Extreme adversities, heightened emotions, and a sense of betrayal often cloud the judgment of the best minds, and as seen in X-Men ’97, mutants are going through all these stages at once after facing Bastion’s crisis and especially after the surprising return of Charles Xavier. As a result, as the fantastic first season reaches its final lap, the team, which should have united against the overarching threat of Sentinel-born Bastion, finds itself more divided than ever.
Previously, Bastion’s past as a progeny of Nimrod and humans is revealed as Scott, Jean, and Cable go to his childhood home. There, they get a nasty surprise as his mother, along with a huge number of people, turn out to be augmented prime Sentinels created by Bastion and Sinister, hiding in the mass as sleeper cells. UN agent Valerie Cooper and a number of prominent supervillains are revealed to be in cahoots with Bastion and OZT (Operation Zero Tolerance). The prime Sentinels attack and destroy X-mansion, and as a remorseful Cooper decides to free Magneto from Bastion and Sinister’s captivity, Magneto disrupts earth’s magnetic field to shut down the global electric grid, nullifying the prime Sentinels and essentially declaring a war on humanity in the process by disrupting electricity. Finally, Professor returns from Shi’ar and uses his telepathic connection to call the X-Men, as they need to regroup before handling the severe crisis that threatens to bring about global warfare.
Spoilers Ahead
How Did The X-Men Reunion Go?
As X-Men ’97 episode 9 begins, the catastrophic outcome of the events that took place mere hours ago seems to be still affecting everyone around the world. Professor wakes up in his ruined mansion, alone and remorseful, while Magneto, now more resolute and vengeful than ever, dons his classic costume and the helm, which blocks Charles’ telepathic connection, and using his powers, pulls up a gigantic landmass from beneath the ocean. Jubilee and Sunspot are attacked by an enraged human mob when Forge and Storm make a timely intervention to rescue them. Seeing Storm back and with her powers restored as well, a relieved Jubilee embraces her tearfully.
Back at the mansion, Scott is livid with Charles for going away and bequeathing the role of leadership to Magneto, and as he confronts Professor about it, he learns that the only reason Charles did so was to provide a chance to Jean and Scott to allow them to have a life of their own. Scott opines that the Professor’s wish in this case is immaterial, as they will eventually get drawn to the problems the X-Men will face one way or another. It was not a decision Charles should have made without informing his dear students. Obviously, a rift has been created between the Professor and the X-Men, which will take time to heal.
Storm and co. arrive at the ruined X-mansion as well, and Jean is elated to see her return. However, this is no time to celebrate reunions, as Magneto’s action in initiating the global blackout has affected countless lives, causing deaths, and destruction on a large scale, and the entire Human civilization has gone back a couple of centuries in mere hours. Magneto has damaged the earth’s magnetic field, and unless he can be convinced to undo the damage in time, the impact might become permanent. Logan, in his aggressive temper, urges to take the extreme measure of dealing fire with fire as he wants to take down Magneto, and the Professor dissuades him, stating it was his action of abandonment that led to so many problems in the first place. With two problems—Magneto and Bastion—to be taken care of, Scott divides the X-Men into a blue team and a gold team. Rogue and Scott will lead the blue team to convince and stop Magneto, while Storm, Jean, and the rest of the gold team members will go to Galapagos Islands to confront Bastion.
However, reverting all the prime Sentinels across the world to their human form is another task that the X-Men need to accomplish, and it is a daunting one as removing futuristic nanotech from the victims can take as long as years, if not more. Professor remarks that disrupting the central command of the prime Sentinels, which is Bastion himself, might make their job easier. He also mentions that, years ago, while detecting Bastion’s technopathic (telepathy but with machines) abilities using Cerebro, the professor had gone to his home to help him like he did all his mutant students. However, his mother, who bore hatred for mutantkind, refused the Professor at the time. The professor laments that, in better circumstances, Bastion could have been one of the X-Men, and all this could have been avoided. Nevertheless, he mentions that the way things are at this moment, neutralizing the threat Bastion and the prime Sentinels pose might convince Magneto to reverse the damage done to the magnetic poles. Meanwhile, Beast and Forge retool the mnemonic scrambler (which controlled Dark Phoenix in the original series), which can cut off Bastion’s technopathy momentarily, saving the human-turned-prime Sentinels in the process.
A Terrifying Ultimatum: What Divided the X-Men?
