Jonathan Dobres

Season 4, Episode 8. Air date: May 13, 1995.

Marvel would very much prefer that you forget they canceled X-Men in 1970. X-Men as we know it really (re-)started in 1975 with Giant Size X-Men #1, kicking off a run that would make it the biggest comic in the world. Many of the franchise’s most beloved characters debuted right there in Giant-Size #1: Storm, Wolverine,¹ Colossus, and a weird looking guy (even by X-Men standards) named Nightcrawler.

Nightcrawler rapidly became one of the franchise’s most popular characters, so much so that it’s hard to believe the show waited until now to introduce him. Like all popular characters, he’s accumulated a long list of strange adventures,² complicated relationships, and personality quirks. His main things are line-of-sight teleportation, god-level acrobatic skill, looking like a demon, and being very charming. On top of that, he’s a drama teacher, a romantic, an Errol Flynn stan, an expert duelist, and—of particular relevance for this episode—a devout Catholic. Nightcrawler contains multitudes.

No single half hour could ever do justice to a character like this, though this episode does a pretty good job. The opening sequence that shows off Nightcrawler’s powers is very cool, because it is impossible to show off Nightcrawler’s powers in a way that does not make him look cool (in this sense, he’s the opposite of Cable). Adrian Hough’s vocal performance adds some softness to that cool factor. Even the way he later explains his teleportation powers has a touch of romanticism: “I think of a place I’d rather be, look to it, and I am there.”

It’s an episode packed with character beats. On the lighter side, you have Gambit and Rogue suffering through the worst vacation ever, because Wolverine is such a joyless third wheel. Gambit, holding Rogue’s mittened hand, promises to make it up to her with a trip to somewhere else, maybe Paris (hold that thought). Gambit is so bad at skiing that he blows up a tree and triggers an avalanche that lands everyone at Nightcrawler’s monastery.³ On the more serious side, there’s Nightcrawler’s backstory, which reveals that he was born looking the way he does, and was immediately shunned for it. He’s alive only because his mother⁴ ran away and dropped him off with a traveling circus. Were it not for his acrobatic abilities, he might’ve ended up in permanent hiding like the Morlocks. As it stands, he doesn’t get out much. It’s either the thrill of the stage (where his appearance can be written off as makeup), or the solitude of the monastery.

On the very serious side, you have Wolverine’s attitude toward these monks and their God. Nightcrawler tries to explain that his devotion to God (his words) has brought him peace, to which Wolverine responds, “What are you talkin’ about? We’re mutants! God gave up on us a long time ago.” He follows this up with, “Don’t give me that easy answer garbage! I’ve tried! Don’t you think I want that?” It is shocking, in 2025, to hear cartoon characters talk about religious faith and skepticism so directly. Nightcrawler is a believer, Wolverine rejects the premise, Gambit expresses his doubts with some emphatic head shakes, and Rogue is on the fence. Wolverine and Nightcrawler even get a second scene to briefly debate why bad things happen to good people. You know, standard Saturday morning cartoon stuff. Nightcrawler concludes, “Life will always be hard. I understand this better than most. Yet despite it all, people of every faith believe there is a God who loves them. Can so many be wrong?”

Nightcrawler’s definition of “every faith” apparently does not include the 400 million Buddhists or 1.2 billion Hindus who do not, in fact, believe that there is a singular God who loves them (for a start). But this episode is short on time and has already wildly exceeded the Theological Debate Quotient of its time slot. The monastery’s shiftiest monk, Brother Reinhard, failed to poison Gambit earlier and has now riled up a pitchfork-wielding mob straight out of Frankenstein to storm the place and kill the “demons” inside. Nightcrawler initially wants to leave the monastery to protect his Brothers from the mob, but ultimately decides to stay and confront them. He says that this may be his higher purpose, to teach these village hicks that mutants are people, but I prefer to think it’s the X-Men rubbing off on him.

