The episode begins with Wolverine attempting to have a psychic conference with Future Xavier. Sadly, while Future X is capable of being willing to meet Wolverine when he is feeling saddened after losing the team to some random ninja, he isn't here at the start of the mission, leaving Wolverine to actually lead the team. From the start, this show has tried to satisfy the premise of Wolverine being the leader by having to find some way of removing the other leaders from that position. The answer to Cyclops was to have his girlfriend get taken away, for his longtime father father to leave him for a year physically and in the present emotionally, and for him to essentially be a bit of an unstable sad sack. While this concept hasn't always been played with well, it is at least a logical reason. Storm's was that she had traveled to Africa, but now is back and offers no sense of leadership spirit unless Logan is off site. Xavier got zapped into a coma with a connection to his future self, similar to Kitty Pryde having contact with her future self in the DAYS OF FUTURE PAST story from the comics. The only problem with this set-up is that it has kept Logan from actually LEADING the team. Xavier is the one who gives him the basic missions, and is even there to lift his spirits when he has a bad dream or loses to ninja. Part of me thinks it is the writers' attempt to have their cake and eat it too, and it doesn't quite work for me, and hasn't yet. I like the adventures in the future and the basic plot, but the idea of Xavier as a sort-of headmaster clashes with the theory of Logan actually commanding the team day to day. While Scott at least has emotional reasons for never trying to assert himself, Ororo doesn't. Out of any X-Person, she is most there to deliver exposition, a familiar face and some power, and this episode is no different.
The MRD is stepping up their enforcement of mutant registration, and the start has a cameo by Wolfsbane as she is arrested by their agents. Sen. Kelly vows that all mutants are dangerous and will be captured lest they surrender, and their efforts are becoming more coordinated now that Dr. Trask's creation, Master Mold, is coming online. Logan was told of the threat of Master Mold by Future X in prior episodes, and after Forge fully scans the data he analyzed, the gravity of the threat increases. Beast gets some more lines this episode than he has in a while, and for once an X-Man does hold Logan partly responsible for his actions; at least twice it is mentioned that "we should have destroyed the facility when we had the chance" two episodes ago, but Logan wanted to play at stealth rather than brute force in that occasion. Logan admits the error in judgment and is probably conflicted by it. Aside for Kitty, though, none of the other X-Men seem to care. With a computer virus set up by Forge, Logan leads the X-Men into a final showdown with the Sentinels before Master Mold gets too powerful, tasking a frustrated Kitty with guarding Tilde, who was recruited back in "Battlelines". In this matter Logan actually proves wise in leadership, as Kitty's guile and powers do end up saving both of them.
My only question was, if Kitty can easily dispatch a squad of MRD soldiers and hold her own against a Spider-Slayer Sentinel, why the hell did she lose to ONE NINJA last episode!? Why? How? Ugh! While I really enjoyed seeing a capable and yet still quirky and amusing Kitty defend herself and Tilde from soldiers and even a robot, it clashed poorly with last episode where one ninja and a gas ball had her on the floor. But she isn't the only one. Beast is able to remain conscious after taking a hit from a 15' Sentinel robot, yet he was practically overwhelmed by a thwack with a bo-staff last episode; Cyclops is able to stay conscious after a laser blast to the chest, but was easily TKO'd by a ninja kick last time, too. And that, my friends, is why "jobbering" is merely a shortcut for writers who aren't very good, or for good writers who are under deadline or figure "it is good enough". And that is what I think may be happening with WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN. Either the rigors of producing a full 26 episode TV season take their toll on quality at times, or this show's writers and producers just feel that things are "good enough". And while having a grade of B+ on average is keen, when an A seems easily attainable, it can be annoying. Still, considering that it has been hard for me to part with the adorable X-MEN EVOLUTION version of Kitty Pryde (Valley Girl or not), this show's version at least is growing on me and also seems accurate to the character. Danielle Judovits has taken on the role well.
I would say if any character got the lion's share of the focus here, it would be Quicksilver, played by Mark Hildreth (who usually plays more heroic roles, like Angel from EVOLUTION, Siroc in YOUNG BLADES, or Terry Bogard from FATAL FURY). He storms into Genosha, having longed to be embraced into his father's mutant city like his sisters are and angry that his father has suddenly cut ties with him. He has a brief scene with his sister Wanda that is pretty interesting before forcing his way into a meeting with Magneto (and commenting on how Lorna is kept more naive and ignorant of all). Magneto not only severs all ties with Quicksilver for his "failures" at running the Brotherhood, but later sells him out to the MRD to be rid of his meddling. As with Nightcrawler, this puts Wanda in a tough bind between being honorable as a person and being loyal to her father. It reminded me of the dynamic that Karai was written as having many times in TMNT, which is often fascinating. It goes without saying that despite being a member of the Brotherhood again here, this is easily the best animated version of Wanda yet (played skillfully by Kate Higgins).
