A single raindrop raises the sea.
Ya, I am not ready to finish off The
Wheel of Time just yet. So, back to X-Men.
Last time on X-Men: The Animated
Series, we were introduced to Brother Kurt. Wolverine, Rogue and Gambit had
decided to go to a German ski vacation where, after an avalanche Gambit caused
by accident, they ended up in at the Neuherzl Monastery. The Brothers of this monastery are kind, but
the group learns about sightings of a demon in the town below. They eventually
meet this demon, Kurt Wagner. He’s actually a Mutant, born with the ability to
teleport as well as an abnormal physiology that gives him three fingered hands
and feet, blue fur, and a tail. The town’s folk had merely seen Kurt on a walk
and assumed the worst. We learn that another of the brothers, Reinhard, is
super racist and tells the people of Neuherzl about Kurt, whipping them into a
frenzy. The X-Men help the monks defend their monastery, Kurt ends up talking
to and getting Reinhard to repent his sins, and help the people learn that Kurt
is just a man with an unusual body. As they part ways with Kurt, who sensed a
spiritual unease in Wolverine that mirrored his own, the monk gives Wolverine a
Bible with his favorite passages marked. The story ends with Rogue discovering
Wolverine in quite contemplation with Kurt’s Bible and praying. Enough recapping.
Let’s get to it, shall we?
Ooo, I forgot this one was coming
up.
We open on a scene marked as May
11, 1959. In it, the Sentinel super-hunter Nimrod is fighting the X-Men’s favorite
mullet having time traveler, Bishop. Wolverine and Storm are there as well, in
weirdly punk looking outfits. Logan cuts some wires in Nimrod’s back with his claws
and Storm and Bishop blast it into pieces. From inside the dorm building
overlooking the yard, we see a 22ish Charles Xavier standing (Oh my!) and panicking
at the thought of having to face something like Nimrod or Mutants as a whole.
He goes to open a door, setting off a fuse. Wolverine yells something about a
fuse and Bishop screams NO! as it happens.
We cut back to Forge’s Lab in 2055.
The Master Mutant Mechanist has gotten an alert about a Time Travel Rift that
will be disrupting their timeline. He warns Bishop and his sister Shard that
someone has gone back in time before them, and that they’ll need to get allies
to stop whatever is rewriting history. They slap on their time bands and hop through
the portal.
In the present day of 1995 we see
Logan, Ororo and Charles enjoying a lovely spring day by having a picnic. Storm
talks about how lovely the butterflies and flowers are, Logan jokingly asking
if he’s what she’s referring to when she says they’re “beautiful.” They break
out the picnic basket and set up. A sudden wave of energy erupts in the
distance. Logan quips about how they can’t just attract ants like normal people.
Charles’ chair warns him of a temporal disruption before he disappears,
screaming. Logan and Ororo are hit by the temporal wave and are morphed into
the punk outfits we saw earlier.
They’re transported to a New York
landscape that’s clearly mid-apocalyptic war. Logan asks his ‘darlin’ if she’s
alright, and Ororo asks what was that? They’re distracted by fighting. They
alone with other Mutants are battling humans in an all-out war. They’re led by
Magneto, aka the Leader, who looks exhausted and beaten down in his battler
armor. He saves a winged Mutant from being crushed by a legally distinct but very
ATST-looking walker but is overwhelmed by the humans’ other robots. Despite
Ororo’s warning that they can’t fight them alone, Logan says they’ve got no
choice. Losing Magneto means they lose the war. They charge, Magneto throws off
the robot and he tells his people to push them back to the river. They destroy
a robot, but Logan and Ororo get knocked down by the blast. They’re saved from
being crushed by a crab tank by Nightcrawler, who teleports into it and
disables it. They push forwards, where we see their forces also include Gambit
and Mr. Sinister. Logan recovers and checks on Ororo, begging her to be okay.
It’s at this point that we see they’re both wearing wedding rings. Tis a very
odd timeline we find ourselves in. A troop transport lands and several folks
that look like they might wish to Avenge some things rush out. Some include Goliath
(another alternate identity for Ant-Man), Wasp, the Scarlet Spider, and Black
Widow. They get blasted back, though, and the Mutants regroup.
