User blog:Hawkeye2701/Review4U: X-Men TAS Episode 4

Well there was more of a delay then I had hoped, but now it's time for another X-Men TAS review. This time it's episode 4. So without further ado, on behalf of FoolishJester this, is Deadly Reunions.

Story
We open on Sabretooth falling through some sort of mental plain. Some nice cameos of Deadpool, Maverick, Omega Red and some others I don't recognize. Landing in a cage, we see an image of Xavier fusing with Sabretooth as he tries to help him work through his pain. The link between them is broken however when a none-too-subtle creature that looks like Wolverine knocks them on their combined ass. Finding that Sabretooth is keeping things from him, Xavier halts his mental interference.

Shifting to a meeting between the X-Men and Xavier, Cyclops recounts what happened at the missile base. The group discuss Magneto and his aims before Xavier brings up some good news. Leading them into the conference room, he shows them Sabretooth in a hovering restraining chair... The very concept confuses me. Reporting his own progress with Sabretooth, Wolverine reacts badly, threatening to basically turn Sabretooth into a pin cushion. With some back and forth, we find the two feral mutants used to work together, but had a falling out when Sabretooth killed some of Logan's friends. Breaking up the fight, Xavier asks for Logan's help with the next part of Sabretooth's therapy. As you might expect, Logan takes issue with this idea, leaving and stating that so long as Sabretooth is there, he won't be. Jubilee tries to stop him, but Rogue tells her to let him go for now.

We swap to Magneto, who is sitting at a big computer somewhere pondering where to attack. Anywhere apparently being fine so long as its full of humans. His computer screen focuses on a building called Metro Chemical. Magneto comments on all those lovely chemicals and states that without them, life itself would be impossible... Unless one of them happens to be water or some other compound present in every living organism, I'm gonna say no, still, moving on. He attacks the building and we change to see the X-Men getting an alert on the matter. Xavier notes the challenge by Magneto. Rallying the X-Men, he tells Jubilee to stay behind with Sabretooth, a nice close up of her face revealing her eyes are still brown. (Get used to hearing that line once a review) He warns that even though he's shackled, Sabretooth could still be dangerous. Turning to leave, we get a sequence of the Blackbird taking off complete with theme music.

Cutting back to Magneto, he stands in the now burning Metrochem plant, wondering what Xavier looks like now, perhaps a toupé? I swear I'm going to have so much to comment on these two by the end of this. Anyway, Cyclops blasts a hole in the wall and runs in. They try attacking, but their powers prove ineffective. Solar Eye Beams (That was considered the canon then, so don't give me crap for it) Lightning and good old fashioned super strength, all apparently useless on magnetic fields... Not even manipulating metal to defend him, just put magnetic energy. I'm sure every scientist who watched this had some sort of aneurism. Mags complains that without Xavier there, the X-Men are wasting his time. Blasting a Toxic tank of gas, Cyclops inhales the dangerous chemicals and hits the dirt. Knocking Storm into a brick wall, Magneto uses his powers to bring it down on her. Magnetism on a Brick wall, I swear the writers didn't graduate high school at this point. While it falls we get a flashback to Storm as a rather adorable kid where her claustrophobia stems from before Rogue, having picked herself up from her own beating, flies to the rescue. Well, sort of rescue, the wall comes down on both of them, but I'm sure Rogue did something to protect storm from getting squashed.

Magneto complains about Xavier's reluctance to face him before a blue aura around his head and Xavier's voice indicates some mental attempt. How this worked when Magneto's helmet is supposed to stop mental attack, I have no idea, but Xavier makes his grand entrance all the same and the two square off.

Rogue busts out of the rubble and digs out an unconscious Storm. Flying over to Cyke, she checks for a heartbeat before giving him mouth to mouth. He is revived, but due to having to make direct skin contact, Rogue's eye suddenly erupt with Scott's powers. There is so much wrong with this scene, I will save it for the end. Cyclops tells her to close her eyes before collapsing yet again, leaving three helpless X-Men in a burning building.

Back with Magneto and Xavier, the two exchange banter and threats, very Star Wars-esque, fitting since they're now both owned by Disney. Magneto brings up his past and, while again not directly referencing it, we get some hints to his origins as a Jew during WW2. Knocking Xavier out of his chair, Magneto states his regret at this outcome before Xavier attacks him mentally, forcing him to relive his past. The Master of Magnetism promptly retreats. Somehow calling his chair with telepathy (I don't even know anymore, seriously, what the hell?) Xavier uses his powers to guide Rogue out while she carries Cyclops and Storm. They leave the building in flames.

Swapping to Senator Robert Kelly as he spouts blatant racism on television (Seriously, he refers to Mutants as unfortunate mistakes of nature) and derides the President for stopping the mutant registration act and notes the attacks on Drake Missile Base and Metro Chemical are just the beginning. When questioned what he plans to do, he declares his candidacy for President and outlines his plan to relocate every mutant in the U.S. to internment camps (ACTUAL WORD FOR FRIGGIN' WORD INTERNMENT CAMPS!) We see Jubilee watching this on television as Sabretooth rages about the situation. Turning it off, Jubilee approaches him and he apologies for his outburst. Noticing the damage to his wrist, presumably from his struggling against the chair, Jubilee asks if he'll stay calm while she fixes it. Releasing his arm, he of course grabs her, pointing out that Xavier's treatments weren't going to change him and he was simply biding his time before striking. Revealing that it was Magneto who sent him, having anticipated that Xavier would take him in if he made a scene at Beast's trial. Forcing Jubilee to release his other arm, he goes to kill her.

