X-men Month: TV Retrospective - Wolverine and the X-men

We finish X-men month with a look at the most recent of the X-men animated series: Wolverine and the X-men

Released in 2009, this series was a kind of bridge between the X-men movies and the comics universe. There isn’t a lot of shared continuity between the movies and this comics, it’s more about design choices (Wolverine particularly looks like his Hugh Jackman counterpart and considerably taller than his comic counterpart)

Heralding this is a focus on Wolverine because of his popularity from 3 x-men movies and a solo movie coming out the same year. So, is it any good? Let’s take a look

Plot

We open at the Xavier institute, Wolverine is about to leave for undisclosed reasons, Rogue is particularly unhappy about it. Just as Wolverine is about to leave, an explosion occurs at the mansion

We cut to a year later, Wolverine is on his own and saves a child from a burning caravan only to have a frightened Neighbour call the Mutant Response Division (MRD or Martys for short) Wolverine gets away but the family are arrested. Wolverine returns to the Xavier institute, most of the X-men have left, only Beast is still around. With his help, they break into the MRD and defeat Colonel Moss, the man at the head of the MRD. They release the family and ‘convince’ Moss not to come after them again. They also release a few mutants including Pyro, Boom Boom and Dust. They head their separate ways but given what he’s seen, Wolverine wishes to bring back the X-men

Episode 2 show’s he’s not having much luck. Rogue doesn’t want him as leader, fearing he’d abandon her again, Angel is more interested in using his father’s money to help mutants any way he can, Cyclops is scarred with Jean MIA. They do eventually convince Iceman to join the team who leads them to Shadowcat. 

Meanwhile Rogue is approached by the Brotherhood of Mutants: Toad, Blob, Domino, Avalanche and their leader: Quicksilver. They offer her a place on the team and she accepts, they begin a raid on the MRD and Worthington industries, who have unveiled a mutant-hunting robot called the prowler. The Prowler went after Rogue and to everyone else seemed out of control, forcing Senator Kelly to make a speech about it tomorrow.

Rogue tells the X-men the Brotherhood plan on assassinating Kelly but it’s a set-up, furthering Kelly’s hatred of the X-men and assuring the passing of a Mutant Registration act. In episode 3 they encounter Emma Frost, a telepath who was once a teacher at an opposing mutant school, who taught kids how to bully people. Wolverine eventually trusts her enough to use Cerebro to find Charles Xavier, in Genosha: A mutant stronghold set up by Magneto. They’ve also brought in Forge, a technical expert and with this intel they manage to recruit Cyclops as well.

They head to Genosha and after a fight with Magneto, he willingly gives Xavier back, but reiterates he was not responsible for the explosion. As they settle him down, he uses futuristic holographic projection from within his own mind (???) to tell the X-men the world he has awoken in is a nightmare. A world controlled by sentinels where only a few mutants have survived.

Their first mission from Professor X is to recover Storm from Africa, who is about to create a storm so fierce it kills everyone on the continent. Turns out her mind was being possessed by the Shadow King. They eventually rescue her, preventing the destruction and unlike in anywhere else, anti-mutant resentment was not the outcome. Storm agrees to join the X-men.

Forge had developed an inhibitor collar that shuts down mutant powers, they use it on a little girl having issues controlling hers in times of extreme stress (like being hunted by the MRD) A doctor named Sybil Zane orders mutant Gambit to retrieve the collar. He does so but Wolverine is in fast pursuit. He returns it to the MRD where Bolivar Trask manages to reverse engineer in the shortest time known to man. Wolverine recovers the collar and of course the X-men never use it again.

Nightcrawler has stowed away on a Cargo ship heading to Genosha, he convinces the staff to make sure the mutants who are paying for their transport are well taken care of. The ship, like a few before it comes under attack by pirates lead by Spiral, a mutant with similar abilities to Nightcrawler. They manage to kidnap some of the mutants whilst Ricochet blows a hole in their boat. Using the powers of those left behind Nightcrawler manages to fix the boat and mount a rescue. Forcing Spiral to withdraw to her master, Mojo. The X-men arrive to pick him up but he says he has to see this through.

