Jonathan Dobres

When I started this review series, I didn’t think it would take two years to complete, and I didn’t think I would write a little over 78,000 words. If I packed all the reviews into a book, it’d be about the same length as Me Talk Pretty One Day or The Anthropocene Reviewed (to name two personal favorites). I don’t know if that’s an accomplishment, but it sure feels like one, and if watching this old show has taught me anything, it’s that the feel of the thing matters.¹

The Origin Story

I wrote this series for a lot of reasons, but the main one is this. Two years ago, I was finally emerging from a lengthy period of intense anxiety. Early on, my therapist and I had this exchange:

Therapist: So, what would you be doing if you weren’t worried all the time?

Me: I don’t understand what you’re asking.

Therapist: Well, worrying takes a lot of time and energy. If you weren’t sitting around worrying, what would you be doing instead?

My anxiety was so habitual that it seemed like background music. It hadn’t occurred to me that although being anxious was a state I experienced, it was also an activity I kept doing. Had I considered maybe doing other things?

It was around this time that X-Men ‘97 debuted on Disney Plus, delivering Marvel’s best work in years, shockingly good. It was this impossible thing, a high quality continuation of the show I loved as a kid, updated for its now middle-aged audience. It did exactly what Disney intended. It filled me with the same excitement I used to feel on Saturday mornings. The presentation was definitely more adult, but I felt like a kid again.

So, there I was in need of a hobby. Why not revisit this show I used to love? Why not go deep, and review the entire original series? That’ll fill some time, right?

Two years later, I’d say yes, this project managed to fill some time. It was a fun creative challenge. Some episodes were difficult to review (“Nightcrawler”), while other reviews practically wrote themselves (“Mojovision”). Reviewing these episodes in detail often uncovered fun historical details (Dazzler was Marvel’s attempt to cash in on an extremely specific cultural moment, for example), or changed my initial opinion of a story (the version of Sam Guthrie in “Hidden Agendas” is kind of adorable). Sitting on the other side of the whole endeavor, I can honestly say that I know a lot more about X-Men, and yes, I still love it.

I even made a couple of new internet friends along the way. If you enjoyed reading my reviews, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know. Before I get into some final thoughts on X-Men: The Animated Series, I’ll state for the record that my all-time favorite episode is season 1’s “Captive Hearts”, followed by “Nightcrawler”, followed by Part 1 of “Sanctuary”.

My favorites aside, most episodes of the show have at least a little something going for them. But if you’re looking for a short list of the essential episodes, that’s the final section of this post.

X-Men, Re-Examined

In my first review, I said, “I’ll try to keep these short,” a promise I broke immediately and consistently. I decided early on that I wanted these reviews to feel like you were watching the show along with me, which meant none of them would be short. It was a fun challenge (usually) to blend comic book history, commentary, and criticism into each review. Above all, I tried to avoid the trap of simply regurgitating the plot, though I don’t think I always succeeded. Seventy-eight thousand words later, I’m mostly happy with how things turned out.

When thinking about the series as a whole, it’s important to remember that X-Men: The Animated Series was part of a new wave of early-90s animated programming. The Saturday morning hits of the 1980s were harmless affairs designed to sell toys, but ’90s entries like X-Men, Batman, and Gargoyles had bigger ambitions. They still had to sell toys, sure, but these were shows that recognized that a young audience did not mean a stupid audience. X-Men was among the first TV shows to prove that you could make something “for kids” that still had drama, a point of view, and even week-to-week continuity, and audiences would love it. I sure did. After years of light cereal-selling shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, watching X-Men felt like, to borrow a phrase from the commercials, a complete breakfast.

I was a little afraid that revisiting the show would be like revisiting one’s old school, everything smaller than I’d remembered. I’m pleased to say that thirty years on, the show holds up pretty well. At its best, X-Men still thrills. Episodes like “Captive Hearts”, “Obsession”, and “Nightcrawler” are lessons in how much can be accomplished in a mere twenty minutes, while larger stories like “Time Fugitives”, “The Dark Phoenix”, and “The Phalanx Covenant” defined epic for a whole generation of nerds.

That said, it’s far from a perfect run. Production problems and a smaller budget kneecap it across every season, which I think prevented X-Men from achieving the high regard of contemporaries like Batman, which got a lot more money, little network interference, and ultimately won a few Emmys. I’m disappointed to realize that the series peaks with season 1, which has the clearest thesis, strongest characterizations, and few wasted opportunities. Season 2 stumbles due to its commitment to the boring Savage Land. Season 3 gets things back on track, tackling some of the franchise’s classic stories. Season 4 is big and scattered, but not without its highlights. Season 5, unfortunately, is running on fumes. I’d still recommend the show today, though I’d probably suggest a short list of episodes to watch (see below).

