Jonathan Dobres

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).

Season 5, Episode 6. Air date: November 16, 1996.

I went into season 5 knowing that it was produced hastily, an effort to pad out the show’s run quickly and cheaply, even going so far as to enlist an in-house animation studio with a different (generally worse) visual style. So I wasn’t surprised to find an episode like “Jubilee’s Fairytale Theatre”, in which Jubilee gets stuck in a cave with some little kids. She keeps them calm and out of danger by telling them a fantasy story. The one she tells feels more like an episode of Gummi Bears than X-Men, and while it does make sense for her intended in-universe audience, it doesn’t for the show’s. I wish the episode had leaned harder into the idea that this is a story from Jubilee’s imagination, maybe let her run wild with her most ridiculous power fantasies. Instead, she’s an elf. The animation is rubbery and cheap looking, maybe the worst the show has ever looked. The only notable thing in this episode is the debut of the redesigned Gambit. He looks and sounds terrible, as Chris Potter has been replaced by the inferior Troy Daniels.

It’s a downgrade all around, folks. I suppose at the very least, the episode has a tiny character arc. Jubilee goes from complaining about having to play babysitter to doing a very competent job keeping the kids safe and unaware of how much danger they’re actually in. Jean (hi, Jean!) notes that she doesn’t sense any of the fear or trauma from the kids one might expect after spending a day in a slowly flooding cavern. Good for you, Jubilee.

Stray observations:

• This episode has a fair bit in common with Uncanny X-Men #153, in which Kitty Pryde calms down young Illyana Rasputin with a similar story (in the middle of the Dark Phoenix Saga, no less). It’s hard to say whether that issue directly inspired this episode, or if tropes like Professor Xavier as an all-knowing wizard are just kind of obvious.

• One of the peasants that elf-Jubilee rescues looks an awful lot like Longshot, but as there’s no other reference to him, that’s probably coincidence.

• The X-Mansion has vast caverns underneath it, as all cartoon mansions do.

• The kids leave via a school bus belonging to the Squillace School District, a reference to the show’s co-creator, Frank Squillace.

• On the toilet: Storm, Rogue, and Beast.

Season 5, Episode 5. Air date: February 8, 1997.

My review of “Beyond Good and Evil” was already a million words long, so I excised an observation about how Apocalypse’s opinion of himself changes (abruptly) over that story. He starts out by telling Cable, “Evil? I am not malevolent. I simply am.” By the end of the story, however, he seems to have concluded that he perpetually struggles against lesser beings because he is an incarnation of evil, and the universe simply cannot allow good or evil to triumph absolutely. Apocalypse seemed not to realize that unmaking all of reality would certainly qualify as evil’s ultimate victory, which may explain why his intricate scheme, centuries in the making, was somehow foiled by idiots like Cable and Bishop.

All this is to say, Apocalypse has come a long way from his season 1 debut as yet another X-Men villain who wanted to make perfect mutants. He’s the closest thing this show has to a living god. Fabian Cortez says as much in this episode. Apocalypse cannot ever truly win, but nor can he ever be completely destroyed. Thus, instead of blinking out of existence at the end of “Beyond Good and Evil” like he should have, Apocalypse has ended up stuck in the astral plane (say hi to the Shadow King for me) and in need of a new body.

Cortez, last seen regaining consciousness in Apocalypse’s lair at the end of “Sanctuary”, has been acting as Apocalypse’s instrument on Earth, a fitting role for a guy I think we can charitably describe as an absolute tool. Turns out that Apocalypse has a cult of worshippers and a backup Lazarus Chamber in the Andes, and Cortez has been working toward reincarnating his boss. Everything is prepared for the grand ritual, he just needs to find a young, strong mutant capable of hosting Apocalypse’s…soul? Essence? Whatever allows Apocalypse to retain his powers and exist as a translucent ghost in the astral plane.