However, if the professor believes that the hurt of Genosha and his heinous anti-mutant conspiracy will be so easily removed from Magneto’s psyche, he is living in a fool’s paradise. Magneto quickly makes him realize this by taking the massive landmass along with him as he appears before Charles near the X-mansion. Professor tries to reason with him, and Erik reminds him that when Charles was frolicking with his lover in Shi’ar, mutants were being mercilessly slaughtered in Genosha. In the Professor’s absence, Magneto had opted for a tolerant approach while leading the X-Men, ignoring his own instincts and better judgment, and humanity returned his favor in blood. So it’s way past reasoning and understanding, as Magneto has decided to make New Genosha out of the loss of the past, irrespective of whether his stance leads to a war with humans, and calls upon the X-Men to join his side. We have to realize that Charles is speaking from a position of privilege; his high ideals will not earn mutants the right to live as equals, at least not as long as detractors and manipulators sit in positions of power.
It comes as no surprise that Rogue joins Magneto, as she had first-hand experience of the tragedy of Genosha and how humans actively shielded the perpetrators as well. Nightcrawler not trying to reason with her comes off as a bit shocking, given that only he might have been able to reach her and had experienced the tragedy himself as well. Sunspot, who had had his fair share of discrimination as his own mother had handed him over to Prime Sentinels, decides to join Erik as well, much to Jubilee’s dismay. Taking the two recruits, Magneto takes New Genosha to space, away from human filth.
Did Magneto just kill Logan?
As the update reaches United States President Kelly, he converses with Charles in the psychic astral plane and, in an infuriated state, opts to launch the ‘Anti-Magneto Protocol’. Charles manages to convince him to allow the X-Men to handle Magneto, as human interference will only worsen the already terse situation. As the team prepares for the final conflict on both fronts (Bastion and Magneto), Scott shares a moment with his son, Cable, and a witty meta quip about the first X-Men movie characters wearing black leather costumes follows.
Jean, Beast, Morph, and Cable go to Galapagos Islands, while Professor Logan, Scott, Jubilee, and Nightcrawler go to the newly formed space-hovering New Genosha to ‘reason’ with Magneto. Bastion releases his Sentinels, which keeps the rest of the Gold team in a fix, while Beast and Morph fail to use the modified scrambler on Bastion. Sinister starts tormenting Jean by taunting her about her lost memories, with Madelyn taking her place, and Jean defiantly thwarts his attempt to provoke her by stating that Madelyn’s spirit fights alongside her. Sinister takes a hold on Cable’s mind, just like he was able to with Madelyn Pryor, and pits him against Jean. Cable is revealed to have inherited Madelyn’s strong telekinetic abilities, which were seemingly dormant in him up to this moment, and as he unleashes a strong telekinetic surge on Jean, she gets overwhelmed by the powerful assault. In her final moments (or not), Jean connects with Scott telepathically and conveys her love for him before seemingly getting annihilated. This marks the nth occurence of Jean’s death, although this one seems more like a mental projection than actual death happening, of which we will be certain only in the finale of the first season.
As Magneto, Rogue, and Sunspot tackle the Professor and the rest of the X-Men blue team, Charles tries his best to convince his old friend to opt for a better way. Too bitter and enraged, Erik turns out to be fiercely protesting even the idea of making peace with humans, leading Charles to consider the option of entering Magneto’s mind and undoing the damages done by taking control over his psyche. Charles finally gets the chance, as during the struggle with Logan, Magneto momentarily loses his protective helm, and Charles unleashes a psychic wave that torments Erik immensely. Horrified at what he is seeing, Cyclops interrupts, stating that the gold team needs more time, and it allows Magneto to negate Professor’s hold by using his helm on Charles.
As Magneto takes control over the situation and berates Charles for betraying mutantkind, In a shocking moment, in his attempt to stop Magneto, Logan thrusts his adamantium claws into his body. The mutants watch in surprise and fear, but little do they know an even more horrifying moment will follow, as Erik rips the adamantium out of Logan’s body, outright refusing Charles’ request to stop. As the episode ends with the gruesome visual of Logan getting ripped apart from inside, the true extent of the crisis is showcased to the viewers. The scene is a direct reference to the Fatal Attractions X-Men series, where Magneto did the same with Logan as well, and readers might remember what happens next (spoiler), which provides some clues about the upcoming eventful season finale. With two leaders turning on each other and Bastion still not captured, it is already tough for the X-Men to avert a crisis of global scale, and Magneto’s no-holds-barred response will make matters worse than ever. It remains to be seen whether the finale provides a definitive resolution at the end, because, from the looks of it, permanent damage has been done in the form of Logan’s torment.
