Jonathan Dobres

Part 1

Season 4, Episode 9. Air date: September 9, 1995.

Kids today have it easy. Wake the iPad, tap a button, and watch any show ever made, on demand. They will never understand what it was like for their parents. Case in point: this episode opens on a bizarre scene. Bishop, Storm, and Wolverine are in mid-battle with Nimrod, the futuristic super-Sentinel. It’s May 11, 1959, some on-screen text tells us, and a college-age¹ Charles Xavier is panicking about the insane brawl happening on the quad.

Just when the good guys start yelling about a “remote fuse”, the story cuts to 2055, where we see Bishop and Shard² head to the past to stop a temporal anomaly. Then we get an idyllic few minutes in the present at the X-Mansion. Wolverine and Storm flirt with each other, when the sky turns red, Xavier screams, and everything changes. Suddenly we’re in the middle of a high tech war between mutants and humans. X-Men are fighting against the Avengers! Magneto leads the resistance! Mastermind and Mister Sinister are helping! Storm and Wolverine are married???

Imagine tuning in to this episode five minutes late. Such were the perils of broadcast television in 1995, kids.

Eric Lewald says in 2017’s Previously On X-Men… that “One Man’s Worth” is one of his favorite stories. He also says, “I don’t know that there is a Marvel story quite like this in the books,” but there definitely is. For six months in 1995, the Age of Apocalypse crossover event completely replaced eight—eight—different X-Men titles with an alternate universe in which Apocalypse rules the world. In that timeline, just as in these episodes, Professor Xavier is killed before he can ever found the X-Men. In both stories, Bishop is the guy trying to correct the timeline, Magneto leads the resistance, Wolverine is married to a familiar face (Jean in the comics, Storm on the show), and the world is ruled by one of the X-Men’s great nemeses (Apocalypse in the comics, Master Mold on the show). Given the similarities, “One Man’s Worth” is often mistaken for an adaptation of Age of Apocalypse, but it’s actually an original story. The comic event ran January-June 1995, while the TV story aired in September 1995 and would have been written a year before that, at least.

Anyway, after an extended battle scene overflowing with laser blasts, exciting cameos, and at least a little actual action thanks to alt-1995 Nightcrawler, Bishop and Shard arrive to lay down the exposition. They pull Storm and Wolverine aside and explain that this timeline only exists because of the premature death of Charles Xavier. Without Xavier around to fight for mutant-human peace, the world rapidly descends into all-out war. “All of this destruction, all of this misery, is due to the absence of one man?” Storm says incredulously. But yes, that’s the premise. Charles Xavier is the George Bailey of X-Men: The Animated Series. Merry Christmas, you old Savings & Loan.

Bishop further explains that the time-traveling assassin is one Trevor Fitzroy, who agrees to alter the past to secure Master Mold’s hold on the world in exchange for securing his own comfort in 2055. Fitzroy debuted in 1991, hailing from the same dystopian future as Bishop. He drains energy from other human beings and then uses that energy to open time portals. His sidekick, Bantam, is a particularly weird character. In the comics, he has under-specified powers that (possibly) help stabilize Fitzroy’s time portals. In this story, Bantam serves no purpose other than to make sniveling remarks, and sounds like a cross between Dom Deluise and Snarf. Fitzroy’s deal with Master Mold and his initial jump to 1959 is the funniest moment in the whole story:

Fitzroy drains the life out of a guy, right in front of the looming Master Mold.

Fitzroy: He’ll be fine in a few days.

Master Mold: Whatever.

Fitzroy tosses Bantam into a fresh time portal and then follows.

Storm immediately agrees to help Bishop, because she’s Storm. For her, undoing her own existence is a small price to pay to end a world war. Wolverine is more than a little angry at the idea of erasing his and Storm’s marriage, but comes around to doing the right thing regardless.

This brings us, finally again, to 1959. Charles Xavier is walking around campus, really enjoying his legs, and having a chat with a Professor Grey (definitely Jean’s dad). Young Charles is arguing that single-generation mutation simply isn’t possible, that surely the emergence of, say, fantastic new abilities is something that happens very gradually. We’ll learn later that he isn’t comfortable with his powers and would prefer not to use them at all. He’s not playing coy here, he’s in denial, maybe even closeted.

The whole crew from alt-1995 materializes, and Bishop explains to Xavier that—surprise, kiddo—single generation mutation is extremely possible. Xavier is amazed to meet other mutants for the first time in his life, but mostly seems overwhelmed. They decide to reconvene at a nearby cafe, which gives us this story’s most interesting scene. The cafe’s owner is at first a little put off by the crew’s weird outfits, but what really sets him off is interracial marriage. He can’t stand that Storm and Wolverine are together, and summons a couple of goons to toss them out.

I love it when the show risks a moment like this. Few other kid’s shows would ever do it. The cafe owner doesn’t quite come out and say it, but Storm makes what’s going on explicit. “Skin color prejudice? That’s so pathetic it’s almost quaint!” The crew easily handles the goons and Wolverine comes very close to outright murdering the racist owner. Notably, it’s Storm who stops him, not Xavier. The best Xavier can manage during this moment of intense racial conflict is to lightly scold Wolverine for being rude. Once the brawl gets going, Xavier panics and runs away.