It's then that Wolverine reveals himself. As the only one who didn't trust the giant yellow psychopath, he unsheaths his claws and the pair lay into one another. The X-Men return, having mostly recovered from their ordeal and Rogue saying that she and Cyke should do it again sometime. (I note this purely for the amusement I get from recalling his reaction.) A noise draws their attention and they come in to find Wolverine with the upper hand. Xavier warns Wolverine about his repeated failure to keep his personal feelings out of their work, but Jubilee reveals that Sabretooth is an agent of Magneto. Taking his opportunity, Sabretooth slashes Wolverine and rushes the others only for Jubilee to blast him clean through the wall. He quickly retreats.

Taking Wolverine to the infirmary, they confirm he's going to recover and Xavier admits that he was wrong for doubting him and that he let his ideal blind him.

The episode ends with Magneto yet again monologing into the night.

The Review
Oh dear lord where do I start? There is so much wrong with this episode it's not even funny. The fact that Xavier for some reason owns a flying prison chair is number one, Magneto believing people can't live without toxic chemicals being number two and the stupid rises exponentially from there. Forgetting intentional poor judgement, namely Xavier's trusting of Sabretooth, Magneto standing in a burning building wondering if Xavier invested in a wig seems a little out of place. Sure everyone has a sense of humour, but I just find that line kind of weird when we're looking at a showdown between two of the world's most powerful mutants.

The fact that the writers don't seem to understand how Telepathy and Magnetism work is another thing. Now I know back in the 60s, Magneto's powers were odd and he could use them to create barriers etc. and even now comics tend to be a bit awkward about it at times, but this was made in the 90s, thirty years later, I'd hope that someone would know Magnetism doesn't just create tangible force fields towards any old type of matter. I'll accept the premise that Magneto's power covers all metals, even the non-magnetic, that's simple and as a premise isn't hard to grasp. I understand that writers are writers and not scientists, hell, neither am I and for all I know, maybe Magnetism can create these sorts of effects on Solar emissions, electricity and the human body, but if you're gonna pull that sort of thing, some explanation as to what the hell happened there would be nice. If you don't understand a power set enough to say how it did something, it's probably best to err on the side of caution and not do it at all. Speaking of, it's well established in most X-Men continuities that Magneto's helmet protects him from mental attack. Why didn't it here? Maybe an older comic buff can explain this one to me, but it seems to be a major flaw in your plan when your defensive tool doesn't do jack to defend you. This leads me onto Xavier. His power is telepathy, the ability to interact with other minds. Can anyone please explain how he communed with his chair? I get that Xavier built Cerebro, a device designed to link with a Psychic's mind, but I didn't know this extended to his bloody chair too!

Now then, the mouth to mouth scene. In order, Rogue's powers drain life force, not just powers, having her give mouth to mouth is like trying to cure lung cancer with smoking. Even if we accept the idea she couldn't do any more harm to a guy effectively dead, reviving him like that likely wouldn't give him much better odds. Next, she suddenly develops Cyke's powers and can't turn them off. She absorbs powers, but Cyke's inability to turn his off isn't part of his power, it's brain damage. Unless her absorption duplicated the injury, she should have no problem stopping the eye beams. Finally, let's assume for a moment that without the damage, Cyke's powers work this way (They don't, but let's assume) that as opposed to requiring conscious thought to activate like Havok's, they needed conscious thought to turn off, and of course Cyclops being damaged since he got them, wouldn't know any better how to stop them. Rogue absorbs memory along with everything else. Admittedly she doesn't always get the memory she wants, but given Cyclops' entire life pretty much revolves around how screwed up he is and that she has in fact been on the same team as him for a while now, how is it that in doing all this, she doesn't know to just close her bloody eyes? There is so much stupid in this episode, really.

Okay, enough dwelling on the bad, now time for the good. The exposition has greatly improved. Instead of huge blocks of back story, we get snippets, we get fragments. A sentence by Wolverine, a flash of Storm's youth. Even Magneto who gave a whole speech, the flashbacks only came when Xavier attacked him. Better than having us sit through a brief history of time every time the writers need to give someone's history, we're getting it in small doses, which is best if you ask me. While the story with Magneto is pretty weak on logic, it's still enjoyable despite being stupid as all hell. However, the better part of this episode is definitely the Sabretooth story. The mistrust, the attempts to help all leading into the showdown between him and Wolverine. I can't even blame Jubilee for letting him out. She asks if he'll stay calm while she cleans up an injury, it's a legitimate concern since she didn't know he has a healing factor and she does question his behaviour, so it's not like it's your typical "Let me out, I promise I'll be good" type scenario that I always end up screaming at the TV for.

The ending is by far the best. Xavier admitting his mistake establishes him as a much more human character than in other sources I've seen, presenting him as more flawed in place of the saintly unknowable Xavier that is often the topic of the current X-Men Legacy run and also starts to establish Wolverine as one of the major players as we come into Wolverine's massive hype in popularity during this era of Marvel. While the hype is not necessarily a good thing, seeing him as more than a claw toting loony kind of helps us feel more for his character.

All in all, this is the weakest episode so far, but for a series still finding it's feet, I'm willing to forgive the stupid and enjoy what they got right. I'm just hoping there's a general improvement from here on out as opposed to a decline.

Anyway, this has been Hawkeye2701 on behalf of FoolishJester. For my next review, I'm going to see if I can use laser vision to tie my shoelaces.