There are nine core X-Men on this show, plus recurring guests like Magneto, Bishop, Nightcrawler (yay), and Cable (ugh). The writers obviously had trouble juggling them all. I didn’t keep track of character appearances very closely, other than Wolverine, who misses just five episodes across the entire series. He gets more attention than any other character, and it’s a real stroke of luck that they found Cal Dodd for the role. He keeps Wolverine feeling appealing across his many, many appearances, at least until entries like “Lotus and the Steel” finally start to overexpose him. I’d still rank him below Lenore Zann (Rogue) and George Buza (Beast), who both make their characters feel believable, almost real. Every time I wrote the name “Beast” in a review, I found myself almost reflexively following it with a “Hank” or “Dr. McCoy”.

The character imbalance is particularly obvious when you consider the show’s women. Despite X-Men’s long history of interesting, even iconic women, it’s very apparent that the TV show was conceived as something for boys. Outside of season 1, it’s a real sausage party. Storm never gets a better spotlight than “Captive Hearts”. Rogue is at her most vibrant when flirting with Gambit, something that mostly happens in season 1. Jubilee opens the series but then spends all of her time as a background player. Jean Grey may dominate season 3 thanks to the Phoenix Sagas, but after that she practically vanishes from the show. Nightcrawler, who isn’t even in the main cast, nearly ties her for appearances in season 4. The X-Women deserved better than this, and the show would have been stronger if it treated its ladies as well as it treated the guys. Jubilee clearly idolizes Storm, once proclaiming herself the “Princess of Pyrotechnics”, just as Storm calls herself “Mistress of the Elements”. Storm putting on a brave face for Jubilee, even when she was at her most vulnerable, has stuck with me ever since “Slave Island”. I would have loved to see an episode that focused on their relationship and gave it its due.

But enough about where X-Men fell short. Here’s what I think makes for a good episode:

1. Go big or go home. This is a universe where people wear bright, skintight uniforms while shooting laser beams out of their faces. It is not a place for subtlety, as a general rule. Give us big action. Killgrave scheming to do construction without a permit feels lame. Storm blowing apart a dam to completely destroy her soon-to-be-former oppressors feels incredible. Give us big feelings, too! “The Dark Phoenix” doesn’t really work without Cyclops and Jean’s relationship at its center.² “Obsession” is a delightful half hour because Apocalypse and Archangel spend most of it chewing the scenery to pieces (also, Gambit hits Apocalypse in the face with a jet). “Bloodlines” would be just another episode where a dam explodes, were it not for the high drama between Nightcrawler and Mystique.
2. It’s an ensemble. As I wrote two years ago, one of the enduring appeals of X-Men is that it has a hero for every taste. Forthright good guy with an equally forthright power? Cyclops. A warrior queen with a suitably regal bearing? Storm. Hot liar? Gambit. Short king with anger issues and a heart of gold? Wolverine. I could go on (and indeed, I have). These characters work best when they work together. The show’s solo episodes, like “Secrets, Not Long Buried”, “X-Ternally Yours”, and “Lotus and the Steel” are invariably some of its weakest outings. Wolverine is cool, but he gets much more interesting when he bristles against Xavier or gets protective around Jubilee.
3. These are people with superpowers. Related to “go big or go home”, the worst thing an episode of X-Men can be is boring, and that often happens because the show forgets that its characters are superheroes with fabulous abilities. “A Deal with the Devil” is the perfect example of this: an episode that features Storm, Wolverine, Beast, and Rogue, but only remembers to use Rogue’s powers, briefly. At its worst, the show just resorts to saving the universe via big men with rifles. The show is always better when the people with superpowers use them. That can be as big as Magneto plunging his personal space station into the ocean or as simple as Nightcrawler scampering across the ceiling alongside a flying Rogue.
4. Have a point, or at least a point of view. The best episodes of X-Men have something to say. Seasons 1 and 2 have a lot to say about bigotry and acceptance, courtesy of Gyrich and the Friends of Humanity. Graydon Creed Jr.’s anti-mutant diatribes in “Time Fugitives” are still hard to watch thirty years later (complimentary), because they sound so much like actual, real-world racism. Even a comparatively crazy episode like “Obsession” is elevated because it’s saying something about free will, and how abuse constrains it. Conversely, “One Man’s Worth” fails to land because it’s an alternate timeline story that forgets to illustrate why Charles Xavier actually matters to the timeline. Not every episode needs to make a big important point about the human condition, but more of them should try.
5. Trust the audience. Two years on, I’m still thinking about that short, quiet scene between Rogue and Gambit in “The Cure”, the one where Gambit flirts with her and it backfires on him, pushing her away (all the way to Scotland, in fact). It’s a surprisingly adult moment for a Saturday morning cartoon, and in truth, not something the show would often attempt. But it’s proof that its audience can handle topics with some seriousness, some emotional weight. “Nightcrawler” features frank discussions about religious faith and why bad things happen to good people, and it’s one of the series’s best episodes! On a franchise like X-Men, you can trust that the audience knows the characters, and you don’t have to waste time with excessive exposition. Or you can at least trust twelve year-olds to fill in the blanks on their own (yes, I’m still mad that Gambit’s only solo episode was so bogged down in exposition about his backstory).