The good guys set about trying to find Xavier, but encounter Nimrod instead, bringing us back around to the fight scene that opened the episode. Our heroes (mostly Storm) manage to shatter Nimrod into little pieces, though that’s only going to buy them time. They then catch a glimpse of Fitzroy and Bantam escaping back to 2055, their work already done. The episode closes as Xavier, who’s been cowering in a nearby building, opens a door and triggers a deadly explosion.

As we close up Part 1, let’s remember that the title of this episode is “One Man’s Worth”. The whole point should be to show us why Xavier matters so much to the timeline, but instead it’s preoccupied with alt-universe takes on familiar characters and laser blasts. The Charles Xavier of 1959 is in deep denial about his own nature, to the point of flagrant cowardice. He expresses no admiration for the diversity of the human race, has no dream of world peace, and would like nothing more than to become a simple family physician. The confrontation with the racist cafe owner should have been a perfect opportunity to demonstrate Xavier’s potential as a peacemaker, but instead it escalates into a brawl that he runs away from. There’s absolutely no hint of the leader that Xavier eventually becomes. If the point of this story is to demonstrate Xavier’s singular importance to the timeline, then it fails completely.

Stray observations:

• Storm, while summoning lightning to blast Nimrod: “Crack the heavens! REMOVE THIS ABOMINATION!”

• On the toilet: technically no one, since this is an alternate timeline, and no one’s absence is unexplained, per se. That said, Cyclops and Jubilee (of course) do not appear. Rogue gets a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo. A “Dr. Grey”, presumably Jean, is named and (possibly) briefly shown on camera, but has no lines.

Part 2

Season 4, Episode 10. Air date: September 16, 1995.

If Part 1 was overstuffed, Part 2 feels thin. The good guys witness the massive explosion that kills Xavier, and Bishop and Wolverine immediately begin squabbling over whose fault it is. They are interrupted by the racist cafe owner, who has shown up with some cops to make trouble for Storm and Wolverine. In response, Storm conjures a tornado and just spins them into the air for several minutes while the team debates their next move.

Everyone returns to alt-2055, in which Master Mold is the unquestioned ruler of the world. There is no resistance movement, and time travel is technically possible but strictly forbidden (so says a fully cyborged Forge). There are a couple of rather uninspired fights against futuristic Sentinels (yes, my nerds, I know these are technically Enforcers). The good guys manage to fight them off, and Wolverine and Storm share a kiss (violence gets the girl, guys!).

Meanwhile, Fitzroy is explaining the assassination of Charles Xavier to Master Mold. Unfortunately, Master Mold has no memory of his alternate self’s deal with Fitzroy (why would he?), and is skeptical that he owes Fitzroy anything. In fairness to the giant world-conquering robot, he did warn Fitzroy to record his actions in 1959, for exactly this reason. In true Saturday morning cartoon fashion, Master Mold privately tells Nimrod that he intends to have Fitzroy disposed of, which, in true Saturday morning cartoon fashion, Fitzroy overhears. Fitzroy and Bantam participate in the second Enforcer fight just long enough to toss the good guys a recording, right before they return to 1959 for a second go.

The good guys arrive in 1959 and grab Xavier as he’s running away from the cafe brawl. They take him to the lab where Fitzroy will soon plant his bomb. After wasting some time having Xavier telepathically relearn some things that, per the order of events in Part 1, he definitely already knows, Fitzroy and Bantam show up to plant the explosive. Bishop plays the message he got from Fitzroy, which turns out to be a message to Fitzroy, explaining that successfully assassinating Xavier creates a future in which he will be executed. After some consideration (and whining from Bantam), Fitzroy cuts his losses, allows Wolverine to toss the bomb out the window, and leaves. He drains Xavier’s energy to power his exit portal, so I’m not totally clear if this gives Xavier short-term amnesia, or if he’s supposed to remember any of these events by 1995.

With Xavier’s life saved, the timeline has begun correcting itself. Storm and Wolverine confront the existential quandary in front of them. They’ll only exist as long as their temporal transceivers are powered, and the clock is ticking. They embrace and turn off their armbands, while we, the audience, enjoy a quick montage of their best moments from the last forty or so minutes of television. I can’t say it’s the most effective the show has ever been, but it’s something, at least. The story returns to the 1995 we all know and love, where Storm and Wolverine continue to flirt.

Not a lot actually happens in Part 2, other than some rote fights against futuristic Sentinels. Step back a bit, and you’ll notice that nobody’s actions really matter. Xavier once again fails to demonstrate his potential and continues to be the episode’s damsel. He even faints twice in twenty minutes, Jean Grey style. All Bishop and Company manage to do here is deliver a message from Fitzroy to himself. The story’s precipitating event and its ultimate resolution hinge entirely on his actions, which we barely even see over these two episodes. Fitzroy won’t be motivated to stop his actions in 1959 until he’s personally threatened in a future that can only exist because those actions succeeded. Time travel nerds (it’s me, I’m time travel nerds) call this type of chicken-or-egg situation a “bootstrap paradox”. Trevor Fitzroy is, as Homer Simpson once said of alcohol, “the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems!”

Stray observations:

• This story has not one, but two entirely wasted characters. Bantam is permanently attached to Fitzroy (I think they’re in a relationship). His only role is to whine and waste precious seconds. Shard is permanently attached to Bishop and doesn’t do anything that he couldn’t do himself.

• 2055 has been altered and overwritten so many times that I think the calendar should probably just skip from 2054 to 2056.

• Do you have any idea how hard it was not to write “Batman” instead of “Bantam”?