Conveniently, Beast and Jubilee are in South America on a research trip. Beast gets to do archeological research and Jubilee gets to practice her Spanish. The pair of them work very well as a comedy duo. Imagine Frasier Crane getting an enthusiastic intern with pyrokinetic powers. I’ll also note that this is where a new animation studio took over, so the show looks different, especially Jubilee. There are odd animation errors throughout. In particular, sometimes characters (or just parts of characters, like Jubilee’s lips here) have a glow around them for no apparent reason.

Anyway, Apocalypse needs a new body, and Cortez, borrowing a page from his new boss, has empowered four former Morlocks as his “Hounds” to find one. They don’t do a very good job of it, but eventually clock Jubilee as the perfect candidate. They assault Jubilee and Beast just after Beast realizes that the ancient tablet he’s been studying, which he initially read as dedicated to “the end of the world”, is actually dedicated to Apocalypse. This would have made for a clever reveal if we didn’t already know that Apocalypse is in this story.

Things move quickly from there. The Hounds drag Beast and Jubilee back to the temple, and Cortez uses his powers to buff Beast into a rampaging animal, who runs off. He also repeatedly insults and dismisses one of his Hounds, Caliban, whom Jubilee recognizes from “Have Yourself A Morlock Little X-Mas” (so I guess that’s canon). This is a rare instance where I wish Jubilee had been given a throwaway line to remind us about that connection.

True to form, Cortez is his own worst enemy. Caliban finally works up the courage to betray him just in time for the sacrifice, and around the same time Beast returns to the temple to join the fight. Cortez hastily depowers everyone, but by then it’s too late. The temple is collapsing (for some reason), and Cortez is left alone on the altar. You see where this is going, right? Apocalypse gleefully thanks Cortez for providing such a fine vessel, takes over Cortez’s body, and transforms into his big blue self.

It’s passable Saturday morning stuff, firmly mid-tier. Lawrence Bayne’s nutty line readings as Cortez are a highlight, as he really leans into the Jay-Mohr-doing-Christopher-Walken of it all. Beast and Jubilee’s rapport is delightful. Late in the show’s run, these two are finally popping up more frequently, and the franchise is better for it.

Stray observations:

• The members of Apocalypse’s South American cult all sport a tattoo of his signature blue underbite. There are only a couple of shots of them as a group, but even for a Saturday morning cartoon, it’s pretty unsettling!

• When deciphering the tablet that points the way to Apocalypse’s temple, Beast gives Jubilee a quick lecture on the differences between Incan and Mayan civilization. It’s nice to see the show demonstrate Beast’s intellect with something other than poetry or technobabble.

• On the toilet: Wolverine, along with everyone else who is not Beast or Jubilee. For those of you keeping score at home, this is Wolverine’s fourth absence across the whole series.

Storm’s abilities have always felt like magic, much more so than any other X-Man’s. How, exactly, does she control the weather? The franchise doesn’t even bother with a theory. What are the limits of her powers? Don’t think too hard about it. Little wonder, then, that when X-Men: The Animated Series focuses on Storm, it goes for sword and sorcery settings more often than not. We first got a taste of this in “Savage Land, Strange Heart”, and now we’re going to be introduced to a whole new planet of shirtless, caped doofuses in “Storm Front”.

In this story, Storm tires of Earth’s racist ingrates and falls for an intergalactic hunk who treats her like a goddess. Naturally, he turns out to be a brutal tyrant. We get to see the X-Men react to one of their most stalwart members stepping away, as she falls for what is clearly the wrong guy. The ideas in this story are good, it’s the execution that falters.

Part 1

Season 5, Episode 3. Air date: November 2, 1996.

The X-Men fly to Washington, D.C. to try to stop an unprecedented weather disaster in the making. The episode doesn’t really posit any kind of plan here, but that’s not the point. Mutants are being blamed for the hurricane, and if you think that’s cartoony kid racism, you’re too young to remember the likes of Pat Robertson. Storm is especially hard hit by the freaky weather, which she cries is, “…not of the Earth!” She flies around D.C. doing her best to return the local weather system to normal, before falling dramatically from the top of the Washington Monument. She is saved by a green-eyed stud in a loincloth, cape, and helm. This is a man who put on this ensemble, looked at himself in the mirror, and thought, “You know what this needs? My largest quiver of arrows.”

