X-Men '97: Remember It

April 10, 2024 4:09 PM - Season 1, Episode 5

Team members hit Genosha as UN honorees while a press event risks exposing the team’s dirty laundry.
posted by 1970s Antihero (15 comments total)

That was... SO MUCH. It’s like the writers were looking at the Usenet X-Men Dangling Plotline FAQ from rec.arts.comics in 1992, and said, let’s wrap all this up... IN THE NEXT 30 MINUTES.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 4:12 PM on April 10

Absolute blockbuster episode.

Also wasn’t counting on this show to include a full blown genocide in a single episode.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:18 AM on April 11 [1 favorite]

damn
posted by eustatic at 4:59 AM on April 11

This has to end in a timey-wimey Avengers: Endgame fix with Cable, right? Half wondering if the big end of season reveal will be time shenanigans bringing Xavier back.
posted by bfranklin at 9:35 AM on April 11

That hurt so much I needed to come be with XMen fans.
posted by politikitty at 10:30 AM on April 11 [5 favorites]

It caught me by surprise and it should not have caught me by surprise. They gave us the kickoff the Grant Morrison's New X-Men run, which happened a few years after '97 (in my mind it feels very much like a post-9/11 story, despite it being printed fourish months before 9/11 happened).

I'm curious and excited to see where they go from here. Based on the current roster of the team and the status of Magneto it seems unlikely that they'll try to replicate the rest of Morrison's run, although there may be parts of it that get picked up.

Other notes from this episode:

Unexpected Ace of Bass!

More like X-Position-Men, amirite?
posted by Parasite Unseen at 12:02 PM on April 11

Prediction : Cable time travel shenanigans will rewind nearly everything major.
posted by Faintdreams at 4:11 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

I might be in the minority, but I think it's unlikely that they'll hit the giant "undo" button. Superhero comics are infamious for "putting all the toys back in the box" - putting the villains behind bars from which they'll easily escape, resurrecting the fallen heroes so they can continue to headline a title. But superhero media today isn't a long-running continunity that needs to maintain a marketable baseline, it's many smaller continunities that only last a handful of movies or couple of seasons at best.

That said, since it's clear now that X-Men 97 is exceeding it's mandate of "The 90s", I half expect to see Gambit resurrected as a Horseman of Apocolypse! (Ala that 00s storyline where he gets a death metal makeover.) I'm wondering if they'd go so far as to recreate the Xorn arc.
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 7:44 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]

I’m also skeptical of a giant time travel undo. It erases all the character growth we’re seeing and comics has more than enough tricks to bring back the dead.

I wouldn’t be surprised at an AoA style arc in future seasons where we try to fix the past and just fuck it up even worse. That sets up the framework where the audience knows the events exist outside our main timeline.
posted by politikitty at 9:40 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]

WELL! That was unexpectedly good, especially after the somewhat lackluster previous episode. MoJo wasn't quite working for me.

But wow, they packed a lot into #5 and the twist of Rogue losing both Magneto and Gambit was entirely unexpected and well done. If time travel nonsense changes that I will be highly upset.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:03 PM on April 13

Prediction : Cable time travel shenanigans will rewind nearly everything major.

Except Cable already tried to do that and failed - this was the attempt. Is he able to keep trying?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:48 PM on April 14

From the original X-Men animated series, Cable has a habit of just showing up in Genosha for no discernible reason.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 5:48 AM on April 15 [1 favorite]

From the original X-Men animated series, Cable has a habit of just showing up in Genosha for no discernible reason.

Seems pretty clear now!
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:44 PM on April 15

I love how they're remixing old X-Men plots that give the show lots of resonance for the long-time fan while still being fresh and unpredictable. Jean catching Scott psychic cheating...with Madelyne! Assembling a "Quiet Council"-style ruling body for a Mutant nation, but it's more like Shaw putting together a new Hellfire Club with Rogue as the Red Queen?!? That entrance Rogue made in the Red Queen gown, with the dance, and the music and the Remy-watching choreography was incredible. Some of the other Remy-is-jealous-of-Magneto scenes made me roll my eyes, but this episode worked, especially after he gave her the "Okay, I guess we're just friends."

And the shadow of The Watcher among the fireworks! There have been several comics where the writer puts The Watcher on the page as a heavy-handed shortcut for saying THIS STORY IS IMPORTANT. But this was brief and subtle enough to just give me a nice little shiver.

And lots of great mutant cameos in Genosha. And I loved the BAMF cloud effect they had for Nightcrawler. Just looked fantastic. I agree that this episode raised the bar several notches higher for the series.
posted by straight at 8:23 PM on May 23

Late to the party but I was floored. They start with a sort of half-Genosha half-Krakoa vibe, with Pixie and Glob and Dazzler! And then the Rogue-Remy-Magneto thing, then genocide.
The writers are very good at condensing years of comics into single episodes yet making them feel fresh.
posted by signal at 11:53 AM on August 8 [1 favorite]