How on earth can X-Men ’97 possibly hope to possibly rebound from the devastating plot twists of an episode that may rank as one of the finest moments in X-Men history? Well, never one to sit still, the notoriously hyperactive animated series decides to leave the victims of the destruction of the mutant nation of Genosha lying in the rubble in order to get other aspects of its house in order.
You see, while the systematic annihilation of a way of life by a Godzilla-sized robot may seem to be the obvious focal point of a show, the world of the X-Men, even when confined to a weekly show is just too fucking huge to keep its attention “just” focus on global acts of genocide.
Thus it’s time to call back in with Storm as she wrestles with a demon (and her own self worth) in order to reclaim her powers and beyond that, we also head into outer space to remind us that the reports of Charles Xavier’s death have been greatly exagerated.
That’s right, it’s time once again for the X-Men to go from soap opera to space opera.
While war rages on earth in the form of a giant sentinel causing the population of a mutant utopia to drop quicker than a paracuting Blob, war is also being waged among the stars as the bird-like race of the Shi’ar lock horns with the war-like Kree. In an effort to try an raise the morale of her people, Empress Lilandra announces that she is to marry her royal consort, a healed Charles Xavier, to help unite the galaxy but issues arise when Lilandra’s scheming sister, the violent Warbird, takes umbrage at the union.
While its amusing to see that aliens still have just a heightened state of melodrama as the X-Men, Warbird evokes an ancient challenge that’s essentially just a complicated dare and calls for Charles to prove his devotion by having Lilandra erase all memories of earth and the X-Men.
Meanwhile, we also rejoin Storm as she continues her battle with the Adversary, a demon who feeds on doubt and self loathing and who looks like a ‘roided out owl on meth (what’s with all the bird people this week?). As the mutant inventor Forge slowly succumbs to the demon’s poison, Storm has to go searching for a special cactus that can heal him, but unfortunately for this notorious claustrophobe, it’s located withing a stifling mine shaft.
But as both Xavier makes steps to teach the Shi’ar the error of their ways and Storm makes steps to become her old, lightning flinging self once again, the harrowing effects of Genosha still find their way to them via mental blast or news report. Who could be behind such a plan? Is the Sentinel’s creator Boliver Trask behind the attack, or could there be someone far more sinister lurking in the shadows?
Ok yes, it’s Mister Sinister – I suppose I made that one a bit obvious…
You know when you have a show that, while great, has a few teething issues with their storytelling; and then something happens that’s so big and so seismic, that it makes you see the big picture? That is where we’re at with X-Men ’97, which has now fully hit its stride with following the breathtaking previous episode. Around three episodes back, I lightly criticized the show for rushing though a huge amount of plot twists in the third episode and then switching to two different stories entirely for the fouth which ended reducing some of the power that a lot of these revelations could have probably had. But while I still stand by my complaints about the fast-tracking of the Madelyne Pryor story, it all now makes more sense as we now stand in the wake of the attack on Genosha. For episode five to fly to the extent it did, other, sizable aspects had to be hurled at us at the rat-a-tat-tat speed of a machine gun on full auto. As a result, switching directly to an episode that saw Jubilee fighting her way through a video game in the aftermath of such staggering twists made the big picture seem fairly disjointed; but while Lifedeath – Part 2 is essentially pulling off the same trick after an even bigger dramatic upheaval, it manages to keep the momentum going by giving us some long hanging closure.
As you could probably tell by the title, Lifedeath – Part 2 concludes the story of Storm as she fights for her powers and her life against a random demon who wants to make a three-course meal out of her misery. Forge is slowly dying from a poison bite and time is running out and in order to save the man whom she has complex feelings about (he’s a traumatised hunk, but he’s also responsible for inventing the tech that cost her her powers in the first place), she has to literally face her fears if she’s going to save them both.
While the climax of this tale certainly puts Storm through the wringer (as well as facing a literal demons and her own insecurities and guilt, she has to choke down a pretty serious case of claustrophobia too), some might find the story rather simplistic, especially considering all the build up happened two episodes ago, but the pay off, that sees an overjoyed Storm, clad in her original costume, streaking through the air alongside galloping horses proves to be the shot of hope we desperately need right now.
Conversely, an argument could be made that Charles Xavier’s wacky Shi’ar adventure already covers a lot of familiar ground what with the usual machiavellian plotting concerning the coveting of Lilandra’s throne. There’s the usual space battles (hello Ronan The Accuser), evil relatives (hello Deathbird) and the sight of that big lug, Guardian, being an absolute beast as he does his totalitarian, Superman-with-a-mohawk thing. But while it’s nice and spectacular, the real find here is that the show displays how it just gets Charles Xavier. While most of the episode he’s content to be Lilandra’s arm candy (got a think for birds, do ‘ya Chuck?), when he is required to give up total control and things start getting messy, his way of dealing with generations of ingrained, Shi’ar politics is as disturbingly manipulative as it is debatable benevolent.
Simply put to defuse the situation, he pulls the epically patronising act of him hijacking everyone’s mind and placing them in a classroom on the astral plane and literally draws them all a diagram. Yes, Charles is a teacher, but he can also be a strict disciplinarian with the power to turn your brain inside out and to see both sides of him in a single scene is a fitting reintroduction to a version of this character we technically having seen for just under thirty years.
Yes, episode 6 is essentially yet another chance for the viewer to catch a breath after their world has been flipped like Nightcrawler doing gymnastics, but it does it in a way that feels like one big connected story rather than just disjointed side missions.
From here on in the hunt for answers begins and I’ve a feeling that this massive universe is about to contract like like a collapsing star with similarly explosive results.
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