Hogan Reviews

Moving on to Season 4 with X-Men and things calm down, with no epic four/five part Phoenix stuff and instead back to self-contained Earth-based episodes with a couple of double-bill stories thrown in… well, with the exception of the finale, but that’s in the next half! So let’s have a look at what the first 12 episodes brought to the table…

The season opens up with an episode featuring Juggernaut coming for revenge against Professor Xavier (his half-brother, for the record) only to end up powerless when someone finds the “Crimson Gem of Cytorrak” that imbued the power of the Juggernaut to the helmet he wears and takes the power for themselves. Prof. X sends Cyclops and Wolverine to where the Gem is and after they retrieve it X restores Juggernaut’s powers to save his life, which then leads to the villain hurling the Gem into space and leaving without harming anyone as a thank you, I guess! Episode 2 sees fellow returning villain Omega Red sent to an unstable US submarine crash site alongside Wolverine and Storm (despite her claustrophobia) in exchange for the Soviet mutant being returned to a regular body, but of course it was all a ploy and Red tries to launch the nuclear missiles from the sub at US targets before being stopped and left stranded at the bottom of the ocean. Good fun though, both episodes tackling the same idea of villain redemption with opposite results.

Fabian Cortez: bit of a knob in every medium. (Note: Disney Plus is now blocking my Print Screen-ing so these images have been sourced via Google Image Search… *sigh*… I understand why, but that doesn’t mean it’s not annoying!)

Episodes 3 and 4 are called “Sanctuary” and adapt the whole Magneto / Asteroid M story. Funny to think this the first time seeing Magneto since Season 2! He creates Asteroid M as a, well, sanctuary for Mutantkind away from humanity but one of his own mutants, Fabian Cortez, usurps him when he refuses to attack the humans on Earth and tries to negotiate a peaceful coexistence with them instead. Cortez zaps Magento’s power with his own and then sends him into space before claiming the X-Men on board (Prof. X, Beast and Gambit) were responsible. Things look grim even when other X-Men arrive (in special space versions of their regular gear, for some reason that’s probably merchandise related, see the thumbnail for two examples!) but the old chestnut of surveillance footage of him doing the deed being played to everyone stops Cortez’s plan followed swiftly by Magneto returning to get his revenge. It’s a good two-parter that further establishes the classic X/Magento friendship / rivalry dynamic I always love in any X-Men adaptation. Episode 5 has the Shadow King return and possess Prof. X’s body only to be pushed back into his mental prison by X and Jean Grey in the astral plane. It’s… fine.

It’s the Master Mold! …’s head!

Episode 6 focuses on Morph returning to the X-Men after his whole near-death and mental slave experiences but wouldn’t you know it? The first mission back deals with the same Sentinels that nearly killed him last time, causing him to freeze in fear at a pivotal moment. Master Mold, now just a head, wants a new body and Xavier’s mental powers so kidnaps his old “allies” Trask and Gyrich as well as X but just when the X-Men are seemingly defeated Morph arrives and conquers his fear, leading to a victory as Mold’s head is destroyed (though it’s Trask owning up to his mistake that destroys the Sentinel factory, along with himself). Morph then says he’s not ready to join the team and leaves… they’re really desperate to keep the X-Men team line up the same, aren’t they? Episode 7 is a not-particularly-interesting story that sees Cyclops arrive in a town of nothing but Mutants only to find out it’s being controlled by a group of bad Mutants. It’s fine, it has the old “hero loses his power” trope as well as the “searching for an old friend” set up for good measure, so the whole thing felt as generic as anything.

Nightcrawler and Wolverine have a philosophical debate about faith and religion in the middle of a superhero cartoon show. It’s one of the many reasons why I love it!

Episode 8 is the infamous Nightcrawler episode, infamous because it focuses on the demonic-looking-but-actually-extremely-nice Mutant’s religious beliefs and ends with Wolverine rediscovering his faith. It’s… an odd one, but it’s inoffensive. I’m not religious but I didn’t find this preachy as such. We also see that Nightcrawler’s mother was Mystique, though that’s not actually touched on until a later episode. Episodes 9 and 10, “One Man’s Worth”, act as your classic Bishop time travel story as a Mutant called Trevor Fitzroy (and his comical Igor-like servant Bantam) got back in time to kill Professor X in 1959 thus allowing their contractor Master Mold to reign supreme. I’m not sure how Master Mold is alive a well again so soon, let alone is a new body, but whatever, it’s a good laugh as they actually succeed and Bishop arrives in a new present where the Mutants (all of whom are given a cyberpunk makeover) are fighting against regular humans, including an alternate-colour-palette version of the Avengers, due to Professor X’s peace talks never happening so the two became enemies. Wolverine and Storm are married and in a resistance group led by Magneto, and after a while end up being the two Mutants to travel to ‘59 with Bishop and his ally Shard to stop the plot, but they fail and head back to Bishop’s future only to find that too has changed.

Given how many cursed futures and alternate pasts he’s experienced you’d think Bishop would’ve just given up by now, really…

Although Wolverine is convinced the present he knows is good enough for him because he has his wife they all go back and do it again, this time with a message from Trevor to his past self telling him that Master Mold betrays him in the end. This convinces past Trevor to keep X alive and everything returns to normal. It’s a really fun story, and even has a scene with Storm, Bishop and Shard getting hated on for being black rather than being Mutants, something Storm describes as “so old fashioned it’s almost quaint”… *sigh*, indeed… Episodes 11 and 12 are another double bill this time focusing on new Mutant Proteus, who is the son of Moira MacTaggert and is getting help from her and Banshee on Muir Island. He runs off to find his estranged father only to find out he is an anti-Mutant politician and so causes havoc at one of his father’s rallies. This leads to several fights between the X-Men and Proteus, who has the ability to create illusions and generally warp reality, so plenty of X-Men having their fears realised and such. Eventually Proteus reconciles with his father as Prof. X puts him into “mental isolation”. It’s fine, but I don’t know if it needed to be two parts… plus those accents!

Overall Thoughts:

Proteus messing about with the laws of physics again… it’s a shame he looks so generic and crap.

Season 4’s first half is very strong, with lots of self-contained plots and fun returning or new villains. While some stories are a bit dull two partners “Sanctuary” and “One Man’s Worth” are great, with the rest falling into the “enjoyable” category, making for an overall fun time. Plus after the alien / space-filled Season 3 all these Earth based stories dealing with classic villains felt like a breath of fresh air!