X-Men '97 Episode 9 - Tolerance is Extinction Part 2 *spoilers*

[Mercury]

As for DeMayo, words can't express how much he's done for not only Jean but all our favorite mutants. Jean's moments with Ororo, who recognized her sister in heart and spirit with words that continue to leave me wordless...words that show she recognizes her like no other:

"I thought of you while away...of when my sister faced her darkness and emerged...stronger, a survivor...a PHOENIX. All this change...it's all the same. Let us do what we do: BELIEVE. Not in a dream, or our gifts, but in each other."



I cried.

[Mercury]

And her fight with Sinister, who she pummeled to a pulp, and Cable, who she held herself back from destroying...the son she was deprived of by the abuse of a madman...



I cried again.

[starduck]

Rewatching the episode, I feel like ghost Maddie will be the one to save Jean and Cable from Sinister

[Frontier]

Opening Update! Storm's new costume is now prominently displayed in her intro! Though I'm kind of surprised they didn't do Jubilee's. Also the people running in-between the big hero and villains end sequence are now Prime Sentinel.

It's a new day dawning, Professor Xavier has lost the love of his life and the use of his legs again, Magneto is back to his iconic red suit and helmet and back to swearing vengeance against humankind, Mutants are on the run...but Storm still makes an epic entrance.

I guess even after turning her into a Prime Sentinel, Bastion still loved his mother. Maybe he really thinks turning them into killer robots is the best thing for humanity now. But the tragic irony is that if Professor Xavier had had a chance to mentor Bastion's abilities, instead of his mom trying to make him feel so "normal" and closed off, maybe he wouldn't have ended up like this.

I think Xavier really meant well. He wanted his two kids to be happy and get to live a life of peace to really build a family, like he planned to do with Lilandra, and he also wanted to believe that his old friend could turn over a new leaf and believe in his dream. And to be fair, Magneto seemed to be coming around before the Genosha attack happened. And he had no idea of the Summers-Grey family drama that would erupt because of Sinister. I guess maybe the lesson in all this is that it's fruitless for people like the X-Men to imagine having a life outside the team or not constantly fighting for their right to live.

I'm genuinely surprised there was no addressing of the Maddie situation. Like, no questioning how Xavier never noticed the clone? And as nice as Jean and Storm's reunion was, part of the reason Jean was so overjoyed was probably because this is the first time she's seen Storm in forever while Storm probably still thinks Jean was Maddie.

Beast and Forge. Science bros.

It's kind of funny seeing them outright call the teams Blue and Gold, though the rosters weren't perfect matches.

So the Prime Sentinels CAN be saved. But should they? I mean, obviously there were bigots and anti-Mutant people who were involved in the process, but people like Trish are basically just innocents who had no idea what they would be transforming into. You can't just write them off like that.

So what was Magneto's plan exactly? Let the Earth fall into ruin and wipe off the entire populace while he, Rogue, and Roberto are all that remains to restart civilization on Asteroid M 2.0? I get that he's probably consumed with rage and grief and might not be thinking rationally, but it's pretty above and beyond a sense of reason at that point.

I see Rogue wasn't just wearing her old Brotherhood costume because it was retro costume week, but because she was going to join up with Magneto. Ultimately I can't help but feel like she's making the same mistake she made choosing to be with Magneto over Gambit, especially when Remy would be the first in line to tell her not to go through with this, but she's still as overcome with grief and anger as Magnus. Though she had some REALLY harsh call outs for her team, particularly Storm and Morph. Like, this is your family who accepted you and have always been there for you, and this is how you talk to them? Especially Storm.

It's kind of funny how they finally put Roberto into an X-Men suit and then he immediately bails on the team to jump ship to Magneto. Like, I get that his mom's betrayal hit hard but at the same time...kind of a lot to then write off an entire planet in the process. Not to mention betraying your (probably now ex-)girlfriend.

Time to go back to the classics! Scott in his 70's costume with the cowl! Jean in the Marvel Girl dress and mask! Wolverine in his tan and brown costume! Cable in his blue X-Men suit (complete with a dig at the Fox movies' obsession with black leather)! Morph has shoulder pads! Beast...still in his undies!