Brother Reinhard shouting “God is with us!” as the mob breaks down the abbey doors is, again, the kind of thing I don’t think would be acceptable in a cartoon today. The ensuing fight is alright, and the episode does what it can to gin up the stakes. The villagers grab Rogue by her bare arms (her ski jacket was ripped up during the avalanche), which causes her to absorb their intense hatred, confusing her and conveniently taking her out of the fight. Naturally, it comes down to Nightcrawler and Reinhard. Nightcrawler ducks, dodges, and teleports while Reinhard shoots, shoots, and shoots, setting the building ablaze in the process. Reinhard ends up dangling from a balcony and Nightcrawler gets to do the heroic thing, saving Reinhard’s life rather than letting him fall. In the aftermath of this catastrophe, Nightcrawler sees nothing but positives. No one died, Reinhard has seen the error of his ways, the townsfolk no longer fear mutants (though they still don’t seem exactly friendly towards them), and the abbey, though damaged, is “only stone and mortar”.

“Man, I don’t get you,” grunts Wolverine. Nightcrawler, magnanimous as ever, hands Wolverine a Bible, having “marked some passages” for him. Some time later, we see Gambit and Rogue in Paris, as promised. The two are reflecting on what happened in Germany, to which Gambit says that there’s no higher power and life is random, just like a game of cards. Rogue doesn’t particularly like that thought, and takes a walk down a windswept street. She ducks into a church, and finds Wolverine kneeling in prayer. This episode’s final line has Cal Dodd reading from Isaiah 12:1-2 (or most of it), as Rogue wipes a tear from her eye.

This episode has two hard jobs: introduce one of the franchise’s most beloved characters and tackle some very big questions about faith. The show nails Nightcrawler’s introductory story. He gets plenty of opportunities to show off his powers (there’s a great duel between him and Wolverine I haven’t even mentioned), relates his tragic backstory, and saves the day with a smile on his face. Hough’s vocals are some of the best for a guest role in the whole series. As for the religious content, it’s a big swing, and a risky one, but I think it mostly succeeds.⁵ Lines like, “God gave up on us a long time ago,” aren’t beating around the bush. Religion is treated with a seriousness that was (and continues to be) practically unheard of in children’s programming.⁶ Still, the episode’s final scene, with Wolverine bent in prayer and quoting an actual Bible verse, feels a little like the show is proselytizing. I had the pleasure of watching this episode with a friend (and fellow X-Men scholar), who pointed out that it might’ve been more effective if Rogue had been the one trying out prayer, with Wolverine wiping away an ambiguous tear. One way or the other, it’s a standout episode.

Stray observations:

• Shout out to the tussle between Wolverine and Nightcrawler before he reveals himself. It’s not exactly Avatar: The Last Airbender levels of fight choreography, but it’s very fun. At the risk of repeating myself, Nightcrawler is one of the all-time coolest characters in the entire Marvel canon, whether in the comics, this show, or the movies.

• There’s a weird mishmash of eras in this episode. The villagers of Neuherzl are straight out of the 1800s, other than their abundance of laser guns, while Gambit, Rogue, and Wolverine are wearing the puffiest color-blocked ski gear that 1995 has to offer.

• The episode frequently forgets that Rogue has superpowers. She should have shrugged off the avalanche, and there shouldn’t have been any need for Nightcrawler to rescue her from her balcony fall because she can fly. It’s debatable whether Nightcrawler accidentally pushed her off the balcony in the confusion of the moment, but again, Rogue is much, much stronger than him, so it shouldn’t have been a problem either way.

• On the toilet: not applicable. The conflict is local (internal, even), and there’s no reason why any of the other X-Men would need to appear. As far as the rest of the team is concerned, Gambit, Rogue, and Wolverine are just on vacation.

Season 4, Episode 7. Air date: February 17, 1996.

“Secrets, Not Long Buried” is a simple story. Cyclops travels to the town of Skull Mesa and teaches its inhabits to stand up for themselves. The plot is classic Western. The quiet townsfolk are getting rolled by a trio of brutish criminals and need the help of a handsome stranger—in this case, Cyclops instead of Clint Eastwood—to help them set things right.

The episode isn’t based on any comic story that I could find and is full of characters that we’re only going to meet this one time, many original to the show. The bandits are the very talkative Bill Braddock (aka Solarr, with two ‘r’s), OG X-Men villain Toad (unbelievably, only now making his first appearance), and Chet Lambert (an original character with no alias and the power of intangibility). On the good guys’ side we have Darrell Tanaka (a mutant with healing powers who functions as the town doctor and coroner), and Dr. Taylor Prescott, an old friend of Cyclops’s and Xavier’s. Dr. Prescott, like Xavier, believes in mutant-human coexistence, but is more interested in providing mutants a safe place to live rather than training a vigilante strike force.

