Time Travel is Fun
X-Men 3.15 “The Dark Phoenix, Part II: Inner Circle”
The Circle Club? I get it, “Hellfire” is a more adult term. Wyngarde thinks he has Phoenix under control.
They all think Scott is dead, but Jean isn’t capable of actually killing him. Proof she’s still in there…somewhere. Unfortunately, she seems to be buried pretty deeply.
The Phoenix is going to blow the Hellfire joint and go full blown evil on the world. (Sorry, I’m going to use the correct name, because Circle Club sounds like old ladies knitting).
Come on, Jean, you can do it.
X-Men 3.16 “The Dark Phoenix, Part III: Dark Phoenix”
Poor Jean. She keeps almost managing it…with the help of her friends. Possession is a tricky thing (and nine tenths of the law).
They can’t get the Phoenix out, but do get it contained just in time for Lilandra to show up with a writ of execution.
(Jean asks Logan to kill her, but he can’t do it. It’s fine, Logan, she comes back…)
This arc is only just making sense…the Phoenix being this out of control for no good reason? It’s weird, and would make more sense if they’d gone with the original origin. Ah well.
X-Men 3.17 “The Dark Phoenix, Part IV: The Fate of the Phoenix”
So, this is very different from the comics, mostly because they compressed things.
The X-Men have to fight the Shi’ar high guard, which is a pretty good match. But Phoenix wakes back up in the middle, and everyone realizes this has to stop.
They have to kill Jean…but none of them can, so she triggers the ship’s weapons on herself.
Jean dies, the Phoenix goes back to being good, but instead of a dry-erase tombstone, the Phoenix takes a bit of life force from each X-Man to restore Jean. Aww.
(Scott and Logan briefly fight over dying for her because love triangle. Sigh).
For whatever reason, this isn’t the finale, there’s two more episodes in season three. Weird.
X-Men 3.18 “Orphan’s End”
Corsair shows up with Shi’ar cops in hot pursuit. Scott helps him, turns him in, then finds out the cops are crooked and intend to kill a witness.
What a mess.
But how’s he expected to trust his dad when he hasn’t talked to him in years and they each thought the other was dead? Big ask, pirates, big ask.
Still, Scott has a relationship with his dad now. We’ll see where it goes, but this was a very quiet episode emotionally. It had action, but the drama felt…I don’t know. Smooth? Cozy?
One more episode in season 3.
X-Men 3.19 “Love In Vain”
It really feels like they got two more episodes dropped on them and that the end of Dark Phoenix was supposed to be the season finale.
They really didn’t know what to do with episode 19, so decided to have Cody, Rogue’s ex, show back up as an alien lizard hive mind person. Eww.
Wolverine’s healing factor turns out to be key to keeping everyone from being turned into alien lizard hive mind people. Except Cody. It’s too late for him.
He’s basically fridged.
This episode just didn’t need to happen. Writer’s room dredging the barrel? Who knows…
X-Men 4.1 “The Juggernaut Returns”
Back much more on track with Juggernaut attacking the mansion…right when some idiot archaeologist digs up the ruby and manages to transfer Juggernaut’s powers to himself.
This is poorly timed, with Cain getting hurt.
Despite everything, Charles can’t let his brother die, so the X-Men get Juggernaut’s powers back.
This is very typical X ambiguity, where enemies and friends often overlap and it’s impossible not to care for the people you fight.
Also, a bit of Xavier’s background.
Season four continues the trend of adding an episode or two every year, but at least the four parter is the finale this time…
Oh, and there’s a Christmas special…
X-Men 4.2 “A Deal With The Devil”
We got a nuclear submarine that’s about to go up, so we’re going to…thaw out Omega Red and trick him into working for us.
This is going to go so well. And Omega demands hostages…Storm and Wolverine. (Turns out Storm is useful, she can drive a submersible).
Wolverine knows he’s up to something but nobody listens to him. Listen to Wolverine. He knows this guy.
It goes about where you would expect, but don’t worry, they’re on the ball and he doesn’t get to nuke Hawaii.
X-Men 4.3 “Sanctuary, Part 1”
Ah, Asteroid M. Magneto hollows out an asteroid to build a space station as a refuge for mutants tired of dealing with regular humans.
Xavier sees this as giving up. But still agrees to a tour of the place, and perhaps there’s some way to reconcile dreams.
Two obstacles.
1. Xavier’s ex, who blames him for all the rising tension between mutants and humans. Real “Obama raised racial tensions” moment here.
2. Fabian Cortez, who has another use for Asteroid M.
Cortez thinks he’s killed Magneto and blamed it on the three X-Men present.
We all know Magneto isn’t dead.
X-Men 4.4 “Sanctuary, Part 2”
Yup, Magneto’s not dead. But it takes him long enough to recover that Cortez can take over, arm nuclear missiles, threaten Armageddon, etc.
Such a shame. Asteroid M wasn’t even that terrible an idea. But mutants aren’t better than humans in any way that matters.
Xavier is on better terms with his ex, but they’re definitely not getting back together any time ever.
And Cortez is now in the hands of…well, that’s not going to come back to bite us at all.
X-Men 4.5 “Xavier Remembers”
Xavier gets a mild concussion. Bad things happen when telepaths get TBIs.
His weakness allows the Shadow King to escape and Jean has to help him put the guy back in jail.
This is like the epitome of a single character focused bottle episode…it’s entirely about Charles and his motivations, and how he became the man he is. Pretty quiet overall.
X-Men 4.6 “Courage”
Morph has returned from the extensive therapy he needed after the brainwashing. Unfortunately, the Sentinels are back.
Master Mold has now gone completely rogue and is making his own.
And Morph can’t cut it, not yet. He’s locking up, getting flashbacks…poor Morph. Back into therapy for him.
But we haven’t seen the last of those Sentinels, I suspect.
Master Mold also tries to merge with Xavier to find all the mutants. Rude!
X-Men 4.7 “Secrets, Not Long Buried”
Scott goes to track down an old friend, only to find that the place he was living has been taken over by a bunch of quite unpleasant mutants, who have him locked up.
And try to kill Scott, of course, but he manages to save himself with a nice speech.
This is another single character bottle episode, giving us a bit more information about Scott, but not advancing any plot. The Braddocks showing up was interesting, though.
X-Men 4.8 “Nightcrawler”
Ah, Kurt, about time you showed up. Gambit gets injured skiing, which he’s terrible at…not surprising given he’s from a very flat, very warm place.
He’s taken in by a local monastery to recover, and Kurt is there…and there are rumors of a demon.
Why does Logan believe in demons? Why wouldn’t he immediately think “mutant”? That part of this makes no sense whatsoever. None.
X-Men 4.9 “One Man’s Worth, Part 1”
You know, mohawk Storm actually works here. More time travel shenanigans, and in the alternate timeline Storm has a mohawk and is married to Logan.
I kinda like punk Storm when she’s done like this.
Of course, they’re going to have to put things back, by jumping through time and saving a young Xavier, who just wants to be a family doctor.
Because of course he does.
The inherent problem with this, of course, is that it’s 100% pure Great Man Theory which I have little patience for.
But the time travel is fun.