This guy is Arkon, the source of the unearthly weather and ruler of the planet Polemachus. Yup, ruler of an entire planet. Arkon is another strangely deep cut into the Marvel catalog. He and Polemachus debuted in a 1970 Avengers story. Think Conan the Barbarian with an Asgardian magical-tech vibe. Polemachus exists in a parallel dimension and is sustained by its planetary rings, which are often affected by events on Earth, hence Arkon’s desire to destroy the Earth in his 1970 debut. The show’s version of this story borrows elements from 1979’s X-Men Annual #3, in which Storm and Cyclops ultimately team up to re-energize Polemachus’s rings, and 1981’s X-Men Annual #5, in which Storm and Arkon express feelings for each other. Arkon and Polemachus haven’t really shown up in the comics since, which should give you some idea of how cool they are, and how truly baffling it was for the show to do a Polemachus story in 1996.

Anyway, Arkon turns off his weather machine and tells Storm that his planet is endangered by weather even worse than what he caused in D.C. She is appalled that Arkon would risk the lives of millions of people just to scout her, and absolutely does not consent to joining him, but in her weakened state he’s able to carry her into a portal anyway. Storm manages to leave behind both her comm badge and one of Arkon’s magical technologically advanced portal-creating beads.

There are some fun character beats as the team is forced to hitch a ride home in some normie’s truck (the Blackbird had to pull an emergency landing) and eventually they accidentally activate the teleportation bead. Upon arriving on Polemachus, they’re beset by both the terrified populus (all in capes and weird helmets, naturally) and a cadre of hovering murderbots. The fight against the bots is not the show’s best work, but it has its moments. Jubilee, of all people, intimidates the angry crowd with her powers, which is a nice change of pace for her. Beast says, “This is not how I would have wished to learn about this new culture!” as he smashes a bot to pieces in self-defense.

They eventually prevail, and Beast sets about trying to triangulate Storm’s location. Jubilee suggests that anyone powerful enough to snatch Storm from a world away probably lives in the giant palace just over yonder, which again, is a fun moment for her (and Beast). Not that it matters, as the team is quickly hit by a teleport ray and sent directly to the palace’s dungeon. Not that it matters, as they quickly fake some infighting to get the guards inside their cell, and escape (presumably; this fight isn’t actually shown). They burst into Arkon’s throne room just as he and Storm are wrapping up the global realignment of the Polemachian climate.

The episode has been breaking up the fights with scenes in Arkon’s throne room. Storm doesn’t love that he abducted her, but faced with a planet imperiled, especially one imperiled by weather, she feels obligated to do the right thing and save lives. Getting in tune with an entire planet takes a lot of time and effort (which rankles Arkon), made more difficult by some kind of interference from a very suspicious glowing pylon at the city center. Arkon insists that this device is essential to planetary security (interesting wording there, my king), and Storm drops it. She’s eventually able to work her magic use her genetically-derived mutant powers to calm the weather across the entire planet, which raises a lot of questions about just how powerful Storm is.

It’s at this point that Cyclops, Wolverine, Beast, and Jubilee bust in to “save” Storm, which entails a brief tussle with Arkon. This enrages Storm, reverting the planet’s weather to its apocalyptic state. Storm calms everyone down and, with Arkon’s support, uses the last of her strength to correct the weather. There’s a notable reaction shot of Wolverine wincing as Arkon escorts her back to the throne so she can save the planet. The message is clear: Storm is trying to do the right thing, and the X-Men are just running around causing harm. “Whoa, guess they don’t need us at all,” says Jubilee.

Arkon is elated with Storm’s miraculous feat. The people adore her. Arkon proposes to her with the words, “Storm, I don’t know how Earth celebrates your incredible deeds, but I’ll tell you, Polemachus will love and worship you, now and forever. And so will I”. And she accepts! Without a doubt the biggest cliffhanger in the show’s entire run.