The Short List

If you’d like to watch X-Men: The Animated Series, but stick to its best or most important stories, here’s how to do that.

• Season 1. Episode for episode, this is the show’s best season, and you’ll want to watch most of it. You can skip “Enter Magneto” (the next episode, “Deadly Reunions”, is a much better Magneto episode). You can also skip “Cold Vengeance” (Wolverine vs. Sabretooth) and “Come the Apocalypse” (skipping this will leave Apocalypse’s introduction at the end of “The Cure” as a bit of a cliffhanger, but that works better, honestly). If you’re pressed for time, you can also skip “The Unstoppable Juggernaut”, but Colossus is adorable, I promise.
• Season 2. A lot of season 2 is skippable, alas. You should watch “Till Death Do Us Part”, “Time Fugitives”, “Beauty & the Beast”, and “Reunion” (not the show’s best work, but important to the story). For extra credit, check out Peter Wildman’s completely insane vocal performance in “Mojovision”, and if you want a little more Colossus (as a treat), there’s “Red Dawn”.
• Season 3. This one’s all about The Phoenix and its Sagas. Watch “Out of the Past” (also the best the show ever looked), “The Phoenix Saga” (sorry in advance about the Starjammers), “Obsession”, and “The Dark Phoenix”. For extra credit, watch “Orphan’s End” just for Alison Sealy-Smith’s iconic line reading about the monorail. You might also enjoy “Cold Comfort”, which has a lot of team drama and is one of Jubilee’s only feature episodes.
• Season 4. Season 4 is sprawling. Watch “The Juggernaut Returns”, “Sanctuary”, “Courage”, “Nightcrawler”, “Bloodlines”, and “Beyond Good and Evil” (or at least its first two episodes). If you want more, I’d throw in “Secrets, Not Long Buried” as an oddly charming (if basic) episode, and although I think “One Man’s Worth” generally doesn’t work well, it’s very ambitious.
• Season 5. Mostly garbage, I’m sorry to say. It’s a shame that the show goes out on such a low. But “The Phalanx Covenant” is one of the series’s best stories, full stop. “Old Soldiers” is a fun Wolverine/Captain America team-up that’s worth twenty minutes of your time. For extra credit, watch “Graduation Day” just to close out the series properly.

Season 5 was produced quickly and cheaply, and it shows. As a kid, I’d stopped watching regularly after season 3, and never saw much of the later seasons. I certainly never saw season 5. I’d heard the complaints about the season’s bad animation and overall lower quality, but still, I wasn’t quite prepared for just how bad some episodes look, or how lackluster the stories would be.

Most of the season’s stories lack the kinds of details or thoughtfulness that once made X-Men a must-watch show. Case in point here is the series finale, “Graduation Day”, which compares poorly with the season 1 finale, “The Final Decision”. Season 1’s finale deftly blended comic book action with character beats, while also paying off the season’s story arcs (Senator Robert Kelly becomes a mutant ally and releases Beast from jail, Cyclops proposes to Jean, etc.). Season 5’s ending, in contrast, sets up a worldwide mutant rebellion that it promptly abandons so that Xavier can bid a teary farewell to his students before jetting off with his space girlfriend.

It’s emblematic of the season as a whole. Once-vibrant characters become thin sketches of their former selves, often literally (again, I cannot emphasize enough how bad the show looks). Much of the season just feels like unremarkable Saturday morning slop. It’s hard to give out best/worst awards for a season that is so mid. This will be a quick one.

