Jonathan Dobres

I haven’t read nearly as many comics as these reviews would suggest. Most of the background I provide on the comics is just me doing my homework. But I did read the original “Dark Phoenix” issues, probably the summer before these episodes aired. As a kid, I loved the action and the drama, the fabulous powers and the ever rising stakes. On top of that, I don’t think I’d ever read anything resembling a tragic romance before, so the ending hit me like a train. The collected issues of the Dark Phoenix Saga were, briefly, the greatest thing I’d ever read.

The Dark Phoenix Saga was one of the biggest events in comics, and its importance to the X-Men franchise really cannot be overstated. Its ten issues introduced The Hellfire Club and all its members (including fan-favorite antihero Emma Frost), Kitty Pryde, and Dazzler. Senator Robert Kelly also makes his first appearance, chatting with Sebastian Shaw about restarting something called the Sentinel program. It’s the first time Wolverine demonstrates a healing factor. The story culminates in the death of Jean Grey, which Marvel managed to honor for the next six years. The Phoenix Force would become a part of her and telepathic mutants generally from then on, for better or worse.

The original idea was that this was going to be a permanent villain turn for Jean. Chris Claremont had been amping up her Phoenix-based powers for years, and eventually she was so much more powerful than the rest of the team that she made more sense as an antagonist, or so the writers’ room felt. But they overshot. When Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter realized that the Phoenix would be snuffing out an entire star system, killing billions of people, he argued that it was too evil an act to go unpunished. So the Saga ends with the suicide of Jean Grey. Before the rewrite, the Shi’ar were just going to depower her.

Running alongside the galactic dramatics are the personal stakes. The Dark Phoenix Saga is a romance and a tragedy. It’s Jean’s feelings that really get her (and the universe) into trouble, feelings which intensify as she and Cyclops become more intimate. Cyclops even quietly proposes to her just before the climactic final battle that will end her life.

But that’s the comics. The show’s take on the story is different in some very important ways. The Phoenix doesn’t commit genocide in this story—the star system she destroys is lifeless. She’s still a tremendous threat to the universe, so she still ends her own life, but gets resurrected moments later. After all, the show just did a dramatic self-sacrifice in the previous saga, which as originally aired, was only three episodes ago. Ironically, the show delivers us the “Jean gets depowered” ending that the comics didn’t.

The show stays faithful to the comics in other ways, creating a set of episodes that feels unlike most of the series, in a good way. Cyclops is extremely effective in a fight and manages to be an interesting person, for example. The Hellfire Club/Inner Circle’s psychological manipulation of a young woman is still mostly there, shockingly. Jean and Cyclops may already be married on the The Animated Series, but this is the first time they show real chemistry, and it works. Catherine Disher finally cuts loose and delivers the cackling demon I’ve wanted to see for two seasons now. When I think of the ’90s version of Jean Grey, this is who I’m thinking of.

Overall I’d give this story a “pretty good,” with “Part 2: The Inner Circle” being the standout. The story deals with topics that most Saturday morning cartoons would never touch, and it does a decent job of it. I just wish the show’s version of “The Phoenix Saga” hadn’t preempted so much of the drama in “The Dark Phoenix”, but I’ll have more thoughts on that in the season 3 wrap up.

Part I: Dazzled

Season 3, Episode 14. Air date: November 12, 1994

Remember Jean Grey’s climactic sacrifice at the end of “The Phoenix Saga”? Well never mind, she’s back now. The X-Men have her chained up at Muir Island, and are desperately trying to figure out why the Phoenix has gone from benevolent to bonkers. Professor Xavier hypothesizes—and each of these four episodes will reiterate—that the Phoenix seems addicted to the emotions and sensations that it can experience through a physical body. Infinite power plus human urges are a dangerous mix. The end result is Phoenix as ravenous demon, and Xavier’s treatments are barely keeping her in check.

Cyclops is, for once in his life, trying to take his mind off things. “You’ve been worrying too hard about Jean,” Gambit tells him, which is a remarkable thing to say about someone who recently became the avatar of a cosmic power, saved the universe, committed suicide by plunging into the sun, and then mysteriously reappeared, uncontrollably shooting fire out of her face. Anyway, the boys are out at the club to see downtown’s latest hot act, Dazzler.

Dazzler has a small role in this story, mostly to create an “it’s not what it looks like” moment between her and Cyclops that will push Jean into the arms of another man. So let’s take a minute to talk about Dazzler’s behind-the-scenes origin story, which is fascinating. She debuted in X-Men #130, November 1979, and was built to capitalize on two of 1979’s hottest trends: disco and Bo Derek. Derek had rocketed to sex symbol status that year courtesy of a raunchy Dudley Moore vehicle. She was such a hot commodity that Hollywood execs rushed to plan a whole multimedia extravaganza around her, which was to include a movie, an album, and yes, a Marvel Comics tie-in. But subsequent flops like Tarzan, the Ape Man sank Derek’s career as fast as it had risen, and the media blitz never happened. So Marvel was left with a tie-in character who was never going to tie in to anything, sporting an aesthetic that felt hopelessly dated the minute the clocks rolled over to 1980.¹ It’s fun to see The Animated Series use Dazzler’s more updated punk look, but never forget that she started out as a flamboyant diva literally powered by disco.