Now That’s What I Call ’90s: ozone layer mentioned! Polemachus’s aberrant weather is due to the weakening of its planetary ring, which Arkon says, “protects our planet as the ozone layer protects your Earth”. Every ’90s kid remembers being educated about the dangers of the hole in the ozone layer. It’s a real triumph of science education and international cooperation, actually. Ozone depletion was discovered in 1985, along with the attendant risks of increased UV radiation exposure and other effects. By 1996, the world had agreed to ban the production of chlorofluorocarbons, and the ozone layer has been recovering ever since. That I can type “chlorofluorocarbon” from memory is a testament to how effective (and ubiquitous) the educational efforts were. In the ’90s, we worried that the ozone layer might have been damaged beyond repair. Thirty years on, thanks to science and good public policy, we’re instead projecting the complete recovery of the ozone layer by the time I retire.

Stray observations:

• We get to see the Blackbird use that SHIAR CLOAK. Neat!

• It’s fun to see Jubilee taking a more central role for a change, but the way she bosses around Cyclops in the opening scene feels off to me. She calls him “Cyke” a lot.

• On the toilet: Rogue, Gambit, and (of course) Jean.

Part 2

Season 5, Episode 4. Air date: November 9, 1996.

Part 2’s best scene is its very first. The X-Men are in disbelief that one of their own would abandon them, or three out of four them are, anyway. Cyclops isn’t thrilled about it, but maintains that Storm is allowed to make her own choices. This opinion seems like a better fit for Wolverine or even the absent Gambit, but as always, the show puts the worst opinion in Cyclops’s mouth. Jubilee is also basically on board with Storm getting hitched to a space hunk, though as we’ll see, she’s more clear-eyed about the situation than Storm is.

Storm herself cuts into the debate to explain that she is, in fact, thinking clearly. She’s tired of putting her life at risk for a world that continues to hate mutants and, more to the point, she’s been an X-Man since she was a teenager. Hers has been a life of self-control, and of being controlled. This is the first real choice she’s ever had, and from where she’s sitting, it’s an easy one. The people treat her like a goddess (they are literally erecting a giant statue of her outside), a superhunk is in love with her, and surely she’ll revolutionize Polemachian fashion sense (this last part is my own extrapolation).

It’s a pretty compelling argument! Unfortunately, Part 1 already dropped plenty of hints that Arkon is bad news, and the very next scene will make that explicit. We get an inside view of a planning session with his scheming advisors, who helpfully say out loud that the mysterious pylon at the center of town is what caused the weather disruption and what powers the murderbots and agony bracelets. Arkon has been running a totalitarian state with an enslaved underclass, and now that the planet’s weather is back under control, he can invade Polemachus’s sister planet, Belgania, for more forced labor.

I can’t find a single reference to Belgania outside the show, so I don’t think it exists in the comics. In any event, it’s unnecessary. Belgania might as well be another country instead of another planet, and might have worked better that way. Subjugating an entire world is fantasy. Invading another country for slaves is something that actually happened here on Earth, more than once. The vast void of space be damned, Arkon sends out his fleet and brings back Belganian slaves faster than I can round trip to my grocery store.

This story’s biggest misstep is in revealing Arkon as a tyrant to the audience way, way before Storm comes around. There’s something to be said for her being blinded by her high status on Polemachus, overwhelmed by the (mandatory) public adoration and Arkon’s lavish attention (Wolverine mentions that as a child, she was worshipped as a god). But Arkon is such a bad dude. A slave fails to bow to Storm and Arkon activates her agony bracelet. Jubilee is understandably freaked out by the whole thing, and yet Storm continues to make excuses for her fiancé. The Storm of “Slave Island” would have electrocuted Arkon on the spot for such brutality.

While Storm and Jubilee are getting ready for the royal wedding, Cyclops, Wolverine, and Beast are getting very suspicious about all these battleships and caravans of miserable looking people. They eventually find a Belganian interment camp and raise some hell. They confront Arkon at a pre-wedding banquet, where he finally snaps, revealing his true tyrannical nature so overtly that not even Storm can remain in denial. The ensuing fight is decent, and actually lets Cyclops rack up some cool points.