Worst Episode

“Jubilee’s Fairytale Theatre”, obviously. An episode that turns the show on its head should have been fun. It’s Jubilee reimagining the X-Men in a fantasy setting, so why not fantasize? Why not have her exaggerate everybody’s personalities? Why not throw Storm in there as a literal weather witch? Why not, you know, try? Instead, we get a half hour of nothing. It’s my shortest review for a reason.

Dishonorable mentions for every other season 5 episode that I don’t call out in the Bests.

Best Episode

It’s got to be “The Phalanx Covenant”. Scary villain, epic scope, tightly written, and chock full of the little details that make X-Men great. And how often does Beast get the spotlight? As I said in the review, there’s a parallel universe where this was expanded into a solid MCU movie. It’s not just the show’s last unequivocally good story, it’s possibly one of the series’s best.

Honorable mention for “Old Soldiers”. Wolverine’s final solo episode is a fun WWII-era brawl.

Worst Hero

Everyone is so absent or bland that no one truly earns a “worst”, but let’s say Jean Grey, who remains dedicated to her hobby of barely existing after season 3’s Phoenix Sagas. Her husband isn’t far behind.

Best Hero

Another tough call, but I’m going to give it to Beast just because he’s so good in “The Phalanx Covenant”. Across ten episodes, no one else really stands out at all.

Worst Villain

Suddenly trying to make Cameron Hodge a thing, five season in. Also, a dishonorable mention for Arkon and his stupid outfit.

Best Villain

Probably the Phalanx just for their sheer effectiveness. They’re the only villain this season that felt like a real threat.

Most Improved

Category not applicable. Season 5 improves on nothing.

Season 5, Episode 10. Air date: September 20, 1997.

X-Men: The Animated Series ends roughly where it started, with Henry Gyrich screaming about the mutant threat in front of Congress. I can’t fault the show for coming full circle in its final half hour. I just wish that season 5’s animation could rise to the occasion. This version of Gyrich, sporting a different hair color and no glasses, bears no resemblance to his season 1 self, nor any explanation for how he re-entered polite society. He could be any anti-mutant bigot. I’d like to believe that the show was making a point there, but then again, this shot of Xavier makes it seem like he’s missing half his body.

Xavier argues with Gyrich for tolerance. In response, Gyrich pulls out some kind of device and zaps Xavier with it, causing him to lose control of his powers and emit some kind of painful telepathic blast. Xavier falls into a coma from the strain, and the world learns that Charles Xavier is a mutant. Gyrich is hauled away (never to be seen again) screaming about how we now finally have proof that “they can look like us!”

I was taken aback by the implication that Charles Xavier was not publicly known to be a mutant. The comics have played with the idea, particularly the Ultimate X-Men line, but the TV show has never so much as mentioned the need for Xavier to keep his true nature hidden. He frequently appears in public with costumed mutants and spends his professional life arguing for mutant-human peace in front of Congress. How could the world not know? For that matter, the world has certainly seen global broadcasts from the likes of Magneto and Fabian Cortez, two mutants who look like perfectly normal (if well sculpted) people.

But you know what, I’ll grant the episode a little leeway on this “reveal”, because the attempt on Xavier’s life galvanizes the world’s mutants into all-out rebellion. As one Genoshan mutant puts it, “They attacked Xavier on TV! Magneto was right all along! Xavier was about as normal as we mutants get. He was famous, rich, and human-looking. And someone went after him in front of the whole world!” Ladies and gentlemen, we finally have a canonical “Magneto was right,” and it’s hard to argue against. If even the wealthy and respectable Charles Xavier can be gunned down in public, then no mutant is safe.

Mutants the world over are in open rebellion. They converge on Genosha to be led by Magneto, we’re told. I’m not sure what happened to Genosha between seasons 4 and 5. Last we saw it, the island nation was a lot bigger and still had an anti-mutant government firmly in control. Maybe rising seas swallowed both its coastline and its former leaders. Anyway, Magneto has a fortress here now. He emerges and tells the people, “This is our world now! Take it!”

Meanwhile, the X-Men are doing what little they can to calm everybody down. They put out a message from Xavier asking the world for understanding. In the moment, I was thinking this could be a computer simulation of Xavier or even something he prerecorded for emergencies, so I was genuinely surprised when it’s revealed that “Xavier” is actually Morph, returning at the eleventh hour to help their friends save the world from the latest threat. I won’t lie, it’s good to see Morph one last time.

Xavier’s condition is dire, beyond what even Beast and Moira MacTaggert can heal. Beast says that perhaps the advanced technology of the Shi’ar could help, but with Xavier unconscious, there’s no way to contact them. Jean offers the idea that she could help guide Xavier into contacting Lilandra Neramani, but she needs more power to pull it off, and in the world of late-series X-Men, power means Magneto.