After a filler episode where Wolverine fights the Hulk, Xavier warns that half of Genosha was destroyed by a blast created by a mutant named Nitro, who is being kidnapped by the brotherhood. They try and use Psylocke, a telepath, to control Nitro’s power but it’s not good and it’s only thanks to the X-men intervening that Genosha is not destroyed. They return him to the MRD, much to his own relief.

Wolverine remembers when he was rescuing the collar that he came across a word, MasterMold. Xavier doesn’t know what that means and soon after he’s pulled out of Cerebro by sentinels, capturing him and bringing in Cerebro. He manages to prevent Col Moss Sentinel from fully activating his inhibitor collar, all mutants in the detainment centres are being prevented from using the powers, Xavier’s disappears in the next shot.

There are a number of mutants in the prison about to stage a prison break, including Bishop, Domino, Bezerker, Kamal el Alaoui, Firestar and Marrow. One of the mutants, Hellion is taken to the tower, where they’re trying to duplicate mutant powers for the sentinels, that’s why mutants are being kept alive. Bishop helps Charles break into the tower, they rescue Hellion and escape with Cerebro, which is immediately fed some Pym-particles and shrunk to a more manageable size. Helping with the prison break is Vanisher, a mutant teleporter.

The X-men conduct a raid on Trask’s facility but find it abandoned. Xavier tells them what he’s found, MasterMold is an artificial intelligence that manufactures sentinels. Nightcrawler arrives on the shores of Genosha, Magneto offers to have his daughter, Wanda, show him around and prove it’s as idyllic as he claims it to be. Meanwhile he’s sent Mystique to the Xavier institute to check status on Charles.

Nightcrawler finds mutant prisons and tries to warn the world but is captured by Mystique. Whilst fighting Wolverine she mentions that the two once knew each other. He looks to explore his past and ends up returning to the place he was once sent to ‘assassinate’ Chris Nord. He fight’s Chris’ daughter, Kristie and ends up discovering that he refused to do it after finding out he had a daughter. He’s confronted by Sabretooth, another mutant working for the weapon X division he’d been working with. He was the one who ‘killed’ Chris, who actually turns out to be working for Weapon X under the name Maverick.

Getting desperate to find Jean, Cyclops tracks down Sinister, a guy who is obsessed with using genetics from mutants to create the Ultimate Mutant. He was once intent on using Jean in his experiments and Cyclops suspects he has her now. Despite protests from Wolverine he goes after him but it’s a trap. Fortunately, the X-men pull him out in time.

Rogue finds out from Quicksilver that the Brotherhood is going to make a move against the X-men. She tries to warn them but they don’t instantly believe her after the last time. However, Wolverine is suspicious and it turns out he was right to be. Magneto is not happy that Senator Kelly isn’t keeping to his agreement of sending every mutant the MRD capture to Genosha. Whilst the brotherhood keep the X-men distracted, he deploys attacks at the 12 MRD Facilities.

One of those facilities was holding a mutant that could project a massive energy creature she couldn’t control. Thanks to Rogue they manage to save her. Rogue officially joins the X-men here. 

Mystique calls Wolverine and warns him Kristie Nord is in danger. He goes to her house and finds her kidnapped by Weapon X. With the help of Mystique, they manage to rescue both her and her father and Wolverine discovers that Mystique was also part of weapon X. He facilitated her escape but got himself captured in the process. They also discover X-23 and meet the leader of Weapon X. Emma manages to restore a few of Chris’ memories relating to his daughter.

Nightcrawler and the Scarlet Witch are kidnapped by Spiral, and are forced to fight in gladiatorial combat by Mojo. Their opponent, a mind controlled Wolverine. They manage to free him and secure their own freedom and for his help, Nightcrawler is allowed his freedom. In the future, a group of mutants formed of Bishop, Vanisher, Marrow, Domino, Hellion and Xavier are pursuit by new sentinels, ones with Wolverine’s claws and healing factors.

