Tag Archives: terry kavanagh

July 8, 2026

X-Men ’97 – “Rise of Apocalypse: Part 1”

By Joe
Original premiere date July 1, 2026.

The premiere episode for season two of X-Men ’97 took us to the far off future where Apocalypse reigns supreme. The second followed that one up with a story set in the present time of the series: 1997 (Duh!). Now, for the third episode of this three-part premiere we head to ancient Egypt to meet up with the rest of the X-Men, only they’re not alone for in this time is the mutant En Sabah Nur who the X-Men know will one day become Apocalypse. They have been unknowingly sent here against their will by Mother Askani to prevent the rise of Apocalypse, but just how they’re supposed to go about such is a matter of debate. Beyond that is the debate of if it should happen at all?

The episode opens with the X-Men who were sent to the future now back in the ruins of the X-Mansion. They returned expecting to find the team Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith) was sent to retrieve there as well, but when no one appears they become concerned. This is time travel, after all, so the idea that they have to wait for their return doesn’t make sense if they were all set to return to a specific moment in time. All they can do is wait though, because Forge (Gil Birmingham) is unable to get a reading on their time bracelets. In 3,000 BCE, En Sabah Nur (Adetokumboh M’Cormack) is preparing to lead his forces against those of Rama-Tut (John de Lancie) who is a vicious ruler and slaver that once possessed Nur. Alongside Nur is Baal (Michael Dorn), the man he looks up to as a surrogate father for he is the one credited with rescuing Nur from a life of slavery. Nur is, as far as we know, the world’s first mutant with the tell-tale sign being his pale skin and blue lips. He also possesses incredible strength and durability and is something of a super man which is what makes him a natural leader of other former slaves.

The X-Men have been sent to the past to stop En Sabah Nur from becoming Apocalypse.

The X-Men trapped in this past are under no delusions who En Sabah Nur is, or rather, who he will become. Charles (Ross Marquand) feels their presence in the past is an affront to nature and they should do everything in their power to not interfere and instead focus on getting back home. Magneto (Matthew Waterson), on the other hand, sees this as an opportunity to set Nur on a different path. If he can instill in him the values of Charles Xavier then perhaps Xavier’s dream of human and mutant coexistence can come true before he’s even born to dream it himself. He views this as penance for his hand in what happened on Genosha, but Charles is not so certain this is the correct path. What no one seems to suggest is simply destroying En Sabah Nur before he can become Apocalypse. Such is the quagmire of the time traveler – if you can prevent an atrocity by taking out the orchestrator of such before it happens should you? En Sabah Nur as he exists in this moment in time is not the same man who committed countless atrocities as Apocalypse. Can he be sentenced for a crime he has not committed? This question doesn’t come up in this episode, but perhaps it will soon enough.

This isn’t the Egypt you read about in your textbooks.

As for the X-Men stranded here which includes Beast (George Buza), Rogue (Lenore Zann), and Nightcrawler (Adrian Hough) in addition to Magneto and Charles, their journey home is perhaps an impossibility. Beast is no Forge, but he has spent time working with Bishop’s time traveling device and has some knowledge of how it works. The problem is acquiring the power and resources needed to create a time machine and to do that they look to the forces of Rama-Tut. We may be in ancient Egypt, but the tech of Tut is certainly not of this era. He attacks with robotic minions lead by a human general named Logos (Chris Britton) and once the forces of Nur lay waste to them, the X-Men scavenge the battlefield for parts, but they’re not making much headway which is taking its toll on everyone, especially Beast. The plot takes a turn when Magneto is able to convince Nur to abandon his survival of the fittest mantra and take Logos hostage rather than kill him. With him in their clutches, Magneto hopes to convince Xavier to probe his mind and perhaps find a solution to their problems, but instead Xavier just finds more riddles. A disembodied voice that espouses a famous quote from Apocalypse appears before Charles alongside a massive, fiery, eye that looks like a galaxy being born. The presence of a shattered moon in the shape of Magneto’s helm leads me to believe this could be a foreshadowing for Onslaught, though I’ve seen some speculate that this could be a reference to Stryfe. I would have thought it was merely a vision of Apocalypse himself, but Xavier is the one who classifies this individual as a mystery and that would be a pretty lame mystery since we know that Apocalypse is the villain already in focus.

In this era, Rama-Tut rules, but I definitely wasn’t expecting to see the X-Ternal (credited as Candra) from the episode “X-Ternally Yours” to make an appearance.