The team (or half of them, anyway) jet over to Genosha to confront their old nemesis. Magneto pulls the Blackbird out of the sky and likely would have won the ensuing fight, but the news that Xavier is in fact dying shocks him. On the cusp of leading the worldwide mutant takeover he has so long desired, Magneto instead decides to step away and try to save his old friend.

It’s a touching moment, but from here on out, the episode simply abandons the global unrest plot line so that it can wrap things up for the series. Magneto links up with Jean to perform the psychic signal boost (“This might kill you if it doesn’t work,” etc.). Xavier regains consciousness with a rather tender, “Hello, Magnus” (nothing to see here, folks), and he proceeds to deliver some very cheesy character summaries for each principal X-Man. Wolverine, perhaps understandably, gets a long one, including the line, “Cynic, you have found faith.” Lilandra teleports in, stabilizes Xavier, and declares she’ll have to take him back with her to complete his treatment. Charles Xavier departs the Earth in the most literal sense, in a faster than light spaceship.

Do I think this is a good finale? No, not really. It doesn’t have enough time to convincingly sell a worldwide rebellion and bid a proper farewell to the series, and would have benefited from a two-part structure (almost any season 5 episode could have been sacrificed to make room). Gyrich disappears after trying to kill Xavier, and the episode straight-up ignores the global unrest storyline so that it can do the tender farewell. That said, that “VIVA MAGNETO” graffiti is the kind of thing that sticks with you, and I was genuinely surprised and delighted to see Morph return to the team at the last minute. I’ve seen worse series finales, that’s for sure. By season 5’s low standards, it’s not bad.

Now That’s What I Call ’90s: As Gyrich is hauled away by security, he screams, “Trust no one,” one of The X-Files’s most famous slogans.

Stray observations:

• The season’s lower budget continues to show. Morph changes appearances with a quick cross dissolve rather than an actual morphing animation.

• The show gets Cyclops and Wolverine’s relationship right, finally:

  Wolverine: You wanted to see me?

  Cyclops: I need your advice.

  Wolverine: First time for everything.

• On the toilet: no one. Not every X-Man gets a big moment, but they’re all here. Even Morph!

Season 5, Episode 9. Air date: September 13, 1997.

X-Men, as a comic, loves an origin story as much as any other franchise, but the TV show never really made time for them. Apocalypse, Alpha Flight, Magneto, the Starjammers, the Friends of Humanity, etc. are all already established forces by the time they appear on screen. The one big exception is the Phoenix, and cases could be made for Archangel and X-Factor as minor exceptions, but that’s about it. If you wanted a villain origin, you were better off changing the channel to Batman: The Animated Series, where they couldn’t get enough of that stuff.¹

Naturally, X-Men: The Animated Series waits until its penultimate episode to finally do a straightforward villain origin, focusing on Mister Sinister. Why him and why now? Because his origin story had just appeared in 1996’s Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, making it easy pickings for the show. As of 1997, the canon was that Mister Sinister was once Nathaniel Essex, a Victorian gentleman who, obsessed with the idea of human evolution, readily sacrifices his humanity in the name of science.² The comics’s version of this story is, frankly, way too dark for Saturday mornings. Essex performs experiments on his son’s corpse, and by the end of the story his entire family is dead, more or less by his own hands.

The TV show necessarily scrubs the gruesome details and uses some nested flashbacks to pad out the thin narrative. There’s a frame story set in 1888, as James Xavier (ancestor of Charles) explains to a police inspector that he believes Jack the Ripper to be Nathaniel Essex. The two chase Jack down to a second location as James recounts Essex’s break with society thirty years earlier. The worst Essex does in 1859 is chain up a few Londoners who have early, unimpressive mutant powers. Essex mostly experiments on himself, giving him his Dracula palette and healing ability. His treatments also help his ailing wife, Rebecca, whom the episode couldn’t care less about. The 1859 story concludes with the mob wrecking Essex’s lab and chasing him out of London. James also gets to make an impassioned speech in defense of London’s proto-mutants. He adds that “Rebecca never uttered another word” despite being perfectly healthy by this point, which is a pretty good summary of how the show treats its female characters.

This episode illustrates the cardinal sins of the overexplained villain. By giving evil a backstory, you make it less mysterious, and therefore less frightening. Worse, this version of Sinister’s origins isn’t interesting. Like so many prequels, the episode just pulls Essex along until he becomes exactly the person we already know Sinister to be, with no new depth revealed:

Xavier: Dr. Essex, I–

Essex: I am no longer a doctor, James.