Also, Watchdog. When Cyclops first flies into Skull Mesa (or near it, at any rate), Watchdog uses his powers to read Cyclops’s mind, knock the plane out of the sky, and neutralize Cyclops’s powers for good measure. Altogether this would suggest that Watchdog is one of the most powerful mutants on Earth. But like everyone in Skull Mesa, he’s a gentle guy forced into doing bad things at Solarr’s direction. The only reason Watchdog doesn’t rule the world is that he doesn’t want to. Sadly, we shall never see this very good boy again.

There’s a bunch of back and forth while Cyclops investigates the disappearance of Dr. Prescott and harangues the frightened townsfolk to fight back against Braddock’s gang, who are repeatedly shown intimidating the town. Eventually Braddock straight-up tells Cyclops that they’ve imprisoned Prescott while they extract all the gold from a mine beneath the town (again, classic Western stuff). Probably the most effective moment in the episode comes when, having told Cyclops all this, Braddock just lets him crawl back to Darrell’s house, confident that he, like everyone else in Skull Mesa, won’t do anything about it.

“Powers or not, I’m still an X-Man,” Cyclops declares, intent on fighting back. It’s a brave thing to say, but Cyclops’s attempt to fight Lambert and Toad goes poorly. Braddock decides to make an example of him in the town square, telling the town that Cyclops is a spy sent to destroy them. This obvious lie, along with the threat of an imminent public execution, is finally too much, and the townsfolk at last take matters into their own hands. A mutant named Tusk kicks off the revolt by sprouting a miniature version of himself from his back to tackle Braddock, and Darrell restores Cyclops’s powers. My favorite part is when a mild mannered lady with green skin uses her plant-based powers to strangle Braddock with some bushes and then gives Cyclops a sheepish smile.

It’s a cute enough story that preaches the value of standing up for oneself. It also feels of a piece with “Sanctuary”, intentionally or not, as it pretty clearly shows that living a quiet life is not enough to stop evil. Braddock and his little gang (again, it’s three people) only get to run roughshod over the town because nobody wants to cause trouble, and their petty scheme falls apart the minute there’s pushback. Call me crazy but I think 2025 can learn some lessons from this 1996 cartoon.

Stray observations:

• Toad and Solarr/Braddock appear in their classic costumes, which look extremely weird next to everyone else, who are otherwise dressed for a casual weekend in Arizona. Even Cyclops, who is almost never out of uniform, spends the episode in a vest!

• I have no idea why a woman would let out a shriek seeing the extremely normal Scott Summers walking around town, but the shriek is pathetic.

• On the toilet: everyone except Cyclops (plus Xavier in a flashback). This is another episode in which Wolverine does not appear, for a total of three so far.

Season 4, Episode 6. Air date: September 23, 1995.

X-Men: The Animated Series did a lot of things that no other Saturday morning cartoon had ever done before, like permanently kill off a main character. Or at least, that was the original intent with Morph: demonstrate that this show had real stakes and that no one was safe. The idea was that Morph would die in “Night of the Sentinels” and stay that way. Attempting to square the circle between the show’s desire to kill off a character and the comics’ tradition of almost never doing that, the writers settled on sacrificing a new character loosely based on Changeling, an obscure villain-turned-hero who himself had died in the line of duty shortly after being introduced in 1967.¹

Unexpectedly, test audiences liked Morph a whole lot. The writers liked them, too, so Morph ended up joining the ranks of characters like Jesse Pinkman instead of Jesse McNally. The writers eventually brought Morph back as Mister Sinister’s tormented minion, but there wasn’t much room for them beyond that. The X-Men rarely ever had a shapeshifter in their ranks, and the show primarily adapted stories from the comics, so there just weren’t many stories where such a character would fit.

“Courage” will be Morph’s only substantive appearance until the series finale, so at least it’s a good outing! Master Mold, last seen exploding in the season 1 finale, is putting himself back together (somehow) and wants revenge on Charles Xavier while he’s at it. That we’re watching a Sentinels/Master Mold story is already remarkable. I had started to give up hope that the show would ever trust its audience enough to revisit old plot lines, though season 4 is exceeding expectations on that front.