The episode does end on a cliffhanger, though it’s a bit of a toothless one since these characters have quite a bit of plot armor at this point. Bishop will also make an appearance and, if anything, this cliffhanger may just explain why the X-Men were unable to rendezvous with their comrades in 1997. Perhaps we will find out the events of this episode caused the time bracelets to be damaged and the X-Men will have to seek out another way to return home. Of course, with me catching up and this going live the day part two drops that means these questions have likely already been answered (and maybe the identity of the mystery voice has as well), but I had to make sure I got my thoughts down before that episode dropped. I am guessing the technology of Rama-Tut hides a way for the team to get home and it would be a great example of circular story-telling since it was a future version of Rama-Tut that helped Bishop and the X-Men take down Apocalypse in the “Beyond Good and Evil” arc. There, he took the form of a cosmic janitor named Bender who only revealed himself to the viewer as Immortus at the end, but he’s basically a future version of Rama-Tut who is also an aspect of Kang the Conqueror. Yeah, it’s complicated.

A lot of capes in this picture.

“Rise of Apocalypse: Part 1” is a bit slower paced than the other two episodes in this three episode premiere. Being that it’s co-written by Beau DeMayo (along with JB Ballard), that’s not a surprise as he seems to like these more talky episodes and when you get Magneto and Xavier sharing scenes that tends to happen. It’s a necessary episode, though I do wonder if this is really how I want to see Apocalypse portrayed. I like origin stories and villain ones can be a lot of fun, but Apocalypse as a Spartacus figure is hard to square. Are we supposed to have sympathy for this character? Apocalypse is a genocidal monster, I’m not sure that I want or need to know that he wasn’t always bad. This is an adaptation of Rise of Apocalypse by Terry Kavanagh and Adam Pollina so it’s not a new story, but I never read that one to know if the portrayal of En Sabah Nur was quite the same. At any rate, I’m willing to see how things progress from here and since this is only part one it does feel a little incomplete. We’ve set the table, but the meal has yet to arrive.

Previously…on X-Men ’97:

X-Men ’97 – “A Force to be Reckoned With”

The title of this post says X-Men ’97, but in some respects it should read X-Force ’97 because that’s what the opening title presents. Yes, boys and girls, we have ourselves an X-Force on television. Cable made numerous appearances in the original series, but never as the leader of X-Force. This surprised me as a…

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by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Days of Past Future”

At last, X-Men ’97 has made its return to airwaves with not one, not two, but three episodes for the premiere which means there’s a lot to talk about. Truthfully, too much for one post which is why we need to keep things to one episode per entry as is the style of the time.…

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by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 3”

Today, X-Men ’97 dropped the curtain on its first season and what a way to bring it to an end. Last week’s episode was a roller coaster of emotions for me. I couldn’t go into much detail of my review of “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 2” without wading into spoiler territory, so allow me…

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by Joe

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March 27, 2025

Marvel Legends Kaine

By Joe
That’s gotta be Kaine!

In some ways, Secret Wars was bad for comics. Commercially, the 80’s event was hugely successful for Marvel even though it seems to have just a lukewarm reception by fans in some circles. It helped to establish the belief that events sell and Marvel seemed hellbent on taking that approach in 90s. One of Spider-Man’s big plotlines was Maximum Carnage. It was a multi-issue arc with a bunch of heroes and villains teaming up to form super teams, and like Secret Wars, it didn’t seem like fans thought much of the finished product, but it sure seemed to sell well. And if it had not we wouldn’t have the extremely derivative Maximum Clonage (sic) to follow. Also referred to as The Clone Saga, Peter Parker was suddenly confronted with multiple versions of himself thanks to The Jackal and no one knew who the real Peter was. It’s the storyline that brought us the Scarlet Spider and it’s also the storyline that gave us Kaine.

“Don’t look at me!”

Kaine was yet another clone of Peter. He was the like the goth Peter before Sam Raimi came up with the idea for Spider-Man 3. Clad all in black with this weird, blue, membrane running throughout and a tattered cape, he caused some trouble for both Spider-Man and Scarlet Spider before eventually being outed as yet another clone. Kaine was actually the point where I fell off the story as a kid. It just got way too soap opera-like for my taste and I got enough of that at home from a mother who would monopolize the television on Saturday to watch all of the episodes of All My Children she had recorded during the week.

That’s more sculpt and paint than we’re used to with Hasbro.

Kaine may have been a lame addition to the story, but if I’m being honest, he did look kind of cool. When Hasbro unveiled a Kaine figure last year, I took one look at it and said to myself, “Why not?” As a Marvel Legends figure, it looked interesting and the crazy pricing we’re seeing from the world of action figures makes these $25 ones feel more susceptible to impulse buying now. Kaine comes in the retro Spider-Man packaging which makes sense given his era. He never did get a single card release in that line, so I guess this is like making up for lost time. There was a Maximum Clonage box set that contained a Kaine figure that was probably exclusive to some store. It was a classic Toy Biz repaint and I think they used an Archangel body for the base and just slapped a cape on it. Maybe if he had made the jump to the actual show he would have been given a more prominent release, but honestly it’s all Kaine really deserved.