What should have been a fun night is interrupted by some masked goons who attempt to abduct Dazzler. It’s our first taste of the Hellfire Club Inner Circle,² a secret society of insufferable elitists in 18^th century cosplay with three goals: control the world through politics and finance, collect the most promising mutants, and bicker like they’re playing Vampire: the Masquerade. Cyclops handles the goons without much trouble, and Dazzler blinds cyborg Donald Pierce for good measure. Back at Inner Circle HQ, we’ll meet the rest of the coterie: Sebastian Shaw (energy absorber), Harry Leland (can make objects arbitrarily heavier), Jason Wyngarde (illusions), and Emma Frost (telepath).

The Dark Phoenix Saga marked the debut of the Hellfire Club. They’d do a lot to enrich the franchise, but none more so than Emma Frost, who rapidly became a fan favorite. It’s not hard to see why. She uses her formidable psychic powers for social gain and looks great doing it, too. Over forty years of comics, she’ll go from villain to antihero (even leading the X-Men and teaching ethics at Xavier’s School), gain an awesome secondary mutation (she can transform into solid diamond), and mentor a quintet of her own clones known as the Stepford Cuckoos. But none of that has happened to her yet. This is the conniving, climbing, corseted version of Emma Frost. In this story, she’s there to recap the events of The Phoenix Saga, theatrically trash talk Xavier’s defenses, and help Wyngarde seduce Jean Grey, whom they’ve clocked as an exceptionally powerful mutant.

This is the key thing about the Dark Phoenix Saga. It’s about desire first and foremost, and how dangerous it is for women to have it. In the comics, Jean and Cyclops are becoming much more intimate, having recently established a permanent psychic bond (and a very physical one, too). This coincides with Wyngarde’s telepathic seductions, in which he makes Jean believe she’s a maiden in a colonial-era fantasy world. This is adult stuff, and the show only censors it in the sense that its treatment of these topics is compressed and not explicitly sexual. Yes, this episode has fights and energy blasts, but the primary action here centers on the seduction of one of the main characters. The breaking point comes when Jean mistakenly believes that Cyclops has been cheating on her with Dazzler. There’s no getting around what this story is about, and I’m surprised (and impressed) that the show decided to tackle this at all.

Jean becomes increasingly erratic over the episode, torn between her conflicting identities as Jean Grey, as the Phoenix, and as a pawn in Wyngarde’s romantic fantasies. By the time she sees Cyclops and Dazzler together, she’s completely addled. She “marries” Wyngarde just as the team converges on Inner Circle HQ. The good guys are a poor fit for the Circle’s weird power set. The coolest moment of the brawl—straight out of the source material—is when Leland waves his hand to dispatch Wolverine, making him crash through four floors and land in a sewer. It’s a short and kind of random fight. Crucially, it ends with Jean making her villain turn, subduing her former teammates and officially joining the Inner Circle.

Stray observations:

• “You would leave me to be with another woman??? Go then!” It’s nice to see Catherine Disher finally ham it up as Dark Phoenix. Likewise, Tracey Moore’s campy take on Emma Frost makes the heavy exposition more entertaining than it should be.

• Storm wears a fantastic red and gold hooded cloak while tending to Jean in the infirmary.

• Early in the episode, Cyclops stumbles home from the initial Inner Circle fight to find Wolverine cutting up salami with his claws. Wolverine even asks after Gambit, who’s still out partying. We haven’t had a nice slice of life moment like this since “The Dark Shroud”.

• On the toilet: Jubilee, for the entire multi-part saga. In the comics, the start of the Dark Phoenix Saga introduces a promising young mutant named Kitty Pryde, but there isn’t room for it on the show. With Kitty deleted from the story, there’s no role for Jubilee, either.

Part II: The Inner Circle

Season 3, Episode 15. Air date: November 12, 1994

When I was reading the Dark Phoenix comics and watching the show at age twelve, I’d completely missed what was really going on with the Hellfire Club/Inner Circle. This isn’t just some group of bickering baddies who get what they deserve in the end. It’s more than that. This is a boy’s club bent on controlling women, and in particular powerful ones like Emma Frost and Jean Grey.

You can’t miss it, the subtext is just text. The whole episode revolves around control of the Phoenix. Wyngarde brags about bringing the Circle its most powerful member yet. Then, to reassert his control over Phoenix, he subdues Cyclops in a too-long psychic duel (but fails to kill him due to Cyclops’s bond with Jean). There’s a lot of carping about whether Wyngarde really has things locked down, most notably from Emma Frost, who is much, much smarter than any of the men at the table (she’s also been holding off Professor Xavier’s psychic intrusions singlehandedly). Wyngarde goes so far as to claim that because he controls the Phoenix (his words, not mine), he should lead the Inner Circle over Shaw. When the Phoenix inevitably breaks free and leaves the Circle and the X-Men to fight it out amongst themselves, Shaw says, “I need no help from a woman to destroy the X-Men!”

Meanwhile, Wolverine is busy making his way up from the sewers. It’s a fun B-plot where he gets to intimidate goons (including a “Do I feel lucky?” line read from Cal Dodd) and munch on turkey legs while commenting on the lousy wine and the dumbness of the Inner Circle’s colonial aesthetic. Speaking of, the Circle’s histrionic politicking is surprisingly fun to watch, especially the sneering thumbs-downs that every member gives Shaw to remove him from the Chairmanship in favor of Wyngarde.

Wolverine shows up just in time for Wyngarde to point the Phoenix at him, again trying to prove that he’s the one in control. Phoenix starts setting Wolverine on fire, but flashes back to their romantic moment in “Captive Hearts”, and is unable to finish the job. This also jostles her out of Wyngarde’s trance. With the words, “I tire of your squabbling. Amuse yourselves!” she turns off the X-Men’s power suppressing collars (they’ve been standing there like furniture for most of the episode) and blasts out of the room, initiating the best brawl in these four episodes.

