The Phoenix takes flight.
Last time on X-Men: The Animated
Series, the X-Men headed back to space. The Phoenix used her immense power
to transport the combat oriented X-Men to Lilandra’s ship by transforming into
her Phoenix form. They arrive and see the M’Kraan Crystal, a large gem that
apparently can destroy the whole universe. Before they can really do with this,
the group is attacked by the Starjammers, a group of pirates lead by a human named
Corsair. The X-Men try to fight them off but as they get the upper hand Corsair
has his ship fire a stunning blast that knocks them out. The situation is further
complicated due to Phoenix reading Corsair’s mind and realizing that he’s Scott
Summers’ presumed dead father Christopher. She’s knocked out before she can
tell anyone this. The Starjammers take the crystal and Cyclops with them. Corsair
makes a deal with Emperor D’Ken, he gets half the imperial treasury and D’Ken
gets the crystal. We learn a moment after the deal is struck that D’Ken plans
to betray it, a fact that real upsets Gladiator. Corsair talks with Cyclops,
revealing that he’s planning on using Cyclops to murder D’Ken, asking him to
optic blast the crystal when he has a chance. Cyclops wants to know why and Corsair
reveals his wife was killed by D’Ken years ago and he wants payback. The
Starjammers arrive to make the trade, the X-Men warping in at the last second
to save them after Phoenix locks onto Cyclops mind. A huge firefight breaks
out, the X-Men and Corsair attempting to fall back with the crystal. Unfortunately,
D’Ken and Gladiator get around them and grab the crystal and Lilandra to use as
a hostage. D’Ken opens the crystal and begins to absorb it’s energy. Phoenix
tries to stop him but the power transfer happens too quickly and she’s not
strong enough yet. Just before the credits roll Phoenix says that if they can’t
stop D’Ken the whole universe will be pulled into the crystal. Enough recap.
Let’s get to it.
We return to see D’Ken absorbing
the M’Kraan crystal’s energy, causing him to pixilate for some reason and grow huge.
The X-Men try to fight him off, but their powers don’t hurt him. The line “You
fools. Your foolishness amuses me,” made me scratch my head at the redundant
word choice but moving on. He suddenly gets pulled into the crystal and disappears.
Gladiator asks what’s going on, and Phoenix says that he is now one with the crystal
and is making his own universe within it. And they’ll all be sucked in…
probably in about 18 minutes or so, given the half hour timeslot. Corsair
orders his team to evacuate and get as far away from D’Ken’s ship as possible.
Phoenix tells her friends to fall back as well so she can test to see if the power
of the phoenix can contain D’Ken’s insanity. She morphs into her phoenix form
and flies them to the Starjammer before doubling back. We see the other Shi’ar
evacuate the ship as she flies in and says to herself that she must learn how
to heal the crystal.
Cyclops demands to see what’s
happening and Corsair pulls up a feed of D’Ken’s ship, though he says they’ll
be out of range soon. Phoenix asks the crystal to help her heal it, but then is
drawn into the crystal. A shockwave fires off from the ship and everyone gets
drawn back towards the M’Kraan crystal. Turns out it’s going full blackhole and
drawing all nearby matter into it. Corsair orders his ship to fire on it, just
to try to do something but it doesn’t even slow it down. Unfortunately given it’s
placement and blackhole qualities, the crystal starts drawing in mass from the
sun.
On Earth, Jubilee is outside,
sulking about being left behind again when she sees the sun start to go dark.
She runs inside to warn the professor. Charles is in the middle of a call with
Storm who is reporting that major weather disturbances are occurring globally.
She doesn’t say it out right but her word choice suggests she’s trying to use
her powers to correct this but it isn’t going well. He explains to her that
they’ve detected a gravitational disturbance near the sun that he assumes is
the crystal and that soon it’ll gobble up the whole solar system at minimum.
Jubilee asks if there’s any hope to stop it and Charles says the hope is the
X-Men.