Sure enough, the MRD are right upon the lair of the Brotherhood, and are overwhelming them with numbers and robots until Quicksilver appears and saves the day. I did like how Domino, who unlike the others is more into the actual cause of Magneto's rather than just committing acts of random violence like Blob, Avalanche and Toad seem to be, was taken aback by the idea of being betrayed by their founder. I enjoyed how Pietro had some experienced grit in terms of dealing with his father and this putting him in a bind; not an ally of humanity, but no longer loyal to Magneto, either. Hildreth got some good moments to shine in his performance and despite his "wrinkled 45 year old man in a Peter Pan costume" design, Pietro has really grown on me in this show. He was a token villain for a few episodes but is quickly becoming more complex. Complex is good. These writers found some contrived ways to get the X-Men and Brotherhood to team up in X-MEN EVOLUTION, and I must say the situation presented in this show within this episode was better than many of those. Why not aid the X-Men against the Sentinels? They're all mutants, and of course Logan would owe a favor.
The X-Men, meanwhile, land on the ground but find that it was all a trap; as Trask explains to Worthington Sr., Kelly and Dr. Zane, Master Mold is so sentient that he knew how to set a trap for enemies. The fight sequences aren't bad, although the power levels of some of the mutants and robots are inconsistent. One moment Cyclops' optic blast has no effect on a Sentinel, the next, Rogue can absorb his power and that same blast will slice a Sentinel's arm off. And while the designs for the basic humanoid Sentinels are good, I am growing weary of the 90's SPIDER-MAN:TAS style "Spider Slayer" Sentinels; they almost look like sheer design lifts from 1994 and it clashes a bit. I keep expecting Alistar Smythe to make a vow of success to Kingpin from the Chrysler Building somewhere. Storm was virtually useless in this episode, getting blasted out of the air twice. In some ways many of the X-Men seemed overwhelmed, and had to in order for the Brotherhood to rescue them; I've seen all of them handle themselves a bit better in some fights, such as against the Brotherhood themselves or even against Multiple Man. Iceman doesn't figure out to try freezing a Sentinel until he gets blasted onto his rear at least twice, with Storm practically TKO'd. Wolverine manages to decapitate at least one Sentinel, but even he had his problems. The same Sentinels that seem able to take an optic blast or a thunderbolt and remain standing of course can be destroyed by a SINGLE gunfire shot from Domino when it proves dramatic, and so on. Luck or not, you'd think Sentinels would at least be bulletproof.
Now, I understand the difficulty here; one doesn't want to make the Sentinels appear to be too "easy" to defeat. Some people criticize the 90's show of doing so, but I should note that the Sentinels weren't all "easy" to beat in the pilot; in the debut episode of the original X-MEN cartoon ("Night of the Sentinels Part 1", circa 1992), it took Gambit, Rogue, Storm, and perhaps Jubilee as a distraction in order for a SINGLE Sentinel to be defeated. In the first team mission against them in episode 2, Cyclops' optic blasts were as likely to simply topple a Sentinel so much as destroy it, Wolverine was hurled into the woods and out of the fight, Morph was seemingly killed, and Beast was zapped and captured by the feds, and spent a season in jail. It took repeated battles with the Sentinels for the X-Men to seem to have an easier time of destroying them; many forget that they had to RETREAT from their first battle after suffering, basically, two casualties. By the end of the first season even Jubilee could beat at least two Sentinels by herself, but, again, you could attribute that to experience. I think sometimes modern fans too easily dismiss that show of 15+ years ago, but it wasn't as cut and dry as history makes it seem.
At the other extreme angle was the Season Two finale of X-MEN EVOLUTION, in which Dr. Trask's Sentinel Prototype is able to fight the combined might of the X-Men and the Brotherhood, and defeat about half of them, before Magneto & Wanda basically destroy it. And that was a SINGLE Sentinel, laying waste to the entire cast.
There was the problem of the Sentinel's laser blasts not being instantly fatal, and I attribute that to standard network violence censorship and genre expectations; of course a SINGLE laser blast can't instantly kill any of the X-Men. Considering Master Mold in the future sought to capture mutants alive, at least for a while, long enough to study and imitate their powers, the idea of "weak" lasers may be intentional, but that is a stretch. It should be noted that Storm did seem practically unconscious from two blasts to the chest, so there does seem to be some effect. The 90's X-Men show had many similar incidents and that wasn't a major impediment to the action. Naturally, Angel was useless aside for catching random falling members, but against robots he usually is. Frankly, in the comics without his metal wings, few writers managed to make him much of a fighter; half the time feather winged Angel seemed to point out things, serve as distractions or catch falling people even in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS by Jeff Parker. Nightcrawler naturally also had problems against robots, although maybe someone should have given him a sword to poke out some optics. The other problem was the idea of the Sentinels "learning" as they fought when it seemed they only were a threat due to sporatic duribility and numbers, although perhaps in the future they will be more ruthless; akin to DC's Calculator who spend decades being a punching bag simply to master virtually every superhero's moves and methods into his database.