So with Moira dead (glad Charles acknowledged that) what will be done with Muir Island? Is that going to be the X-Men's base moving forward with the mansion destroyed?

If this season has taught me anything it's that no matter what you do...there will always be Sentinels.

Honestly I think Forge flies the Blackbird better than Cyclops does.

It's kind of funny in hindsight that the Motendo episode kind of predicted Magneto would be the Final Boss (or at least one of the final bosses) and Jubilee would be on the away mission to take him down.

Morph transforms into 90's animated Hulk! You can tell because of the hair!

Man, they really upped Beasts' strength level. Has he ever been able to tear through a Sentinel's hand and then slap it back at it?

Jean finally takes on Mister Sinister for some much needed payback for bother herself and Maddie and both get to show off their powersets. Even Cable gets to finally show off his TK and go all X-Man on his stepmom, because he's been Sinisterized.

Jeez 'Berto, if you're going to commit to this, commit, don't apologize after attacking someone, even if it's the girl you love. Though it seems like his and Jubilee's powers are good matches for each other.

I can kind of see where Scott is coming from, Gold Team needed more time and they wouldn't have been able to succeed with Prime Sentinels coming back online...but he also took away possibly their only chance of stopping Magneto in the process and showed he's willing to attack the Professor if he feels he has to (especially for his family). I'm curious what the fallout of this will be.

Anyone who knows their comic history knew what was going to happen the moment they confirmed Wolverine was on the away team to Asteroid M, but they finally adapt one of the most iconic moments in comics...Wolverine stabbing Magneto (!!!) and Magneto ripping the adamantium out of his skin. Are we going to get bone claws Wolverine next week?

Not everyone who underwent the procedure did so necessarily with racist motivations. Like Bastion said, some are just scared of being left behind and powerless in a metahuman future and wanted to join in.

And probably a majority of them did not knowingly sign off on turning into rabid mutant killing robots.

[nx01a]

Beautiful. Simply beautiful.

>What a great interpretation of Fatal Attractions and The Magneto War! Asteroid M descending complete with auroras looked sweet. Rogue joining Erik makes perfect sense, putting her in the Colossus role with Gambit as Illyana. Sunspot? Not so much, apart from being an impulsive teenager. Maybe Jubilee should have told him about their baby to try and make him stay. (I kid! I kid!) I can't fault Mags for reacting this way to Leech's vividly horrific death among the thousands of equally horrific deaths on Genosha. Leech is also an Illyana-like figure here in that his senseless death pushed a good man (well, Erik was trying really hard to be good) over the edge. Scott blasting Charles to stop his mental assault on Magneto to buy his wife and child time to survive is pretty much Colossus punching out Bishop to save Magneto in Uncanny #304.
>For all the carnage we saw in Genosha, nothing this season has been as visceral to me as seeing those three blood-soaked claws protruding from Erik's chest. And the adamantium removal? Pitch perfect.
>Erik reading Charles to FILTH for EVERYTHING he's done wrong! Storm has nice speeches but DAMN can Erik SPIT!
>The humans in the intro are still Prime Sentinels. LOL!
>The puns! All the puns!!!
"Make them mind your weather, sister." "And make them weather your mind."
"I know your genes, Jean."
Beast basically giving a more classy interpretation of, "What did the five fingers say to the face?!"
Magneto's mettle comment while restraining Charles with metal and his telepathy-blocking helmet.
>Sunspot living on Claremont Avenue. Cute.
>DeMayo's Diner getting demolished by a Sentinel head. Was dude foreshadowing his own firing? Everything that's a reference to him so far has been annihilated by Sentinels. Does this mean that The Mouse is a Master Mold, and does it hate the gays?!
>"KNOW YOUR ROLE, MUTANT!"
>Why did Bastion register initially as a mutant? His enhancements are techno-organic... or is he a mutant technopath that the future Nimrods knew about and decided to infect and control in the past?
>Bastion mourning his mother. Creepy since he turned her into an emotionless husk in the first place but still touching.
>I wasn't a fan of the retro costumes apart from Storm's, Logan's, and Rogue's.
>Sinister casually swishing away from Jean's initial attacks, ending with a flip and a flourish of his cape like a mixture of ice skater and gymnast. That's the Sassy Sinister I like!
>Jean holding her own against Sinister and Cable? Not a fainting spell in sight?! Wonderful! Hitting him with bowling balls and an arcade game? Exquisite! With Magneto down and both teams on the losing side, Jean better harness the Phoenix one more time to save the planet and stop Bastion!
>Cable possessed by Sinister. Wouldn't somebody have checked for that command override in the many intervening decades?
>The minute I saw Storm and Forge looking lovingly at each other in the air, I knew it was going to crash and burn.
>Storm, girl. I know you're touchy about the neutralizer but it's the fate of mutants and humans at stake. Get over it, at least in this apocalyptic case.
>Morph's Hulk impression was funny, and nice try impersonating Sinister even though the mutant detectors would have been dinging loudly the minute you entered the facility. I really hope Morph doesn't have to sacrifice himself to help save the day.
>Were any of Morph's moves or Jean's or Cable's taken from the video games? There was a fighting game cinematic feel to them.
>I guess the finale will be Charles mind-wiping Erik in anger for what he did to Wolverine, making the perfect spawning ground for Onslaught.