On the Starjammer, Gladiator tells
Lilandra that he’s sorry his service to her as empress has to be under these…
universe ending circumstances. Ya, as I said before, Gladiator’s loyalty is to
the throne so the second that D’Ken peaced out to enter the crystal and no
longer was able to do his duty as Emperor, he swapped to team Lilandra. The
Starjammer keeps getting drawn into the gravity well. As they start to get
drawn in, Gambit grabs Rogue and tells her if this is their last ride they’ll
take it together. He goes in for a kiss but they get thrown about before he can
get drained in a romantic last stand. The ship gets pulled into the crystal and
crashes into… something. The landscape has an almost organic feel to it, like
they’re standing on a giant mass of flesh more than a planet. Lilandra asks
what happened to D’Ken, only for the emperor to reveal himself in the form of a
giant pulsing light. He recreates a giant version of his body, saying that he’ll
pull in the universe and rule it forever. Wolverine, having had enough of this
guy, says he’s going down fighting and he, Gambit and Rogue try to rush him. He
blasts them with lightning and throws them back. Rogue, not deterred, throws a
boulder at him but D’Ken turns it to mush. He laughs and tells them they don’t
understand. He grows a new body of stone from the landscape to show off his power.
Cyclops sees Phoenix in the distance, her body turned to tattered cloth.
Lilandra tries to reason with her brother, pointing out that he’s now trapped in
the Crystal and that if they don’t close it again their entire empire will be
consumed as well. D’Ken doesn’t care. Gladiator flies at him to try to stop his
ravings, but get’s knocked aside. Rogue catches him and they land together. D’Ken
declares he’s grown bored with them and he’s going to finish them off. His
stone body crumbles, and he forms into a face in the sky. He catches Lilandra
in a beam from one of his eyes and draws her skyward. Cyclops, shocked, tells Logan
that he never thought he’d say it, but there’s nothing them can do.
Back on Earth, Mt. Fuji is erupting.
A hero known as Sunfire is holding off the lava as best he can. Storm’s
spiritual son Mjnari is helping evacuate people in Tanzania. And we see the
silhouette of Spider-Man helping save people from debris as War Machine flies a
woman to safety. In Canada, Alpha Flight is protecting civilians. And in New
York Storm is using her powers to block tidal waves. She reports that the immediate
threat to New York is over, but to her senses it feels like the Earth has gone mad.
Charles tells her to try to remain calm. He knows the disturbances will end if
the X-Men can stop what’s happening.
Inside the Crystal, the X-Men, Praetorian
Guarda and Starjammers try to save Lilandra from D’Ken and fight off his stone
soldiers. They’re efforts are easily thwarted by the fact D’Ken is literally
the world around them. His body gets destroyed but he forms a new one from
stone. He shatters the landscape and grabs his sister, saying they’ll watch him
punish her for her treachery. Phoenix finally recovers, taking on her firebird
form. She whisks everyone back to Lilandra’s ship, saying that’s far enough
from D’Ken’s influence to be safe. D’Ken demands the Phoenix leave his galaxy.
She says that the crystal has consumed him but the galaxy won’t suffer the same
fate. The firebird phoenix stays behind to hold D’Ken off while her human form
drops everyone off at Lilandra’s ship. She explains that her time out of the spotlight
let them (referring to herself and Jean as separate entities) how to restore
the crystal. She also says that Jean was chosen as her vessel in part for her
empathic abilities and it’s those powers that helped her get an understanding
for the crystal. She says she’s going to merge with the matrix of the crystal
and try to patch the hole D’Ken made. Cyclops says she might get trapped inside,
but Jean tells him not to try to stop her. He wants to come with her, but she
says he can’t. Wolverine tells her that he knows, but that doesn’t’ make it easy.
She says goodbye to them all and has a passionate kiss with Scott before going
full Phoenix and flying at the crystal.
