X-Men '97: Episode 5 Review/Spoilers

[yogaflame]

This was my least favorite episode so far. I had been so impressed by the previous ones, I was ready to see Fall of The Mutants and all of that condensed into one episode, only to find they used over half the episode on Charles/Lilandra, and barely used anything from the actual story of how Storm got her powers back. When someone pointed out Beau didn't write this one, it made more sense.

Sure, the owl skinwalker design for Adversary SLAPS, and the weird head twisting this episode was creepy and all, but like, Adversary was such a huge threat in the comics, and the whole team had to be sacrificed so Forge could banish him the same way he summoned him(which I thought we would actually get a bit of; the battlefield incident where Forge was maimed and used the souls of his platoon to summon demons to kill the opposition forces), but we didn't get ANY of that. Also, Ororo reciprocating Forge's love without the year on that alternate earth alone with him felt WAYYYYYY too fast, but this is the same girl who was ready to marry Arkon in one episode, so I guess it tracks.

I'm not going to harp on this too much, because I loved the actual sequence with Storm getting her powers back and summoning her diadem and everything, but they definitely skipped the part where Ororo realizes she's still very dangerous even without her powers and could still operate with the team just as a strategist and hand to hand fighter. I was hoping we'd get a scene of her slicing up a horde of demons on the way to the top of a magic mountain with just a knife, but alas, it was not to be so, so we could see the most boring space empire scenes. I agree, new Xavier's voice just isn't hitting right. And his classroom session was pretty weak. Oh well, whatever, Storm's back in the game and ready to smite Sentinels again, bring on the next episode.

[charliehustle415]

pretty lackluster especially coming from last week's episode.

I feel like the showrunners feared not getting picked up for another season so they are blowing their loads on these 10 episodes.

I wish the episode order was different and paced a little different because it's like whiplash.

[yogaflame]

pretty lackluster especially coming from last week's episode.

I feel like the showrunners feared not getting picked up for another season so they are blowing their loads on these 10 episodes.

I wish the episode order was different and paced a little different because it's like whiplash.

It reminds me of the first season of the OG TAS, like, they pack in soooo many stories and characters because they're not sure if it's their only chance. At this rate, they will burn through too many stories before season 3's a wrap. Many of these stories could have benefited from some breathing room, but the pacing somehow worked for me in 3 and 5, so maybe there's some method to their madness. Still, some important beats have been overlooked in this fast dash through continuity.

[PyroFN]

Wow. A lot of negativity here. Not that that is a bad thing. To each their own. I just find it fascinating because this episode appears to be a general hit with the casual audience and I personally find it an overall mixed episode of good and bad choices.

I whole-heartedly agree with the Storm and Forge romance. Was not needed and was not implemented properly. Very rushed. Very messily handled (though I laughed at the mention of Arkon in this thread. Never has there been a truer comparison of this episode)

I think the only ones who will have issue with the episode are the die-hard comic fans. They are the ones most familiar with how the original was handled and it was very clear that the only going by the the highlights of the story does not do it justice fully in any aspect beyond Storm’s inner turmoil. Not a terrible choice, since Storm’s struggle with bigotry against mutantkind is incredibly interesting to behold and, after episode 5, it hits even harder after everything that has happened.

Storm not getting to demonstrate her physical strategy and combat skills appears more an issue with die-hard fans of Storm. I think most of the casual fanbase just want to see Storm go through her struggles and develop as a character, whereas the bigger fans want Storm’s other facets highlighted to show how many layers of her character there are. I personally am fine with it because I think weaknesses and struggles increases the stakes of the story and we have episodes like when Storm became leader of the Morlocks highlighting her close combat skills to show she is not simply just a long-range user. But it is a double-edged sword in that it does take also a lot of the Lifedeath story and the Forge can’t carry with how messily it was handled, leaving it solely on Storm’s personal issues. The best one can hope for is maybe Storm fans using the exposure of the episode as an opportunity to talk about how much better the original story was without undermining the experience of the casual crowd who did have a good time seeing Storm rise above her struggles and coming out as the Omega Goddess that the show calls her.