Storm, for her part, flies into a rage, taking Polemachus’s weather with her. Entire buildings collapse under her unrestrained fury. Ultimately, Jubilee pleads with her to calm down for the sake of the planet. It’s a bit of an easy ending, but then again, Jubilee has been by Storm’s side throughout this story, so it’s earned, at least. In the epilogue, Arkon makes one last attempt to persuade Storm to stay, but part of his sales pitch includes the humdinger: “The slaves! What are they to our happiness,” which is a hell of a thing to say to a black woman. Storm responds by blasting apart Arkon’s security pylon, presumably leaving him to be torn apart by a planet’s worth of furious Belganians.

Overall, a mixed bag of an episode. I think it’s a decent spotlight for Storm (finally), and very effectively elevates her relationship with Jubilee. Polemachus is just such a goofy setting, a land of crazy helmets and perpetually shirtless guys in capes. Making Arkon such an obvious villain was a mistake. This story might have worked better if Arkon was better at playing dumb, keeping the nastiest parts of his society out of Storm’s sight and saving the reveal of his true colors for the final act.

Stray observations:

• On the toilet: Rogue, Gambit, and Jean (as before), plus Professor Xavier, who only briefly appeared in Part 1.

Season 5 is the show’s last and shortest, with just ten episodes produced for it. Courtesy of Fox’s episode shuffling, the season was lengthened with a few episodes originally produced for earlier seasons, bringing the aired total to fourteen. The four I’ve already covered are: “A Deal with the Devil”, “No Mutant Is an Island”, “Longshot”, and “Bloodlines”. The only one of those that’s any good is “Bloodlines”, which is very good indeed.

Given all of that, I wasn’t very optimistic going into “The Phalanx Covenant”, but it turned out to be one of the show’s strongest stories. It feels almost as epic as “Beyond Good and Evil” in half the run time. Well plotted, lots of fun, and chock full of the little details that take an episode of X-Men from good to great. Unlike most of the show’s two-parters, both halves are solid Saturday morning entertainment. Squint, and it almost looks like an MCU movie in miniature.

However, there’s one detail in these episodes that is going to drive me insane. The title cards for this story call the first part, “Phalanx Covenant: Part One”, while the second part is titled, “The Phalanx Covenant: Part II”. What, did they decide on the use of definite articles and Roman numerals with a dartboard?

Phalanx Covenant: Part One

Season 5, Episode 1. Air date: September 7, 1996.

This episode opens with Beast and Jubilee on a quick mission to corral a rampaging Sabretooth. While I question the wisdom of bringing Jubilee along for something like this, it’s clear that Beast has no intention of putting her in harm’s way. He just gasses Sabretooth and a crowd of bystanders from the safety of the Blackbird, and they bring Sabretooth back to the X-Mansion. Beast and Xavier decide to conceal Sabretooth’s presence from Wolverine for obvious reasons. Jubilee, of course, immediately blabs about this to Storm, at which point Wolverine goes nuts and demands to see Xavier. “The Professor’s in the gym!” Jubilee cries, as Wolverine stomps off.

We’ve got to talk about what’s going on in this gym. Charles Xavier is shown on the parallel bars, where he executes a few swings, a turn, a sort-of planche, and a dismount so unique that it’s probably just called “the Xavier”. I asked a physical therapist friend of mine whether there was any way in hell a paraplegic could perform these moves. He said it was “highly unlikely”, and would require both an extremely specific spinal cord injury and an assist from psionic powers. But whatever Xavier’s doing, it’s clearly working. He’s the most cut 60 year-old I’ve ever seen. Meanwhile, Rogue is shown lifting weight on a special apparatus that reads 65 tons. It’s not clear what exercise she’s doing exactly, since she’s only briefly shown in the background, but her arms are moving up and down in a way that vaguely suggests something like a preacher curl.¹

From there, the episode rapidly becomes a horror movie. Something emanates from Sabretooth and takes over the mansion’s computers. Xavier gets a desperate video call from, of all people, Mister Sinister, who warns him that, “The creature consumes matter! It can take on any form. You cannot wait!”. But it’s already too late, as a black and yellow tentacle grabs Xavier from behind. Beast briefly becomes the episode’s final girl, barely outrunning the creature, only to find the rest of the X-Men trapped in cocoons. He even sidesteps a suspicious hazmat team, quickly revealed to be more shapeshifting creatures (the stakes, they are rising). Serious props to the animators on this episode. Throughout this sequence the effects are dynamic and clever (the creature chasing Beast through the building’s wiring, for example), a very noticeable change from the show’s usual stiff style.