Where the episode really shines is in its treatment of Morph and their PTSD. I can’t think of another character who’s gotten it quite as bad as Morph has, at least on the show. Their trauma is extensive, and the writers not only trust the audience to remember most of the reasons why,² they also portray the issue rather well for a Saturday morning cartoon. When Wolverine and Morph investigate a materials plant that the Sentinels had raided earlier, Wolverine notices signs of the big robots and immediately hurries to get Morph away from the place. Too late, though, as Morph spots a telltale giant footprint on the way out and has a panic attack. Later, when the Sentinels descend on the X-Mansion to capture Xavier, Morph can only freeze in panic. Cyclops insists that Morph stay behind while the rest of the team dashes halfway around the world searching for Xavier. It’s obvious to everyone, Morph included, that they’re being handled delicately. This creates some justifiable angst, but it also gives Morph the spare time to figure out Xavier’s location (from a recovered Sentinel head that Beast had been hacking), rejoin the team during the obligatory third act brawl, and save the day. The action is fine. It’s the portrayal of Morph’s mental state and the team’s genuine concern for their friend that makes this story a keeper.

Outside of the fights, the episode goes out of its way to convey how happy everyone is to see Morph again. You get the sense that they really like this person, which makes Morph’s departure at the end of the story hit that much harder. The special friendship between Morph and Wolverine also stands out, maybe more than the writers had intended. During a particularly tender moment, Morph jokingly asks Wolverine if he’s “going soft”. In a notable bit of definitely-not-gay overcompensation, Wolverine temporarily demonstrates super strength and casually demolishes a concrete wall the two are trying to get past. Watching these brief scenes, it’s little wonder that the X-Men ‘97 team decided to make Morph’s feelings for Wolverine more explicit thirty years later.

The action pieces are fine, if a little repetitive. The X-Men fight the Sentinels three separate times in this half hour. The second fight is made a little more interesting by the presence of Henry Gyrich and Bolivar Trask, last seen at the end of season 1. Master Mold has been after them, too, and the X-Men followed the Sentinels to the isolated tropical island where they’ve been hiding. The brief scene we get of Gyrich and Trask bickering with each other reads like a mashup of Gilligan’s Island and The Odd Couple, but with more genuine hatred. Between that and the Wolverine/Morph stuff, this might be the queerest episode in the whole series.

This being the series’s only truly Morph-centric episode, they get to be the lynchpin of the third Sentinel fight. It’s quick but decisive. Morph transforms into Omega Red, Sasquatch, and Longshot (none of whom Morph has ever met, I must note), and the Sentinels just can’t keep up. Ultimately, Morph shoots down a stalactite above Master Mold’s head, crushing their former nemesis once and for all.

As is the tradition with all guest stars, Morph decides they’re not ready to rejoin the team and exits for parts unknown. It’s not an especially teary goodbye, but it feels sad nonetheless, which I think is a testament to how well this episode rounds out Morph’s character and gives them a little closure. It’s also a good representation of the sometimes halting journey of mental health, consistent with the way the show has handled Storm’s claustrophobia and Rogue’s loneliness.

Now That’s What I Call ’90s: Beast saves the coordinates he downloaded off the Sentinel to a 3.5” floppy disk.

Stray observations:

• In addition to clobbering a cement wall more easily than Rogue can, Wolverine also jumps about 100 feet in the air during the first Sentinel fight. Let’s just chalk these up to Wolverine caring very deeply about Morph.

• Master Mold is voiced very differently in this episode, much less robotic and more classic arch-villain. I think it’s a different voice actor, too, but the credits for one-off performances like these are notoriously hard to sort out.

• Master Mold’s revenge plan for Xavier includes linking their brains so that Master Mold can use Xavier’s powers to destroy all mutants. This, I must point out, is basically the plot of X2, the best X-Men movie.

• Beast, hacking into the severed head of a Sentinel, quotes a few lines of “Ozymandias”. Chef’s kiss!

  Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
  And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
  Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

• Cyclops initially thinks the big “Welcome Home” banner is overkill for Gambit and Rogue, who have been elsewhere since the last episode. They’re not here, but the episode spares a line to remind us that they’re somewhere. The show hasn’t bothered with this kind of detailed continuity since season 2.

• On the toilet: Jubilee.

Season 4, Episode 5. Air date: April 27, 1996.