Harry Leland’s ability to make other objects heavier seems oddly specific, almost like it was tailor made for the moment when Wolverine lunges at him from a balcony, causing Leland to panic and use his powers, accidentally crushing himself. I will allow it because watching Wolverine pound this jerk straight through the floor is extremely cool. The fight’s other best beat is at the very start: the instant Cyclops has his powers back, he blasts Leland through a wall and demolishes the floor under Shaw. The sheer speed of it is shocking, a reminder of how formidable Cyclops is supposed to be. He does more cool stuff in the first five seconds of this fight than in the forty episodes that led up to it. Everything I’ve just described is straight out of X-Men #134, so thanks, Chris Claremont and John Byrne!

Wyngarde catches up to Phoenix on the roof and tries to get her back under control. It absolutely does not work, as Phoenix instead offers Wyngarde a small glimpse of her true self, putting him in a coma.³ As Cyclops reaches her on the roof, she declares, “The mortal Jean Grey is no more! I am fire made flesh, power incarnate!” Fire made flesh, folks! I wonder what that’s about.

This episode has it all. The melodrama of the Inner Circle, Wolverine John McClane-ing his way back up to the drawing room, delightfully over the top performances from every villain, a great brawl, and the interpersonal drama that’s been sorely lacking since season 1.

Stray observations:

• Pierce and Shaw narrowly escape the building, vowing revenge. Emma Frost, meanwhile, exits on her own.

• Rogue, fighting the cyborg Donald Pierce: “Thanks for the hand, sugah. I’ll bet these cybernetic thangs cost an arm and a leg.” I promise it sounds funnier than it reads. Lenore Zann continues batting 1,000.

• Phoenix can’t bring herself to kill any of the X-Men, despite multiple opportunities to do so (really, she could have obliterated the entire building at any point). The episode does a nice job reminding the audience that Jean is still kicking around in there somewhere.

Part III: The Dark Phoenix

Season 3, Episode 16. Air date: November 19, 1994

This chapter is neatly divided into three parts: the Phoenix toys with the X-Men, departs to go eat a star, and then returns for a rematch in which Jean’s love for her husband and teammates ultimately contain the out of control desires of the Phoenix (with a significant assist from Xavier). Then the Shi’ar show up and demand that Jean Grey be executed.

It’s a decent enough episode, but kind of straightforward compared to the last couple of chapters. I find it’s more interesting to think about this episode relative to its other versions. The most important difference between The Animated Series and the source material is that in the comics, the star that Phoenix consumes is part of an inhabited system, resulting in the deaths of ten billion people. On the show, however, the D’bari star system is lifeless and uninhabited, as a nearby Shi’ar science vessel will strenuously explain. It’s this act that necessitated Jean Grey’s death at the end of the original story, mind you, so I can already tell we’re in for a different conclusion on the show.

The X-Men debate how to handle Phoenix and realize (courtesy of Cyclops’s insights) that Jean is still in there, somewhere. So the rematch is conceived as a rescue mission rather than an execution. There’s even a moment when Wolverine could have ended Jean’s life, but can’t bring himself to do it—you can tell because Cal Dodd screams, “I CAN’T DO IT!” This is strictly better than the events of X-3: The Last Stand, in which Wolverine definitely does kill Jean Grey in the most grunty, Powers Face-y, unimaginative way possible, because in the movies Wolverine is the only character who matters.

Catherine Disher carries this episode, repeatedly shifting between arch-villain Phoenix and the Jean we know and love. One of her first lines in the opening fight is, “You wish me to return to the cold nothingness of space? You wish me to give up the body?? Never!” Again, what could the Phoenix be a metaphor for?

Stray observations:

• Blink and you’ll miss it, but Beast has a picture from Carly beneath his computer’s monitor.

• The opening fight also includes a little Gambit/Rogue flirting. I’m glad to see it, as the show has basically given up on this thread since season 1, but the middle of a losing fight against a living inferno is a weird time for it.

• Jean has a cyclops doll in her childhood bedroom.

• The heavy eyeliner and crazy hairdos of the Shi’ar make it seem like they rule the galaxy through glam rock.

• I know it’s supposed to be Jean’s parents and adult sister in her childhood home, but the show gives them no lines and shoves them so far into the background that they kind of read as a terrified throuple who’ve rented Jean’s old house.

Part IV: The Fate of the Phoenix

Season 3, Episode 17. Air date: November 26, 1994

The big melee that takes up the back third of this episode, between the X-Men and Lilandra’s Shi’ar randos, is not great. More than any other brawl to date, it feels like action figures smashing against each other. Rogue gets to have the most fun with it, particularly in her rematch against Gladiator.

Gladiator: We have fought before, Rogue. You know you cannot match my power.

Rogue: Aww, give a gal a little credit!

And then she punches him through a wall.

But the point of the episode, and indeed this whole four-part story, is not the fight. It’s about Jean Grey’s heart, and what sets it on fire. Human emotions combine poorly with the limitless powers of the Phoenix, presenting an incredible threat to the universe. While the Phoenix did not commit genocide in the show’s version of events, there’s nothing to stop her from doing so next time, as Lilandra points out. While the Empress of the Shi’ar would have preferred to simply execute Jean on the spot, Xavier roots around in Lilandra’s mind (which he’ll pay the price for later) and digs up an irrefusable rite of trial by combat. That an empire as ancient as the Shi’ar still honors something so barbaric is awfully telling, but Beast is the only person to remark on it.

