This article contains spoilers for X-Men ’97 season 2 episode 5
X-Men ’97 has a lot of ground to cover. The series purports to be a continuation of the show that ran between 1991 and 1996, albeit with flashier visuals and better animation. Yet, there have been decades of stories released between the end of that series and the beginning of the sequel. And the show seems to know it, flying through plot points as if it needs to cram a decade’s worth of comics into a single, 10-episode season.
For the most part, that breakneck pace makes X-Men ’97 a thrilling watch, with tight writing and spectacular fight scenes ensuring we never feel unsatisfied. Well, not until the latest episode, “Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs.” For the first time, X-Men ’97 feels like it’s moving too fast, leaving behind storytelling possibilities and character development that deserve attention.
“Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs” picks up from the post-credits tease of the previous episode, with Wolverine “getting the band back together” to invade Weapon X. Despite our hopes that the episode would dig into the Grant Morrison and Chris Bachalo story Assault on Weapon Plus, the episode in fact reassembles the members of Team X from the original animated series: Lady Deathstrike, Kane, Maverick, and Sabretooth, with Morph along as pilot and emotional support for Logan.
Wolverine has told his compatriots that Dr. Cornelius has resurfaced, and Team X—all subjects of the doctor’s experiments with adamantium—are thirsty for revenge. The team finds Cornelius in the underground Canadian wilderness base that housed the Weapon X project. However, they quickly learn that he’s not the problem. Instead, Cornelius takes monstrous form, becoming one of the Brood: Xenomorph-like aliens from the classic Chris Claremont run, perhaps the last element of those comics to have not yet made their way into the show.
What follows is a standard base-under-siege story, as if out of an original Doctor Who story. Legion of Brood attack Team X, who continue their investigation while dodging the oncoming aliens. When the Brood infect Wolverine, leading to a recreation of Marc Silvestri’s incredible cover for Uncanny X-Men #234 (1988), Team X find an unlikely ally in Omega Red, who has been apparently frozen at Weapon X since we last saw him in season 5’s “A Deal with the Devil.”
Once again, X-Men ’97 impresses with its tight storytelling skills. Despite the fact that our protagonists are all super-soldiers with unbreakable metal armaments, we genuinely fear for their safety. And indeed, the Brood take out two of the members, killing Kane and Maverick, which won’t mean much to anyone who didn’t read ’90s X-books, but does establish the aliens as a threat. In that way, the episode borrows from Predator, a comparison set up by an opening scene of the characters boasting at each other in a chopper. (All kid-friendly boasts, to be sure; Marvel allows for a few “hells” and “damns,” but Disney+ isn’t ready for Jesse Ventura’s slurs or Shane Black‘s cavern jokes).
The episode even makes space for some solid character development, particularly with Morph. Morph has always been one of the trickier parts of the show. Although based on the minor character from the comics called Changeling, he was more or less an original invention for the series, one invented explicitly to die in the first episode. He was popular enough to be resurrected in the original series and get a Mister Sinister storyline, but he never got the same development as the others, if only because he had no comic stories to adapt. Since then, Morph has been introduced in the comics through the multiversal team the Exiles, but this episode marks the most significant time we’ve spent with the animated Morph.
“Weapon X” doesn’t give Morph a clean story arc, and it’s better for it. For all of original showrunner Beau DeMayo’s talk about making him nonbinary, the actual text of the show hasn’t done anything significant with his sexual identity. Even here, his devotion to Wolverine feels more like the act of a supportive friend trying to save someone he cares about from self-destruction. Sabretooth’s (thankfully) not-’90s-accurate taunts about Morph’s devotion, don’t feel accurate. But when Morph slinks away in disappointment at Wolverine’s final decision (more on that in a minute), his actions reveal more than just camaraderie.
So how does Morph feel about Wolverine? It’s not clear, and that strikes me as a good thing. He doesn’t know himself, a point emphasized by voice actor JP Karliak’s excellent performance. Karliak knows how to make Morph’s withering put-downs burn just the right amount, but he captures the character’s internal confusion, especially during a conversation with Deathstrike. When he realizes that she’s been comparing him to the fox sidekick of a samurai warrior, Karliak turns Morph’s initial defensiveness into a moment of not-so-welcome self-reflection.
“Weapon X” doesn’t resolve that indecision, but the ambiguity indicates a change in Morph’s character that leaves the door open for future advancement. The same can’t be said for the end of Wolverine’s arc, in which he has the adamantium restored to his skeleton. Being infected by a Brood and driven to attack his teammates puts a new spin on the classic Wolverine dilemma: is he a man or is he a beast? That question drove the several years’ worth of comic book stories after Wolverine lost his adamantium (and his nose) and turned into an animal, so it wouldn’t necessarily be worthwhile to faithfully adapt those stories here.
But it would have been nice to get some time with Wolverine forced to use his bone claws and having his healing factor go wonky. The shot of Magneto tearing the adamantium out of Wolverine still feels shocking, even when replayed for the “Previously On…” opening. But nothing in the episodes that followed honored that shock. Wolvie takes down Apocalypse’s goons in the first four episodes just as easily as if he still had unbreakable metal. And outside of some mean words from Sabretooth, his bone claws pose no problem for Team X.
Superhero comics work by creating the illusion of change, while always returning to the status quo. This strategy works because that illusion offers storytelling possibilities to enjoy before the return to the status quo. X-Men ’97 has a lot of stories left to tell, and most of them should not be about Wolverine once again trying to reclaim his humanity. But if the show is going to ask us to believe that a change has occurred, then it must do something with that change, at least for a few episodes. Hopefully, the next episode will slow down a bit to let us enjoy the mutant soap opera before rushing toward the next big event.
X-Men ’97 streams new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+.
X-Tra Thoughts
- I really like the Easter Egg of Morph turning into members of Alpha Flight, the Canadian superhero team last seen in the season 3 episode “Child of Light.” Alpha Flight fits within the Canadian setting, and it’s always good to see Puck get some screen time. It was a bit disappointing, then, for him to break theme and start becoming better-known guys like Deadpool and Spider-Man. While the larger Marvel connections are fun, Morph would be a perfect place to wink to some of the weirder parts of the comics.
- Speaking of winks to weird stuff—yes, I did see the names on the computer disks. We’ll break those down in a separate article, with a focus on the fan-favorite character name dropped there. I refer, of course, to Psi-Borg.
- We should all count ourselves lucky that we just got a Weapon X—a story with Dr. Cornelius, in fact!—story that said nothing about Romulus. If you don’t know who Romulus is, you’ve been living right and you should pray to your maker that you can maintain that ignorance. If you do know who Romulus is… may you get some Wolverine-style memory blocks to forget him.
- Did anyone actually buy that Kane action figure from the 1993 Toy Biz line? Even as a kid, I thought he was the lamest of the bunch, and this was long before Cyclops was cool.
