So, it turned it we got the (extremely truncated) Madelyne Pryor story arc this week – complete with little Nathan Summers getting sent to the future to save his life (which won’t screw him up in any way, no siree!) and Mister Sinister returning to try and manipulate Madelyne and Nathan to do his bidding. What a hell of a ride.
One of the best things about X-Men ’97, like the original animated series before it, is that it can take a pretty unwieldy story – like this comic arc – and pare it down to a simple story arc. Sure, it might be nice to get some time with Scott, Madelyne, and Jean, parsing out just what this particular revelation means for each of them. (Who is Scott really married to? How can the three of them co-exist in this new normal? Is the real Jean really back to fighting form and just what needs to happen to get her there? Does Logan have a chance now? – Ok, that last one might still be in play moving forward.) But I suspect we all know that three’s a crowd and we would eventually get things down to the original Jean and Scott, with them trying to figure out just what happens now that this massive emotional wrench has been tossed into their lives. After all, Scott had a child with Madelyne, one that has been sent to the future. He needs to mourn that loss and try to figure out how it impacts him moving forward. And Jean? Well, she’s lost time – with her friends, her partner, and her team. How does she reconcile having memories that might not be her own? Lots to unpack even without the “other clone woman” hanging around. And, you know, it’s still technically a kids’ show, so short arcs are its bread and butter for those short attention spans.
But I also appreciate that the series includes key serialized plot points. This week, it was the reminder that Magneto and Rogue are closer than Remy might like them to be – although Rogue is certainly not aware of her beau’s feelings on the subject (communication is key to relationships, guys). That’s a triangle, much like the ever-present Jean-Scott-Logan trio, that will continue to pop-up throughout the season, methinks. We also got a fun end of episode tag letting us know that our next journey will be with Storm – and Forge, a really cool character – as she attempts to recover her mutant abilities. The joy of this series is that it is allowing us the chance to spend more time with key X-Men characters who tend to get lost in the shuffle when the team’s story is taken to the big screen (Jean, who does factor heavily in the initial X-Men trilogy as a prize to be won and is consistently reduced to failed attempts to tell the Phoenix Saga, Scott, who is so bland and only ever gets to yell at Logan for hitting on Jean, and Storm, who gets shafted in all versions of the X-Men’s silver screen incarnations, just to name a few) and see them develop into complex, fully formed characters.
X-Men ’97 continues to be just what this X-Men fan hoped it could be – and I’m excited for the next installment in this exceptional animated series.
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