Wolverine and the X-men (WatX)- Spoilers

[Talavar]

A series of tubes made it possible for me to watch the next 3 Wolverine and the X-men episodes:

Breakdown

Spoiler

A Scott spotlight episode; this episode starts with Cyclops screwing up in action due to his fixation on Jean Grey.  He decides to leave the team as he's a danger to his friends, when Emma offers to wipe his memories of Jean for him.  Scott agrees to take her up on it, and first they revisit the memories Scott's linked to Jean: him waking up from a coma after a plane crash to learn his parents are dead & his brother adopted by another family; him getting his powers when confronted by bullies at his orphanage; Professor Xavier coming and taking him to the school; working with the original team (actually Iceman, Beast, Angel & him for once) meeting Jean; and confronting Magneto with Jean and the others.  We also get things souring with the arrival of Wolverine and his aggressive pursuit of Jean, and then the explosion that began the show.  And the final memory shows that the explosion that destroyed the mansion at the series' start was actually Jean becoming the Phoenix.

An interesting episode - it's almost all flashbacks, and it fills in a lot of information about the show and characters before the series opener.  It basically posits that Jean is what made Scott a hero & a leader, but unfortunately we don't see any flashbacks of that; we see Scott as a sadsack before Jean came along, Scott as a tool once Wolverine shows up and starts wrecking things for him, and depressed Scott in the present of the show.  It was also nice to see them use the actual original X-men as the original team, though Iceman (who's still portrayed as very young-seeming) must have been an 8 year old back then.  Also, though Scott doesn't have Emma wipe his memories of Jean, it's surprising that he'd agree to it.

Rover

Spoiler

Scott and Wolverine tell the Professor in the future about Jean, and the professor concludes that it's actually Jean as the Phoenix that scorched the future earth.  From that point, most of the episode is in the future, with the Prof., Bishop, Vanisher, Marrow, Hellion & the reprogrammed Sentinel Lorna gave them trying to track down a memory core that will have the data on when the earth was scorched.  Their attack is successful, but it destroys the reprogrammed sentinel (nicknamed Rover) in the process.  Professor X tells Wolverine that the earth gets charbroiled in only 8 days, Wolverine-time, while Marrow, who apparently likes a mutant-killing robot better than people, rats out Prof X to the sentinels so Master Mold can capture him.

A solid episode - I've generally liked the future ones - though Marrow's motivations seem pretty sketchy. 

Aces & Eights

Spoiler

Gambit arrives in Genosha, supposedly hired to steal Magneto's helmet by Senator Kelly.  He announces that upon arrival, and instead requests sanctuary.  Magneto places him under provisional house arrest, and though Scarlet Witch is suspicious, Lorna clearly has the hots for him.  Gambit sneaks out with Lorna and she shows him around the island, unwittingly telling him where many of the islands key utilities are.  Wolverine sends Nightcrawler in to Genosha to warn them about Gambit (a little late), though the Scarlet Witch does throw Gambit into a cell after catching him with Lorna.  Lorna frees him and they plan to run away together; Gambit instead plants bombs at a number of key locations and plans to take off alone.  Nightcrawler tries & fails to stop him, though when Gambit is making his getaway (also having stolen Magneto's helmet), Lorna' loses her temper, takes back the helmet, and uses it to hole Gambit's boat as he tries to make his escape.  Finally, Magneto & Blink teleport to Senator Kelly's office to get some payback, but Wolverine phoned ahead and Shadowcat & Rogue are there to punk them both.  Magneto & the senator wake up at Professor X's bedside, and he shows them the horrible future they cause.  Senator Kelly goes on TV, backing down his anti-mutant rhetoric.

Another good episode - the show is really picking up momentum nicely.  Nightcrawler actually loses this time out, which is sad because I hate Gambit with the fire of a thousand suns, but probably good for the show to demonstrate that Nightcrawler isn't unbeatable.  Maybe Gambit drowned after Lorna punctured his boat - a man can dream.

[Midnite]

Shades of Grey is out. 

[Previsionary]

WatX #23- Shades of Grey:

Spoiler

This is the penultimate episode before the finale begins (3 parter) and we pick up with Jean and where she's been for so long--the hospital trying to remember her name. She and a nurse go through several flashcards of names and it begins to bother Jean to the point that her powers activate and startles the nurse, which alerts her to Jean's mutant nature. This mental shockwave also alerts Emma to Jean's presence, as she was conveniently using cerebro at the time.