X-Men: The Animated Series employed at least 37 writers over its five seasons, 20 of whom wrote one episode apiece. Of the writers with multiple credits, there doesn’t seem to be much consistency in the quality of their stories. Case in point: the same writer who gave us the season 2 standout, “Beauty and the Beast”, Stephanie Mathison, is also credited for “Xavier Remembers”. I don’t understand how the same person could have written both stories, because this episode is one of the thinnest yet.

At every step, this story commits the cardinal sin of telling rather than showing. Jean (Hi, Jean!) tells us that Xavier suffered a slight concussion (not pictured), which has made him vulnerable to attack from the Shadow King (last seen in season 2’s even worse “Whatever It Takes”). We’re told he fought the Shadow King long ago, but we’re shown only a single shot of that battle. We’re told that this encounter so profoundly affected Xavier that he founded the X-Men, but we’re given no sense of what set this apart from the many other fantastic encounters that characterize his life.

The good guys facing their worst nightmares is a pretty common Saturday morning trope. What’s less common is that the first time this happens, it’s not the team that experiences these visions; it’s Xavier thinking that the team is. When the Shadow King finally becomes strong enough to possess Xavier and torment the X-Men directly, about half that footage is shamelessly reused. The only new nightmare sequence, and by far the best of them, is Storm’s. The ceiling of her attic bedroom starts lowering, crushing everything in its way. Storm recognizes the presence of the Shadow King and refuses to give in to her greatest fear. This is about as good as the episode gets.

I cannot emphasize enough how little the Shadow King possessing Xavier matters. There’s a bit of evil monologuing and then Jean projects herself to the astral plane. She and Xavier, manifesting glowing weaponry, fight the Shadow King until he’s beaten. The fight is lengthy, boring, and badly animated. The characters are just outlines against starry backgrounds. My notes say, “More like the astral lame, right?” I want to believe this was an artistic choice, but it was a bad one. It probably freed up budget for “Sanctuary”.

Xavier closes the episode with the words, “He [the Shadow King] forced me to think through why I formed the X-Men, and why we fight for our ideals and for each other. In short, why I live. For that, I will always be grateful.” But this story has nothing to say about any of those things. It’s a totally unearned conclusion that makes no sense, the ultimate tell-don’t-show.

Stray observations:

• There’s an enjoyable sequence where the Shadow King switches gears and tries to sway Xavier by showing him his dreams coming true. The X-Men, all brightly dressed for a day at the beach, inform him that mutant-human peace has been achieved. “This place is great! No Sentinels!” chirps Jubilee while sipping a drink.

• You’re telling me that Wolverine, a guy who’s alternated between mercenary and government special agent for decades and has seen all manner of terrible things, is most afraid of Sabretooth?

• This is Jean’s first appearance since “The Dark Phoenix” (at least with a line) and Jubilee’s first line since “Savage Land, Strange Heart”. Been a while, ladies!

• When the X-Men are finally roused from sleep, Cyclops is the only one already in uniform.

• Xavier’s astral projection dons classical fencing gear to fight the Shadow King, as he did when he fought Dark Phoenix.

• The flashbacks to the founding of the X-Men, some of which are reused from “Sanctuary”, show Angel once again. Or rather, they show a weird mashup of bird-winged Angel and blue-faced Archangel. This has got to be an animation error.

• On the toilet: Rogue and Gambit, technically. They’re in the illusions and flashbacks, but are otherwise mysteriously absent from the real-world events.

I’m not sure there will ever be a story that so clearly showcases the highs and lows of what this show could do with twenty minutes. Part 1 is built around a thought provoking premise and gives characters plenty of time to react to it. It pulls in a ton of the show’s established continuity, which further emphasizes the impact and grandiosity of Magneto’s latest scheme. Part 2, on the other hand, is there to sell toys. It abandons the story’s thorny premise in favor of a twitchy villain, half-baked action, and a rushed conclusion. It feels like “Sanctuary” was supposed to be a much bigger story, but got trimmed down to two episodes during development.

So let’s talk about Magneto’s ambitious plan to form a segregationist utopia in low Earth orbit, and how this concept doesn’t really mesh with the toyetic demands of Saturday morning cartoons.

Part 1

Season 4, Episode 3. Air date: October 21, 1995.

There’s a lot going on this episode, sometimes a little too much! Someone or something is stealing the Earth’s satellites, some of which have nuclear capabilities. The scientists that man these satellites are also disappearing, or at least, all the mutants are.

