X-Men ’97 – Episode 9 Recap & Review

Episode 9

A new day starts, and we see what the recent events brought to some of the character’s lives. As Xavier wakes up in the mansion, and Magneto stares at his old helmet, Bastion carries his mother home, and a mob threatens Roberto and Jubilee. Thankfully, Storm and Forge appear to save the two teens.

Cyclops argues with Professor X about him choosing Magneto to lead the school. To which the telepath answers that he wanted to give his friend a new path and a chance for Scott and Jean to enjoy their lives. They have always followed him, so they could never try something different. Still, Scott says he would always be pulled back to the X-Men no matter what happened.

At the same time, Rogue wakes up, and Storm and Forge arrive at the mansion. With everyone back, they start a meeting to decide what they should do. One team must find Magneto and convince him to change Earth’s magnetic field back to normal. Meanwhile, the other will shut down Bastion at his headquarters.

Even though there isn’t a way to remove the Prime Sentinel upgrades yet, Forge and Beast believe they can restore their innate humanity. They’ll use a device similar to what shut down Jean’s powers when she was the Phoenix. They also wanted to use neutralizer technology, but Storm refused their idea.

As Professor X talks to Rogue about Gambit, Magneto arrives carrying an enormous asteroid with his powers. He says Genosha was the dream Xavier had always believed in, but there’s no way to undo what the humans did to it. So he offers the X-Men the chance to follow him and have a new home that’ll replace what was stolen from them.

Rogue is the first one to go to Magneto’s side. Storm tries to change her mind, but Rogue says none of them were there on Genosha. She doesn’t want to see more mutants dying. Then, Roberto also goes along with Magneto. His own mother delivering him to the Prime Sentinels affected him more than it seemed.

Some of the X-Men arrive as Bastion uses his technopathy to charge up a wave of sentinels. Storm and Forge deal with them in the air, and Jea, Beast, Cable, and Morph go to the ground.

Unfortunately, some Sentinels find and attack them. That’s when Morph gives us one of his best moments, turning into the Hulk and easily destroying a few machines. Then, Mr. Sinister comes out of Jean’s shadow to make things harder. He tries to tempt her, saying he will tell her when he changed her and Madelyne. But that doesn’t work, and she attacks him.

The rest of the team arrives at Magneto’s new asteroid and attempts to convince him to stop what he’s doing. However, that doesn’t work and they start fighting among themselves. So, Professor X tells Cyclops to take Magneto’s helmet off, allowing him to hijack the man’s powers, even though the other team is still on their mission.

Meanwhile, Morph pretends to be Sinister to trick Bastion, but the villain sees through their plan. Beast also tries to come and put the collar device on Bastion to shud him down, but the sentinel also catches him.

At the same time, the real Mr. Sinister controls Cable and forces him to use his telekinetic powers against Jean. She calls for Scott and says she loves him before being apparently killed.

In the middle of the fight, Wolverine manages to take off Magneto’s helmet, which gives Xavier the opportunity to hijack his powers. However, Cyclops shoots him, as he doesn’t want the Prime Sentinels to wake up and fight the X-Men trying to defeat Bastion. That gives Magneto the chance to capture all of the mutants there, including the Professor.

Unfortunately, he didn’t cage Wolverine, thinking he was unconscious. Because of that, Logan stabs Magneto with his claws to kill him. Then, the master of magnetism uses his remaining strength to take off the Adamantium inside his enemy.

The Episode Review

What a bleak episode. It isn’t as catastrophic as Genosha’s fall, but seeing the mutants we love fighting against each other and apparently dying hurts. Also, the end destroys you. Magneto and Wolverine killing each other feels insane, and it’s one of the most shocking moments of the show.

Even though everything makes sense, it’s sad how it kind of brings the status quo back. They have to defeat Bastion, but Magneto is again treated as a villain opposing the real heroes. After everything that happened with him this season, it’d be cool to see him following a different path. Also, some of the characters, like Cyclops, revert to the opinions they had in the first episode and treat him like a criminal who never had any chance of redeeming himself. 

It feels like they could have explored more sides of the matter and created a more powerful discussion. Mutants losing so much hope that they decide to completely give up on Earth is an interesting idea. Let’s hope we get to see more of it through other characters, like Rogue and Roberto.

This is the most interesting side of the episode, but the Gold Team’s fight against the sentinels is amazing as well. The highlight of it is definitely the animation. It’s impossible not to open the biggest smile when Cable uses his full strength and the screen shoots light. It’s almost like you can feel his power.

The next episode will be the last, and everything feels pretty hopeless right now. Even if the X-Men defeats Bastion, it doesn’t seem they’ll get a happy ending. Seeing what will happen to them and what path the characters will choose next will definitely be incredible.