Everything that happens in the run-up to that combat is much more interesting than the fight itself. Jean and Cyclops share a private moment, debating whether she should even be allowed to live. Jean is well aware of the risk she poses to the universe, and even uses her powers to show that to Cyclops in no uncertain terms (all of Earth on fire, etc.). “You’re worth the risk,” he says. Back in “The Phoenix Saga”, he asked Corsair, “Is one woman’s life enough to risk the fate of an entire galaxy?” For him, the answer is yes. If this seems objectively dumb to you, well I hate to tell you, boys, but you’re watching a romance in superhero drag. Deal with it.

Meanwhile, Xavier tries to make nice with Lilandra, taking her on a psychic walk through a beautiful garden. She’s having none of it, though. She overtakes Xavier’s vision, reappearing in steel armor on a mountaintop and dumping him into a chasm. This is very badass and I wish the show had given it more time. Although the show hasn’t really developed the Xavier/Lilandra relationship, the message is clear: she’s an Empress first, and in the face of this galactic threat, her heart must come second.

As I said up top, the fight is exciting if you’re twelve, but not very interesting. Jean and Cyclops hide toward the end of it to steal one more romantic moment, one last declaration of their love. Then they rush back into the fight, and Cyclops takes a critical hit. Jean flies into a rage and unleashes the Dark Phoenix, proving Lilandra’s worst fears right. The X-Men team up to chip away at her, weakening her just enough for Jean to reemerge. Cyclops begs her to find a way to control the Phoenix, but she can’t fight against it forever, “not every second of every day”. She uses her powers to reactivate the weaponry on Lilandra’s orbiting ship, and with the words, “A part of me will always be with you,” vaporizes herself.

It’s a legendary moment in comics, and a powerful one for the show. Or it would have been, if the Phoenix Force—now separated from those troubling human desires and back to its old reliable self—didn’t immediately manifest as a flaming bird and resurrect Jean Grey. The one catch is that the body is lifeless; it needs a “spark” to become truly alive. Cyclops and Wolverine argue about which of them is going to sacrifice themselves, before the entirety of the X-Men volunteer to share the cost (like a timeshare, but for a human soul, I guess). Jean comes to, and the Phoenix Force helpfully teleports everyone back to the mansion.

The “everyone gives Jean a piece of their souls” thing is obviously a messy attempt to make up for the fact that Jean gets to live. As in “The Phoenix Saga”, where Jean’s final journey into the sun puts her out of reach but doesn’t technically kill her, the story is trying to have it both ways here. Kill Jean, but only for a few seconds. The main problem is that “The Dark Phoenix” is a romance, a story about emotions told on an epic scale, and that’s not really Saturday morning cartoon material. The show does a decent job with it, but the constraints of children’s TV (no sex, no death) inevitably lessen the stakes. The way the show portrays Jean and Cyclops’s relationship (again, very close to the comics here) is a real highlight. These two have been married since the start of season 2, but this is the first time they’ve had chemistry.

Stray observations:

• Beast, after the team is teleported onto Lilandra’s ship: “I believe that the technology involves molecular dispersal and reconstitution. In the vernacular, we were moved.”

• Lilandra must explain the trial by combat to her counterparts in the Kree and Skrull empires. I love that the Kree representative sounds like an aggressively normal guy, while the Skrull empress sounds like a seething lizard monster.

Season 3, Episodes 12–13. Air dates: September 10 & 17, 1994

I would say that Storm has been inexplicably absent since “The Phoenix Saga”, but thanks to season 3’s episode shuffling, this two-parter originally aired immediately after it. If you’d been watching this back in the ’90s she hadn’t been missing at all.

I’ve already made my feelings on the Savage Land very clear. It’s where Marvel goes when it wants to rip off Tarzan or Conan, and it’s a poor fit for X-Men. The place is overstuffed with dinosaurs, cavemen, magicians, and several millennia of lore, none of which feels like it belongs in the same universe as the x-gene. The Savage Land has always felt like it should be a separate comic, and these episodes feel like backdoor pilots for a new show. A bad one.

Supposedly this is a Storm story, but she’s squeezed out of it by all the convoluted Savage Land nonsense. The big bad is Garokk, a sentient rock-god (but not the fun kind) tied to the Savage Land itself. Recently reawakened thanks to the events of “Reunion”, he wants to unleash Storm’s unrestrained energies on the Savage Land to make himself all-powerful, or something. He’s evil and wants power, end of scheme.

Aiding him in this under-defined effort will be Sauron, the psychic pterodactyl from season 2. Sauron, it turns out, is the evil alter ego of Karl Lykos, forcibly mutated by Mister Sinister. In the original comics, Dr. Karl Lykos/Sauron predates Mister Sinister by eighteen years. Bitten by rampaging pterodactyls (welcome to ’60s-era Marvel), Karl gains the ability to drain energy from other living things, and eventually learns that when he feeds off mutants, he turns into a telepathic dinosaur. It’s a Jekyll & Hyde situation. Karl would greatly prefer to suppress his evil split personality and remain a normal human, but fate constantly intervenes. He’s so repulsed by his alter ego that he chooses “the only name in the annals of literature” evil enough to represent it: Sauron. What a dork (says the guy writing reviews of a 30 year-old cartoon).

I tell you all this because Karl/Sauron’s split personality parallels what the story is trying to do with Storm. Early on, Storm reminds us that her powers are linked to her emotions, necessitating a lifestyle of rigorous self control. Once Sauron abducts her to the Savage Land and she falls under Garokk’s mind control, the full fury of her powers is unleashed.

