User blog:Hawkeye2701/Review4U: X-Men TAS Episode 3

Well until my copies of Web of Shadows and Shattered Dimensions arrive, It's time to look at Episode 3 in the epic saga that is FoolishJester's request. So strap yourselves in True Believers, because its time for Enter Magneto.

Story
The episode opens on the prison where Hank McCoy is being held after being captured. For those of you who are up on your literature, he happens to be reading Animal Farm by George Orwell, an excellent metaphor for the positions of both Magneto and the MCA. "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." He is promptly taunted by the two most inbred mother ****ers I have ever seen. Seriously, who looks at a hard back book with title and author written in upscale print on the cover and thinks because it's called Animal Farm, it must be a picture book? Clearly these men were not hired for their intelligence... Times like this, I see where Magneto is coming from.

Their jeering is cut short however as a commotion outside draws their attention. Running out, we see another fabulous example of the sterling ability of these guards as they fire blindly into the air when no threat has made itself apparent yet. Geniuses, really. Hank's cell is promptly torn open as MAGNETO, MASTER OF MAGNETISM, makes his first appearance. In a rather odd lack of continuity with the comics, Hank fails to recognize Magneto by looks alone, when really they should have fought each other several times by now, but I digress, things outside the cartoon's own direct continuity are not the most reliable in this series.

The two end up debating as while Magneto seeks to liberate Hank immediately, our big blue friend would rather wait for his day in court, a decision we will see the results of later. Seeing he's getting nowhere, Magneto takes his leave, dismantling the human attempts to stop him (Quite literally).

The scene shifts to Xavier and Jubilee watching a video of this attack, upon questioning who Magneto was, this prompts Xavier into Flashback mode. He describes having met Magneto after a war (The Korean War according to comics if I'm not mistaken) After a group of remaining soldiers for some reason capture one woman from the hospital where the two worked, they revealed to each other their mutant abilities, soundly defeating said men. However, compounding these characters with the Nazis and his own shenanigans of his backstory, Magneto apparently tried to go farther as these men were apparently responsible for the loss of his family. Xavier stops him from taking revenge, trying to talk Mags down. After they parted ways, it's shown that Magneto, in no uncertain terms, became a terrorist. Xavier stopped him then, but like frickin' Voldemort, there's no keeping a good Dark Lord down.

We change scenes once more to the courthouse where Hank's bail hearing is taking place. An Anti-Mutant rally is going on outside. Despite the hostility of the crowd, Hank manages to stand up and say his part, revealing the part of the MCA in the attacks, though his opinion isn't given notice over the crowd. His bail is unfortunately denied. It's then, that Sabretooth (Somehow the giant man in yellow spandex hid in the crowd) makes himself known, making a point of demanding Hank's release. Despite Wolverine's indifference towards him, Cyclops steps in to save Sabretooth from the guards (Summers does it again ladies and gents) Meanwhile, Xavier is using Cerebro to scan for Magneto, we get the first good shot of Jubilee in this episode and I'm happy to report, eyes still brown. The alarms go off as Cyclops brings in the injured Sabretooth.

Observing him over the monitors, Xavier, Cyke and Jubilee see Wolverine enter Sabretooth's room and get dangerously close to trying to kill him before the others enter the room. A stand off ensues with Wolverine wanting to remove him, but an alert interrupts the conflict as Magneto makes him move on a missile base. Wolverine points out the hypocrisy of how they deal with the two before leaving.

We then switch to Magneto being a boss, like always. Using his powers, he strats the launch of the missiles, clearly aiming to target the base itself. The X-Men arrive and confront him. While hoping Xavier's men are there to help him, Magneto is once again disappointed. Disabling them, he delivers his ultimatum before taking his leave. With seconds to spare, Wolverine claws his way through the machines, but fails to disable the launch. Storm flies up to intercept the missiles. Receiving a message from Xavier, it seems Cerebro knows about the missiles programming... I don't know, at times this show is such BS.

With this newly gleaned info, she still uses her storm powers to redirect them into the ocean, disabling the control system in the warheads just before they crash. Thus leaving three harmless nuclear warheads filled with radioactive material sitting in the ocean (Totally Safe, right?) Running on empty, Storm falls out of the sky, but is caught by Wolverine. Heading home, Magneto monologues at a distance, pondering on Xavier's motives.

The Review
Alright, the negatives first. This episode still suffers from the abundance of exposition and honestly, it's not very good exposition. I get that relating directly to real world events doesn't help a fantasy/sci-fi series age well, so I'll forgive not mentioning Korea or the Second World War directly, but the sheer vagueness of Xavier's tale, wrapping a key point of his own and two big ones of Magneto's back story into a single event seems a bit too condensed. I don't expect kids to understand the impact of these things, but non-descript military guys who used to run this small country and caused the loss of Magneto's family, seems a bit brief compared to having survived the Holocaust, the horrors of humanity for decades only to see no change and finally deciding you can do better than this with your ability that essentially renders all form of human armament meaningless against you. it just seems like a very lazy motivation. "I Lost my family, Vengeance!" as opposed to "Humanity has consistently failed me my entire life and the lives of my ancestors, I will now do something about it by bringing about the age of a superior species."

I did like Wolverine for this episode, pointing out that he's smarter than the previous episodes gave him credit for. I especially like Hank's part in the whole affair with the court.

My biggest let down, is the people. The best human in this episode is the judge, who impatiently allowed Hank to speak, and despite the circumstances still denied him bail. Contrasting with the last one, the best human there was the god damned president, who understood their oppression and the worst was Gyrich, who was a D*ck, but at least he was still intelligent. In this, we get an impatient judge at best and at worst, we get Cletus and Bubba the stupidest couple of guards who somehow got jobs in a high security detention facility. I'm not saying that stupid people are bad, or don't deserve decent jobs, not everyone can be Einstein. But if you leave a handful of guys who can't tell George Orwell from a picture book and are so jumpy they'll shoot at thin air running out a door instead of waiting for an actual target, these are not the people you trust to guard prisoners whilst wielding high powered laser weapons. The marginally intelligent will outwit them, take their guns, shoot them, and then escape. Ignoring the master of magnetism who stormed their gates, one guy pulls a pistol and shoves it through the bars, pointing it at Beast. Quick reminder for those playing at home, Beast is a mutant with super human strength, speed and agility, but also a world class scientist. He could've taken that gun in the blink of an eye and shot this dumbass if he felt so inclined, never mind that he probably has the physical strength to rip the bars out of the wall. If it were Sabretooth in this cell and not the mild mannered Hank McCoy, this place would be hiring an army of janitors to clean up what's left of these idiots by now. Displaying Bigotry as bad is one thing, you don't have to demonize them as idiots as well, that just makes the need to fight them seem stupider by comparison.

On the positives list, we have MAGNETO, MASTER OF MAGNETISM! I never get tired of that. This is an episode that really works for showing why this guy is the X-Men's greatest foe. I hate to disappoint Jester on this, but I'm also alright with Jubilee for the most part. She's not the only one whose powers are inconsistent and we could do worse for a central character, but even so, at least in the early seasons, she's not even that central. At worst I can call her the exposition tool. As the new girl, she's just basically there to ask questions everyone else already knows, allowing the more informed characters to explain to the audience what the heck is happening. Course that role in this episode is seemingly shared by both Beast and Storm as despite being the X-Men's greatest foe, nobody seems to know who the hell Magneto is!

Anyway, in conclusion, this episode is passable. Certainly not the best in the series, nor the worst. It does its job of showing off Magneto and that's enough. This is Hakweye2701 on behalf of FoolishJester, Happy Holidays folks.