The cape looks nice and dramatic, but it will get in the way.

Hasbro apparently felt like he deserved better, because this Kaine figure goes harder than I would have predicted. This figure is basically all new sculpt. The blue veins are all sculpted and painted as are the fins, or blades, on his forearms and shins. Even the crotch piece has sculpted veins. The hair, head, and cape are all new as well and the only reuse this figure can take advantage of rests with the hands and feet, which I’m sure are recycled from tons of figures. This does come at a cost for the consumer as Kaine only comes with one set of alternate hands, but that’s how it goes. He has fists and open, style posed, hands. The cape is sort of an accessory because you can remove it, but the straps for it on the torso are much harder to get off so it’s really not designed to be removed, but you may want to and we’ll get to why in a bit.

Krillin: “I don’t think even the Dragon Balls could get us a mane like that!”

What I find really striking about this figure is that wonderful head of hair. Kaine looks like he walked out of a shampoo commercial or something. Fabio would be jealous as his hair never looked this good while hawking imitation butter. It, as well as the cape, are just one shade though. There’s no paint added which is a bit of a bummer as I think a wash would really help liven this figure up and also reduce that plastic look. I find this figure looks a lot better on my desk when the lighting is getting dim because it takes away that plastic sheen. Still, by the standards of the line, Kaine is an impressive looking figure and if you’re a customizer of some talent you can probably get this to look even better with minimal effort.

The articulation is basic by Legends standards. He should be able to pose well enough, even with the cape.

Since this is an all new body you may wonder if it has some articulation surprises. And the answer there would be, “Not really.” They had to make new molds to produce this figure, but I bet they just took an existing digital sculpt and then added the details to it before cutting steel. As a result, Kaine feels like a lot of Marvel Legends. He has the hinged ball neck, ball hinged shoulders, butterfly joints, bicep, double-elbows, swivel and hinge wrists, ab crunch, waist twist, ball hips, thigh cuts, double knees, and ankles that hinge and rock. Range at these joints is also all typical Marvel Legends stuff. He can almost do splits, kick forward 90 degrees, and the ab crunch works well enough. Where this figure is limited is the head and that left shoulder. The combination of the big hair and the plastic cape really lockdown the head. He can turn to the side a bit, look down, and barely look up. The left shoulder is also restricted by that cape, but really only in a sense that it can’t rotate all the way around. It does a decent enough job of getting out of the way with most movement and once you’ve settled on a position you can just reposition the cape. It’s not nearly as bad as it looks like it would be, though I’m sure there will be people getting custom soft goods capes for this guy.

Which one is the real Peter Parker?!

How do we feel about having a Marvel Legends Kaine? Fine. He’s a solid entrant for the line and it feels like real effort was put into making an accurate representation of the character in plastic form. Now I understand there’s some debate over just what color the blue vein things should be. He often was drawn to have gray instead of blue. Not being a massive fan of the character, I don’t care. I like the light blue on black so I’m happy. I’m not happy about the lack of accessories, but I expect that of Legends now. I have a weird soft spot for the trash of the 90s, so that’s primarily why I have Kaine. He’ll go with my Scarlet Spider and look like his goth cousin and that’s cool. And if you too think he looks cool then by all means drop $25 and grab him. I don’t know if he’ll be anyone’s favorite release in the line come the end of the year, but he certainly won’t be the worst.

We have more Spider-Man and Maximum Clonage stuff here if that’s your thing:

Marvel Legends Retro Card Scarlet Spider

It was in this space last year that I shared my fondness for the Scarlet Spider costume when I reviewed the Medicom MAFEX Scarlet Spider action figure. I don’t buy much from Medicom because their figures are really expensive for what they are, but I sometimes break my own rule when I think they’ve made…

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by Joe

Marvel Legends Spider-Man ’94 Spider-Man vs Carnage

Last year, Hasbro celebrated the 30th anniversary of X-Men, the animated series that premiered on Halloween 1992 and would become a ratings hit shortly thereafter for the Fox Kids Network. It was responsible for getting a lot of kids into the X-Men and Marvel comics in general and the first, prime, benefactor of that rise…

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by Joe

Medicom MAFEX Marvel No. 186 Scarlet Spider

When I was a kid, one of my favorite past times was drawing. Like most, I started really young with a box of crayons and coloring books. I’d eventually start keeping markers, colored pencils, and other instruments in a plastic McDonald’s case that came from a Happy Meal. It was blue and had a map…

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by Joe

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