Beast manages to get away by “borrowing” Wolverine’s Jeep (a nice continuity detail), where he finds a stowaway: Warlock, heir apparent to the Phalanx Covenant. Warlock is another Chris Claremont creation, debuting back in 1984. His character history is tangled up in the relationship between the Technarchy (which debuted the same year) and the Phalanx, which debuted in 1993. Both the Technarchy and the Phalanx are galactic alien powers bent on consuming the universe one way or another. Whether the Technarchy created the Phalanx or vice versa depends on what year of comics you’re reading. The show wisely streamlines things to just the Phalanx, and gives them the Borg-like motivation of wanting to assimilate all worthwhile life. As for Warlock, he’s considered a mutant among his people, the mutation being pacifism. He and his “Life Mate”² fled the Phalanx and crash landed on Earth, which has inadvertently summoned the rest of the Phalanx and endangered the planet.

Saving the exposition dump for halfway through the episode gave the Phalanx some time to feel like a real mystery, and they’re all the scarier for it. Beast and Warlock make their way to Beast’s lab at Grace Eye Clinic (another nice bit of continuity), where Beast is able to determine that the Phalanx are electromagnetic in nature. Thus they can move incredibly quickly over any wire or metal, though they seem to struggle to assimilate mutants. Science Corner is punctuated by a call to President Robert Jefferson Kelly, who invites Beast and Warlock to share their findings in person. Warlock realizes that President Kelly shouldn’t be aware of him, which—dun dun dun—means that he’s already been assimilated (the stakes, they are rising!).

Beast instead contacts Forge, who agrees to meet him at a diner. The alien power that is rapidly conquering the planet gives Beast just enough time to catch up Forge and Quicksilver on the goings-on, before a violent mob of assimilated Phalanx surround the diner. The good guys are able to make an escape thanks to an assist from the rather conspicuous Mister Sinister, but not before losing Quicksilver to the Phalanx (the stakes, they continue to rise!). Beast casually tosses a live grenade back into the diner as they exit, for good measure. We’ll later learn that assimilation can be reversed, which means Beast probably just killed a few innocent people. Look, it’s been a busy day for the guy. He hasn’t even had time to sleep since gassing that crowd yesterday.

Beast, Forge, Warlock, and Sinister take a moment to collect themselves in Sinister’s jet. Beast reasons that given how fast the Phalanx have spread, they’ll take over most of the planet within four days. Forge argues—be still my scientist heart—that Beast may be using the wrong assumptions in his model, since the Phalanx are intelligent, and could potentially work even faster than that. It’s a real low point for the heroes, as they confront the overwhelming odds against them. Meanwhile, over at the assimilated Empire State Building (now “The Spire”), a malevolent tower of faces schemes to take over the world.

Stray observations:

• Warlock shapeshifts to become Forge’s missing (due to assimilation) prosthetic leg, which I’m sure is a fetish for a non-zero number of people.

• Beast, reacting to Warlock telescoping his eyes: “Please don’t do that.”

• On the toilet: no one per se, but Gambit, Cyclops, and Jean (of course) are only briefly visible inside the Phalanx’s cocoons.

The Phalanx Covenant: Part II

Season 5, Episode 2. Air date: September 7, 1996.

Part 2 continues the suspenseful action and rising stakes of Part 1, as more and more of the planet is taken over by the Phalanx. At the same time, the enemy gets some identifiable faces. The nameless creature that’s been chasing the good guys is Warlock’s Life Mate, albeit under some kind of Phalanx mind control. The rest of the Phalanx gets an antagonistic face in the form of Cameron Hodge. In the comics, Hodge is a longtime adversary who did at one point steal the powers of the Phalanx via Warlock. On the show, Hodge appeared as a Genoshan government functionary waaaaay back in season 1’s “Slave Island”, making his presence here an extremely deep cut that I’m pretty sure no one watching in 1996 would have gotten.

