Jonathan Dobres

Air date: November 13, 1993

This show has always had a casual relationship with geography. Whether the trouble is downtown or on the other side of the planet, the X-Men’s various jets can get there in no time at all. Travel logistics aren’t exactly Saturday morning material, so characters just sort of arrive places as the script requires. This is especially apparent in “Red Dawn”, in which characters get to and from Moscow more easily than your morning commute.

Some hardline ex-Soviet generals want to restore the glory days of the USSR, and they’re going to thaw out their long-dormant secret weapon, Omega Red, to do it. If this sounds a little like the Winter Soldier, well, this came first. Omega Red debuted in early 1992, while Bucky Barnes wouldn’t get the Winter Soldier retcon until 2005. As for Omega Red himself, he’s a Soviet super soldier with “carbonadium” tentacles, invulnerability, energy draining powers, and (canonical to the comics but not mentioned in this episode) pheromones that can kill most people on contact.

What’s going on in the show’s version of Russia is pretty confusing. It’s either a military coup or a lopsided civil war. Either way, it should be global news, and yet no one outside of the Eastern bloc seems to know about it, to the point that Colossus travels to America to seek the X-Men’s help. Unfortunately, all the cool X-Men are busy, so Colossus gets Jubilee, and Jubilee only (having rescued her from another Friends of Humanity hate crime).

She and Colossus depart for Moscow immediately, leaving only this note on the fridge:

Hi.

Gone to Black Sea with Colossus to stop some guy named Omega Red. Dinner’s in the freezer. Have a nice day.

–Jubilee

And then they jet off to Russia (literally), with Jubilee in the pilot’s seat. This whole sequence is pretty cute, blending Jubilee’s “student driver but it’s a supersonic jet” with Colossus’s unfailing politeness (Colossus is still delightful).

On the ride over, we get a little of Colossus’s origin story and his strong connection to his family, which is his primary reason for seeking the X-Men’s help (never mind that his entire country seems to be in the midst of a full scale military invasion). At the same time, Omega Red is increasingly keen on restoring the Soviet empire and becoming its ruler, though again, why he’s the lynchpin and how all this is supposed to work with the trio of Russian generals is unclear. It’s a Saturday morning cartoon, so all that really matters is that bad guys are doing bad things.

Wolverine returns to the mansion, sees Jubilee’s note, growls “Omega Red!” and hops in a jet. But not before angrily crushing the note and throwing it on the kitchen floor, which is why it’ll take the other X-Men so long to show up. Wolverine arrives in Russia almost instantly. He and the others manage to fight Omega Red to a draw, but only after Colossus drops a tank on him and gives the team room to retreat (Colossus is still rad).

Colossus fireman-carries a badly injured Wolverine away from the fight.

Wolverine: I don’t…need…your help.

Colossus: Of course not! But you are guest in my country. Is good manners!

Regrouping after the fight, we learn a little about Wolverine’s history with Omega Red. There’s not much to it. This is just teeing up the deeper dive into the Weapon X program that’s coming next episode.

Finally, the cavalry arrives in the form of Storm, Rogue, and a completely silent Gambit (Cyclops and Jean are doing mutant relations work in D.C.). Despite participating prominently in the upcoming fight, Chris Potter doesn’t utter a single line. I might not have noticed, but it’s very out of character for Gambit to be so quiet. At least we get to hear Rogue say, “We’d have been here sooner but someone trashed your note.”

Anyway, the X-Men get to work causing an international incident. Thanks to a tip from special guest mutant Dark Star about Omega Red’s cryogenic weakness, Storm is able to freeze him solid. The only other notable thing here is that Colossus seems extremely willing to die with him, until Dark Star conveniently yanks him out of harm’s way at the last second. Colossus once again declines to join the X-Men, vowing to rebuild his country. Take a good look at him, because despite how fun he is, this will be his last featured episode.

This episode has a lot of problems. Aside from the thin writing and disorienting relationship to time and space, it’s weird to see the X-Men getting involved in a contemporary geopolitical event. It’s the difference between a show that reflects the civil rights movement versus one that inserts these fanciful characters into the March on Washington, specifically. I also think the episode could have been much more creative. Omega Red and Rogue both have energy draining powers, and if they’d used those powers on each other simultaneously, anything could have happened. But Rogue never gets the chance.

Oh also, Magneto and Xavier are still in the Savage Land. In this brief installment, Magneto outsmarts a T-Rex, demonstrating that he’s a formidable opponent even without his vast powers. He questions why Xavier wouldn’t just let him die, which would certainly make his life easier. Xavier responds, “I do not yearn for an easy life, Magneto. Only a just one.”

Now That’s What I Call ’90s: vague fears that the recently dissolved Soviet Union might reconstitute itself were around, if not very plausible. More germane to this story, there was an actual attempted coup by a small group of Soviet hardliners in August 1991, though that was shortly before the USSR dissolved, not after. The coup lasted two days.

Stray observations:

• Beast is on the toilet for this one.

• Of the last episode’s three stories, the “Previously On…” recaps only the Morph/Wolverine plot, which tells you where the season’s interests are, or how lame the Shadow King story was.

• To the show’s credit, the Russians actually speak Russian for a few lines before switching to accented English.

• Colossus’s sister calls Colossus “Piotr,” so far the only person on the show, including Colossus himself, to use his given name.