodes in X-Men: Evolution touched on that, but
this is one of the few I can think of where it involves his desire for romantic
affection. In many ways he’s like Rogue, while he can touch people, the fact he’s
a hairy blue ape creature means it’s rare he finds someone who’d WANT to touch
him. I like that the episode acknowledges that while Beast puts on a brave face,
it simply isn’t easy to ignore every bigot screams at him. I liked the fact
that Alec was in his corner the whole time. There were moments where I wasn’t
sure if he genuinely liked Beast or was just using him to get the research done.
The moment in the beginning, where he glares at two colleges when Beast isn’t looking,
I think could be taken either as “don’t say anything he’s my friend” or “don’t
say anything, I need him” depending on how you’re feeling. But he’s genuinely
in Beast’s corner and Hank not being able to be involved with the surgery seems
to legitimately bum him out. And it was nice to see Beast win Carl over. He shouldn’t have to do it, really, but I
like the message that a bigot can change, and Beast is gracious enough to
accept said change. Logan’s stealth mission was great too. I’m not sure exactly
when he figured out that Graydon Creed was Sabretooth’s son, but when he got
confirmation that he was from Canada, he was smiling like a shark that smelt
chum. Logan has a habit of just leaping at things with his claws drawn, but the
man is clever and it’s nice to see that acknowledged here. And Creed’s
breakdown is one for the record books. I wish more obvious hypocrites could be
called out like this and have their reputation destroyed in mere moments. But
it’s much harder in real life to do that then with the Mutant hating son of a Mutant.
This isn’t the last we’ll see of Graydon, but his breakdown here marks the end
of the Friends of Humanity being a constant threat to the X-Men with their smear
campaigns. They need to restructure and regroup. Next time, we’re introduced to
the most obnoxious gameshow host in the multiverses, Mojo. See you then.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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