The Shi’ar stuff I liked a lot more mostly because it highlights a part of Xavier that has been missing from the X-Men comics for a good long while. His aspect as a teacher and the tragedy of his obligation as the pioneer of his dream. I find the criticism around this part of the episode far less understandable than the Storm critiques. Like….people want Xavier to stay in space to give the X-Men room to breathe…..but they don’t want to actually explore how Xavier fits into the new environment he was taken too? No one has beyond the casual audience has any investment in Xavier’s struggle in teaching an alien race about a different path than their conquest heavy barbarism that leads to them colonizing entire civilizations across Imperiums while simultaneously trying to respect their culture and history? No one finds it heartbreaking that Xavier chooses to sacrifice his personal life for a dream that his X-Men were supposed to carry on in his absence, thereby possibly ruining any future relationship with the Shi’ar Empire, showing the hypocritical double-standard of politics where a person has to work within their parameters, no matter how unfair the laws make it for the marginalized?

Overall, seeing the discourse of the episode has been as fascinating to behold as figuring out the message the episode itself is trying to tell. I can say it was far from perfect or even measurable to the last episode, but I would say it has a lot more substance than episode 3 did.

[Frontier]

Opening updates! Nightcrawler has now replaced Magneto in the OP (which is probably foreshadowing him joining the team), and we also have visuals of that two-parter where Wolverine and Storm as future loves from an alternate timeline with Bishop try to stop Nimrod. Also shots of Xavier and Lilandra's love and the X-Men vs the Imperial Guard!

Can I just say what an amazing job Alison Sealy-Smith did in this episode as both Storm and the Adversary? From one minute gripping emotional pathos and charm, the next pure vile and self-loathing...and she pulled it off fantastically!

Oh they used the same magic effect as the MCU Sorcerers!

I really did not expect to see Ronan the Accuser show up in my X-Men cartoon...not that he did much but get beat up. But it was nice to see him.

It was nice to see Deathbird finally get a speaking appearance, and both her and Lilandra's new VA did a great job as the two sisters and their sibling rivalry over the fate of the Shi'ar.

Arakki was the least enthused about the engagement announcement.

I know there was some speculation that they would've retconned Xavier's survival at the end of the original series, but it was nice to see Charles again (and walking!) and it was especially nice to see a classic, likeable, version of Xavier again...even if Ross Marquand is still merely a decent imitation of Cedric Smith. Still, good stuff.

Gladiator is so powerful that you really want to make sure you're rightfully on the throne so he's on your side.

I love Xavier strutting his powers to take the entire Shi'ar and their culture to class to teach them a better way, complete with them having to raise their hands to speak. How many times have demerits been mentioned this season? It's just too bad sensing the attack on Genosha, and Gambit's death, made him realize his place is on Earth rather than by Lilandra's side...he could never give up on the X-Men.

But hey, at least Deathbird's not on the throne!

Forge really straining this new relationship and Ororo admitting she loves him too by almost immediately making her deal with her claustrophobia.

Storm learned what it means to be human and to be powerless, and the conviction to fight on despite that powerlessness, but that was also to make her realize her limitations and her humanity so she could regain her FULL power....COMPLETE WITH REGAINING HER FLOWING MANE OF HAIR AND HER CLASSIC COSTUME AS DESIGNED BY DAVE COCKRUM AS SHE FLIES INTO THE SKY. THE MISTRESS OF THE ELEMENTS HAS RETURNED.

I wonder if they're going to reuse the animation of shot of her flying in the sky before she swung by the animals for her new intro sequence.

Ororo really seemed to be considering going on a vacation with Forge...until she hears about Genosha (and it gets worse, other nations won't accept any surviving Mutants). Though Forge seemed to recognize the Tri-Sentinel Master Mold. Does he know who was involved in it? Recognizing Bastion?

Though it seems like the real orchestrator of the attack was none other than...Mr. Sinister, using Bolivar Trask to gain access to Sentinel Tech. Not sure what Sinister gets out of killing so many Mutants.

[Psy-lock]

I'm very glad Storm got her powers back by episode 6. After so many pathetic showings in movies and cartoons, it feels like she's been powerless for decades.

[FlawedCoil82]

I said this in the other thread, but as much as I prefer the more classic looks and line-up, it feels strange to me for a show called X-Men 97 to be drifting away from the 90s costumes and vibe. That seems to be such a part of this show's uniquely identity, you know? Regardless of what era was being adapted, it was always a pretty consistent team with a consistent look from that era. Its kind of what separates it from just being another X-Men adaptation.