While I appreciate the effort to straddle the line between "easy" and "nigh impossible" Sentinels, I just don't think the storyboard crew succeeded here. The X-Men seemed to scatter easily and a simple task of teleporting Forge inside a building that Logan likely at least told Kurt about needed a whole second mutant team to pull off. The Sentinels give Storm about 30 seconds to fly into the sky and summon clouds, and while her thunder-bolts have decent effects, she summons a tornado at one point that isn't even aimed at anything. I sometimes wonder if Susan Dalian, who voices Storm, wouldn't mind getting more to do beyond exposition and grunts. On the plus side, of course, we did have all of the X-Men united in combat (aside for Shadowcat, who had a good reason to be home, and still got some moments). Part of me is wondering why Forge couldn't at some point get a laser-gun of sorts so he can do more than flee and whimper during a fight, though. It isn't as if the crew is against characters with guns; Domino uses hers often. Having Forge use a higher-tech gun would separate him from Domino, and her aim could likely be better. That would, of course, ruin the stereotype of Forge being a CHUCK-esque "tech guy" who relies on others in fights, and such a stereotype has allowed the character an easy place on the team roster so far.
The Brotherhood turn the tide for a few moments, and it was interesting when Quicksilver seemed to lead them well, and once Wolverine was off screen, immediately moved to Cyclops to shout orders at the X-Men. It was as if he recalled some past era where Scott actually was the leader. Cyclops noted that he wouldn't deviate from Logan's plan in the middle of a mission, which I suppose makes some sense in terms of loyalty. The time for mutiny is not in the middle of a fight. Blob's sequences seemed to show an bit of a problem with pacing any super-strong character in a fight who isn't the Hulk, and I would have been insulted with the Blob ripping off the "Fastball Special" tag move with Wolverine if I already wasn't painfully aware that Brett Ratner cared far more about Colossus than Kyle, Johnson, and Yost ever have. I mean, X-MEN 3, not matter what flaws it had (which were numerous), had the bonafide "Fastball Special" not once, but TWICE. No animated show ever has had that. While Nightcrawler did teleport Forge into Master Mold's control center, they were unable to upload the virus, and so Wolverine had to save the day by stabbing the console himself. Perhaps this was a mild reference to 1992's "Night of the Sentinels Part 2" in which Beast spends a while making a computer virus to purge the Mutant Registration files, only for Storm to blast the computer itself when time was of the essence (granted, that was back when offices had "hard files". Ah, how ancient 1992 seems today).
On the one hand, the bit where Wolverine faces severe electrical burns to destroy the machine (and seemingly Master Mold) was cool stuff. He felt responsible for causing this mess by not taking Kitty's advice from two episodes ago (although think about this; out of all X-Men, it is SHADOWCAT who attempts to give Logan contrary leadership advice in this show, not Storm, Cyclops, Frost, or Beast...), and that works. He did look a bit singed and as always Steven Jay Blum puts in a great performance as Wolverine. On the downside, though...Logan's leadership error had no consequences. It didn't matter that he didn't destroy Master Mold in the cradle, or that his plan to have Forge kill it with a virus failed, or even that he led the X-Men into a trap, because fate lent a helping hand (the Brotherhood arriving as the cavalry) and there is apparently no threat that can't be solved by Wolverine stabbing it as an alternative. In some ways it reminds me of TEEN TITANS, where Robin many times could be a reckless, aggressive bonehead and it usually didn't impact the plot too much or alienate his friends for long because in the end they would always triumph anyway; although I do think it did moreso than this so-called "non-united" X-Men that Kyle & Johnson thought would make an interesting premise.
While on the topic of things that didn't matter, at one point when everyone is being overwhelmed by Sentinels, Cyclops has numerous members of both teams under Iceman's ice-dome for a few second breather as he rattles off battle tactics. Now, this could work, Cyclops being there as drill sarge when Wolverine is pre-occupied (and Storm is half-conscious). The only problem was that within half a second, the robots are deactivated from Wolverine's tactic of stabbing the machine, and so thus this sequence is almost superficial. You could have cut out Scott's lines, and the moment wouldn't have been altered in the slightest. That's a problem. While I liked that Nolan North, who is a capable actor when given stuff to work with, whether as Cyclops here, Raph in 2007's TMNT film or Deadpool in HULK VS. WOLVERINE, if a line has no impact on an act or episode, it usually is meaningless. The scene, intentionally or not, showed that Cyclops' leadership was basically for naught because Wolverine had already solved the crisis his own way. Rattling off experienced tactics with your allies' strengths and weaknesses doesn't matter, because you can always hope for luck to throw you a curve and you can just solve any problem by stabbing it.
Toad's final line at the end of the fight was pretty funny, even if by and large I usually find his humor annoying, in the "trying too hard" variety.
t:
