Grieving can be a lengthy process – especially when you’re one of the X-Men. Superheroes are renowned for clinging onto their mourning trauma for decades (Hello? Batman? Spider-Man?), however when it comes to weathering a near unending stream of tragedy, you have to hand it to the X-Men. After taking a quick time-out to watch Wolverine and his psycho-buddies stall an alien invasion by stabbing it repeatedly in the ribs, it’s time to return to the sizable-pity party being thrown by an emotionally wounded Charles Xavier after the death of Magneto at the hands of Apocalypse.
However, as the writers behind X-Men ’97 like to blend various stories and merge plot lines, we also find that we’re also picking up Polaris’ dangling thread from episode 2 and adapting a comic arc from 2005. Can this juggling act succeed in being the best of all three worlds, or should we just have left Charles to mourn in peace?
Still chafing from the verbal beat-down she received from Jubilee, Lorna Dane (aka. the mistress of magnetism, Polaris) finds herself tugging at the leash of X-Factor, the government sanctioned mutant team ran by Valerie Cooper. After she loses her temper while attempting to subdue a religious, anti-mutant cult, her team mates are alarmed by her willingness to drop an entire ship on them and just like that, she’s off the team. However, upon arriving back at the X-Mansion, she finds that things have changed.
Still very much caught in the throes of grief, Xavier has taken to replaying Magento’s disintegration over and over again in the Danger Room as both a form of contrition and to toughen himself for any upcoming struggles. However, unbeknownst to Charles, the bleeding edge training facility has evolved into a sentient AI, and before you can say “Ultron”, its rewriting its programming as it starts to interpret its base programming in violent new ways.
While Charles has taken some of his X-Men to Genoshia to presumably draw out that mourning process even more, “Danger” makes her move, seriously injuring a student and sealing in the remaining X-Men into the Danger Room to put them through some violent paces. But when the rampaging ‘bot finds that crafting itself a body isn’t enough to best them, Danger steals an X-Jet in order to whizz herself over to Genosha in order to settle her beef with her creator. But while Charles proves to be far more a formidable threat than Danger initially thought (wheelchair ejector seat, GO!), he’s not going to be able to hold out forever. Can Polaris make it to Charles in time and come to terms with her problematic heritage before the marauding machine puts the “anger” in Danger?
Meanwhile, Apocalypse seems to be finally making his big move – but to do so requires him to find a new “Death” acolyte. Needless to say, his choice will prove to be a devestating gambit.
One of the things I’ve been enjoying most about X-Men ’97 is the fact that the show has been adapting stories from the mutant universe that doesn’t always come from Chris Claremont’s run on the comics. I mean, I love the Dark Phoenix storyline too, but we’ve done that already – many times – but while last season saw some of Grant Morrison’s work get the time of day, “Danger.exe” tackles an arc pulled mostly from Joss Whedon’s 2005 run on Astonishing X-Men. Yes, I know we’re supposed to be treating Whedon like a pariah these days, but that doesn’t change the fact that his time on the book kicked all kinds of ass, and the creation of Danger was a sizable chunk of that. To the uninitiated, Danger is what happens when the AI that runs the Danger Room suddenly gains sentience as starts taking its daddy issues incredibly seriously (who keeps yelling “Ultron”?) and thanks to all the alien tech Charles has been upgrading her with, she soon gives herself a body and stretches her mission parameters to the limit.
However, I have to say, as a fan of the arc, watching it get crushed down to fit half of a thirty minute-long episode doesn’t quite manage to do it justice and it’s a little frustrating to see the whodunit aspects of the story truncated to fit the format. In fact, while the creation of Danger provides a quick and handy villain to fight, we lose a lot of nuance along the way much in the same way Thor: Love And Thunder neutered Gorr The God Butcher. On the other hand, while Danger isn’t quite given her due, it’s for a good cause as the real meat of the episode is reserved for both Charles as he grapples with the the death of his magnetic life partner and Polaris as she finds herself drawn back to the X-Men after she finds X-Factor too confining.
It’s a bit of neat juxtapositioning as both these very different characters share the similar malady of existing in the shadow of Magneto. Polaris is painfully aware that her estranged father’s terrorist past is tainting her abilities to grow as both a person and a mutant, while Charles’ connection to Erik – both as friend and foe – is practically legendary. In fact, watching Lorna take after her old man and threaten to obliterate anti-mutant terrorists with a ship is as just awesome as watching Xavier repeatedly punish himself is genuinely tragic.
In fact, it’s his constant replaying of Magneto’s murder that seems to be the trigger that sets Danger off, but it’s good that the show is still refusing to cheap out when it comes to putting its characters through genuine, emotional pain.
However, I will say that the final act pivot that sees Xavier try to out-maneuver the American government by creating X-Corp, a mutant funded corporation based in Genosha that will allow the X-Men to operate without restrictions, is incredibly swift. While it’s another creation taken directly out of Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run (don’t think I didn’t notice those stylish, New X-Men puffer jackets too), it happens so fast – labeled skyscraper and all – that it doesn’t have much time to register despite being something of a massive twist.
Speaking of twists, a final scene catches us up with Apocalypse as he hides out in Greece while consolidating his power. While the resurrection of Gambit to be one of his Horsemen hardly comes out of left field (it was teased as early as last season), the way it’s handled proves to be supercool – especially when his usual weapon of energy charged playing cards are switched to ominous looking tarot deck to further drive home his shift in alliance.
Even when X-Men ’97 is seemingly coasting through adapting random comic arcs and grafting them to larger storylines, the emotional connection still remains in place. While I certainly would have enjoyed a more in-depth take on Danger’s origin that didn’t strip-mine the source material, the fact that it’s used to bolster Polaris and Xavier’s arc means that it wasn’t in vain. But wait – never mind Apocalypse getting back on a recruitment drive, if Xavier is so adamant to have a sliver of Magneto’s consciousness in his head, does that mean Onslaught is on the way?
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