X-Men '97: Episode 3 Review/Spoilers

[Saturius]

They covered a lot in 30 minutes. Almost too much as things are starting to feel very fast paced, but it still works I think. I'm still trying to decide. The animation is INSANE in parts. I laughed out loud when Jean put her hair in a ponytail. Gotta distinguish between the two somehow. And minor nitpick, but it's very odd how they keep making Jean's eyes blue.

[Frobisher]

I loved it, but then felt a bit sad that it wasn’t a two parter, and at no point did a character appear mind-controlled in bondage gear while another said they possessed them “mind, body, and soul”. Comics Inferno was too insanely complicated to replicate faithfully though - being the culmination of plots for three separate books. We can always dream this will one day inspire an MCU full demonic invasion of Manhattan!

[xiyon]

So now the X-Men have two Jean's. Jean reads Jean's mind and sees that Jean is very dense; she mostly has vague memories of flashbacks from the original show, "as if her awareness was born only yesterday." Jean had woken up in a laboratory, escaped, saw the X-Men on TV and found hope in her life. (Relatable.)

A red diamond briefly appears on our Jean's head, and Sinister flashes on screen for a moment. Our Jean screams and almost faints. Well, she tried and it's a mystery. Nothing they can dBEAST WITH THE SAVE. He reveals that he used gamma radiation to check their DNA: Jane Doe is her proper age, while our Jean is not. Ergo, our Jean is a clone.

So Jean's pissed and says that someone with bad intentions must have sabotaged Beast's science. She looks to Scott for back-up, but even he's doubting her. In a very Maddy moment, our Jean shatters Beast's science stuff and insists that she's the real Jean Grey. She starts guilt-tripping all of them, then takes baby Nathan and walks away..

Later, our Jean talks to Scott, guilting him more about the life they were setting up. Scott says that he trusts her, but she calls him out for lying and she tells him to go. And right as he leaves, a mysterious voice comes out of the baby monitor, seeking to speak with her.

Meanwhile, Beast is checking Bishop's time watch. Once it's all fixed up, Bish will be able to go back to his time. Cyclops points out that, for a guy from the future, he sure didn't know a lot about what was happening. Bishop WELL ACKSHUALLYs that time is a book that's constantly being rewritten. Beast interrupts: his science has determined that Sinister is behind everything.

Meanwhile, Sinister is bothering Jean, who hates him. To her horror, he reveals that he created her. He can also control her against her will. He has her wreck the room and undergo a magical girl transformation to turn goth.

Meanwhile, Gambit, Morph and Wolverine leave the Danger Room, sweating and panting. Morph checks the schedule and reveals that Rogue and Magneto booked the danger room next, and for all of tomorrow as well. Gambit leaves to see Rogue, while Wolverine leaves to see one of the Jeans. Morph decides to have a shower scene. Except when he's alone in the locker room, the showers turn on, and he finds Wolverine. He cracks jokes about wanting to help him wash up, but Sinister-Wolverine is all, "Always with the jokes. But We Know. We All Know."

Sunspot and Jubes are experiencing weird things while they watch TV. One of the actress comes out of the TV as a monster with Sunspot's mom's head. Gambit goes to Xavier's Office and sees Rogneto in their Savage Land outfits, fusing together. Cyclops and Bishop head to the crib to get the baby away from Maddy, but a monster shows up and grabs them. A monstrous version of Xavier taunts Scott about his failures. Shard's head guilts Bishop about abandoning his time, and her.

So they're all in Hell now, fighting their literal and figurative demons. While everyone fights back, Bishop is the one to kick the most ass. He charges up with Cyke's blasts and vaporizes all of the demons. But then a giant demon Sentinal arrives tOh wait, the real Jean shows up to shut down all the demon hallucinations and return things to normal.

And then she faints. Maddy shows up and calls her pathetic. Scott tells her that she doesn't have to be evil and mind-controlled, but she says that she's beyond Jean Grey, she is fire and brimstone and yadda yadda. She's animated really well, her boobs are looking insane and her hair is huge. I love that for her. And she's walking right out with her babby.