The story wants to be about the darkness that lurks inside even the purest heart (“Savage Land, Strange Heart”, right?). It wants to tell us something about what happens when good people succumb to their worst impulses and destroy everything around them. The problem is that neither Karl nor Storm have any agency in their dark transformations. Once Karl accidentally touches a mutant, he transforms into Sauron and becomes a cackling, unrepentant monster. Likewise, Storm is hypnotized into using her powers for evil and remains under hypnotic suggestion for almost the whole story. Neither character wants or chooses this, they’re both forced into it against their wills, and once in Evil Mode, they’re entirely on autopilot. There’s no inner struggle akin to what we saw in “A Rogue’s Tale”, and not even much remorse once they come to their senses.

The core of the story doesn’t really land, and surrounding it is a bunch of overcomplicated Savage Land lore. Sauron had set himself up as the Savage Land’s new ruler after Mister Sinister’s defeat, but the sudden appearance of Garokk statues inspired the human tribes (led by Ka-Zar, boring as ever) to overthrow him, for some reason. Zaladane, a sorceress and high priestess of Garokk, forces Karl Lykos to travel to New York and find Storm. Zaladane is a great example of how badly written this story is, actually. There’s nothing she does that Garokk couldn’t do directly. She’s just there because the Savage Land always needs more stuff in it. Over the course of two episodes, we get some uninspired fights, dinosaur stampedes, extremely bad jokes, and a brief kaiju battle between the emerging Garokk and a superpowered Sauron, culminating in an explosion that can literally be seen from space. It definitely should have killed everyone except maybe Rogue, but everyone is inexplicably fine.

The best thing I can say about this story is that it’s the last time we’ll visit the Savage Land. If you want a much better Storm story, go back and watch “Captive Hearts”, which tells us more about Ororo Monroe in half the time.

Stray observations:

• Asteroid M is one of the locations preprogrammed into Karl’s jet (which, per Zaladane, was left behind by Magneto).

• While we’re briefly in New York, there’s a banner for NY Comic Con featuring the words “‘Nuff Said!”

• The multiple encounters with dinosaurs in this episode are boring, but at least Wolverine finally gets a Fastball Special courtesy of Beast.

• Wolverine has a quick line about some of the team being away at Muir Island, “Studying Jeanie like a lab rat…” Jean just died, so this is a hell of an off camera development!

• This story’s smartest moment is when the team is debating how to take down an out of control Storm. They can’t just have Rogue drain her energy, since Rogue would gain Storm’s powers and that would risk even greater weather chaos. They decide to have Karl do it instead, and then have Rogue drain the energy out of Sauron. The two energy absorbers briefly struggle against each other, with Rogue transforming back and forth between herself and a pterodactyl a few times. “It was real weird,” Rogue later says of the experience.

• On the toilet: technically no one, since Wolverine has that throwaway line about the rest of the team being at Muir Island. That line aside, it’s Professor Xavier, Cyclops, and Gambit.

Season 3, Episode 11. Air date: February 4, 1995

“Cold Comfort” was meant to run before “The Dark Phoenix Saga” but instead aired as one of the last episodes of season 3. Since its only connection to the season is the Shi’ar tech that keeps Bobby trapped at the X-Mansion for a bit, this episode could have aired any time after “The Phoenix Saga”. I keep asking myself what “Longshot” and “Cold Comfort” have in common narratively that requires that they be placed here. The answer, I think, is Jubilee’s ongoing driving lessons.

Bobby “Iceman” Drake goes all the way back to X-Men #1 in 1963, so it’s a little conspicuous that The Animated Series made it well into season 3 before ever mentioning him. To the episode’s credit, there’s a reason: he was on the team originally, but quit after an early mission nearly got his girlfriend, Lorna Dane (aka Polaris¹), killed. Now he’s resurfaced to invade the Kirby Glen military depot in search of Polaris, who vanished mysteriously after a few years of playing normie with Iceman.²

The writing isn’t exactly subtle, but it manages to sketch out the kind of dynamics that make X-Men a great franchise. As the team learns that Iceman is infiltrating the depot, Xavier points out that they’re not “against” him (he’s an X-Man and former protégé), but they’re not exactly “with” him either (he’s committing a crime). Cyclops bristles—a lot—at the special understanding that Xavier and Beast extend to Iceman, while Wolverine has a very, “This workplace drama predates me,” attitude toward the whole thing.

Jubilee’s de facto status as the team’s little kid, and how the X-Men incorrectly still think of Iceman that way, forms a decent arc for the episode (which Xavier will spell out in the end), though it gets a little lost amid the very fun action here. Jubilee identifies with Iceman’s desire to rebel against the adults in the room, and she also has a crush on him, as she does with all new male characters (no matter how prominent the mullet). So when Xavier briefly imprisons Iceman in the mansion’s living room—much to Beast’s surprise, who thought he was working on a healing device³—it’s Jubilee who will break him out and return to the Kirby Glen depot.

Cyclops, Beast, Wolverine, and Xavier follow suit, and quickly encounter the ’90s-era incarnation of X-Factor: Forge, Polaris, Havok, Quicksilver, Multiple Man, Wolfsbane, and of course, Strong Guy. It’s a lot of characters to introduce, but the episode does a good job of it. Each of these new characters is memorable, much more so than anyone from Alpha Flight or the Starjammers. It helps that Forge has purposefully engineered a melee that matches one member of X-Factor against one member of the X-Men. Ultimately it’s Jubilee who breaks the pairings, cluing Xavier in to what’s going on⁴ and turning the tide. On a series with many brawls, this is one of the better ones, juggling a dozen characters and their varied powers over just a few minutes.

