Episode 12, "X-Cessive Force" was a truly exciting episode, with some great battle storyboards and some emotional punch, only hindered by an end scene with a hypocritical Logan and a meak Scott. Then came episode 20, "Breakdown", which did a great job fleshing out Scott's motivations and origins, until the last five minutes or so which seemed to deliberately paint him as petty, inefficient, dishonorable, and psychically obsessive and jealous; a "Never Was" rather than a "Has Been" X-Man, unfit to be in any comparisons with the always honorable, always selfless ultimate X-Man, Wolverine. While I can concede that such a portrayal at the very least doesn't make Cyclops "boring", it also made him a bit unsympathetic. Sure, Logan has been a jerk to him, and Xavier's dismissal of Cyclops almost borders on cruel rather than strategic, but episode 20 did a lot to enforce the idea that everyone has a right to dismiss Cyclops and ignore him, because he is unsympathetic, a propped up teacher's pet who never could handle adversity, challenge, or even the basics of the mission without coddling. The kind of people who still found Cyclops 100% sympathetic after the end of "Breakdown" are likely the kind of people who relate more to villains than heroes, as Cyclops was left in a state of being very close to being a villain.
Episode 23, though, "Shades of Grey" actually goes a full 21-22 minutes without having to make some sort of deliberate motion to claim Cyclops as inefficient or unsympathetic, or clearly inferior to Wolverine in either skill, honor, or motivations, as episodes 12 and 20 had at their endings. Such motions are never required and often hurt the characters in the long run, anyway. As with many of Scott's episodes, his episodes are not selfish; while he gets a great deal of focus, his episodes also usually add some meat to other characters, too. Usually it is Emma Frost, but this time Jean Grey gets more screentime than she has yet had. Which, frankly, is overdue as she is basically the catalyst for the climax. The action was quite good, although part of me thinks some of the boarding for episode 12 were just a bit better, but overall I was satisfied with them. The UK version does have several edits lasting about a minute or so, but having seen both versions they don't really effect the episode beyond one bit at the end, which is minor. I found it humorous that the BBC apparently is more afraid to show explosions than it is of showing characters in an SUV bumping around inside the thing as they wreck not once, but twice.
This episode is a natural progression from episodes 12 and 20, as well as some more recent ones, such as bits of 21; the show's ability to have a serial storyline was never one of it's dilemmas, and has usually been a strength. We begin in the hospital where Jean Grey has regained consciousness, but has amnesia with no memory of who she is or what she can do. Played by veteran voice actress Jennifer Hale (who has retained her "skill" for being cast as red headed characters), this Jean definitely is sounds more like many fans are used to Jean sounding, not with the bit of edge that Venus Terzo brought to the part in X-Men Evolution (where her Jean was more of a "Big Woman On Campus" for the first two seasons, anyway). Hale is successful in making Jean sound sweet and sympathetic as she goes about her plight, which is effective. Working with a nurse to try to remember her name via alphabetical listings of common female names, Jean predictably has a psychic freak-out when the nurse hits "Jean", and is immediately exposed as a mutant, with the MRD called.
