Freedom Reborn

In the past few episodes, Rogue began to distrust the Bhood a bit more and Nightcrawler found out some interesting information about Magneto's safe haven. Meanwhile, Mystique broke into the X-mansion to check on Xavier. Later, Wolverine went away to find out information about his past and Cyclops tracked down and fought the Marauders/Sinister in an effort to find Jean Grey. This episode basically touches on two plots that have been going on for the past few episodes, Rogue's allegiance and Magneto's plans for mutant-kind.

This episode brings us the return of Mystique who breaks into the MRD to find a powerful mutant. She runs into a little snag and informs Magneto of such. Over at the Bhood, Magneto chastises Quicksilver and Rogue catches on to it. Rogue then absorbs his (QS) memories and finds out the truth...and she's not happy. Not even Domino can talk her down. Rogue rushes off to warn the X-men and she's greeted to several cold shoulders.

Over with Senator Kelly, Blink and Magneto arrive at his office and we learn that Maggie and Kelly have some sort of working relationship. Magneto knows Kelly isn't holding up to his part of the plan exactly and he's not going to have that. Cue...the acolytes attacking several prisons in an effort to free the captured mutants. Meanwhile, the bhood attack the X-men on their home turf--the mansion.

The remainder of the episode focuses on the X-men trying to stop a monster created by a mutant with nightmare powers--Tildie Soames (astonishing X-men).

Consider this a wolverine episode and a followup to his previous episode where he went after Maverick's daughter to figure out parts of his past. The episode opens with Mystique warning Wolverine that Christie Nord is in trouble. Wolverine instantly goes out on a limb to find and protect her. At the scene of the crime, Wolverine finds Mystique, who informs him that Christie was taken by Weapon X. Team-up time!

Mystique and Wolverine eventually come across a Weapon X plane and Wolverine jumps aboard it to save Christie. WHile there, he realizes that Maverick is still alive, but he doesn't remember anything and considers Wolverine and enemy. Not even Wolverine's attempt to plead with Maverick do him any good as Wolverine is tossed out of the plane and lands on a table. Wolverine does manage to track Maverick and Christie down later using his senses (though the visuals fit Longshot better). After another short fight, Maverick escapes again and Wolverine and Mystique continue to track down the girl where Mystique reveals she was part of Team X.

The duo eventually find the location of Christie and continue to try and save her. Wolverine is sidetracked by Sabretooth, but Mystique makes it inside and injects some chemicals into whatever Weapon X is working on. Unfortunately, Wolverine is captured and we get a quick scene in X-23. Mystique manages to save Wolverine and he gets a flashback of his weapon X days as Cornelius continues to escape with X-23 and Christie. Wolverine and Mystique save the girl, but Cornelius escapes with his female wolverine clone and reveals to Logan his real name. The episode ends with Wolverine, Christie, Maverick, and Mystique leaving the remains of the weapon X base as Wolverine has a flashback of his team X days with Mystique. It's also implied that Wolverine and Mystique had a relationship.

I think it was pretty good.  The Wolverine using his senses visual is very like how X-23's enhanced senses have been shown in recent comics - sort of ghostly after images.

The flashback with Mystique about to get metal bones is kinda stupid though - I mean, her shape-shifting would be pretty heavily curtailed with an indestructible skeleton I would imagine, plus the generally held opinion that it was only Wolverine's healing that let him survive the process in the first place.

The Wolverine/Mystique former romance was handled well in my opinion.

and I hate her being evil (of course every character has joined the brotherhood in some incarnation).

This is another episode that's largely in the future with the professor & his future pals, though there is a B story with Wolverine, Shadowcat & Forge doing some covert operations (it was weird to see Shadowcat's "X-force" costume, complete with black bows in her hair). 

It's also more of another set-up episode, which will probably lead to more, because not a lot actually happens.

This is another one that the team largely sits out, which I'm getting tired of.  Plotwise, the Silver Samurai and some ninjas snatch the X-men while Wolverine is out so that Wolverine will have to fight a rematch.  In the past, the Silver Samurai lost to Wolverine in a duel for Mariko's hand in marriage, but needs a win to be readmitted to the Yakuza.  Wolverine & the Silver Samurai fight again while supervised by the Yakuza enforcing fair play (no powers), Logan wins, and then Silver Samurai gets disqualified for trying to use his powers to turn the fight around.

I've never been a big fan of Wolverine-in-Japan storylines, and Mariko's passive acceptance has always bothered me in its various interpretations.  Plus we have a bunch of what are clearly ninjas spouting lines about the samurai code of honour, and not just one, but 2 Silver Samurai/Wolverine fights where neither are allowed to use powers (at least one of them could have been powered to keep things interesting).

The ninjas punking all the X-men at the beginning is lazy (Emma doesn't sense anyone coming?  Beast can't fight a ninja?), and I don't really see why Wolverine bothers to play by the Yakuza rules.  How many ninjas would it take to beat Wolverine, all of them?  I also wonder if this episode was produced in a different order than its airing, since there was no sign of Nightcrawler among the X-men that I noticed.

Forge learns that the Sentinel program is getting activated, so the whole team(!) minus Kitty goes to shut down the Master Mold AI controlling them, with Kitty staying behind to look after Tildie.  It turns out to be a trap set by the AI, and the sentinels are already active.  Meanwhile, Pietro gets exiled from Genosha by Magneto, and the Brotherhood ratted out to the Mutant Registration Department.  Pietro gets back in time to save his team from the MRD, then the Brotherhood goes to save the X-Men.  After a bunch of sentinel fighting, Wolverine manages to destroy the Master Mold computer, but nothing changes for Professor X in the future - Master Mold survived by transferring itself into one of the damaged sentinels and heading for the hills.

It was really nice to have a team episode, even if most of the team only gets a few quick action shots - they do have a pretty big team at the moment.  Someone needs to tell Storm to either start dodging or find cover, and Emma to stop changing out of diamond form when fighting giant robots.  There's some neat moments like a Blob/Wolverine fastball special, but for the most part, it's an action-heavy episode.

It's an Angel heavy episode that largely ignores the X-men's presence outside of Storm and Wolverine. This time around, Angel is tired of catering to his father and takes the initiative to save the mutants the MRD are tracking down and capturing. Warren's father is tired of his son disobeying him and orders to MRD to catch him. The MRD do so, but Angel ends up injured and has his wings amputated. Because of the trauma of this event, Angel gives into his urges and asks Sinister to restore them which brings us...the Horseman of Death...Archangel!

What I found surprising is how he lost his wings - it wasn't just that they were so badly damaged they needed to be amputated - the doctor at least suggested they could have been treated by bringing in a specialist, and Warren's father decides to just have them lopped off instead.  Cold.

Also, does it appear to anyone else that they're combining Whedon's "Mutant Cure" storyline with the Legacy virus?  Give it a name like 'Legacy' is just so loaded to any X-fan.

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.

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. 

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.

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 :P), 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!

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!

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.