While debate still rages about whether the MCU can ever get back to those former, glory days, there’s an argument to be made that their animation arm has never been stronger. At the forefront of that charge was X-Men ’97, a retro series that was equal parts nostalgia and genuine kick-ass story telling as it resurrected one of the 90’s most beloved cartoons with the confidence of Jean Grey dodging the grave (again), but after a stonking first season that fed that nostalgia while delivering genuine surprises, can the second coming of the second coming manage to keep up that high, animated standard?
Well, on the basis of “Days Of Past Future”, I’m actually technically a little uncertain – not because the episode is bad, but it’s obviously a small piece of a far larger story that’s yet to show its full scale. In fact, we barely even get a full cast thanks to the time-hopping cliffhanger that we left our merry mutants in – which probably explains why Marvel’s giving us a three-episode premiere. Will this latest, throwback dive into one of the most complex continuities in comics once again score paydirt, or are we about to experience an apocalypse in more ways than one?
When last we saw the X-Men, their hard-fought victory against Bastion ended on something of a downer when the team was suddenly hurled through a rift in time that literally scattered them to the ends of history. Thankfully, mutant time travel expert Bishop and and tinkerer extraordinaire, Forge are on hand to A) explain things to us and B) casually whip up a working time machine in double quick time in order to bring the fractured team home. However, it’s with a growing sense of alarm that we realise that the places in history where they’ve been sent both have something to do with various reigns of Darwinian megalomaniac, Apocalypse.
With Bishop diving into the time stream to get the mutants sent back to 3000 BC, Forge elects to zip forward to the year 3960 AD to catch up with Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Morph and his weather controlling love, Storm, in order to bring them back. However, matters are made significantly more difficult when we find that decorated shit magnets, Scott Summers and Jean, have been reunited with their son, Nathan after he was blasted off across time for reasons far too convoluted to go into here. While this era’s Horsemen of Apocalypse try to hunt them down and Forge and Storm reconnect once more, Scott and Jean debate with rebel leader, Mother Askani, about whether their being here could interfere with Nathan’s eventual transformation into Apocalypse’s most hated enemy, Cable.
While the good guys discuss the pros and cons of parental time paradoxes, a hibernating Apocalypse is content to send waves of underlings at the problem until it promptly goes away. Once again, the past/present/whatever hangs in the balance as Scott and Jean wonder if revealing their son’s true parentage to him will help or hinder his all-important destiny.
Anyone expecting an all-encompassing, life-affirming first episode of this second season may want to check some of their expectations at the door. Where the first season had a clear run at reminding us all just how fucking cool multiple aspects of X-Men: The Animated Series was (and still is), season 2 arrives with a metric ton of continuity already clinging to it’s flanks. As a result, “Days Of Past Future” admirably doesn’t even try to encompass even half of the dangling plot threads and instead uses its three episode premiere to spread it out and engage it’s own mutant ability of compartmentalisation. Anyone wanting an episode dealing with the aftermath of Wolverine’s violent lack of adamantium, or anything to do with anything other than the continuing angst of the Summers clan, may feel a little short changed. But if you’re still unfamiliar with X-Men ’97’s ability to cut between various plots and deliver prolonged, yet satisfying closure, then I assume you’ve also been living in another time, probably under a rock.
Don’t get me wrong, I also would have liked a few extra bones thrown my way, but when it comes to a dramatic core, you can always count on Scott and Jean to provide plenty of genuinely touching, existential hand wringing. In many ways, this also acts as some sort revised origin story for Cable himself as we get to spend a fair amount of time with young Nathan as he wrestles with the true scale of his destiny. While Scott and Jean are teaching him to master his powers and control the techno-organic virus that flows through his body, they manage to display some stealth parenting in plain sight, but disagree with Mother Askani about keeping their real identities secret from their son. Obviously, the Summers are ultimately going to do what the Summers are going to do, but despite the fact that Forge and Storm also get to reconnect and the latter learns to control cosmic weather pattens, not much else in the episode manages to stick around particularly long enough to make much of an impact.
The reveal that it was Mother Askani who dragged the X-Men through time seems weirdly throwaway and despite a genuinely grim look at yet another shitty future (the X-Men gave more shitty futures than Marty McFly and John Connor combined), we kind blitz through without having much opportunity to take in the scenery. Apocalypse has an impressive line of sticking his face on things (a train, a fortress – branding is so important), but the arch villain himself is something of a no-show as he lurks within his regeneration sarcophagus. Also, his 3960 AD Horsemen, while comic book accurate, aren’t exactly the A-team of villain designs (a murderous, confederate drummer is hardly a replacement for someone like Archangel) and as a result, the action isn’t exactly as punch-the-air awesome as it was throughout the earlier season. There’s admittedly some cool details involving Wolverine constantly breaking his new, bone claws off in his enemies only for them to grow right back, but it really does feel that, this time around, the powers that be know that they don’t have to shoot their bolt completely in the first episode to get their point across. However, interestingly enough, the show still isn’t afraid to take a couple of bold swings when changing up that ever metamorphic status quo. With our main team smeared all across the timeline, and Apocalypse’s spirit hot-footing it through time to catch the past with its chonological pants down, it falls to Cable to wrangle up a new 90s team in order to take the strain. It looks like with everything else that’s going on, we’re going to get the debut of X-Force, a more strike-team orientated version of the usual mutant gatherings. If this is true, then what we’ve just witnessed in 3960AD is only a fraction of the the opening salvo the makers of X-Men ’97 have in mind as we’ve still got the poor sods stuck in 3000 BC to deal with too. Adamantium claws crossed that it’s all worth the effort.
Maybe a more subdued start to a season of X-Men ’97 than we were expecting, it’s still early days (of future past) yet, but I feel I can’t quite judge this opening salvo of optic blasts and Summers’ angst correctly until all the pieces are fully on the board. As endearingly solid as a pec flex from Colossus, there’s nevertheless a feeling that the future holds that pizzazz that we may be missing.
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