Okay, thanks for the update. But why doesn’t he consider himself a doctor? It would have been so easy to add something like, “…for I can no longer abide the oath of ‘Do no harm’!” Instead, James calls Essex’s experiments “sinister” and we get on the nose stuff like, “Sinister, eh? I’ll have to remember that when Queen Victoria knights me.” What? Were you hoping she would dub you Sir Sinister?

Nothing that happens in 1859 is particularly clever or exciting (see dialogue above), and Jack the Ripper’s 1888 killing spree barely registers. The underwhelming reveal is that Jack isn’t Sinister, but merely an agent he’s empowered, as will become his M.O. for the next century. Sinister manages to escape before James can get to him, leading him to lament that someone else will have to take up the charge. Smash cut to Charles Xavier’s eyes snapping open in the dead of night a century later, Essex’s signed copy of Origin of Species on his nightstand.

Have I mentioned that Rebecca is Rebecca Grey, ancestor of Jean? As if having an Xavier great-great-grandfather in the story wasn’t enough. Retcons like this do nothing but shrink the world, reducing all of human history to a soap opera about two or three families (I’m looking at you, Star Wars). As an episode of X-Men that doesn’t actually show any X-Men until the final shot, it’s pretty unusual. As an origin story for the one of the franchise’s best villains, it’s pretty bad.

Stray observations:

• The episode features a cameo from Charles Darwin, who is portrayed with a cough. Although Darwin lived to the age of 73 (not bad for the nineteenth century), throughout his life he was plagued by a mysterious complex of ailments, which seemed to affect every organ system except his lungs. But I suppose it would not have been appropriate to show him crapping his brains out in the middle of a Royal Society lecture.

• On the toilet: technically no one, since this story takes place in the nineteenth century and none of the X-Men are alive yet. Color me surprised that we didn’t get an awkward Logan/Wolverine cameo, making this the fifth episode in which he does not appear.

Season 5, Episode 8. Air date: September 6, 1997.

Throughout its run, X-Men: The Animated Series was a show on a budget, and it has the animation errors to prove it. Even so, the drop in quality evident during the show’s final few episodes is impossible to ignore. Just look at the redesigned Rogue. On top of the terrible new look and shoddy execution, her gloves will disappear between shots, even in the same scene. She makes enough skin-to-skin contact in this story to kill multiple people, or would have, if the show had remembered one of her defining powers. The audio is on par with the visuals. In several scenes, the imbalanced sound mix renders dialogue unintelligible against the music and sound effects. It’s embarrassing, frankly.

Anyway, this is the Cannonball episode, a stripped down version of his 1982 origin story. Young Sam Guthrie’s main attributes are that he is adorably gawky, extremely Southern, and can turn into a propulsive human explosion at will. It’s a lovable combination, and Sam manages to come through as a likable character despite this story’s many shortcomings. Briefly, Sam is a known quantity in his small hometown of Cumberland, Kentucky. The townies are a bit weirded out by his powers, but they know he’s a nice enough guy, and it helps that he saved a couple of coal miners from a cave-in at the top of the episode. A shady suit named Mr. Girkland has been trying to recruit Sam into his organization. It feels government-coded and even mentions Rogue appearing in “the Wideawake data” (which is a government program), but is actually a private entity, like Henry Gyrich’s defunct Mutant Control Agency.¹

Rogue hears about Sam’s heroics, remarking, “Must be tough bein’ the only mutant in town.” I wonder if mutation is a metaphor for anything, folks. She and Beast decide to pay Sam a visit. The pair don’t actually accomplish much with Sam, since he’s well adjusted and happy, but they do start looking into Girkland, who in turn starts looking into the X-Men.

The good guys dispatch Gambit, master thief, to break into Girkland’s headquarters. The sequence is overwrought in a “made for twelve year-olds” kind of way. Gambit uses his staff to leap between rooftops, and pulls out a miscellaneous piece of tech to open an HVAC vent cover, for some reason. He’s quickly apprehended, and it’s revealed that Girkland’s operation is exploring how to control mutants through experimental surgeries. Beast and Xavier free Gambit just as he’s about to go under the knife, with Xavier demonstrating the “make everyone pass out from a room away” ability that the movies love. How, exactly, an extra large blue man and a guy in a hovering wheelchair got into this facility in the nick of time is a mystery left to the ADA.