Emma rushes off to tell a slumbering Cyclops about this discovery. Cyclops hops out of bed and rushes to find Jean with Emma in tow. They have a brief discussion about their last visit with each other where Cyclops almost gave up his memories regarding Jean and Emma assures him that he has nothing to feel guilty over. Meanwhile, back at the hospital, Jean is on the run from the MRD. She gets cornered in a closet and this sets off yet another emotional, but very strong, phoenix based mental shockwave that alerts Sinister to her whereabouts as well.

As Cyclops and Emma draw closer to the hospital, Jean is now on the run from archangel who was sent to retrieve her. As Angel draws in on a helpless Jean, Cyclops bursts into the hallway and sends "AA" through a nearby wall. As Jean, Emma, and Cyclops escape from the hospital, "AA" continues to chase after them in some sort of a high speed chase that results in the procurement of both Scott and Jean. Emma then heads back to the X-mansion to find the lost X-men. When she arrives, she notices NC and several other X-men were knocked out.

Over with Sinister, we learn that he restarted his search for Jean after Cyclops last visited him. After he retrieves what he needs from Jean and Scott (samples), he orders AA to kill them. Cue, the arrival of the X-men (including Forge) and the obligatory X-men vs. Marauder fight. Just as the X-men gain the upper-hand (no thanks to Wolverine ), Jean's phoenix power begins to manifest itself once again.

The episode ends with Sinister meeting his master and informing him that they now have the genetic samples. Back at the mansion, the amnesiac Jean wakes up and feels safe in the mansion as Cyclops watches over her. Just as everything looks good for the X-men, Emma begins to show her true color...as a hellfire member! DUN DUN DUN!

This episode was full of action and Emma actually did something other than using her telepathy or being knocked out. This episode really begins to put things into place for the three part finale AND the opening of season 2. The one thing I found really amusing is how many things Angel was blasted into and through...the boy has stamina. Also, Wolverine was fairly useless the whole episode, so this was truly another shining moment for Scott...and Emma.

[Talavar]

Whatever Sinister did to Archangel, it must have included a lot more than metal wings - Cyclops shot him a lot.

I think Wolverine and the X-men is in danger of falling into a similar trap as the first season of Justice League - there, Superman continually was used to mop the floor to establish the villain of the week's cred; here, Wolverine seems pretty ineffectual as a fighter most of the time. 

[Previsionary]

Long post ahead!

WatX #24-26 Hindsight parts 1-3:

Spoiler

The Three part finale that finishes off the season. In episode 24, Jean wakes up in the hellfire club with Emma and the cuckoos surrounding her. It's in this episode that we learn that Jean is possessed by the phoenix force and that the Hellfire club have a mission to release and destroy it...initially. Now, they want to control and manipulate it (Emma does not). In this universe, the force is only attracted to telepaths that it thinks can control it. Meanwhile, Magneto continues his plans to cause a war between the mutants and humans. With Sinister Kelly out of the way and trapped in a cell on genosha, Magneto has Mystique impersonate him and send the sentinals towards his safehaven to teach some of the mutants a lesson that'll force them to fight together. His actions causes him to lose the support of Wanda and Pietro is unsure of his position with his father as Magneto still looks down upon him. After a few minutes, Magneto finally does something and pulls an Ultimate Magneto and reprograms the sentinels to attack the humans in NY.

As for the actual X-plot, Wolverine and the X-men try to find Jean and Wolverine realizes that Emma was involved in Jean's kidnapping. When Emma returns to the mansion, he has her celled up only for Cyclops to release her later. This causes a minor argument between Wolverine and Cyclops, before Wolverine and the team heads off to stop Magneto's initial plan of releasing sentinals on Genosha. They fail and are captured by the MRD. Wolverine wakes up before he can be captured in a truck and puts up a minor fight in his disgruntled state. Luckily for him, Emma returns, takes out the rest of the men, and takes Cyclops with her to save Jean, who is still being experimented on by the cuckoos and the Hellfire club in an effort to make her unleash the force fully. Emma and Cyclops eventually make it to Jean and a fight breaks out. The duo are overwhelmed and are captured.

In the future, Xavier and his team are captured by Mastermold and Wolverine and the X23s show up and save them. Wolverine and his team of X-23s arrive too late, however, as the sentinals now know where every remaining mutant on Earth is located. Vanisher also returns and tells the team that Marrow betrayed them.