I loved this episode. So far, it's up there with #3 and #5 as the best this season so far. Only one more to go! I want season two for X-Mas!!!!

Now for some of my fave shots...
>You can't tell me this wasn't a direct homage!
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And this is basically Jean meeting Storm again in Uncanny #242!
vlcsnap-2024-05-08-21h18m26s764.jpg

[Sin Nick]

With how fast paced things the story beats go in this show, I wouldn't even be surprised if Onslaught manifests right there on Asteroid M. Maybe Jean senses Logan dying and goes Phoenix while quickly dispatching Cable in the process. She quickly races to space to save everyone and deals with Onslaught too. After that, we see Cable back to his senses and along with Storm and Forge, they deal with Bastion. Oh and both Magneto and Xavier die(for real this time).

[whitecrown]

I thought Cyclops was a total asshole to Xavier and it was completely misplaced. Didn't like the way he came off in this episode at all.

Other than that my favorite scenes like many were the Jean and Storm ones. Great characterization.

I agree. I didn't like his behavior towards Xavier. When Xavier reached out his hand, I thought Cyclops was going to go over and hug him but he just walked right past him. Very entitled behavior. Xavier doesn't deserve this disdain.

Also if you going after a dude that controls metal then probably best not to send the guy with 300 pounds of metal inside of him. Seems fairly obvious if you splitting into 2 teams Wolverine should go with the team going after Bastion.

Of course it had to happen so we can get the iconic moment but not the best tactical decision their Cyke.

Even in the original Fatal Attraction, Wolverine was sent to Avalon despite his adamantium skeleton. Xavier created the team to infiltrate the base and he picked Wolverine specifically for his stealth skills (same with Gambit). Rogue and Quicksilver were chosen for their close relationship to Magneto. Jean to help boost Xavier's psychic power.

So... didn't like going back to the pre-90s looks, but also didn't like anything from the comics after 1995, including Age of Apocalypse (which I disagree with him on with regards to his position that most fans didn't like that story). Basically, keep it to 1990-94 only. Pretty tight window, bud. And they might be out of material to adapt in that case. Ha.

Imo, anything before 2001 is fine. Keep it in the 20th century. Everything afterwards was mostly trash anyway.

With how fast paced things the story beats go in this show, I wouldn't even be surprised if Onslaught manifests right there on Asteroid M. Maybe Jean senses Logan dying and goes Phoenix while quickly dispatching Cable in the process. She quickly races to space to save everyone and deals with Onslaught too. After that, we see Cable back to his senses and along with Storm and Forge, they deal with Bastion. Oh and both Magneto and Xavier die(for real this time).