Wolverine, Shadowcat and Forge try to stealthily raid Trask’s new MRD facility, Forge succeeds in downloading a lot of data but Wolverine is captured. Thanks to their ability to reverse-engineer things in a matter of days, that’s all it takes to apply that to the sentinels (just the small ones mind you, the big ones still blow up real good) the future X-men retreat into the Badlands, a land ruled by Lorna, Magneto’s other daughter. Charles convinces her not to give up hope and in return she gives them a sentinel under their control, Rover.

After a filler episode involving the Silver Samurai the team make a raid on the MRD’s lab, revealing MasterMold is to be activated tonight. It’s a trap devised by MasterMold when it discovered the data was being hacked. The brotherhood have been cut off for vaguely explained reasons and are now also targets of the MRD, together they trash the sentinels and bring down MasterMold, or so they believe. But Charles tells them nothing has changed in the future. For this battle, Warren fully assumes his Angel identity and joins the X-men

After a skirmish with the MRD, Angel’s wings are severely injured, his father asks the Doctors to remove them, which angers Warren to no end. Sinister comes to him during the night, saying he can restore his wings. He does so, but also puts Angel under his control as Archangel. Wolverine and Storm try to get through but it’s no good. His father decides to back out of relationships with Senator Kelly and the MRD.

After a skirmish with Juggernaut goes south because of Scott thinking about Jean, Emma says he might be able to remove her from his memory. He agrees but first they have to sift through his memories. In doing so, they find out something interesting. It was Jean who caused the explosion at the mansion. They reveal this to Xavier who said he saw the same thing from Lorna’s mind at the time of the apocalypse.

He and Bishop come up with a plan to recover MasterMold’s old data core, which they can use to project what time Wolverine has left. Much to Marrow’s objection, they want to put Rover (who she’d bonded with) in the battle. The plan works and they find that Wolverine has only 8 days to stop what’s about to happen, but Rover is destroyed in the battle. An upset Marrow tells MasterMold she can lead her to Charles Xavier.

The first thing they discover is Magneto’s helmet is stolen by a mutant spy working for Senator Kelly. Wolverine sends Nightcrawler to find out more. The thief was Gambit and upon arriving he’d admitted his plans and been granted sanctuary. He began flirting with Lorna and used that to begin planting explosives around key points in Genosha. Nightcrawler and the Scarlet Witch confront him but have no such luck. Enraged, Magneto goes straight after Kelly but Rogue arrives to knock them both out. They’re both taken to Charles who shows them what the future will become. Senator Kelly makes a statement halting the sentinel program.

Emma finally manages to find Jean but as she and Scott go out to find her, a psychic blow freezes everyone. Sinister had also taken an interest in reports and sends Archangel to kidnap her. He captures both her and Cyclops and takes a sample of their genetic materials before they’re rescued by Emma, Wolverine and Nightcrawler. Sinister takes the genetic samples to his master, Apocalypse.

As the team prepare to welcome back Jean, they’re knocked out by a psychic attack. Emma Frost and the ‘inner circle’ now take Jean. In the finale Wolverine uses his super-sense to discover Emma’s involvement and locks her up. Cyclops is less sure and lets her out. Meanwhile Quicksilver has brought Senator Kelly to Genosha whilst he’s in public replaced with Mystique, who orders the sentinels attack Genosha, tonight.

Horrified at the idea, the Scarlet witch warns the X-men and they head off to shut it down. Unfortunately, their approach is spotted and the sentinels are launched early. Emma explains to Jean that she carries something called the Phoenix force, a being that inhabits telepaths, increases their strength and ultimately takes them over, with lots of death resulting. The only way to stop is to take down the mental barriers Charles put into place and release the Phoenix before it reaches maturity. She refuses to do it without the Professor. Now Emma must trick her into removing them herself.