Logan carries Ororo back to their
medic tent and asks to see Dr. Summers. They’re interrupted by another attack.
Mastermind uses his illusion powers to hide them from the walker that almost
crushes them. Bishop and Shard appear, Bishop saying that they’re too late. While
traveling through the timestream, someone named Fitzroy and Nimrod killed Charles
and altered the timeline. So, there are no X-Men to help them out. Shard says
they’ll just have to go back to 1959 alone and handle it themselves. Logan
rushes the two of them and demands to know what their deal is, Storm staggering
after him and telling these ‘Strangers’ to do what he says, he’s got a short
fuse. Shard explains to them that they’ve traveled from the Future to save both
of their times. Ororo is skeptical of such claims, but Shard asks her to explain
how else they could have gotten behind their lines. To which, she admits, ya that’s
weird. The siblings tell the Monroes (Hey, Logan doesn’t know his last name,
obviously he’d take hers) that they’re going to go back in time to save Charles
Xavier and that will fix all of this. They’re both skeptical this “Charles
Xavier” could do that much. They’re almost crushed by another walker and the
group rushes to get around it.
Shard shows the Munros a
holographic projection of Charles, explaining how he worked for Mutant rights
and did his best to bring Mutants and Humans together, forming the X-Men and
protecting the world. Bishop then adds that that was until someone from their time
went back and killed him. They also reveal that Ororo and Logan are members of
the X-Men and help fight for what’s right. They don’t sugar coat it, saying
that it is a constant battle, but basically anything beats “Post-Apocalypse or
just before it.” Ororo isn’t sure she can believe all this could be stopped by
one man, and Logan agrees, but Bishop insists they need help. A fight almost
breaks out between him and Bishop but Shard and Ororo keep them back. Ororo says
she believes in them and wants to help, but Logan asks her if she wants to
really undo everything. He somehow intuited that while their other selves work together,
they aren’t together-together. Bishop tells him that’s right. Storm asks
if he’d really condemn the world to protect their love. And without hesitation
Logan says, “You bet I would. Why would I care about anything else?” And lines
like that are why the short, angry Canadian has game. They kiss, but Ororo
apologizes, the two agree to go with. Shard shows them the future they’re from.
It’s the “Days of Future Past” timeline, the one where Sentinels rule the world
and are attempting to wipe out Mutant kind. She says it’s rough but with the
resistance there was hope, until the Mutant Traitor Fitzroy.
She shows them a security camera
feed they somehow got. Fitzroy is a Mutant with the ability to travel through
time. He cut a deal with the Master Mold to go back in time, kill Xavier, and
then be rewarded by the mega Sentinel. Master Mold likes the plan but straight
up tells Fitzroy that if it could time travel without him, it would. Because
the Master Mold isn’t an idiot, it doesn’t trust Fitzroy and his buddy Bantam
to do the job, so orders Nimrod to travel back with them as well. Master Mold
tells him to record his exploit, as if he’s successful the Master Mold might
not realize what happened, and that he’ll be rewarded by being the last Mutant
on Earth. Fitzroy drains another Mutant prisoner to power up and then opens the
portal. The Sentinels found and destroyed the camera after that. Bishop says
they went to a New England college, May 11th, 1959, at 9 pm. They slap
timebands on the Munros, saying that they’ll need to make a pitstop to 2055 to
recalibrate their tech to send them farther back. They have to hurry, if the
timeline change reaches that point before they’re finished, they’re screwed.
They jump to the future.
We then jump to May 11th,
1959, as a young Charles argues with his professor Grey about the possibility of
something as absurd as the world being taken over by Human Mutants. He, the
TELEPATH, insists that evolution isn’t that quirky. Grey reminds him that
scientists really shouldn’t say “never.” Charles agrees with this but says that
he’s not even that interested in this line of work. He insists that another student,
Cindy, is the future researcher while he’s just going to be a family doctor.