The delegates of the U.N. get a minute to argue about the situation, pointedly accusing Genosha of abducting the mutant scientists in service of its slave labor economy. “The Republic of Free Genosha objects strenuously to the term ‘slavery’. Mutant powers are a resource to be managed like any other,” says the Genoshan representative.

It’s at this point that Magneto demolishes the roof of the U.N. building, wraps the desperately fleeing Genoshan delegate in what was formerly a metal railing, and delivers what just might be the series’s greatest-ever monologue. It’s worth reading in full:

The mutant race will no longer be “managed”, Mr. Delegate. Ladies, gentlemen! You have been chosen to witness the announcement of a momentous event in the history of our planet: the liberation of mutantkind has begun. Too long have we suffered under the oppression of humankind. I have witnessed firsthand the barbarous treatment of mutants on your wretched little island [directly addressing the delegate from Genosha]. I will not allow this madness to continue! We have seen communities torn apart by the jealous hatred of our mutant gifts. Roving mobs of vigilantes seek out the infirm among us. Some mutants conceal their true power, living a charade of normality while their spirit suffocates. Others have gone into hiding beneath your cities, huddling in the darkness like rats. There are those who have tried nobly to enlighten their human brethren, to strive for freedom and equality for all men. Their efforts have been repaid with brutality and hatred! The missing mutant scientists and I have built a mutants-only asteroid, where any mutant may live apart from humanity, free from its cruelty…My mission is peaceful. Any intervention would make it otherwise. The decision is yours.

It’s an incredible moment for the show. I don’t think any character has ever gotten a monologue this long. In a format where every second counts, it’s a lot of talking for one character, and David Hemblen knocks it out of the park. Magneto backs up his words with a highlight reel of anti-mutant bigotry pulled from previous episodes. The inescapable conclusion is that—say it with me—Magneto was right. Xavier’s dream is beautiful in theory, but just results in a lot of fighting in practice. It’s not working, and in Magneto’s opinion, the only viable solution is for mutants to leave Earth behind entirely. If you disagree, well, he’s recently acquired over 200 nukes, so please don’t. This is Peak Magneto, people. This is the Magneto who ends up on t-shirts and inspires veterans of the Royal Shakespeare Company to do cape flicks. It’s so good that, thirty years later, the writers of X-Men ‘97 are going to give Magneto a chance to do it again.

The amount of in-show continuity here is dizzying. Magneto’s clip reel includes everything from the Sentinels to the Morlocks to the Friends of Humanity. His speech is watched by Mister Sinister and Apocalypse (from separate lairs, naturally), as well as mutants across the world. The setup makes the scale of Magneto’s offer feel global in a way that not even the Phoenix Sagas managed to achieve.

And it works. Crowds of mutants are desperate to get to Magneto’s designated pickup points and ascend to the paradise he’s built on Asteroid M.¹ Xavier, in contrast, is horrified by what he believes amounts to segregation. The other X-Men are less sure. Even Beast says, “For all our efforts, we seem to spend more time fighting for our lives than for mutant rights.” Gambit wants to get to Asteroid M to check on an old friend of his, Byron Calley. Rogue worries that Gambit might live on Asteroid M permanently, which doesn’t really seem in-character for him, but it’s nice to see the two of them openly flirting again. Despite Gambit’s interest in Byron early on, nothing really comes of it, which makes me think there was an earlier draft of this story in which Byron had a bigger role.

Xavier, Beast, and Gambit join the crowd of mutants in Africa, where Magneto convinces them to see Asteroid M for themselves. Magneto delivers on his promise of transporting any willing mutant away, but it seems to tax even his vast powers. Rather than head straight to Asteroid M, Magneto takes the whole collection of refugees to Genosha for another pickup. The Genoshan government has a violent response to this. Luckily, a strung-out weirdo named Fabian Cortez and his Acolytes show up to assist “Lord Magneto”. It’s the first big brawl of the season and a little too chaotic, but it snaps into focus when the Genoshan military activates three Sentinels to try to kill Magneto.² Cortez, luckily, can amplify other mutants’ abilities. After a boost from Cortez, Magneto destroys all three Sentinels in a single, dramatic burst of power.