So while I love Nightcrawler (and Colossus, although he was a 90s X-Man so that wouldn't break the consistency) and the Claremont era costumes, it feels weird to see 70s Storm and 80s Magneto in the very specifically 90s styled show.

It's not a complaint, exactly, but it feels odd.

That’s why I hope it (along with Magneto’s M uniform) will only be temporary. Truth be told, if Storm had to get a new uniform, I would have preferred her 80s black uniform with the yellow lightning bolt on it. I don’t fully understand why she ever ditched that uniform as it seemed the most appropriate for her. But yea, my devotion to the iconic 90s uniforms should be known by now. It was one of the main things I loved about the 90s team, and I will be quite disheartened if they try to start distancing themselves from that key aesthetic the same way Marvel did in the late 90s. I am already nervous that Gambit’s death will have pushed Rogue to leave the team temporarily and if she returns, it would be with one of her far less appealing uniforms.

[PoP]

I loved that Storm is wearing my favorite outfit of hers and her hair looks amazing again. The demon was really scary and animated well. I didn't love Xavier's plot. Overall it was nice to see Storm's powers return, and I'm excited to see her as a powerhouse and possible leader one day.

[Confuzzled]

This was my least favorite episode so far. I had been so impressed by the previous ones, I was ready to see Fall of The Mutants and all of that condensed into one episode, only to find they used over half the episode on Charles/Lilandra, and barely used anything from the actual story of how Storm got her powers back. When someone pointed out Beau didn't write this one, it made more sense.

Sure, the owl skinwalker design for Adversary SLAPS, and the weird head twisting this episode was creepy and all, but like, Adversary was such a huge threat in the comics, and the whole team had to be sacrificed so Forge could banish him the same way he summoned him(which I thought we would actually get a bit of; the battlefield incident where Forge was maimed and used the souls of his platoon to summon demons to kill the opposition forces), but we didn't get ANY of that. Also, Ororo reciprocating Forge's love without the year on that alternate earth alone with him felt WAYYYYYY too fast, but this is the same girl who was ready to marry Arkon in one episode, so I guess it tracks.

I'm not going to harp on this too much, because I loved the actual sequence with Storm getting her powers back and summoning her diadem and everything, but they definitely skipped the part where Ororo realizes she's still very dangerous even without her powers and could still operate with the team just as a strategist and hand to hand fighter. I was hoping we'd get a scene of her slicing up a horde of demons on the way to the top of a magic mountain with just a knife, but alas, it was not to be so, so we could see the most boring space empire scenes. I agree, new Xavier's voice just isn't hitting right. And his classroom session was pretty weak. Oh well, whatever, Storm's back in the game and ready to smite Sentinels again, bring on the next episode.

DeMayo has made it clear he's a bigger Jean fan than an Ororo fan, so it's fine if he wanted to write the Jean/Maddie centric episodes over the Ororo ones. The black artists who actually worked on Lifedeath Part 2, including episode director Chase Conley, did a great job. My only suggestion was to have a flashback of Charles telling Ororo her people were wrong and she wasn't a goddess in a quick dramatic montage of flashbacks of the various lies she believed to hold herself back, just before her transformation. Otherwise no notes.

I'm also fine with the ambiguity of whether or not The Adversary is a physical manifestation of Storm's fears and insecurities, somehow come into the world when Ororo arrived at Forge's desert with its rich mystical energy. It really taps into Storm's divinity and showcases the might of her power in another way, as butterflykyss said in the other thread.

Personally, I also preferred the Xavier/Lilandra plotline to Jubilee's adventures in the Mojoverse as what Charles had to say about the great con that colonialists like the Shi'ar play on the people and cultures they exploit was a perfect thematic fit with Storm and Forge talking about their own heritages and the "white lies" told to subjugate their peoples. Of course, this was a bit rich coming from Xavier considering the pretenses under which he made Ororo leave Africa but can't argue that isn't in character for him.

[GeneTitan]

I just finished the episode. Of course, they had to give us a breather after last week's genocide.
But, when Deathbird said Xavier was from a "Milky Way Ghetto" I literally had to pause the show.
The writers are WRITING!

