While the X-Men each display a dazzling list of abilities, one of their largest strengths seems to be able to pull off a big finish as it’s humongous, four-episode, opening Apocalypse adventure comes to something approaching an end. When it comes to musing over the way the mutant arch-enemy has been used on screen over the years, you can’t help but recall Oscar Issac’s live action attempt to bring the unstoppable villain to life with disappointing results. But while X-Men: Apocalypse may remain a glaring lesson how not to approach big screen mutant villainy, you can leave it to X-Men ’97 to school us all how it’s supposed to go down.
Part time travelling origin story, part emotional boot in the nuts, it’s once again time for Marvel’s animated redux to show everyone how it’s done and strip us raw while it does so. Paradoxes, sacrifices and grand scale destruction are the order of the day here as the X-Men gain an enemy but see their membership drop by a fateful number…
The alliance between the time-displaced X-Men and a pre-Apocalypse En Sabah Nur seems to be coming apart at the seams thanks to Magneto being called out on his frequent stretching of the truth. However, both Charles’ powers of persuasion and a giant laser beam sent by time traveling conquerer, Rama-Tut, manages to calm the former slave down and once more empathy temporary reigns.
With the X-Men’s future origins now revealed to the being who is destined to become the greatest foe they’ll ever face, some of the team are understandably nervous, but nevertheless, the group head off into the desert to locate a temple of unimaginable power that Rama-Tut wants to covet, but upon arriving they find that it not only contains the body of a fallen Celestial, but it’s also is housing Ship, a weapon frequently used by Apocalypse in the future. This is undoubtedly bad news, and the fact that Apocalypse’s future is laid out on the walls of the control room is the final straw for En Sabah Nur who violently rages against Erik and Charles’ attempts to subvert his rightful destiny.
Soon the fight is joined as Magneto, Professor X, Beast, Rogue, Nightcrawler and Bishop struggle in vain to stop En Sabah Nur from fully becoming the armoured, techno-enhanced dreadnought they’ve failed to stop so many times in the past. While the genocidal madman launches a black hole at Rama-Tut’s city, Magneto reasons that if it’s his fault Apocalypse came to be, it’s only fair that he tries to clean up his mess alone. However, with the rest of the X-Men zapped safely back to the 90s, only Charles and Erik are left to quell the rage of a monster who delights in thining the heard. Needless to say, a tremendous loss is incurred.
When it comes to stirring up a big finish (even if we’reonly four episodes into the season), you can always count on X-Men ’97 bringing the goods in incredibly devestating ways. Yes, a lot of things get destroyed, a few people get punched through walls and a lot of cosmic stuff gets thrown our way as the episode goes big with Celestials and even a big Kang the Conqueror nod, but the real meat of the piece comes from the central relationship that started all this off to begin with – Artie and Leech. I’m obviously taking the piss, but once again the dynamic of Professor X and Magneto proves to be a powerful pivot to hang the origin of Apocalypse on. We’ve already seen their various methods of teaching butt up against each other earlier in the season to fascinating effect, but with such overwhelming stakes in play, this latest comparison proves to be the most affecting yet.
After En Sabah Nur uncovers the fact that Magneto has been playing fast and loose with facts in order to force the results he wants in half the time, Charles has to step in with (most of) the truth in order to make nicey-nicey with the future posterboy for genocide. If you ever wanted a perfect comparison between the two, it’s right here etched on Nur’s white and blue face – no matter who he flies his flag with, Erik will always be a fanatic, bending rules and shouting down any dissent with a flex of his magnetic abilities. Watch him instantly remove democracy from the team by breaking their time bands in order to get his own way, or his claims that even now he has no qualms about “acting” the villain to fast track any difficult decisions. On the flip mode, Charles repeatedly puts the work in, taking time to understand, to be understood and only using his powers to gain understanding of En Sabah Nur’s ridiculously tragic past. Of course, it all comes to nothing when, thanks to some Celestial interference and a whole lot of paradoxical jiggery pokery, it seems that Chuck and Eric were actually destined to create their most hated enemy directly because of their attempts to change him for the better.
Of course, from here things get epic – I mean, you can’t fling black holes around ancient Egypt without the scale of the episode going through the roof, but despite Kang cameos, Celestials and the sight of Magento using Ship to plug the offending event horizon, it’s the human (or mutant emotion that truly dives the episode.
A nice little aside has a formally underutilised Rogue sadly reminisce about the fallen Gambit to a Nur who’s in a rare, empathic mood; but while it also ends up doubling as a spot of subtle foreshadowing, it’s a genuinely touching character moment for a show often lauded for it’s louder moments. However, it also serves to remind us that just because X-Men ’97 is a continuation of a cartoon that originated in the 90s, it doesn’t mean that it can’t aim an optic blast right at the feels when it comes to mortality. And so after valiantly remaining behind to fix his Apocalypse-themed mistake, Magneto is ultimately executed by his enemy while a devastated Charles watches. It’s not particularly quick either as the towering tyrant even gives the pair the time to quickly say their last goodbyes telepathically before callously disintegrating the master of magnetism while tears stream down his friend’s horrified face. While I’d argue that it’s not quite as emotionally devestating as Gambit’s exit, it still packs a hell of a wallop before the hulking despot callously saunters off into the sunset..
With the Apocalypse angle presumably done with for a little while, a post-credit sting grants us a cameo of Captain America and Black Widow’s and reveals that next week’s installment will see Wolverine go back to investigating Weapon X which will obviously give us a well-earned breather after such an epic run. We’ve deserved it.
Just when you think X-Men ’97 can’t get any bigger, it does just that with the closure of a story arc that establishes the creation of Apocalypse as the X-Men’s fault and ends with the death of a major player. Still, now that the team has lost its magnetic personality, I’m actually looking forward to an episode with a somewhat smaller scale. After all, how can the big part continue to feel so big if you don’t put some toughs among those peaks – and make no mistake, this episode was an absolute peak.
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