With Genosha liberated, we finally get to Asteroid M. Xavier notes that Magneto, who is exhausted from the day’s events, might become dependent on Cortez’s abilities, “like a drug.” Nothing else comes of this comment, again suggesting a dropped subplot. Instead, Xavier gets a frosty hello from Amelia Voght, his ex-girlfriend. As Beast will explain, Charles and Amelia had a falling out when he was training the X-Men, whereas she felt that mutants would be better off laying low.³

Magneto then leads Asteroid M’s first state dinner while wearing something of a statement piece. If Asteroid M’s first law is “All mutants welcome,” the second must be, “If ya got it, flaunt it.”⁴ This oh-so brief taste of things going according to plan is interrupted by a volley of missiles, which Magneto manages to repel. Byron informs Magneto that this wasn’t an unprovoked attack; a missile was launched from Asteroid M shortly before. Magneto immediately suspects Cortez, who has been ranting about “the flatscan⁵ human tyrants” and begging Magneto to do more than just isolate from them.

Things come to a head when Cortez shows up in Magneto’s quarters. Magneto tries to put him in his place, but Cortez reveals the flip side of his abilities: depowering mutants. Magneto is so weakened that he can barely move, and Cortez explains that he’ll shortly dissolve. But before that, he’ll make a convenient martyr for the cause. Cortez disposes of Magneto in an escape shuttle (already too stupid to just throw him into space, I guess) and immediately frames the X-Men for the murder.

This is a remarkable half hour for the show. Aside from the action piece in the middle, almost all its running time is given over to some very big questions. Is Xavier’s dream of mutant-human coexistence a fool’s errand? Haven’t his attempts to achieve that dream amounted to training a group of vigilantes, and heaped unwanted attention on mutants who just want to live quiet lives? Doesn’t the fact that Genosha is still enslaving mutants prove that the X-Men are ineffective? Is Magneto’s idea of a mutant-only utopia any better than “go back to where you came from”? Is the shortcut to international recognition nuclear armament? Is an uneasy, nuclear-enforced truce between mutants and humans as close as we can get to peace?

If you’re sitting there thinking, wow, this is awfully weighty material for a Saturday morning cartoon, don’t worry. Part 2 is going to throw all these questions away and restore the balance.

Stray observations:

• When Beast is giving us a flashback to Xavier, Amelia, and the early days of the X-Men (1960s costumes and all), one of them is Angel, who was never an X-Man in the show’s continuity. Let’s just assume it’s some other blonde guy with majestic wings.

• Blink and you’ll miss it, but none other than Black Panther watches the whole group depart Africa.

• On the toilet: Cyclops, Jean, and even Wolverine (!) don’t appear at all, other than in the reused footage during Magneto’s speech at the UN. Storm and Jubilee can be spotted ever so briefly in an early scene, but have no lines.

Part 2

Season 4, Episode 4. Air date: October 28, 1995.

As I see it, Part 2 suffers from two problems. One, Fabian Cortez isn’t a plausible leader, especially next to Magneto’s clear-eyed stateliness. I mean, look at the guy. He looks like he’s been crashing on his cousin’s couch for five months and is going to start looking for a job tomorrow, I promise, man, I promise. On top of that, Lawrence Bayne voices him somewhere between Jay Mohr’s Christopher Walken impression and a psychotic break.

Two, did you know that ’90s cartoons were often used as a means to sell toys to kids? It’s especially egregious in this episode. Labels like SHIAR CLOAK and SHIAR SHIELD are hilariously on the nose. I’m also offended on Hank McCoy’s behalf, as he certainly has stronger UX chops than this. Look at that shoddy text layout! And then there are these extremely ’90s costumes! Rogue’s is relatively restrained, while Wolverine gets an all-black number that makes him look too much like Batman, and Beast’s and Xavier’s look positively deranged. I can’t locate definitive proof, but I found at least one post claiming that these were, indeed, part of a light-up toy line.

All this is to say, Part 2 is a severe downgrade from Part 1. There’s just too much going on. Gambit volunteers to hold off Cortez’s minions so that the rest of the team can reach an escape shuttle. Charles Xavier, doing the most Xavier thing ever, waits about one second before deciding to jettison from Asteroid M, leaving Gambit behind. The team crash lands on Earth, much to Rogue’s chagrin, who nearly rips the shuttle in half searching for him. Once back on Earth, Xavier takes his sweet time talking the President into giving the X-Men another chance and leading a memorial service for Magneto.