The X-Men prevail, and Forge explains that he wanted to test his new, government-backed X-Factor team against Xavier’s best (so where are Rogue and Storm?). Polaris explains that she wasn’t abducted, but faked her disappearance because she knew Iceman wouldn’t understand her desire to do something with her life. Honestly, I get her. If I had superpowers, I’d want to use them. If this has you thinking that maybe Iceman isn’t the guy for her, well don’t worry, she also makes plain that she and Havok are an item now.

In this episode, Iceman has infiltrated a military base (twice), returned to, been imprisoned in, and escaped from his old workplace, tangled with a new mutant team, and learned that his girlfriend was so bored with him that she faked extraordinary rendition and found a new man. Busy day for the guy, you know? In the great tradition of all guest characters, he’s grateful for the X-Men’s help, but not interested in sticking around.

Before we wrap this one up, let’s talk about the series’s continued character assassination of Cyclops. As usual, he’s a stick in the mud, but his jealousy and outright anger here is really unconscionable, and frankly, not who Cyclops is supposed to be. “Jubilee, how could you help this misfit escape?” he says at one point. Cyclops, mutant, vanguard of the fight for mutant-human peace, a guy who went off on his own to help some misfits three episodes ago, should absolutely know better. Also in this episode, Cyclops fights against Havok, and finds that they’re immune to each others’ powers. Havok is, of course, Alex Summers, Scott’s secret brother (Norm Spencer voices both of them). For those of you keeping score, Cyclops the Sad Orphan has now unwittingly met three generations of his immediate family—his father (Corsair), his brother (Havok), and his future son (Cable)—but remains in the dark about all of them.

Stray observations:

• Wolverine hits the snooze button with his claws, destroying his alarm clock. “This better be good. If I don’t get a full night’s sleep, I’m cranky all day.”

• An extremely obvious animation error: Cyclops blasts Iceman through a leftover frame of Wolverine.

• On the toilet: Rogue (would’ve been a match for Strong Guy), Storm (would’ve absolutely ruined Iceman), and Gambit (would’ve crashed a supersonic jet into someone, I’m sure).

Season 3, Episode 10. Air date: October 5, 1996

Like “No Mutant Is an Island”, this episode was written for season 3 but wouldn’t air until season 5. It’s a forgettable bottle episode with no connection to anything that’s happened in season 3. It’s almost like they recorded dialogue for it, decided against animating it, and then pulled it out of storage two years later when season 5 was looking for filler. This might explain why the episode feels like it’s been cobbled together.¹

It’s a loose continuation of “Mojovision” that also leans heavily on Longshot’s debut story from 1985. In that limited series, Longshot is an alien rebel from another dimension on the run from Mojo. Longshot’s superpower of probability manipulation lands him in modern day New York, and various adventures ensue. Despite the fact that X-Men already introduced Mojo and Longshot last season, this episode grafts on bits of his origin story, including a short-lived case of amnesia that barely matters.

This is also a very weird attempt at a coming of age story for Jubilee, as she takes driving lessons from Wolverine (supersonic jets before all-wheel drive at Xavier’s School, I guess) and crushes on Longshot. There’s a funny vibe of, “What are your intentions with my beautiful daughter?” coming from Wolverine toward the flirty Longshot, but that’s about as interesting as it gets.

Mojo follows Longshot to Earth (which he renames Terror World), intent on recapturing the rebel and making some good TV while he’s at it. It’s a whole lot of nonsense, with Mojo corrupting the environment around him as he creates a set for the X-Men to run around and fight in. It’s a disjointed mishmash of the deadly dino park Mojo has set up (Camp Cretaceous), generic robots, and a few transplanted henchmen from the comic (“This’ll look great on my resumé,” Gog says as he electrocutes Longshot). There is a brief attempt at fight choreography, but also, very stupid stuff like Longshot slipping on a puddle. Longshot’s probability-based powers and improbable luck don’t seem to show up anywhere. This episode could have been a lot more fun, and it wouldn’t have taken much. In the Ultimate X-Men comics, Longshot’s pursuers corner him, only to be struck by a very improbable bolt of lightning, for example.

Peter Wildman once again goes above and beyond voicing Mojo, making what would have been a pretty terrible episode at least a little engaging. “Action, excitement, [mockingly] not too much violence, though. Yeah we’ll leave that for the news and the talk shows!” The writers were either talking directly to Standards and Practices, or they thought they were writing an episode of Animaniacs, hard to say.

The episode doesn’t so much conclude as abruptly end, when Mojo realizes he’s about to lose and has Spiral immediately teleport him and his minions back to his home dimension. Longshot exits through the portal, bidding goodbye to the X-Men and Jubilee. The camera lingers on a rose, trying very hard to sell the idea that this was a love story and not just a Frankenstein of whatever Fox had laying around. Jubilee and Longshot have less chemistry than Beast and the spaceship from the last episode, alas.

Now That’s What I Call ’90s: Not only has Mojo set up Camp Cretaceous for the X-Men to run around in, its most dangerous attraction is a large purple dinosaur, making this a simultaneous Jurassic Park and Barney and Friends reference. My younger brother was exactly the right age for Peak Barney, and he watched it on a perpetual loop. I’ve seen enough of that godawful purple cult leader to last me a lifetime, thanks.

Stray observations:

• Longshot’s prominent blonde mullet is an overwhelmingly 1985 character design.

