Jonathan Dobres

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.