Later, the X-Men lick their wounds. Rogneto shows up and Rogue is quick to check on Remy first. Scott feels bad that he couldn't protect Jean or his son. Morph, having a personal history with Sinister, says he can lead the others to him.

Meanwhile, Sinister dumps the baby in some slime. The X-Men find Sinister's lair, though Morph tells the others to not kill the clone Jean, since she's under Sinister's control. Maddy mocks him, then talks smack about Scott being Xavier's little follower. She brainwashes Morph into fighting for her, but Magneto decides to 1v1 Maddy himself. And the choreography for this fight is really good, I gotta say.

Magneto starts losing, but Cyclops shoots Maddy in the face, drawing blood. He apologized, but Maddy smiles as she wipes the blood from her lips and wow, she's actually kinda hot and I think we should keep her instead of the real Jean. She then embraces him and gives him a kiss on the lips. "Don't worry. You'll bleed too, darling."

Meanwhile, Jean is struggling to remember how to control her powers. So she's pretty much useless at the moment. But Wolverine's there to power-simp until she finally remembers her past. She senses that Scott's in danger, almost faints again, and declares that she has to go help him. Beats tells her to stay in bed. So she does - but she sends her mind out to telepathically fight Madds.

The girls fight on a mental plane. The Goblin Queen is pissed, saying that Jean took her face, husband, family, and now her mind. Enough violation! She remembers the power of the Phoenix, and... Jean stops her there. She sends them on a flashback to when they met Xavier. And then farther, when their childhood friend Annie got hit by a car and was isekai'd to another world. This pain helped awaken their powers.

Jean is surprised by the emotional pain they feel. Maddie insists that it's her [Maddie's] pain, not Jean's. "We are what we remember. And YOU remember nothing." Maddie pushes Jean into a giant Jean's mouth, and the two get vore'd. Maddie flashes back to giving birth to her baby, and she remembers the love she feels for him. This is more than a memory to her, and Jean confirms that he's a living reminder of the pure love two people can share.

Sinny's control over Maddie is broken, so she teams up with Cyclops to save Nathan. Sinister says that they have doomed the boy before leaving. Doomed how? Well, Nathan is now infected with the TO virus.

Well, Beast's science can't help, the virus strain is too advanced for him. Maddie proposes that they can send Nathan to the future to save the babby. Bishop knows someone who might help, but his device only has enough juice to take him and Nathan. Despite Maddie's pleas, Scott doesn't want to abandon his son and refuses to be a part of this. Later, Maddie telepathically gives a message of love to her child, so he'll always know he was cared for. Bishop leaves with Nathan.

Maddie, too, chooses to leave the Mansion. Jean says that she can stay here, as it's also her home. Jean remembers everything now, though neither Maddie nor Jean are sure when the switch was made, who married Scott, who was the Phoenix, etc. Maddie asks to be called Maddoe, and she takes off. She has a certain mutant who has the ability to unbutton a blouse. That's right, Hellion retrieval arc.

Meanwhile, Storm is in her punk outfit, drinking at a bar. Forge meets up with her. Introducing himself, he says that he's an old friend of Xavier's and wants to help her try and get back what she lost.

Notes:

• Jean wears a ponytail. I'm thinking this Jean will wear the ponytail, while all those images of Jean with her hair down were just Maddie. I really hope that isn't the case. Her ponytail is ugly.
• Morph transformations: Spiral, New Mutants-era teen Illyana, Darkchylde Illyana,
• Disney+ is not translating Sunspot's Portuguese. Which is inconvenient, because I thiiiink I hear a grammatical error at one point, but I can't hear it well enough to get the whole thing.

Did... Yanna ever appear in TAS? Man, Morph is a walking cameo!

[Steroid]

The episode was fantastic and the animation was very good. I'm not thrilled with the fact that Bishop has already left and Storm isn't with the team but I wouldn't expect anything less from Marvel.

[Daithi]

They're hardly going to adapt the Askani stuff are they.

[sunofdarkchild]

Did... Yanna ever appear in TAS? Man, Morph is a walking cameo!

She appeared as a kid in 1 of the Colossus episodes where Omega Red was the bad guy.

[thefinalguy]

Bishop leaving , Sunspot doesn’t even seem to be Black in this show , and Storm has that Mohawk.