• “Jubilee, Princess of Pyrotechnics, commands you to release him!” I think it’s cute that Jubilee seems to be taking lessons from Storm.

• I’d like a clip of Spiral saying, “Cancel them. Cancel them all!”

• Spiral has six arms but fights with one sword. I know animation is expensive, but that seems like a real waste.

• On the toilet: Storm, Cyclops, and Gambit.

Season 3, Episode 9. Air date: September 24, 1994

We’re picking up with Archangel, whom we haven’t seen since season 1’s “Come the Apocalypse”. Given the show’s previous handling of Archangel and Apocalypse, I wasn’t expecting much, but this one delivers.

Archangel is searching desperately for a way to destroy the nigh invulnerable Apocalypse, throwing the Worthington money at a team of archeologists to unearth relics that might give some clue as to the big guy’s weakness. After months (years?) of searching, one researcher walks in the door with an ancient Chinese scroll depicting a weak point on the back of Apocalypse’s neck (if you think that’s a little convenient, hold that thought).

Archangel immediately rushes off to find Apocalypse and fight him. Given that we’ve seen Apocalypse shrug off every form of attack and singlehandedly vaporize the entirety of the X-Men in a parallel timeline, it’s a categorically insane fight to pick, but Archangel is flat-out nuts. Stephen Ouimette delivers every line like Archangel is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, which he is!

Meanwhile, the X-Men are busy incorporating Shi’ar technology into their war room, which gives them a good old fashioned Trouble Alert¹ about a mile-long spaceship cloaked near Manhattan.

Computer: [Apocalypse’s ship] is more than a mile long, and disappears soon after detection.

Cyclops: How do you hide something a mile long?

Gambit: Who knows. Deep pockets?

This sits somewhere between a very stupid Kid Joke and an incredibly dirty Adult Joke, and I love it.

The fight indeed goes poorly for Archangel. Apocalypse’s opening line of the episode is a malevolent cackle, followed by, “Looking for me, my prodigal son?” as he looms next to the Statue of Liberty. Apocalypse’s main appeal is the egomaniacal monologuing, and the writers gave him some top-tier camp villain lines this time around. John Colicos does great work breathing life into them. This oh-so brief snippet of a fight ends with Apocalypse batting away Archangel like a fly, in sync with a crack of lightning that transitions us over to the X-Mansion (a very nice touch).

The X-Men arrive in time to stop Apocalypse from capturing Archangel, then head back to the mansion and start formulating a plan. Cyclops, Beast, and Wolverine know they can’t fight Apocalypse head on, so they reason through a careful plan that could get them into Apocalypse’s ship and do some damage. Rogue, who absorbed a chunk of Archangel’s mind in “Come the Apocalypse”, feels tremendous empathy for him, and reluctantly follows him on his own unhinged revenge quest. Gambit, brooding and jealous of the Rogue/Archangel rapport, abruptly disappears to go do his own thing. The episode sets up all of this within its first eight minutes, a truly impressive feat. It probably took me longer to write this paragraph.

Team Cautious Planning arrives at Apocalypse’s hidden ship. Beast, delighted to find that the ship is in fact sentient, simply asks to be let aboard, and they’re in. Beast quickly sets about trying to understand the ship, with an assist from some of his new Shi’ar technology (sold separately). It’s clear that, although the ship is under Apocalypse’s control, it’s something of an unwilling participant in his schemes, just like all of Apocalypse’s minions. After Beast chats up the ship (yes, they are into each other), he’s able to set a trap that he thinks might contain Apocalypse. This triggers a failsafe that nearly kills the team, but the ship gives them enough help to get around it.

Meanwhile, Archangel and Rogue are flying around, spoiling for a second fight with Apocalypse. Archangel may not be a match for Apocalypse physically, but he’s the only other character on his dramatic level. Rogue is doing what she can to bring him back down to Earth, but:

Archangel: Pledge yourself to me, Rogue.

Rogue: Sure…I–

Archangel: There can be no hesitation, no doubt!

Rogue: Warren…I–

Archangel: Do you pledge me your heart and soul???

Rogue: Very hesitantly …Yes–

Suddenly, Warren looks off into the distance, spotting Apocalypse.

Archangel: HE RISES!

A little later, Archangel will scream, “Come to me, demon, and give me your tender back, FOR THE TIME OF YOUR JUDGMENT HAS ARRIVED!” But again, nothing can stand against Apocalypse. He handles both Rogue and Archangel easily, then taunts them to lure them back to his ship. This was all part of his plan, naturally, as he had masqueraded as the researcher with the Chinese scroll, all to tempt Archangel out into the open.

All of this brings us to the big confrontation, with all parties having converged on the ship. Apocalypse ends up in Beast’s trap, but keeps goading Archangel. He commands the ship to override the trap (much to the ship’s displeasure) and pronounces an all-time banger of a line: “I am the rocks of the eternal shore. Crash against me and be broken,” at which point Gambit slams a small fighter jet into the guy as part of his dramatic entrance. God, this is a fun one.

The remainder of the fight is pretty creative, as a standard melee against the invincible Apocalypse escalates into a tug of war between him and Beast, both trying to use the ship against each other while the remaining X-Men are caught in the middle of its increasingly haywire environment. Apocalypse commands parts of the ship to reconfigure and crush the X-Men, while Beast tries to trap Apocalypse again and help the ship break free of Apocalypse’s control. Ultimately it’s a draw, as Apocalypse ejects himself ala Team Rocket and Beast manages to rescue a small tablet containing part of the ship’s intelligence.

