After last week’s side trip up north to get Wolverine his skeleton back, this week’s episode of X-Men ’97 brings us back to the mansion which we really haven’t seen much of so far this season. The season’s sixth episode is centered on survivor’s guilt and the sins of a parent. For the guilt portion, we have Charles Xavier (Ross Marquand) who witnessed the death of his friend, rival, and surrogate brother Magneto at the hands of Apocalypse. For the sins of the father angle, we have Polaris (Carolina Ravissa) who we really don’t know much about. Sure, if you’re a comic reader then you probably know plenty about the sometimes daughter of Magneto, but anyone who only absorbs X-knowledge via the animated series just knows she’s a former member of the team who once dated Iceman and is now a member of the government task force known as X-Factor. Oh, and she has a green hair for some reason.
Since both the original show and this one have dedicated so little screen time to Polaris, it’s even possible that viewers have no idea that she essentially has the same power set as Magneto. The comics have always been a bit non-committal with her lineage. Some writers made it a point to say she wasn’t related to Magneto while others have said the opposite. Obviously, if she has the same magnetic powers then one is going to naturally wonder if the two are related, though there are plenty of mutants with similar powers that are not so it’s also not a requirement. For this universe, we were shown previously the two are likely related since Polaris appears in silhouette form in the first season finale in Magneto’s mind. I guess that means he knows about her, and that much is confirmed early on in the episode “Danger.exe.” At the beginning, Polaris is shown breaking up a weapon’s smuggling ring being lead by old friend Carl Denti aka the X-Cutioner (Lawrence Bayne), though he’s no longer sporting the fancy costume. He’s teamed up with a bunch of other folks all in service to the reverand William Stryker (JP Karliak), the enemy featured in the classic story God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont. More casual fans will recognize him as the foe in X2: X-Men United though for that role he was turned into former military and the whole preacher thing was dropped – a pity. Here he’s just a cameo, but I do hope he plays a bigger role in the episodes to come at some point.
Polaris breaks up this gathering in pretty extravagant fashion. She also loses her cool a bit which puts her in hot water with X-Factor’s leader and government liaison, Val Cooper (Catherine Disher). Seeing the two have a very different idea for how members of X-Factor should approach their work, Polaris finds herself dismissed, but that’s not so big of a deal when your fallback plan happens to be the X-Men. Lorna returns to find her room had been left untouched, which is impressive since the mansion has been destroyed at least two times since she left. Her and the professor get to have a little chat and things seems to be going well, all until the Danger Room’s artificial intelligence breaks free and turns on everyone. This is where Xavier comes in as he and a small team have returned to Genosha to pick up the pieces. The Danger Room A.I., simply known as Danger (Rachel Kimsey), seeks a confrontation with its maker in Charles and that’s the physical conflict of the episode. The mental one is Xavier overcoming his guilt and helping Lorna to not be afraid of where she comes from in order to cut loose and use her powers to help those who are in need.
This episode is a little less meaty than most of the ones we’ve had this season. I liken it to the Lifedeath stuff from last season as there’s some necessary character growth, just minus the big, world-changing, moments. There is a lot of subtle change at play here as Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith) has been promoted to headmistress and put in charge of the education at the Xavier Institute. The government has also forbid the X-Men from acting as a paramilitary organization and the institute is only allowed to remain open if it’s to function as a school. Basically, anything they do outside of education is going to put them into conflict with X-Factor and it feels like we’re setting up a showdown between the two. How X-Force plays into all of this remains to be seen as we haven’t checked in with them in quite some time now. There are also a lot of new students at the school, most of whom we saw in that X-Force centric second episode so I’m assuming there is some cooperation between the X-Men and X-Force, or they just ditched the kids on their doorstep. A bit surprising that Jubilee didn’t hang around.
In terms of the bigger picture, there was an interesting conversation between Xavier and Lorna where Charles basically confesses he tried to preserve Magneto’s psyche just before Apocalypse murdered him, but failed. Are we aborting on Onslaught? That’s a strong possibility. The episode concludes with a long-expected scene as well which may or may not pay dividends next week. I would not be surprised if it’s put off until the penultimate episode. This episode is also noteworthy in that it does not feature Wolverine. It’s hardly a surprise to see an episode of X-Men ’97 not feature the runt, but following the end of last week’s episode it was a bit disappointing to not see if his relationship with Morph has been affected. The episode does put some players on the move and there is an attempt at placing the focus back on Apocalypse despite the emphasis on a villain of the week format. I get the sense that the show is maneuvering its pieces into place before the big conclusion. With only three episodes to go in the season, it feels like things are about to pick up.
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