By 
This article contains spoilers for X-Men ’97 season 2 episode 9.
The first season of X-Men ’97 blew away all expectations. It delivered on the nostalgia we expected, and it dug deeper into weird mutant lore, taking advantage of an audience primed by the MCU to accept comic book nonsense. But the first season fully embraced the mutant metaphor, reflecting the rise of reactionary politics in the United States with stories about governments and individual actors who hate the mutants simply because they exist.
At times, season 2 of X-Men ’97 has followed its predecessor’s lead, especially with the Nightcrawler-centric standout “Strange Land, Savage Heart.” In that way, it’s fitting that the season ends with Kurt making the ultimate sacrifice for his sister and his friends. But for the most part, season 2 has veered away from political relevance in favor of spectacle and superhero soap opera. So it’s just as fitting that the finale “Survival of the Fittest” mostly consists of mutants beating up on one another.
As we saw last week, X-Force and X-Factor have joined forces, with Cable and Val Cooper convinced that Gambit still poses a threat, despite the fact that Xavier and Rogue pulled his consciousness from Apocalypse’s grasp. In this episode, the X-Men must take their stand against the two rival teams, who storm X-Corp headquarters with a SHIELD helicarrier and a legion of Sentinel Squad O*N*E fighters in support.
At the same time, Rogue, Beast, and Nightcrawler investigate Apocalypse’s Ship to see if they can find a clue to their plan. Upon reactivation, Ship reveals the Celestial Shrine, the same object that En Sabah Nur entered to transform into Apocalypse, as seen in the ancient Egypt episodes at the start of the season. Despite the risk of corruption, Rogue enters the Shrine to face the Celestial Eson the Searcher. Upon seeing Rogue’s determination to save Gambit, pushing her to even attempt to fight the Celestial, Eson grants her incredible power… as long as she’s willing to sacrifice herself when the threat has completed.
The juxtaposition of the mutant-on-mutant action in the A story and Rogue’s confrontation with Eson in the B story captures everything that this season of X-Men ’97 has done right. The mutant rumble in the A plot are all ecstatic showcases for the characters to show off their powers. Strong Guy and Bishop pummel each other, each absorbing the other’s kinetic energy. Morph changes from Wolverine to Doctor Octopus to distract Psylocke and Archangel, allowing the real Logan to attack. Cable blasts at Jean’s force fields with his guns while using his own telekinesis to pull off Cyclops’s visor.
It’s excessive and silly, mostly accurate to the characters’ established power sets (Cyclops’ optic blasts shouldn’t work on his own son, and the kinetic energy caused by Gambit’s charges should force Multiple Man to make more duplicates, but that’s just nerd grouching). And it’s a lot of fun, all animated so smoothly that we almost forget the clunky look of the original series’ final seasons.
Conversely, Rogue’s encounter with Eson is all light and eerie quiet. All sound except the vocals drop out, even the words spoken by the characters feel flat and dry. A minuscule Rogue floats in front of Eson’s face, Jack Kirby‘s original design made all the more abstract because of the size, and the colors are saturated with white light. The story seems to call for Rogue to disintegrate as she challenges Eson, which the animators depict by having layers of her skin peel off, revealing red splotches beneath, a somehow even more disturbing effect.
At the episode’s climax, Cable makes his way to Gambit and shoots him in the face, horrifying everyone. Well, everyone except Apocalypse, who has been empowered by the death of Gambit to finally take control of the body, becoming some horrific mixture of Remy and himself. No sooner does Gampocalypse transform the mutants into new X-Men than Rogue arrives in her new Celestial gear, a gloriously Kirby-esque design, to face off against the bad guy. The face off takes… approximately three seconds? In no time at all, Rogue has pulled Apocalypse’s essence back out of Gambit and trapped it in a gem, which she just hands over to Cable.
Beautifully animated though the final stand-off may be, it resolves far too quickly, undercutting the fun of the episode’s battles and revealing the stakes to be non-existent—not just for “Survival of the Fittest” but for the entire season. Apocalypse felt terrifying when he destroyed Magneto earlier in the season, and Gambit was even more menacing in the previous episode. But here, he’s a minor inconvenience easily handled by Celestial Rogue. For all the first four episodes did to establish Cable as the son of Cyclops and Jean, and even the previous episode better fleshed out their connection and conflict. Even the fights between the X-Men, X-Force, and X-Factor paled in comparison to dust-ups in previous episodes.
Thus, “Survival of the Fittest” operates less as the culmination of X-Men ’97‘s second season, and more like a replay of the greatest hits. Nowhere is that more true than when Xavier rebukes Apocalypse’s survivalist ethos. For Apocalypse, Earth only survives the judgement of the Celestials if the strong cull the weak. Xavier contends that survival comes from care for one another, even to the point of sacrificing one’s self.
All of the points track for the characters, but the speeches don’t match the power of En Sabah Nur’s visions at the start of the season. It doesn’t reflect Xavier’s grief and growth after Magneto’s death. It doesn’t account for the moral quandaries raised when Nightcrawler defended Graydon Creed, or by the differing approaches of X-Factor and X-Force. The speech doesn’t even resonate with the last words Xavier spoke to him, when he praised En Sabah Nur’s mother for abandoning her child. It simplifies all the knotty questions raised in the preceding episodes and reduces them to simply stalling for time, waiting for Celestial Rogue to arrive and save the day.
All this makes the final scene feel like more of a cheat. Of course Nightcrawler would sacrifice himself to save his sister, as he does here, when he returns to Eson to pay the debt owed by Rogue. His faith is beautiful, as is the closing montage of the X-Men living happy lives because of what he’s done. But that doesn’t quite answer the questions of evolution and survival raised by everyone from Magneto to Graydon Creed to Eson the Searcher himself.
In the end, “Survival of the Fittest” is a fun episode with cool visuals and fun character moments. But X-Men ’97 in general, and even season 2 in particular, has been so much more. Let’s hope the show can find a way to truly evolve for season 3.
All of X-men ’97 season 2 is now streaming on Disney+.
X-Tra Thoughts
The bits of Rogue having her skin pulled away was gnarly for a kid-friendly cartoon show, but it worked as a rejoinder to her earliest appearances. Rogue used to be Empowered before Empowered, and it seemed that every time she used her abilities, her clothes would go flying off.
Given all of the X-Factor stuff this season, I should have been expecting something from their successor, the Unity Squad from Uncanny Avengers in the 2010s. But Rogue’s face-off with Eson and her Celestial form recalls her battle with Exitar in Uncanny Avengers #18-22.
I really wish the show would have done more with Val Cooper, and not just because I love ’90s X-Factor. As opposed to someone like Henry Peter Gyrich or Cameron Hodge, Cooper’s betrayal of mutants hits harder because she was truly sympathetic to them. Yet, as happens all the time in reality, an ally stands in solidarity only so far. As soon as mutants became inconvenient to her, she turned against them.
Speaking of Val, she’s dead! Or at least shot by Mystique, who will likely go after her son Graydon Creed, the new American president. Hopefully, this means season 3 of X-Men ’97 will get a little more political. Overall, season 2 of X-Men ’97 was still good, but a definite step down from the first season.
The post X-Men ’97 Season 2 Episode 9 Review: Middling Mutant Mayhem appeared first on Den of Geek.
