User blog:Hawkeye2701/Review4U: X-Men TAS Episode 6

Welcome Marvelites, today's review is the latest X-Men TAS courtesy of Xemnas-Spidey. So let's charge right ahead with today's episode, Cold Vengeance.

Story
We open on the Xavier mansion. Taking off right where the previous episode left off, Scott and Jean stand in Logan's room discussing why he might have left.

The scene swaps to the Alaskan wilderness, or maybe Canada, I have no idea, there's a lot of Ice. As Logan skis across the terrain he's ambushed by Sabretooth. The two begin to fight, but the battle draws to an abrupt close when Logan falls into the icy water. Drifting away on a small piece of ice, Sabretooth rages at his survival yet again.

Back at the mansion, Gambit and Cyclops argue near to the point of violence. When the Professor breaks it up, Gambit reveals that Genosha is welcoming mutants and that they should check it out. Agreeing with the Cajun, Xavier tells Cyclops to select three members of the team to go look into it. Picking Storm, Gambit and Jubilee, the three go to get ready.

Cutting back to Wolverine, he's discovered by a local tribe of inuits and brought back to their village. Coming to, he introduces himself to the elder of the camp, Pooyetah, only to figure out the man doesn't know about mutants. Heading outside, he prepares to do some work to repay them.

With the away team, they await their flight to Genosha, Jubilee worrying if she brought the right clothes. We manage to get a good shot of her brown eyes here as Gambit remarks that she only needs a bathing suit and some sunscreen.

With Wolverine, one of the tribesmen who suggested turning him in initially, Kiyoek, tells him to stay out of the way as they go to fish, saying it takes skill to handle the nets, only for Wolverine to go ahead and pull it off just fine, impressing the others in the boat. After Kiyoek loses his catch, Wolverine makes fun of the him. Heading back to the camp, Wolverine hoists two bags of fish and Kiyoek once again tries to match him, only to slip on the ice.

Later on, Logan sits with Pooyetah, who says that his people are happy because of him. Discussing Logan's lack of inner peace, he's soon drawn into the people's celebrations, something he tries to avoid unsuccessfully.

Getting pissy about Wolverine's popularity, Kiyoek wanders out of the village only to run afoul of Sabretooth. Getting his ass handed to him, Sabretooth prepares to kill him for being friends with Wolverine only for Kiyoek to point out that he's not Logan's friend. Threatening him, Sabretooth tells him to do as he says in order to get revenge on Wolverine.

With the others, their flight lands in Genosha. Heading to the hotel, Gambit brings up a small plaque saying 'Ask about our Mutant Discount' only for Storm to tell him to put it back. The clerk at the desk runs Storm through his computer, seeing a video feed of when she fought the Sentinel in New York. Saying he has the perfect spot for them, he tells the bellhop to take them to bungalow 12.

Back with Wolverine, he and Pooyetah sit fixing one of the nets when Kiyoek starts giving off to him, asking if he's brave enough to hunt with him on the open sea. Pooyetah scolds him, telling Kiyoek his jealousy is stupid, but Logan accepts his challenge all the same. Heading out with him, Kiyoek tries to lure Logan away from the camp, but Logan, having gotten wise to it, threatens Kiyoek, revealing his claws. When noise and smoke goes up from the camp, the pair row back only to find the place in ruins. Both men blame themselves, but Logan resolves to deal with the problem himself, going to face Sabretooth.

Heading out to the glacier, Logan is followed by Kiyoek. Finding Sabretooth, the villain reveals the other villagers tied to an ice bridge that's been rigged to blow. The two begin to battle. Sabretooth gains the upper hand and prepparing to finish Wolverine, gets tackled by Kiyoek. Giving Wolverine a chance to get back on his feet, the X-Man tricks Sabretooth into throwing himself off the glacier. Rushing to the villagers, Logan and Kiyoek cut them free. Saving everyone, Logan offers to help them rebuild, but Pooyetah refuses, saying it's time for them to move on, to the city.

Back on Genosha, the team summarize that the Genoshan acceptance of mutants seems to be genuine only for the bungalow to be suddenly locked down and gas to start pumping in. Blasting their way out, they find themselves surrounded by Sentinel like mecha and soldiers. Attempting to fight their way out, the three are eventually subdued when an actual Sentinel wraps them up in its tentacles.

The Review
Okay, to start with the negatives. I can only remark on a handful for this episode, so that's good. In this case, it starts with a rather large continuity error. Whenever Wolverine is stranded on the ice, he's wearing normal winter wear, but when he wakes up in Pooyetah's hut, he's dressed in his X-Men uniform. Not a big deal to the narrative, but kind of a bad sign for continuity. Later, when Kiyoek is giving off about Wolverine making him look like a fool, it'd be kinda nice if there was a bit more basis than random happenstance. Seriously, I get the guy just really doesn't like Logan, but slipping on the ice and a net breaking, both in the same day, that's just bad luck. So it'd be nice if at least one of the incidents that made this guy look like a dork were actually because of Wolverine or even his own action.

I guess if I had to pick on something else, it would be Cyclops, as his reaction upon finding Wolverine gone, especially after he had just saved both him and Jean the last episode makes him look like an ass and later again when arguing with Gambit when the Cajun had a genuinely good idea. Yeah it was an excuse to go lay on a beach for him, but it doesn't make the need to look into it any less a factor.

Onto the positives. Throughout this episode, we get a lot of good development on Wolverine's part. In particular, his decision to no longer fight Sabretooth and his general want for some peace in his life is quite nice. If this actually manages to stick in future episodes, I'll be very pleased. On the other side of the plot, while it's not resolved, the parts of this episode in Genosha do help get a lot of the set up out of the way for the next episode.

All in all, if there's something majorly wrong with this episode, it's that there isn't much to talk about. Sure there's the showdown with Sabretooth and the set up on Genosha, but that's a lot of speculation for the future of the series while this, it's basically a solid episode with not much wrong with it, but not enough going on in it to make it particularly remarkable.

So in conclusion, this has been Hawkeye2701 on behalf of Xemnas-Spidey, and I'm gonna go get a mutant discount at Subway.