They all part ways just as Bishop appears behind him, saying that wild Mutations
are totally a thing and that he read a paper Charles will write on the subject
in 1978. Coming on real strong there, Bishop ol’ boy. Charles is freaked out by
all this and tries to run but is cut off by the others. Ororo tells him that the
future rests on keeping him alive.
They hit up a coffee shop. The time
travelers explain via holograms all that is going to happen to Charles, which
is a lot for him to process. To prove their point, they insist Charles read
Bishop’s mind. He does so and gets the plot of all the Bishop-centered
episodes. It’s a lot to take in, he says that all he wants to be is a doctor,
but if the fate of the world is at stake… They’re interrupted by the owner
storming over to them. Turns out their server noticed the Monroes handholding
and told him, and that guy is classic 1950s racist. He tells them to beat it.
Charles is confused by this, as he’s a 20 something white guy. The owner says
that he tolerates the college kids, but he won’t risk trouble from “their”
kind, looking directly at the three Black people. Ororo notes that skin color
prejudice is so pathetic it’s almost quaint. Logan takes it worse, saying, “You
just insulted the woman I love, Low Life. (pops his claws) Now you can either Apologize,
or I will show you how intolerant I can be.” Ororo tells him to back off and
Logan throws him aside. Bishop insists that Charles needs to trust them, but
then a fight breaks out with some goons and Charles runs in the confusion. They
split up to try to find Charles. Ororo scolds her husband for losing his temper
again. He apologizes, saying that the thought of losing her has him on edge.
They spread out and find Charles…
only for it to turn out to be Nimrod. The opening scene plays out again, with the
X-Men blasting Nimrod to bits. They search for Charles, finding Fitzroy and
Bantam after they finish their work. Fitzroy drains a bystander, and they
teleport away. And, unfortunately, Nimrod rebuilds itself. Charles opens the door
and sets off the fuse that causes the explosion that kills him. Well crap.
This is one of the best two-part
stories in the X-Men: TAS run. Charles Xavier gets a lot of good press
in the show for being the calming voice in terms of Human/Mutant relations,
doing his best to reduce the fears in the former and try to soothe the anger of
the latter, but this is the first time we see what could happen without that
voice. Is it a little far fetched to think that one dude is somehow the bulwark
stopping an all-out war between Homo Sapiens and Homo Superior? Yes. But if the
difference is only one person, then it is definitely Charles if that makes
sense. I like how even with video evidence and the fact his visitors are clearly
not of his world at the very least that Charles has trouble accepting any of
this. Imagine being 22 or so and having a weird guy with a mullet meeting you
and saying you’re one of the most important people in history. I’d run too. I
don’t know if Logan/Ororo story started with this episode or that was part of
the storyline they were adapting, but there is zero doubt in my mind that it helped
solidify Logan as at least the number two option for Ororo under T’Challa
himself. And if you told me they were tied for first place, I’d believe you. Their
relationship and how it’s like the single bright spot in this bleak world and
yet Logan is extremely hesitant to lose it makes this story incredibly sad. I
do find it weird that Logan immediately jumped to them not being a thing in the
not-awful timeline, but maybe he just didn’t see a ring on either finger and
made an assumption. The fact that this is ultimately a plan concocted by a Mutant
in order to save his own skin from the Sentinels makes sense in a depressing
way. In every conflict there are people that are willing to sell everyone else
out to get ahead. Fitzroy, the little we see of him here, seems like an incredibly
scummy dude, above and beyond the fact he seems to need to drain others to use
his power. Rogue does her best to not hurt people and tries to ask before touching
them, while this asshole grabs the closest available body. And I liked that Fitzroy
ended up being the bigger threat here than the literal Mutant hunting Robot.
Nimrod definitely slowed them down and would have killed Charles without aid,
but in the end a very simple bomb took out peace’s biggest activist. Tragic.
The scene with the coffee shop owner has lived rent free in my head for decades
now. This version of Logan loves hard and the worst thing you can do is disrespect
the love of his life when he’s in the room. Next time, we’ll see how to sort
out this time travel mess. See you then.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/130148609/
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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