Part 2 is also where our heroes will be figuring things out and saving the day, of course, though the path to victory is anything but easy. Forge confirms that the Phalanx can’t seem to assimilate the x-gene, which will buy them some time. This also explains why Sinister’s lab and the X-Mansion, the two greatest resources for mutant genetics on Earth, were the Phalanx’s earliest targets. This episode does a great job blending the required expository beats with ever-rising stakes. Our heroes first stop over at Muir Island to try to develop a virus that will reverse assimilation.³ The Phalanx consumes all of Muir Island but the good guys add Amelia Voght⁴ to the party. Then they jet over to the Arctic Circle to pick up a very depressed Magneto, whose electromagnetic powers will be needed to isolate a sample of the Phalanx from the rest of the collective.

I really like the little details here. Amelia stops Sinister from blowing up the doors to Magneto’s fortress and just turns everyone into mist for an easy entrance (which will come in handy later). Showing mutants using their powers on the show about mutants is something that season 4 often struggled with (just look at how often “Beyond Good and Evil” fell back on guns). Sinister and Magneto also despise each other (they parted on very poor terms, you’ll recall), though Magneto sets that aside in the name of helping Quicksilver. Then it’s off to Newfoundland to get a sample of the Phalanx. Why Newfoundland? I mean, why not?

The very quick trip to northeastern Canada is kept interesting via a clever use of Warlock’s powers to disguise Magneto. It’s maybe a little over-engineered for all the good it does, but the point is, it’s fun. The wee bit of Phalanx goo that Magneto collects transforms into the disembodied head of Cameron Hodge. He monologues about how assimilation will, at last, be the “final solution” (yikes) to the scourge of mutants. Before Hodge’s head can wax poetic about any thousand year Reichs, the virus works, and he reverts to a brick. Meanwhile, over at The Spire, the Phalanx has worked out how to assimilate mutants, though it’s still going to be a slow process.

By this point, everything is in place for the final act. Our band of six heroes divides in two (been a while since we’ve seen that), with Sinister, Forge, and Amelia misting into The Spire to raise some hell. My favorite part of this sequence is when Sinister frees Cyclops, who regains consciousness and immediately tries to laser Sinister’s head off. Even Jean gets pulled out of a cocoon to actually do something! Shortly thereafter, Magneto, Beast, and Warlock bust in to deliver the viral attack. Back on Muir Island, Warlock had decided that if destroying the Phalanx was going to kill Life Mate, he might as well die with her. I wish the episode had the courage to follow through. Because Warlock is “immature”, he’s not fully part of the Phalanx collective, and so survives (somehow). He then happens upon a pile of goo that used to be Life Mate and resurrects her. It’s the only part of this story I’d change, honestly.

With the Phalanx’s local powers destroyed, everyone and everything reverts to normal, as is the way with cartoons. The best part of the epilogue is a quick shot of Mister Sinister scampering off in the background, just running as fast as his evil little legs will carry him. Cyclops sees him escaping and turns to follow, but Jean stops him, which makes absolutely no sense. Jean, honey, this man abducted you. On your honeymoon. TWICE. He’s an unrepentant monster who recently joined forces with a man who was trying to destroy the entire universe and all of history. Let your hot husband go kill him, please.

Stray observations:

• Before Hodge reverts to a brick, he and Beast have a chance to trade perspectives about “the perfection of the hive” versus the wonder of diversity. This is exactly the kind of thing I wish “Love in Vain” had made room for.

• Magneto and Quicksilver share a loving embrace in the end. I guess they patched things up between this story and the the last time they saw each other.

• On the toilet: no one! Everyone at least appears on camera briefly, even if, like Jubilee, they’re just in a single shot. It’s refreshing to see Wolverine in a reduced role, for once.