User blog:Hawkeye2701/Review4U: X-Men TAS Episode 11-12

In light of my month long lull in reviews, I've decided to put up another while I have the free time to make up for my absense. So without further ado, here's Days of Future Past

The Story
We open on a dystopian future, (Of course) where the statue of liberty stands in ruins (You damned dirty apes) Now that the obligatory references and clichés are done with, we find what is left of New York in decay, with Sentinels flying overhead. In an old sewer pipe with 'X-Men' carved into the wall, an aged Wolverine and two unnamed mutants climb out and start running for it. Confronted by sentinels, the three dispatch them with prejudice. Before they can get away however, a 'Tracker', a mutant employed in hunting mutants, confronts them. (Basically the equivalent of the Hounds from mainstream continuity) Soundly defeating the three, said tracker takes them in.

Wolverine and the tracker trade barbs about the Sentinels' intentions, but upon arriving at a termination centre, the sentinel on duty confirms that the tracker, Bishop, has reached his quota and is due to be terminated himself. Being led into the camp, they pass various graves to the X-Men, all having died. The earliest marking reading 'Jubilee d2010' (Won't Xemnas be happy?) Taking an opportunity, the X-Men attempt to escape, but only succeed when Bishop helps out. With the other X-Men staying behind to battle a Nimrod Sentinel, Bishop and Wolverine take off, finding an X-Men safehouse where Forge has managed to build a Time Portal.

Bishop finds that their plan is to go back to the 90s and prevent an assassination that would lead to their current situation. Some hints are dropped as to whom the Assassin is, Bishop questioning if Wolverine can pull the trigger, but before their debate reaches a conclusion, Sentinels start to appear. Bishop volunteers to go in Wolverine's place and he does so, but before the gate can be destroyed behind him, Nimrod follows.

Waking up in the 90s, Bishop complains that it didn't work (Evidentally the Apocalypse did nothing to enhance New York's decor) but quickly realises he is where he's supposed to be, but either from time travel or head trauma on arrival, can't remember why he's there.

In the detention facility/holding cell/whatever they're keeping Beast in, Rogue and Gambit pay him a visit. While they worry over Beast's state of affairs, Gambit loses patience being in the cell with him and makes a hasty exit.

Bishop, slowly regaining his senses seems to recall that the X-Men are the Assassins he's come back to stop and sets off, hijacking a city bus in the process. Driving the bus through the gates and the front door, Bishop's assault goes pretty well all things considered, at least until Jubilee sorta saves the day, giving us a shot of her still brown eyes in doing so.

Strapping Bishop into Xavier's floating prison chair (The fact that that is still a thing disturbs me) they set about scanning his mind for answers. Seeing their future, most are, quite rightly, skeptical. Bishop's armband starts beeping, alerting him to something else having come through the portal and Xavier sends him and the X-Men to investigate. Going back to the alley, Nimrod ambushes them. Through combined effort, they manage to damage it, but the sentinel starts to repair itself until Bishop destroys it's temporal transciever (Same thing as Bishop's armband which keeps him rooted in the 'present')

Heading back to base, they start to question who the assassin is until Gambit walks in, where Bishop flips his shit and attacks him, thus ending part 1.

When we return, we find Rogue taking the potentially lethal hit for Gambit while the other X-Men restrain Bishop, who starts to explain that Gambit is the Assassin. A lot of very simple exposition follows that I won't bother covering since it's basically what's been covered on Bishop's side already. Xavier then asks the million dollar question, who is it Gambit's supposed to kill? Only knowing that the assassination is at a meeting in Washington D.C. which Xavier is supposed to attend. Xavier tells Gambit and Bishop both to stay behind with Wolverine while the others go to deal with the problem.

At Washington, we find the Brotherhood of Mutants (Pyro, Avalanche, Blob and Mystique) preparing for something.

Back at the mansion, Gambit sees the report about the meeting in Washington and escapes from Bishop and Wolverine using his powers. Stealing a small jet, he takes off for D.C.

At the senate meeting, Senator Kelly berates Xavier before the Brotherhood make their entrance, the X-Men battling them out into the streets. Wolverine and Bishop arrive to help deal with them, but Gambit, who arrived ahead of them, heads for the senate building.

However, this battle proved to be a diversion as Mystique, having disguised herself as Kelly's aide, gets him alone with his bound and gagged real aide, and in the guise of Gambit, goes to kill him to frame the X-Men. The real Gambit makes his entrance, foiling the plot, but just as the real Gambit gains the upper hand, Bishop storms in and shoots him. Not knowing which one is real, he decides to finish them both off, but Rogue's timely intervention stops him. Breaking his temporal transciever, Bishop is sent back to his own time. Mystique reveals herself to Rogue and upon realising who she is (Namely Rogue's adopted mother) the X-Man helps her escape.

Arriving back in the future, Bishop finds it pretty much the same crap hole he left it, but with one significant difference, Wolverine's adamantium skeleton in a jar.

Back in the present, the X-Men go to meet Kelly, but before they can meet him, they hear noise coming from his office and find him gone. Cyclops assumes it's the Brotherhood again, but Xavier refutes him and in one is perhaps one of the coolest displays of deductive reasoning, shows that his watch has stopped, drops it, only for it to stick to his chair, magnetised.

The Review
As always, we begin with the negatives of this story.

There's the odd wasted scene here and there, one with the Brotherhood in front of the senate building or whatever saying they're about to start the diversion, and the obviousness that Mystique is the Senator's aide before it's revealed kind of ruin any sort of plot twist on that part of the plan, which I think is unfortunate.

I also think Bishop's temporary memory loss was rather unnecessary. Sure it gave us another fight scene with him and the X-Men, but having him try to kill Gambit off the bat, or just his story in general is enough to evoke mistrust and a fight without needing the amnesia. That's really all I could say on things that I think are certainly negatives.

As with many things in this series, these two episodes were adapted from the comics, namely the Days of Future Past story for which it's named and while your mileage may vary on whether you think the series adaptations are better or worse just for being different, one thing is certain in that Bishop is a lot more badass than a 13 year old Kitty Pryde. With that said, we move onto the positives.

The story is much the same as the comic, just certain details updated and changed for the sake of who the roster included. I do find more intrigue with this version as it included elements of framing the X-Men explicitly and the impact on the future being the intention of Apocalypse as opposed to the unintentional result of the Brotherhood's actions in the original, but that's just me.

The storytelling in the series has greatly improved over the course of the first season and while they did use flashback... Uh, flashforwards? In these episodes, it helped to illustrate the point. Using Bishop too I think was a good decision (For a change, given my usual opinion of these cameo roles) as using someone who was on the team already wouldn't have created the same exchanges and using someone more ammicable like Kitty Pryde would've made it more boring in my view.

All in all, it wasn't bad. Maybe not as tight a story as it could have been, but it established its elements well, got through the story without anyone being overly stupid (Bishop's initial belief in the Sentinels perhaps as the exception) and I look forward to the final episode of this season, which depending on how tired I am, I may review in an hour.

This has been Hawkeye2701 on behalf of Xemnas-Spidey. Now then, time to go save John Conner.