Emma Frost winds up in Scott's bedroom, but likely not in the manner that she would have intended. Having found Jean via Cerebro, Frost enters Scott's bedroom and finds that he is doing his "Bi-Polar Bear" impression (from THE TICK), unable to get out of bed at a reasonable time, likely due to depression. Upon hearing Jean's name, of course, Scott is full at attention, dressed and ready to race off in the X-SUV to rescue her without notifying Wolverine and the others, nor is he willing to entertain the idea that Frost could be mistaken, even from Frost herself. They race off to the hospital to reunite with Jean. The two share a scene in the SUV which is actually quite good and very touching in a way, with some good lines between the characters and good acting from North and Walhgren. See, this is why I am hard on the show; because I know darn well that Kyle, Johnson, and Yost are not "hacks" who are incapable of greatness; they certainly are capable of good stuff, whether subtle or explosive, so when I see bits where it seems they are happy with simply "good enough" or make some miscalculations in past writing, I become frustrated as a fan. Frost uses her telepathy to basically try to tell Scott that, at least in her opinion, he hasn't "betrayed" Jean by entertaining the idea of wanting to delete his memories of him in episode 20; "You were listening to me, because I hated seeing you suffer," Frost says in so many words. It was especially powerful when you consider that it seemed that Frost was truly the only one who genuinely CARED about Scott's feelings throughout the entire show's run. Logan usually chewed him out for being a selfish, reckless loser, and Kitty once guilted him over being unmotivated, but the rest of the X-Men were content to just let Scott lock himself in his room and waste away, or sit alone on the "Emo Bench". No one, not Beast, not Storm, no one seemed to actually give a damn about Scott's suffering besides Frost, and when Scott would lash out, she was the only one who bothered to try to understand him. It is part of what has made her, surely, a sympathetic character. Sure, we learn later that part of her tenure was a ruse, but certainly not all of it.
And the sadder thing is even despite all that, Scott apparently is unable to unwilling to realize that Frost actually loves him, warts and all, because he is too focused on Jean. That's OXYGEN level chick flick tragedy, man.
This episode does a good job of displaying some of the terror that mutants go through and how quickly many in the public, even in a hospital, are willing to turn on them out of fear. "Do no harm" indeed. Aware of the incoming strike team via telepathy, Jean hides in a maintanence closet until being coaxed out by the nurse, who then coldly alerts the MRD to her location. This results in a psychic backlash that renders unconscious everyone within a 500 mile radius, including the MRD, everyone in town, the X-Men left at the Mansion, and Cyclops, who Frost revives. I was bemused by the fact that the X-SUV apparently doesn't have airbags. Talk about an oversight! Now left with no back-up at the X-Mansion, since everyone is unconscious, Cyclops and Frost continue onto the hospital.
They are not the only ones. Arclight, one of Mr. Sinister's remaining Marauders (Blockbuster and Vertigo; Harpoon is apparently still in an MRD holding cell, and yes Mr. Sinister is callous enough to leave him there), detects the backlash and determines it is a mutant with telepathy and telekenesis, a "rare" gift. Deducing it is Jean at last, Sinister sends his "reaper", the brainwashed Archangel, to fetch her. Archangel has no lines during this episode and seems hopelessly enslaved to Mr. Sinister by this point.
Still with no memory of her past, Jean is left to fend for herself in the hospital, and when Archangel shows up, apparently is left powerless after large bursts of uncontrolled power. It was easy to predict what was going to happen; I was watching the streaming video and thinking, "Oh, Cyclops is SO going to blast Angel through the wall", and that is practically what happens. It still looked quite cool. Cyclops is overjoyed and embraces Jean, who clearly has no idea who he is, as Frost reveals. Her amnesia being the cause of her lack of contact to the X-Men, she at least trusts them enough to leave the hospital with them. Frost employs her diamond form to protect them from Archangel's razor shard projectiles, but is unable to psychically break Sinister's hold on him. Now, back a few episodes ago when Angel's fall from grace and tragedy turned him into Sinister's winged "reaper", I dismissed the fact that Cyclops was omitted from the episode because I was aware a confrontation was inevitable, and was willing to give the show a chance. Well, apparently in WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN, anyone who is being possessed is completely assumed to be a villain and no attempt to reason with them is ever even attempted. I seem to recall Nightcrawler at least trying when Wolverine was Mojo's slave in "Hunting Grounds", but that is it. Now, I am no fool; I am more than aware that any bit of Cyclops trying to reason with Archangel likely would have been ignored, and I am sure someone might think, "So why, Dread, are you making a fuss over not including a segment when you know how it will turn out and won't effect the plot at all?" My answer is that even if useless, it shows compassion, especially among founding X-Men. Wolverine, the so-called berserker, tried to reason with Warren. Cyclops doesn't even try once, aside for one bit at the end where he seems to be begging Warren not to kill him, but we'll get to that. Granted, you could make the case that this is CYCLOPS, who practically has a shrine to Jean with locks of hair from every year they shared together; he'd blast through Xavier himself if he was blocking him from Jean. Who needed to have Jean soothe him every time he nicked himself shaving, practically. In that regard, then, it makes perfect sense that Cyclops would dismiss Archangel as an enemy and not bother trying to reach him. It just seems odd when Cyclops laments Warren's fate, telling Jean that he "was once a good friend" when we never SAW any sign of this "friendship" in any prior episode.
