User blog:Hawkeye2701/Review4U: X-Men TAS Episode 13

To try and keep busting out Reviews while I have free time to do so, I've decided to round out my X-Men reviews for now with the finale of the first Season of X-Men the Animated Series. It's been near enough four months to the day since I started reviewing the series and that would mean in the roughly 16 weeks since I promised to review this series an episode a week, I've managed 13... Not great progress. So for now, here it is, on behalf of Xemnas-Spidey, we delve into The Final Decision.

The Story
The story opens on a news report about Anti-Mutant riots starting up across the country as people express outrage at Senator Kelly's kidnapping. The X-Men discuss how to handle the situation, needing to rescue Kelly from Magneto before an irreversible Anti-Mutant movement cements itself.

On a scuttled ship we find Magneto confronting Kelly, about to kill him. Rather than get it over with however (Seriously, he could have done this in Kelly's office, why bring him to the boat at all?) Kelly pleads thaat he has a family and this throws Magneto into monologue mode, recounting his tragic backstory. Just as he gets back to trying to flatten Kelly with something big and metal, a Sentinal busts through the ceiling. Magneto attempts to take control of it, only for the Sentinel to inform him it is made of plastics.(More on this later) The Sentinal blasts him and another picks up Kelly, but then Magneto's counterpoint arises in the form of part of the ship flying through the Sentinel's abdomen. The one carrying Kelly manages to get away while more Sentinals attack Mags.

The X-Men arrive to find the wreckage of the wreck and eventually dig up Magneto, severely injured and barely alive.

At a mineshaft in an unknown location, Kelly meets with Dr. Trask, who has a version of Master Mold pumping out new Sentinals. In echange for the rescue, Traks asks Kelly to give a Presidential Order to put Sentinals in charge of controlling mutants, Kelly agreeing to do so once he's elected. However, their scheme is cut short when it is revealed Master Mold has other ideas. Declaring he is giving the orders now, he tells Trask to remove Kelly's brain and replace it with a computer. Given this is in like 1992, I can only hope it's something smaller than a bread box.

The X-Men discuss the problem of the Sentinals and how to track them. Using Gambit's memories from Genosha, they track the Sentinals back to Gyrich. Chasing down everybody's favourite Mutantphobe, Gyrich tries to call Trask before the X-Men capture him. Listening to the other end of the line, Trask explains Master Mold's plan. They demand Gyrich's co-operation, but he tells them that it's hopeless, there are now thousands of Sentinals.

With this sobering realisation, the X-Men go back to base and try to come up with a plan, Magneto deriding Xavier's position of Mutant/Human Co-operation. The X-Men decide to go, including Jubilee despite Wolverine's objection, as she gives a teary-eyed speech. (Eyes still brown folks)

Storming Master Mold's base, Jubilee, Rogue and Storm confront the majority of the Sentinal forces while Cyclops, Wolverine, Jean and Gambit infiltrate the subterrainian complex proper. Xavier even has a go of attacking the Sentinals with the Blackbird, but once it is shot down, Magneto arrives, saving his long time Frenemy before more robots descend upon them. Inside, Gambit and Wolverine are confronted by more Sentinals, but are quickly overrun.

Meanwhile, Trask claims that Master Mold can't do this, that he was designed to protect humans from mutants, only for Master Mold to point out the fallacy of such an idea, that Mutants are Humans and thus Humans must be proteccted from themselves. I wish I could take this scene more seriously, but Trask's face at this revelation is just so comically appauled, like he could never make the leap in the idea that Mutants are Human despite having to presumably program Master Mold with this concept in order for it to make this leap in logic.

Cyclops and Jean sneak in, attempting to save Kelly in the least subtle way imaginable before being spotted by Master Mold. While the Sentinal is distracted by the X-Men, Trask directs a surgical laser at a nearby gas pipeline (Brain surgery in the same room as a Sentinal factory and a gas line, that can't of been hygenic) The chamber explodes, Scott and Jean running out with Kelly.

The theme song kicks in as we return to the battle above. Detecting Master Mold's situation, the Sentinals outside return to the mine to help. Gambit and Wolverine stand atop a mound of busted Sentinals just as Scott drops by to get them out. Heading for the surface, the mine goes up with all the Sentinals inside. Despite this, Master mold survives, blasting his way out and declaring that he cannot be destroyed. Xavier and Magneto respond by flying a Blackbird full of explosives right at him.