The memorial service is strange in a lot of ways. Wolverine quietly pops into the story here without any explanation for his absence.⁶ Xavier’s flashbacks to Magneto’s tragic backstory are a lot more German-coded than the last time the show referenced them, though of course this kids’ show stops short of making Magneto’s status as a Holocaust survivor explicit. Xavier refers to Magneto as, “our most intractable opponent,” which is weird because despite the man’s frequent appearances on the show, he’s only been an outright antagonist twice (“Enter Magneto” and “Deadly Reunions”). And then there is Rogue’s outfit. What in the Antebellum nonsense is this? What is this jacket and vest combo from Hobbiton’s Finest? What is this frilly jabot around her neck? And what on Earth is going on with her hair in this scene? Of course, this is all secondary to the fact that Xavier absolutely does not have time for this. Gambit is still stuck on Asteroid M and Cortez could kill him at any moment! Get your ass in gear, man!

Meanwhile, back on Asteroid M, Cortez is in the process of making an example of Gambit for murdering “Lord Magneto”. Amelia Voght smells a rat, takes a tip from the imprisoned Gambit, and starts snooping around for evidence that will reveal Cortez’s guilt. Amelia’s mutant power is that she can sublimate into gas, so it’s trivial for her to slip into restricted areas and locate the missing surveillance footage. It’s all very easy and doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why would Amelia help one of Xavier’s people? From her perspective, isn’t Gambit just demonstrating the whole problem with Xavier’s worldview? For that matter, why is she even here? Wouldn’t it make more sense for Gambit’s old friend, Byron, to help him out? It would certainly be more dramatic, because Byron can’t just turn into a mist to get wherever he needs to be.

In the episode’s third and least developed subplot, Magneto’s shuttle crashes on Earth. He keeps fading in and out of existence and screaming, “I LIVE!!!” This scares the hell out of some people who are probably Bedouins, but doesn’t do much else.

Anyway, the X-Men return to Asteroid M in their crazy outfits (SHIAR SHIELD, SHIAR CLOAK, SHIAR ETCETERA) and engage in some perfunctory brawls with Cortez’s minions. Amelia finds the evidence she needs and exposes Cortez, at which point his former followers turn on him. He panics, instructing Byron to launch all of the station’s nukes. The X-Men do what they can to shoot them down, but it’s not enough. Just then, Magneto returns and deflects all the missiles, having been “nourished by the Earth’s magnetic field as a mother nourishes her child.” Sure, whatever. For good measure, Magneto clamps down on Cortez the same way he did the Genoshan U.N. delegate. Despite all the half-baked craziness, it’s pretty satisfying!

The only remnant of the big idea that kicked off this story is Magneto’s final decision to sink Asteroid M. His dream of a separatist mutant utopia is now too poisoned to ever be viable. Magneto, never one to tolerate half measures, destroys the project with the same decisiveness he had in building it. He even tells Xavier not to worry. He has no doubt that he’ll survive Asteroid M’s reentry into Earth’s atmosphere and subsequent plunge into the ocean.

Probably the funniest scene in the entire story occurs near the end, as Xavier and Amelia are having one last back and forth about mutant-human relations. Xavier offers to rekindle things with Amelia, but I mean, come on. Imagine that your ex-boyfriend is trying to convince you to get back together while he’s wearing this outfit.

It’s very disappointing to see such a promising setup rapidly fall off a cliff. There’s a lot in Part 2 that doesn’t matter at all: Cortez’s broadcasted threats against Earth, Magneto’s pseudo-death and memorial, Beast disarming a few of the nukes, all the fights, and most characters’ mutant powers. All to sell some toys. Man, what could have been.

But as a little sweetener, the next time we see Cortez is at the end of the episode, as he’s regaining consciousness in Apocalypse’s lair!

Now That’s What I Call ’90s: the sheer toyetic absurdity of the X-Men’s costumes.

Stray observations:

• Gambit has a power-suppressing collar from Genosha around his neck for most of the episode, which is shamefully poor writing. There is simply no way that either Magneto or Cortez would tolerate these. Wouldn’t it have been more interesting if Cortez had continuously drained Gambit’s powers, simultaneously keeping Gambit under control and demonstrating that Cortez will be the ultimate arbiter of mutant gifts on Asteroid M?

• Blink and you’ll miss it, but none other than Black Panther watches the whole group return to Africa.

• On the toilet: Cyclops, Jean, Storm, and Jubilee.