They get past the first but she feels the pain of Scott, who was knocked unconscious from the X-wing crashing after the sentinel launch. Emma goes to sort the problem out, warning the others not to do anything until she returns, but they do anyway. She rescues Scott and Wolverine pursues them. The Sentinels are allowed to attack Genosha to build unity. The Scarlet Witch is disgusted by this.

Scott and Emma enter the house but the Inner Circle have the drop of the pair of them and force Emma into her diamond form. They reveal Emma tried to knock them all out on the day of the explosion, which was Jean trying to save them all. Needing Cerebro to find Jean, she placed Charles on the shores of Genosha to earn the team’s trust. Magneto takes control of the sentinels and begins sending them back to sender and they begin attacking the city.

In the future, thanks to Marrow’s tip, Xavier and the resistance group are captured, save for Marrow and Vanisher. Hellion is gone at this point for some reason. (Probably not a good one) MasterMold uses Cerebro to find all the mutants and is about to kill him when Wolverine arrives with 4 X-23s who he’d found on ice at a Weapon X facility. He rescues the others and reveals he has found MasterMold.

Charles tries to warn Wolverine that he must trust Emma but it doesn’t get through. The Cuckoos manage to release the Phoenix and take control of it. Meanwhile in the future the X-men make their final stand against MasterMold. Marrow joins the fight with the help of Lorna, who despite her best efforts, cannot harm her.

Emma is confined by Jean, the Phoenix is trying to return to her and if it does it will stop it, for now. She and Scott leave as the Phoenix destroys Magneto’s sentinels. He orders Quicksilver to take him back to Genosha for the end. Wolverine confronts Emma who says he has to trust her. Jean tries to take back the Phoenix but Cyclops won’t let her. Instead it goes into Emma, who converts to her diamond form so it can’t harness her telepathy, her form begins to crack and the force is released. Without a host, is dissipates and Emma’s form is destroyed.

On Genosha, Wanda sends Magneto away, Pietro sides with his father and is also sent away. Charles informs them that they were successful but in the future, a new threat looms, the threat of Apocalypse.

Good grief, I wonder what’s going to happen next

  

Goddamn it! Apparently the second series had met with major budgetary issues and eventually the plug was pulled on it. Deadpool was supposed to show up, Colossus was to return (he didn’t want to leave his family in Russia) and there was supposed to be more development for Cyclops, who was standing beside Apocalypse in the tease.

OK, let’s start with the negatives of this series. First off there are 2 episodes that blow for me, the first is that stupid episode with the Silver Samurai. It was boring, uninteresting, the villain was unthreatening and poorly built up and after 2 episodes looking into Wolverine’s we did not need another one. The other one involves Mojo. Mojo is an uninteresting villain, he just is. I saw him in Avengers Assemble (which improved in the latter half of season 2, negating any reason to do a rage review as I’d intended) and his gimmicks are more or less the same. He’s not especially cunning, he’s definitely not physically imposing and honestly, having them have to fight Wolverine felt unnecessary and you’re wondering how the heck he got captured in the first place. I’ll only grant that it’s not filler because of Nightcrawler

Beast, Iceman and Kitty have personalities that they stick to throughout the season, they do not have any character episodes or overreaching arcs. Those 2 episodes could’ve been used to do something with them but no… We needed 2 more episodes with Wolverine.

So yeah, Wolverine (voiced by Steve Blum – who really owns this role) gets the lion’s share of character work as he steps up as a leader of the team whilst also finding out about his past, much as you’d expect Wolverine to do. The reasoning for him stepping up as a leader is actually quite brilliant. Scott is usually the leader of the team after Xavier but with him distraught about Jean he was not the idea candidate, plus he’s capable of making hard choices that Scott might be a little less willing to do.