Back in Cumberland, Girkland’s agents are spreading anti-mutant rumors faster than you can say “social stigma”. The show usually portrays anti-mutant bigotry as a given. Characters are either already anti-mutant or not. We almost never see how those prejudices develop and spread, especially in small towns. This is the episode’s most compelling angle, and I wish they’d given it more emphasis. A local teen tells Sam, “I ain’t touchin’ no mutie. Might get infected.” Rather than follow through on committing a hate crime, the teens drive off in their pickup, which Sam grabs ahold of, turning it into a rocket dragster for a few terrifying minutes (Magneto would approve). Sam decides he’s had enough of these people, and visits Girkland to accept his offer (Magneto would not approve).

By the time the episode has resolved things with Gambit, a torch-wielding mob has assembled at the Guthrie house. It’s at this point that the entirety of the X-Men appear. The standoff between the mob and the X-Men is played for a moment of drama, but come on, there are seven thousand ways a team of superheroes could handle this, easily. Meanwhile, Sam realizes what a shifty liar Girkland is and explodes his way out of the helicopter they’re on. The best part of this is that Sam ends his dramatic escape flight with a stumbling crash landing in front of the mob. The episode doesn’t dwell on it for laughs, which makes it funnier. What can I say, I’m a sucker for pyrogenesis as a metaphor for your awkward teenage growth spurt.

Girkland sends a bunch of robots after Sam and the X-Men. The fight is generic, to put it kindly, which begs a few questions. Why summon the whole team if only the episode’s featured characters will actually be doing anything? Why not have characters with fabulous powers use them? Why is Charles Xavier just sort of sitting in the middle of a live fire zone? Why have Girkland deploy one of his surgically controlled mutants, only to have it flop over and pass out after doing a rounding error’s worth of property damage?

This being Sam Guthrie’s one and only episode, he gets to be the hero. He blasts through a few robots, then fires himself head-on into Girkland’s train.² It’s an exciting conclusion to the action despite the plot holes that led to it. Although this episode’s animation is distractingly bad overall, somebody loved animating Sam. He’s more expressive than any other character, and all the sequences of him using his powers feel great (see also: the aforementioned crash landing in front of the mob).

Xavier offers Sam a place at his school, but as with all guest mutants, Sam declines. He’s got to help his family rebuild their lives somewhere else. Call me crazy but that’s a pretty dark ending, and it doesn’t make much sense. The Guthries have lived in Cumberland for six generations. Surely being part of the town since roughly the War of 1812 counts for something. Even setting aside their history, Sam saved peoples’ lives here, twice in two days. Shouldn’t the townsfolk come to their senses and be more suspicious of slick strangers like Girkland?

Overall, it’s another middling-to-bad outing for season 5. Sam is likable enough, but the story itself is nothing the show hasn’t done before, and better.

Stray observations:

• This is the series’s 74^th episode, but I think it might be only the second to show Gambit doing something with that bo staff.

• People Rogue should have put in a coma via accidental skin contact: Sam Guthrie, Gambit.

• Rogue introduces herself as “Ms. LeBeau,” which will later cause her some embarrassment when Sam calls her that in front of Gambit. It’s a fun little moment in an episode otherwise light on character beats.

• On the toilet: no one. All of the X-Men appear, even if, like Wolverine and several others, they have no lines.

Season 5, Episode 7. Air date: February 22, 1997.

X-Men: The Animated Series usually downplays the fact that mutants live alongside the rest of the Marvel universe. Other than a light sprinkling of quick cameos (Stephen Strange and Spiderman’s hand in “The Phoenix Saga”, or an alt-universe glimpse of the Avengers in “One Man’s Worth”), the show treats X-Men as a completely separate franchise. “Old Soldiers” is an unusual episode because it prominently guest stars a Marvel hero from a different comic entirely. Captain America, no less.

I don’t think I really need to tell you who Captain America is, but there are two details about him that are worth remembering here. One, the early Captain America comics about a kid signing up to serve in World War II weren’t a period piece. Captain America #1 was published in 1941, during the war. Two, the cover of that issue shows Cap punching Hitler right in his god damn face. There’s no ambiguity about what Steve Rogers means when he talks about fighting for freedom and liberty. He means literally fighting. Yes, he understands the symbolic importance of his big, bright costume, but first and foremost he’s going to punch a lot of Nazis.