Bastion is one of Beau's favorite characters, OZT his favorite comic, and X-Men: Next Dimension his favorite game. The game ends with Jean becoming Phoenix and destroying Bastion in space so I can see something similar happening here because there's now way Logan can survive this without Jean's powers keeping him togeth

[nx01a]

More great shots...

Cable going manga when he does his best Tetsuo impression.
Attachment 139411
Xavier and Magneto's first attempt at conceiving Onslaught.
Attachment 139412
Brutal. Perfect.
Attachment 139413

The shot for shot callbacks to specific epic comic panels are SO good!!

[whitecrown]

Anyone else bothered by the fact this show showed more intimacy between Jean and Storm in 1 episode than Jean and Scott the whole show? Also doesn't help thst Beau says Storm returning is the return of "wisdom". A shot at both Professor X and Scott's lack of leadership.

The character dynamics are really poorly done in thos show, especially on the male side. I wouldnt be shocked to hear Beau has no male friends. There's no real male energy in this show which I'd probably why I don't vibe with it. This I'd the worst writing for make characters in the Xmen ever. Scott is the only one with a story that matters but his storyline is just him leaving leadership to Storm.

That makes Beau the perfect successor to Claremont. Even Byrne used to complain that Storm came across as a lesbian and more in love with Jean than Cyclops was in their original run because of Claremont's writing. How Cyclops started becoming unpopular as early as then because fans saw him as such a tool because Storm seemed to have more affection for Jean.

Didn't you see the Beast/Forge friendship here? Or Xavier/Magneto for that matter?

[whitecrown]

Beau already confirmed that Leech was dead a few weeks ago but was hoping that could still be reversed until Magneto's dialogue in this episode. Very tragic. Leech did not need to go out that way.

[nx01a]

And finally, this shot was one of the most chilling and graphic things in the season for me.
Erik's eyes, the perspective making the bloody claws poking out of him seem impossibly large and long... Chilling.
vlcsnap-2024-05-09-00h20m56s203.jpg

[Frontier]

I definitely think they've mentioned Jean and the Phoenix too often for it not to pop up in the finale. Maybe their trump card is her channeling the Phoenix Force again, if only for a moment.

Also having Wolverine cut through the Prime Sentinels might have been lulling people into a false sense of security that they wouldn't go far enough of him stabbing Magneto through until he did.

[Sin Nick]

I definitely think they've mentioned Jean and the Phoenix too often for it not to pop up in the finale. Maybe their trump card is her channeling the Phoenix Force again, if only for a moment.

Also having Wolverine cut through the Prime Sentinels might have been lulling people into a false sense of security that they wouldn't go far enough of him stabbing Magneto through until he did.

After seeing Gambit get impaled I figured all bets were off. The thing is Wolverine was never put in a scenario(til now) to do what he does best. Had he gone up against the X-Cutioner in episode 2, I felt that would've been the perfect opportunity to show early on this show was pulling no punches.

[Kal-El Summers]

I'm wondering if there'll be any consequences/lasting reprecussions for both Rogue and 'Berto defecting to Erik's side. Like, I'm not saying the X-Men would outright shun either of them coming back, but a lot of relationships are gonna be severely strained, if not out-right burned to the ground(like 'Berto and Jubilee). Also, while it was a bit excessive, Scott was in the right to be angry at Charles for essentially making decisions for both he and Jean/Maddie even if his heart was in the right place.

[KurtW95]

Terrible. Not every show need to be Invinciblified. We may be adults here, but it is pretty selfish to shut the door behind you and make a property that should be okay to let kids watch to get into comics into a bloodfest. TAS was great because it was mature enough to be enjoyed no matter your age but was safe to show children to get them into comics and the characters. And changing almost all of the costumes is a bad move. Rogue's UA outfit is awful and every character already had their best costumes already save Storm. I do like the Cockrum look on her. Morph's powers make no sense at all. He should not get the powers of his shifted personas. Magneto going full villain again was annoying regression. And Rogue going with him makes no sense at all. And they are completely ignoring continuity in having Charles need them to remove the helmet to get inside his mind, as that was not a concept until the movies and he made Magnus relive his childhood with the helmet on in the first series. Why oh why could they have not just let the people who did the first series handle it.