Cyclops (Nolan North) gets a fair amount of character development. Despite Jean appearing in the present and conscious in only 4 episodes her relationship with Scott is the forefront of his arc. His guilt in not being with her, coupled with fear for where she is and the need for someone like Jean in his life meant his falling for Emma was natural (her falling for him was… necessary for the plot) especially when she offered him release. Discovering that Jean caused the explosion at the manor not to mention may well cause what’s coming put his head back towards Jean just as she’s found.

As for Jean herself, there isn’t really much time for her character development, but given the nature of the finale, it’s no surprise that it focuses heavily on her and the Phoenix force inside her. Ironically it doesn’t reveal much more about her than we got in some flashbacks though.

Angel’s character arc fairly small and incomplete, it’s a shame this didn’t get further explored although it was nice to see the conflicting relationship with his father and it helped that his father did still have compassion, misguided compassion perhaps but compassion nonetheless, his ultimate turning against Kelly of the wake of archangel felt natural enough. Archangel didn’t have enough screen-time to really hold his own as a villain, usually only up against a few X-men at a time.

Nightcrawler and his relationship with Wanda was another nice highlight, we really don’t delve much into his religion like you sometimes see with him but it’s enough that he’s good person trying to help people the best he can. Scarlet Witch is also kind and compassionate although hot-headed and with a touch of her father’s more ruthless streak and I thought that made a nice counterpoint to Nightcrawler, who tries to look for the best in things.

As for Xavier and the future X-men, there’s not a lot to say because they don’t get a lot of screen time. I really didn’t like Marrow much but I don’t think she was designed to be a ‘likeable’ character. Her relationship with Rover tried to make her a little more endearing, it didn’t exactly work for me. Xavier’s kind and compassionate nature struck an interesting counterpoint with the even harsher reality that’s shaped the other X-men. I don’t really have much to say about the others, they’re fine, but they don’t really have character arcs. Lorna notwithstanding

Senator Kelly and Magneto make interesting opposing villains for the main bulk of the story. Magneto largely manipulates, stages attacks to try and provoke war, makes deals he know will be broke (he never seriously believed that Senator Kelly would bring him every mutant they capture) and it works as Senator Kelly continually tries to upgrade his methods, with the help of key allies in the field. On the other hand, he’s hardly the victim trying to defend himself. The MRD take mutants to populated areas, they use excessive force against people who really aren’t even sure themselves and then seem massively incompetent against any mutant with any control over their powers, and that’s all on Kelly in the end. Also, building metal men to go after Magneto is f*cking stupid.

I’ve already said my piece on the Silver Samurai but there are other side villains of note. Sinister is voiced by Clancy Brown who provides a great amount of charisma to the role. Once again, he has a fair amount of success and it isn’t just about him pulling another clone from up his ass (talking to you, Deadpool video game)

Sabretooth and the Weapon X guys only really get 2 episodes to shine, it’s not much and they really don’t leave as nice a lasting impression as Sinister did.

Gambit was played in an interesting light, he spent the entire season pretty much a villain, and only helping the heroes when there’s money involved (and even then, he tries to manipulate it) it’s probably not what everyone was expecting but I give it credit, it worked pretty damn well.

Not much I can say about the sentinels, they’re just generic robots.

There’s a standalone episode Wolverine vs the Hulk which (as you might’ve guessed) puts the two of them against each other. It also introduces Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. into the equation, and it’s the most negative light I’ve ever seen them portrayed in outside of comics. It’s a fun episode though, even if it has so little to do with anything, it’s counted as a ‘bonus episode’ on the original vol 1 DVD.

As for the story itself, it does suffer from some time travel shenanigans, the past and the future run parallel with nothing the X-men do making any visible impact on their future until the very end. Speaking of the very end, the scene with Xavier congratulating them makes no sense since he is now a part of a completely different timeline.

Overall though, I think it’s a very strong animated series and it’s a great pity it didn’t make a second season.

Rating 85/100

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Images/clips used in this review are from Wolverine and the X-men and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use