And who better to join Captain America in his enthusiastic Nazi punching than Wolverine? I really mean it, this is a fun pairing. Of course, in 1944 he’s not really “Wolverine” yet, since the Weapon X program hasn’t given him a metal skeleton, retractable claws, or false memories. While we’re on the subject, one of my favorite retcons to X-Men lore is that the “X” in “Weapon X” is not a letter, but a Roman numeral, making Wolverine part of the tenth iteration of the Weapon Plus program. The first was Weapon I, which created Captain America. That retcon didn’t happen until 2002, during Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men. In 1997, Wolverine and Cap were just two Marvel characters who had both fought in World War II.

The episode opens with Wolverine dramatically cursing at the grave of one Andre Cocteau. A nearby group of elderly veterans almost recognize Wolverine as one of their old war buddies, before brushing off the idea as a silly mistake (he’s probably the guy’s son, right?). While the show has occasionally hinted that Wolverine is older than he looks, this is our first confirmation that his healing factor makes him extremely long-lived. Wolverine watches the retirees depart, no doubt remembering when he last saw them, in the prime of their lives. Personally I would have liked for the episode to dwell on this a little more, but we’ve got Nazis to punch.

The ensuing flashback takes us to 1944 in Nazi-occupied France. Wolverine—or Logan, rather—is working for the OSS, and is told to rescue Dr. Andre Cocteau from the Nazis, who are forcing him to work on a mysterious project. Cocteau is an original character to the show, as is his daughter Justine, who is only there because the episode needed at least one woman, I guess.

Logan also gets Captain America as a partner for the mission, which is a great pairing. Logan is cynical and used to working in the shadows, whereas Cap wears a bright red, white, and blue costume on purpose, the better to be a symbol of hope, liberty, etc. The episode will somewhat belabor the point as Logan and Cap save a kid from some mean Nazis (one of whom calls Captain America an “Amerikanischer Hund”), but it’s a point worth making.

Logan and Cap infiltrate the Nazi-controlled castle by scaling a nearby cliff. They’re assisted in the effort by some rather implausible strap-on claws, which Logan likes a little too much. He’ll keep them on for the rest of the story. Our heroes punch a lot of Nazis before finding Dr. Cocteau, who is strangely resistant to being rescued. They eventually cross paths with the Red Skull, who chains them up in a dungeon, gleefully informing the good guys that Cocteau has betrayed them (hence Logan’s anger in the opening scene). Red Skull’s delightfully campy performance is provided by Cedric Smith, who ordinarily voices the staid Professor Xavier. It’s a real treat, all exaggerated rolled ‘R’s in a high register that evoke, perhaps intentionally, Skeletor.

Captain America and Logan get trussed up like they’re about to film a Van Darkholme video. It’s up to Logan to swing around the room, knock Cap’s shield into the air, and ricochet it into his restraints to cut himself loose. Cal Dodd has a ton of fun in this scene and seems to know what’s up, especially when he shouts, “Get ready for it, boy!” for no real reason.

With our heroes free, another Nazi-punching melee ensues. This escalates when the Red Skull activates Cocteau’s mystery project, a big robot called the Sleeper. I know I’ve often criticized the show for forgetting that its characters have superpowers, resulting in simplistic action, but the punching works really well here. Both Logan and Captain America are fighters, pure and simple. The episode isn’t leaving creative opportunities on the table—this is what these guys do, and they’re having a lot of fun doing it. Logan clambers all over the Sleeper and opens up its rather conspicuous chest cavity. With a hearty, “Yo, Cap!” he signals Captain America to throw his shield into the thing’s machinery and put it down for good.

Red Skull and Cocteau manage to escape, which Logan considers a failure. Captain America, however, sees the escapade as one battle won in the larger war. The Axis is weakened that much more, and therefore the mission was a success. It’s at this point that the episode returns to the present. An older Justine Cocteau approaches Wolverine in the cemetery to explain that her father was a double agent. The mission was a smokescreen to make her father’s defection to the Axis more convincing. Thanks in part to Logan’s actions fifty years ago, he was able to continue sabotaging the Nazis from behind enemy lines throughout the war (hence why he seemingly didn’t want to be rescued, and maybe why the Sleeper had such an obvious weak point).

It’s a decent story, but I think the reveal of Cocteau’s double agent status would have been more fun if it came from Captain America. It also would have been nice to see Wolverine react to the sight of someone who, like him, has an unnaturally long lifespan.

Stray observations:

• Wolverine somehow makes Cocteau lose consciousness so that he’s easier to carry around. Mutant nerve pinch, maybe?

• On the toilet: it’s a Wolverine solo episode, so he’s the only X-Man who appears. Most of the action takes place in the 1940s, long before the other X-Men have even been born (though Xavier himself would be about ten years old).