Back in the Blackbird, the ship’s faltering voice bids a heartbroken Beast farewell. Archangel rants about his need to destroy Apocalypse, leaving the X-Men behind in mid-flight.

This is a really strong episode. On top of the ridiculous high camp that Archangel and Apocalypse give us, the team dynamics are excellent. Everyone gets some time to do cool stuff (except Cyclops, of course). Beast leads the good guys on this one, and his all too brief relationship with the ship is a real highlight.

Hanging over all of it is the concept of enslavement. Apocalypse always seeks to utterly dominate both his enemies and his servants. “There exists no freedom from me. There is only freedom through me,” he says. It’s the same for the ship, which gets its first taste of free will thanks to Hank McCoy. And of course, Archangel’s obsession (say the title!) with Apocalypse enslaves him in its own way. The episode isn’t saying anything especially profound with these ideas, but it’s a nod toward saying just a little more with this kids’ cartoon that really elevates the story.

Stray observations:

• As the ship begins to cooperate with Beast and attacks Apocalypse, he bellows, “Traitorous vessel!!!” Decidedly less imposing than, “Serve me, and you will know oblivion’s eternal bliss,” but too funny not too mention.

• There are some nice touches in this episode. The transition between Apocalypse swatting Archangel like a fly and the crack of lightning at the X-Mansion, and some depth of field animation tricks as Gambit plays with a card while observing Rogue and Archangel, to name two.

• Warren is lucky that his infirmary room included a skylight for him to dramatically fly out of.

• The X-Men have started using Shi’ar technology, without which they’d never be able to locate Apocalypse’s ship or decipher its systems, which as near as I can tell is the only in-season continuity here. There’s no mention of Jean, and the episode doesn’t even reference Cyclops’s time away in the last episode.

• On the toilet: Jubilee and Storm.

Season 3, Episode 8. Air date: September 21, 1996

Narratively, this episode deals with the immediate aftermath of Jean’s death in “The Phoenix Saga”, but due to animation problems and scheduling shenanigans, it wouldn’t air until fully two years later. It must have been very odd to see it in 1996, long after season 3 had first aired. It’s also strange to see it in its intended narrative order. Produced alongside season 5, this episode has a different intro and a jarringly different visual style, thanks to season 5’s new animation studio.¹

This is a Cyclops solo episode, and I’d say it’s serviceable and kind of boring, just like Cyclops himself. The team is still processing Jean’s death, and Cyclops tells Professor Xavier that he’s “sick of being den mother to a bunch of quibbling children,” and just doesn’t care anymore. He quits the X-Men and visits the orphanage where he grew up. Said orphanage is run by a childhood friend of his, Sarah, who happens to have a fair number of mutants under her care. The orphanage is bankrolled by one Zebediah Killgrave,² who is only too happy to adopt several of Sarah’s “special” kids. Killgrave uses his own mutant powers to brainwash the kids into a kind of adolescent terror cell, all so that he can gain access to the governor and brainwash him into green lighting an electric dam. Picture Magneto and then aim a lot lower.

One of Sarah’s kids, Rusty, runs away from Killgrave and tries to tell the adults about all the brainwashing and abuse, but he’s a kid with a troubled past, and no one believes him. Like Cyclops, Rusty has a destructive mutant power (pyrokinesis) that he struggles to control. Cyclops takes the kid under his wing, shows him that being a mutant can be kind of cool, actually, and slowly (oh so slowly) figures out what’s going on with Killgrave. Things come to a head and Killgrave attacks the orphanage, setting it on fire. With a healthy dose of PTSD from The Phoenix Saga, Cyclops screams “NEVER AGAIN,” rushes in, and saves the day. Alongside all this, Sarah and Cyclops are sort of falling for each other (human-mutant acceptance is Cyclops’s major turn-on), but he’s still not over Jean. Ultimately, this brief experience serves to remind Cyclops that there are many injustices in the world, and if he wants to correct them, he’ll have to do it as an X-Man.

As Cyclops returns to the mansion, there’s a sudden alert from Cerebro: Jean has been detected alive, somehow. Again, this must have been a very confusing watch in the middle of season 5.

The story has a few moments that could have elevated it if they’d been pursued—the backstory of Cyclops’s emerging powers or his angsty dream sequences about Jean, for example. Or even, hey, should kids be believed when they say adults are abusing them? Instead we get pretty straightforward Saturday morning cartoon fare about Kids In Trouble, and the lesson that Cyclops still cares about people. We’ve seen the show do a lot more with twenty minutes, that’s for sure.

Perhaps the episode’s biggest failing is that it doesn’t offer much of a coherent arc for Scott Summers. His assertion that he just doesn’t care anymore rings hollow, given everything we know about him. More specifically, Cyclops has that line about “quibbling children.” Most of this episode will take place at an orphanage populated by actual children, and yet somehow that line fails to pay off. This episode could have been so different. Maybe have Beast tag along to give Cyclops someone to play off of. This show doesn’t do well with solo episodes.

Stray observations:

• Killgrave has a dartboard with Daredevil’s picture on it.

• “Say hello to Mr. Summers,” Killgrave instructs the kids. “Hello Mr. Summers,” they all say in unison. Cyclops is starting to realize Killgrave’s nefarious nature, but what really tips him off is getting knocked unconscious by the kid in the wheelchair.

• We almost got through an episode without Wolverine, but he appears in the very last scene, albeit without any lines from Cal Dodd.

• This episode’s title is betrayed by the fact that there is, in fact, at least one mutant that is a literal island.