Some time later, as Kelly's presidential rally, his tune has changed to reflect his appreciation for mutants (I swear this guy changes sides more than Magneto) And thus we close on Beast walking out of prison a free man and Cyclops proposing to Jean whilst they're monitored by a Sinister shadow.

The Review
Well, that summary took longer than expected, but now onto the review. As always we start with the bad.

There are some blatant holes that kinda need filling. Why did Magneto not kill Kelly in his office? It isn't explained how Master Mold survived the flood in Genosha, or even if this is the same Master Mold. Before, they were set up in Genosha, where they were being funded by a sympathetic regime, where are they now and how did they bank roll this? How has no one seemingly noticed Sentinals flying in and out of this place? On top of this, Master Mold's plan is so idiotic it's not even funny. Not just Kelly, but he planned to kidnap all world leaders and replace their brains with computers. Even taking out the absurb comic logic of replacing a person's brain with a computer and somehow not leaving very obvious evidence to the fact, we see Sentinals kidnapping multiple world leaders. People whose every waking motion is monitored by staff, someone is gonna notice if they get kidnapped and come back determined to impliment a mutant holocaust. Similarly so, why do this to Kelly now? I could understand if the current president is on her second term and is leaving the White House for good, but then you'd have to replace the brain of both candidates to ensure your plans are implimented, why bother? Why not just wait for a new president and replace their brain, since Master Mold is obviously not bothered by security seeing his 30 foot purple robots.

On the note I said I'd come back to, Plastic sentinals. Neglecting the fact that they look absolutely no different to other sentinals, right down to the very metal looking tentacle they use to grab people, I have a couple of thoughts on this one. The idea of entirely plastic equipment is not unheard of, from what I've looked up, such things are being researched in relation to brain scanning equipment so that they aren't interfering or being interfered with by the powerful magnetic field of MRI machines. On the other hand, these things still need to be plugged into actual electronic systems outside the influence of the MRI and even then, the electrical fields created by signals in a machine can still be affected by a change in magnetic field. So yeah, as fun as it is to bring up the idea of all plastic tech (In this, X-Men: Evolution and AVX) As far as I'm aware, it's ridiculous to expect anything which involves electronics of any form being made entirely out of plastic without needed to be plugged into metal somewhere. The only time I have seen this implimented well was in X-Men: The Last Stand, because that was something mechanical made entirely out of non-magnetic material, nothing electronic, nothing requiring circuitry. A robot could be built like this, even a automated one to a degree, but it wouldn't be able to talk and wouldn't be able to react in the same way without having some metal in it somewhere.

Now then, onto the positives and surprisingly there are positives. MAGNETO, MASTER OF MAGNETISM. As if any time that guy appears it isn't a positive. While he does have his stupid moment with Kelly, everything after that is pretty badass, taking down plastic Sentinals with bits of metal and bolts, fighting alongside the X-Men and even the Kamikaze run on Master Mold, it's just not X-Men without Magneto, and as far as finales go, this one is significantly better for having this guy.

Along with that, we have the situation of like nine mutants versus at least a thousand Sentinals. Just the steepness of these odds, the decision to go anyway and the ultimate victory despite them does make for one epic showdown, especially when you have things like Storm and Rogue as the team bruisers holding off the brunt, Gambit and Wolverine going all Bash Bros in the mine and Xavier and Magneto doin' their best Ahab when they peg Master Mold with an exploding plane.

Other than the plot stuff however, ultimately, I find this episode fails not just because of its own weaknesses, but because of what came before it. Between what is essentially two two-part episodes, The Cure and Come the Apocalypse and then the Days of Future Past episodes, we're introduced to a much bigger world beyond the Sentinals, who were originally just a couple of bigots' pet project. After seeing Bishop do his time travel bit for the sake of the future and the Enigmatic Apocalypse create Mutant Super Soldiers to take down armies for him, things like the Brotherhood (Sans Magneto) and the Sentinals start to look rather petty in the grand view. Sure, Master Mold and the like lend to the future threats, but when you line him up alongside the things we've seen earlier in the series, it doesn't look favourable. So I stand by saying they really should've saved some of that stuff for later seasons.

The ending with Beast was pretty good, though I find Scott's proposal to Jean incredibly awkward alongside it.

Ultimately, while still an enjoyable episode (As most tend to be) This one falls apart something terrible, like a delicious looking foot long sub you just couldn't hold onto to, this finale collapses under the weight of its own glaring plot holes. I'm Hawkeye2701 on behalf of Xemnas-Spidey and I'm gonna see if there's room in my head for an iPod.