And, I don’t mind Storm not being with the team since it’s an actual comic storyline and it’s never been touched in any outside media before.

I do like the show more than I thought so far my biggest issues are : the above , the animation at points, too fast paced and while I’m fine with it now I can see that being issue going forward.

Morph turning into Illyana was a nice surprise. I wonder if that was the shows way of doing cameos for characters that wouldn’t otherwise fit.

[Veni]

Great episode and I loved the animation.
Morph turning into Illyana suggests she already has awakened her mutant power and she has probably visited the X-Men several times before the the events of '97.
One thing I did notice is that Sunspot and his parents are Pardo Brazilians ( Mixed-Race Brazilians) on the show. In the comics, his father is African-Brazilian and his mother is European-American while on the show all 3 of them are Pardo-Brazillians ( probably mixed Indigenous-European Brazilians).

[IllusiveGorn]

Exchanging memories scene was beautiful and very heartwarming.

Seems like Morph, while being experimented by Essex, heared quite a lot of his talk about how things were better in the Victorian age. Really liked that Sinister is portrayed as both cultured individual and horrific monster, although a missed opportunity to not point that Nathan is named after him.

[Veni]

Bishop leaving , Sunspot doesn’t even seem to be Black in this show , and Storm has that Mohawk.

And, I don’t mind Storm not being with the team since it’s an actual comic storyline and it’s never been touched in any outside media before.

I do like the show more than I thought so far my biggest issues are : the above , the animation at points, too fast paced and while I’m fine with it now I can see that being issue going forward.

Morph turning into Illyana was a nice surprise. I wonder if that was the shows way of doing cameos for characters that wouldn’t otherwise fit.

Latin America doesn't use the one-drop rule. If you look white, you're white. If you look black, you are black. If you look mixed, you are mixed. If you look indigenous, you're indigenous.

[BESTXMAN]

Ok I had to go to work but I am settled now and have time to formulate my thoughts.

I feel this episode was horrifically written.

First of all who is the real Jean Grey? Because even now it feels like the Clone is the real one and the new one is clearly the fake out.

They blew by all of Inferno in 10 mins and should have taken their time to really tell this story as a whole season arc. There is zero emotional connection to baby Cable for instance? He was born at the end of episode 2 and he is already gone at the end of episode 3. What?!!! All because the fans are like "Oh yeah, it's baby Cable" but any new fans are not going to give a **** about that character as a baby or his connection to Scott, Jean and or Madelyne. Also where the hell did she get the name from at the end? The whole things was just rushed drivel and honestly a huge step back from the first two episodes. I don't know who wrote this but they have ruined the show for me. They have character assassinated not just SCOTT but all of the X-Men with the way they treated Jean/Madelyne. And all so they could do their little scene with Jean and Logan to advance that tired and bullshit triangle that only Wolverine fans care about at this point. You are telling me Jean didn't know how this guy felt about her? LMFAO. Only to make that poor fool suffer in the end when it is revealed she is not the real Jean but the one everyone thought the clone actually was. Just like they did with Spiderman in the comics. What makes me think this? Jean Grey would have done what "Madelyne" did with baby Cable before sending him to the future, NOT MADELYNE. Unless the writing is that much worse than I thought.

[Veni]

She appeared as a kid in 1 of the Colossus episodes where Omega Red was the bad guy.

A possible future version of Magik also appeared in the episode "Time Fugitives" as part of a vision that Cable had.

[ChildOfTheAtom]

They're hardly going to adapt the Askani stuff are they.

i think it’ll be shard/bishop raising cable

i feel sinister gets the dna in season 2 and the switch happened during beyond good and evil… jean wears her hair different in season 5

[Ilargi]

The show is moving fast forward, but I loved the episode. Madelyne was spectacular.

I hope Bishop comes back soon and we get to see Maddie again.

[ChildOfTheAtom]

Theres an added scene of Magneto vs Storm, Beast and Cyclops,

Lilandra with Xavier in space,

Dark Phoenix vs Scott,

Rogue kissing her hand over Gambits lips on the basketball court with Logan and Jubilee watching

thanks a lot!