[Master of Sound]

Wait wait, so no one writes a X-Men '97: Episode 6 Review/Spoilers, so we just discus and spoil parts episode 6 in the episode 5 thread?

Thanks for spoiling things to those who did not watch episode 6 yet.

Think some of us need to consider other people just a tiny bit more.

Thanks for understanding.

[Confuzzled]

Wait wait, so no one writes a X-Men '97: Episode 6 Review/Spoilers, so we just discus and spoil parts episode 6 in the episode 5 thread?

Thanks for spoiling things to those who did not watch episode 6 yet.

Think some of us need to consider other people just a tiny bit more.

Thanks for understanding.

Bub, this IS the Episode 6 thread. OP made a typo. Could a mod fix that?

TBF you should've known something was off when the Ep 5 thread was still so active and no Ep 6 thread in sight. (Also, the original Episode 5 thread had more pages) I usually don't visit these boards until I've watched the latest episodes. I won't blame my fellow X-Fans for getting overexcited and discussing stuff in multiple threads. They've suffered long enough thanks to Fox.

[Grunty]

(...)Though it seems like the real orchestrator of the attack was none other than...Mr. Sinister, using Bolivar Trask to gain access to Sentinel Tech. Not sure what Sinister gets out of killing so many Mutants.

To be fair, it was never "really" explained why he ordered the Mutant Massacre in the comics either.

Most sources one will find online state that there was an official explanation via the reveal that he found out the Morlocks were created using his genetic research and decided to protect his "IP" by having them all killed.

This coincided with the retcon that Dark Beast "created" the Morlocks. The explanation here was that when he escaped from the Age of Apocalypse, as it was "erased" via correcting the timeline, he ended up 20 years in the past and continued with his experiments resulting in the Morlocks.

Since he was one of Mister Sinister's underlings in that universe, it made sense that all his genetic experimentation would carry the same or similar "signature" as that of the 616 version's.

HOWEVER.

It seems said retcon/reveal only comes from a single issue of Cable's solo series in the 90's (#28 if memory serves) in form of a vague comment by Sinister.

Essentialy as part of the then ongoing retcon that Sugerman, a minor character from the Age of Apocalypse who also escaped to the past of the 616 universe like Dark Beast did, was behind the government of Genosha acquiring the knowledge on how to create mutates, Cable and Domino also wound up having an encounter with him on Genosha.

During said encounter they were secretly helped by Sinister, who at the end of the story muses how it benefited him since it destroyed more of his "stolen" research and how he had allready taken drastic measures to do so in the past. Essentialy carrying the implication that he MIGHT be refering to the mutant massacre.

But if memory serves it seems this was never furthered confirmed or made official anywhere else on pannel.

Meanwhile the idea that the entirety of the Morlocks were the direct creation of Dark Beast never seems to have taken root either and the whole idea of him being the Morlock's "First One" was increasingly ignored or even forgotten about.
Instead the history that Callisto and Caliban formed the Morlocks by gathering mutants who were shunned from society seems to have remained preferable.

As a result it seems no writer bothered to re-retcon his involvement with the Morlocks into having merely experimented on them either. Which means it's no longer maintained that the Morlocks had any trace of carrying Sinister's signature DNA manipulation or that he had them killed for that reason.

So while Sinister ordering the Mutant Massacre is still a fact, his reasons are also still vague and at this point it could be simply assumed that he was offended by them being "inferior samples" or something along that line.

HOWEVER HOWEVER.

It's possible that the creators of X-men '97 took a page from this whole kerfuffle and used it to streamline the entire events around Genosha and it's destruction.

Essentialy using the vaguely implied reason for him ordering the Mutant Massacre and making it official to Genosha, where he was directly involved in the creation of the "mutate" process.

Furtheremore since the majority of the genoshan mutants are said artifical created mutates, he might have considered them inferior products that should not be allowed to mix with natural ones. Perhaps out of concern they could genetically "pollute" the natural mutant population.

[charliehustle415]

I also hated hearing modern internet speak "saying the quiet part loud" in the show - cringe

[Rift]

I also hated hearing modern internet speak "saying the quiet part loud" in the show - cringe

That phrase has been around since at least 1995, though.