NOW! The finale. The episode starts off with the X-men heading back to NY to fight off the sentinal forces. Meanwhile, Wolverine continues to track Emma and Scott to the hellfire mansion. Selene continues to drain Cyclops of his energy and Emma makes her stop. It's revealed here that Emma may like Cyclops more than she lets on. It's also revealed that Emma and the cuckoos are the cause of Jean going all Phoenix Force on everyone and the reason Charles went into a coma. Emma and the cuckoos were outside the school gates unleashing a psychic attack on the X-men. It's then revealed that Emma placed Charles on genosha and she orchestrated her way onto the X-men.

Meanwhile, in Jean's head, the cuckoos continue to make Jean break down the shields she has to keep the Phoenix force underwraps. The cuckoos succeed in unleashing the force from Jean's body and it overtakes them.

Outside, Wolverine continues to make his way to the mansion and he recieves a message from Xavier that he can't understand. Xavier is telling him to trust Emma, but his messaged is chopped off before he can completely relay it. Noting the failure of the plan, Future Wolverine, Xavier, and Bishop determine it's time to confront Master Mold...once and for all. This allows the toon to show parallel fights between the future X-men and the past X-men as they take on the sentinel forces.

Back at the Hellfire club, Wolverine finally makes it, but he's assaulted before he can make it to the door. Inside, the cuckoos finally release the force and the Phoenix heads towards Genosha to destroy it. This upsets Emma and she knocks Sebastian and Selene unconscious with a psybolt. Emma then kisses an unconscious Scott again and this upsets Jean and she ties Emma to a wall. Jean realizes that the only way to stop the force is for it to return to her and Scott and Jean head off to confront it.

In NY, the cuckooforce confronts Magneto and his sentinels and destroy all of them. Magneto is narrowly saved by Quicksilver as the Phoenix continues to destroy everything. Magneto realizes he's lost the fight and asks QS to return him to genosha. In the future, Bishop and his team have taken out the first wave of sentinals, but still can't reach Master Mold. Marrow and Lorna then appear and destroy the second wave. Master Mold then reveals her full form and Lorna tries to take it out and fails.

Back in NY, the X-men are all down. A flying Jean confronts the force and Cyclops is able to knock it onto the road for a few seconds. Scott refuses to lose Jean again, but the force overpowers him. The Force then tries to destroy Scott once and for all, but a timely intervention from Emma saves him. Emma's sacrifice ends up costing her big time as her diamond form explodes and the phoenix force dissipates. It then rains Emma's pieces.

In Genosha, Wanda and Lorna turn their back on Magneto and only QS stands by him. Wanda has Blink send Magneto and QS elsewhere. The episode draws to a close with Rogue and Wolverine finally hashing out their differences in Xavier's resting place. However, all is not good. The rise of the sentinels may be done, but a new future has arrived. The age...of APOCALYPSE!

And that, people, is the end of season 1. Hopefully season 2 will be much stronger with more team episodes. I think we can all agree that the first 12 episodes were rocky and all over the place. The one thing this season really needed was more Colossus. He was in advertisements and pics, but he only showed up once or twice. Hopefully season 2 will rectify this issue while keeping the team relatively small. I also doubt Emma will be featured much with Jean back in the picture, but they have an easy way to write her back in. Overall, I think the season ended on a strong note. Also, Emma in this toon might be just a bit too tame. I'm shocked that I typed that.

[Talavar]

I enjoyed the 3-part finale, and agree that the season ended on a high note. 

Spoiler

Future Wolverine & the Wolverettes amused me, and I enjoyed how they handled the Phoenix force - it's not just Jean's own powers run amok, but they worked it in without having to go all cosmic either.  There were definite signs that Emma has/had a thing for Scott, and possibly that it's reciprocated at least a little bit.

I'm a little disheartened by the very end however, with next season set-up for another "avert the future" storyline.  How future-Xavier is aware of changes to the timeline (he should change with them after all) is a little sketchy, but then, so is how he communicates with the past in the first place.

I too hope that next season will be more consistent, and make better use of the team & more background characters.  Season 1 tended to improve as it went along, so that gives me a fair bit of hope that the improvement will continue.

[Silver Shocker]

I saw the three part finale today. It wasn't bad. I enjoyed it alright.

I didn't really like how they portrayed Magneto in this story. I found they turned him from a somewhat reasonable ruler for most of the season and into a crazy man willing to get his own people killed. I've always had a fondness for the less villainous version of Magneto that Claremont fleshed out, so his portrayal in this story didn't sit right with me.

In regards to the whole season, I really liked the show for about the first three episodes or so, and then I found it kind of dragged on for a bit, but I do think it picked up a fair deal in the second half of the season.