And hence is the consequence of the show's choice to bypass those "exposition" type episodes building things up. You can't have emotional connections between characters if you spend zero on screen time establishing it. More about that later.
Cyclops spends a large chunk of this part of the episode blasting Archangel out of the sky (and doing some property damage with missed shots); at one point he strips off his visor and blasts the winged creep out of the sky with a "full power" blast. Part of me wonders if that was kind of like a deliberate part showing he had changed from the cowardly putz who needed Jean to help him do that fighting Magneto years earlier. The only problem with these sequences is that Archangel's duribility seems to wax and wane. These optic blasts barely seem to stun him for long, yet at the end of the episode one is supposed to assume an exploding machine (or a TK shove and electrocution for the BBC edit) is capable of rendering him unconscious for a minute or so. I would think a full power optic blast has more impact than an exploding terminal, but no big deal I guess. The sequences with Frost driving the SUV away with Archangel baring down on them are very tense; it is hard pulling off vechicle chase scenes in cartoons, because we "know" none of it is real, but this sequence was storyboarded very well and really pulls off some suspence with it, even when Frost, who can turn into diamond and we KNOW will survive the exploding vehicle, is left behind to die by "the reaper". Naturally Frost escapes, and I liked the touch of the sound effects of her walking/moving in her diamond form, which I don't recall hearing much of before. One also should note that the writers have maintained Frost's moral grey area; she shows little remorse for the unconscious MRD members nor has any qualms about stealing a car from an unconscious (and comically overweight) driver nearby.
While Mr. Sinister is overjoyed upon having both Cyclops and Jean in his clutches (and now appears fully obsessed with both of their genetic material, rather than just Jean's), Frost drives back to the school and revives the only X-Men that apparently were there, which are Nightcrawler, Forge, and the titular star, Wolverine. Finding Cyclops' psychic signal, which Frost seems to eagerly be able to recognize, they track down Sinister's lair. Mr. Sinister collects genetic samples from Scott and a still-unconscious Jean, and part of me smirked when Sinsister says at one point, "Xavier had no idea what he had with the two of you", considering Xavier's backing the Logan horse now. Clancy Brown is naturally doing well with his role as Sinister and North really got in some passionate lines as Cyclops; sometimes it is almost hard to realize that he was also Deadpool joking about offing babies in HULK VS. Of course, North also played Giant-Man in ULTIMATE AVENGERS 1 & 2, who was another unsympathetic *****ebag hero who ultimately tries to redeem himself, and North handled that well. The only way this scene could have been cooler would have been if they imitated some of Mark Millar's scene in ULTIMATE X-MEN #1 with Cyclops revealing that he could trigger his visor with his glove button with dramatic results. Which would have been awesome, but the absence of it isn't a deal breaker. When Sinister orders Archangel to kill the two of them, this is the only time Cyclops bothers to try to talk to him, which of course has no effect. It just didn't seem like enough; it seemed more selfish than trying to "get a friend" back. These are not X-Men that seem to genuinely care for each other; they seem too willing to dismiss their members when they join the Brotherhood or are brainwashed. It becomes hard to sell the idea that Cyclops was obsessed with Jean when he was the only one who seemed to miss her or didn't simply stop caring when she was gone for over a year. I suppose that is close to how the movies treated the characters, though. In X-MEN 3, Logan seemed to care more about Cyclops dying than anyone else.