We see a visualization of the crack
in it and Phoenix trying to fill it with her body. She calls on Charles’ Wisdom,
Ororo’s Compassion, Hank’s gentleness, Jubilee’s Innocence, Logan’s courage,
and Scott’s Love. While she leaves out Rogue and Gambit for some reason, they
are included in her mental image of a great tree of bonds that help her seal
the crack. D’Ken tries to stop her but he’s locked in tight at this point. The
Crystal shrinks and merges with the heart of Phoenix.
On Earth, the calamities stop, but
Charles muses at what cost did this victory come. Back in space, Jean tells the
X-Men that the crack has been sealed, but to make sure this doesn’t happen
again she’s going to have to take the crystal somewhere where mortals can’t get
at it. The core of the sun won’t destroy it, but it’s somewhere that mortals
can’t reach easily, so that’s what she’s settled on. She says goodbye to
Cyclops and he says goodbye to his love. Maybe mention his dad is alive, Jeanie?
NO? Kay. She dives into the heart of the sun.
Back at Castle Cassidy, everyone
says their goodbyes. Both Charles and Lilandra tell the other to stay/come with
them, but their duties make that impossible. They share a kiss though. Corsair
apologizes to Cyclops for the whole… ya know, using him in his plan to kill D’Ken.
He admits since his wife died, he’s only thought of revenge. But now that it’s
been had he’s going to have to find a new thing to live for. Scott accepts,
saying that no one knows how they’ll react to grief. They part, Scott musing
that he’d have liked to talk to Corsair more, since they have loss in common. Bro.
Tell. Him. Your. First. And. Last. Name! Or Corsair, you do it. Both of you
should know enough about human culture to know that Cyclops and Corsair aren’t
people names! Siggghhhh. Okay. Beast gives him a quote by Dickenson about
partings as the Shi’ar fly out. Cyclops looks toward the sun and clearly wants
to be alone. Logan digs out the picture he has of Scott and Jean (weird that you
have that, Logan) and whispers her name before leaving. Charles asks Scott if
he knows the legend of the phoenix, and Scott says he’s not in the mood for
legends. He tells Scott about the Phoenix raising from the ashes before leaving
him with his thoughts. He looks toward the sun as it sets and sees Jean’s face
as he begins to cry.
I remember this finale shocking me
as a kid. But obviously as an adult I know that there’s a zero percent chance
Jean would be gone for long. The gate to Mutant Heaven is a revolving door, at least
for the most popular characters. This was a great finale to the arc, though. We
got to see just how screwed the world would be if D’Ken’s plan came to pass and
just how much power the Phoenix had to throw around to stop him. One thing I
liked about this era of Marvel cartoons was the fact that the production team
did all these cameos (even if technically they weren’t legally allowed to) of
other Marvel heroes and properties to show that other heroes are picking up the
slack while the X-Men are handling the big threat. It always bugs me when a
huge calamity is happening and it’s implied to be handled by one character or a
small team. Like… obviously when the world is being shaken to its foundations
and there’s global disasters, you need more than 8 people to handle things. Especially
in a Marvel universe where a not-zero percent of people have powers too. Plus, I
love Spider-Man, so getting to see him cameo is always a plus for me. The final
bit where Phoenix is sealing the crack is a great little moment of her acknowledging
her relationships (even though she left out Rogue and Gambit for some reason).
I like when a character gives a nod to the important people in their life
before making a big sacrifice. It makes things like seeing Beast tear up and
Scott and Logan’s moans of sorrow seem more believable. I did want someone
to acknowledge that Scott and Corsair are related but that’s my one nitpick.
Like… Logan, surely they smell similar in a weird way, right? Ugh, I’m griping
about a show that’s almost as old as I am as if they could fix these details, I
am such a nerd. Anyway, the Phoenix Saga is an example of some of Marvel’s best
adapted stories for a reason. The only one that I think that’s held in higher
regard is the Dark Phoenix saga… but more on that later. So yeah, good finale,
Jean is gone but we all know she’s coming back soon. In part because this show
is over 30 years old and in part because comics. See you tomorrow when we see how
Scott’s handling the loss. Have a good night.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/121005201/
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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