Naturally the X-Men arrive for the big rescue and the climatic battle with the Marauders, with Forge's grand addition being that he has cobbled together an sophisticated cybernetic arm-canon beam, but it takes so long to ready the nozzle and charge that it is virtually useless. It was cute to have at least some comic relief in the episode, and I guess if I was a fan of Forge I would be annoyed at his perennial CHUCK impersonation, but I am not, so I can appreciate his schtick. Cyclops did look a little indecisive when he yelled at someone to free him, and then seemed hesitant when Forge was obliging. That left Nightcrawler, Frost, and Wolverine to fight Blockbuster, Arclight, and Vertigo, and while Frost ended up taking down Vertigo (who, let me tell you, is handled MUCH better than she was in the 90's series, from her design to the effects of her powers), Forge at least could be considered having the key assist as Cyclops takes down the other two rather easily; considering the battle Cyclops had with Arclight in episode 12, it was almost surprising to see him go down with one blast. It almost makes up for everyone being spanked by token ninja in "Code of Conduct". Jean, or at least in her partial "Phoenix" form, takes down Archangel and is soothed down by Scott. Warren and Sinister escape, though.
The end of the episode has several big reveals. The first is that Mr. Sinister is serving Apocalypse, whose design appears more akin to the comic books (with the ridiculous "A" on his stomach; seriously, why does an ancient Egyptian mega-mutant have the first letter of his name on his belly button that isn't even in his native tongue? I always hated that. It's like Galactus having a giant G somewhere on his chest or something). Aside for that, though, it is always awesome seeing Apocalypse again and it will be interesting how the show handles him. Apocalypse was handled exceedingly well in X-MEN EVOLUTION, after all.
The other big reveal is let out when Jean is brought back to the mansion, willing to stay but still with no recollection of her time there. Frost psychically TKO's the team and reveals that she had been there to reclaim the Pheonix for the Hellfire Club; Shaw, Pierce, Selene, and Leland - the big time members, basically.
This presents both a bane and a boon. The boon is naturally doing "The Dark Phoenix Saga" only without the space aliens, and without some of the contrivances from X-MEN 3. The bane is that the entire emotional crux of the Dark Phoenix is the tragedy of Jean being corrupted by her powers, and that cannot be done because we have not seen enough of Jean to connect to her. We have seen very, very little of the Jean that Scott misses, or that was a founding X-Woman. We have seen her in brief flashback snippets, but most of this episode had her as an amnesiac, not as "Jean". In many ways Jean is simply a catalyst, a major plot point, and not a character unto herself. The 90's X-MEN showed us normal, "faints after every battle" Jean Grey for over two seasons before the Phoenix/alien stuff, and the ultimate corruption. X-MEN EVOLUTION never got to do the whole bit, but they did do an episode where stress caused Jean's powers to flair out of control and hint at what could come later, and even that was after about a season and a half of knowing this version of Jean well. WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN is basically doing Dark Phoenix after giving us not even one full episode to know Jean as herself, not as a damsel without memories, and even only one full episode is simply not enough. You can't have your cake and eat it to in animation; you can't expect to have the emotional punch of a full season's character development even if you choose to skip said season so that "boring exposition" that "everyone knows" from the comics, movies, and prior cartoons knows. W&TXM has chosen to focus exclusively on the complicated storyline over a lot of character interaction and development, thinking a focus episode or two here and there can make up for it. Sometimes it can, but in this instance, it cannot.
The audience CAN feel the tragedy of the whole Phoenix thing only through other characters; through Scott especially, but also possibly through how Frost and Wolverine react to it. We can only sense and experience the suspense and horror of the situation through the eyes of some of Jean's comrades, not through Jean herself. Unless, of course, you are of the DRAGON BALL Z generation who thinks that, say, Raditz, was a properly fleshed character. While that is good enough for most audiences, and is a unique take on it compared to prior attempts, part of me wonders if it is a problem doing a Phoenix Saga where Jean herself is only a living Maguffin in it, not a real deep character. Experiencing the saga only through the reactions of others can work, I suppose, depending on how it is executed. Three episodes is a while in animation, a good hour of screentime.
