TL;DR – It perfectly sticks the landing, balancing emotion, narrative, and a cameo or 10 to create an episode that had an impact.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ Service that viewed this series.

End Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

X-Men ’97 Review –

When I first started this series, I had this concern that maybe this new series would dent the old memories, or what if I was living in the world of rose-tinted glasses? The X-Men are the one side of the Marvel Universe that I have been the most connected to over the years, and the original X-Men: The Animated Series was the critical catalyst to that. This first season had its highs and lows, but I still wondered if it could stick the landing, so I needn’t have been concerned.    

So to set the scene, after Bastion (Theo James) lets loose his sentinels in Tolerance Is Extinction – Part 1 leading to Magneto (Matthew Waterson) declares war on humanity. The X-Men joined together under newly returned Professor-X (Ross Marquand) to try and stop him in Tolerance Is Extinction – Part 2 while also attacking Bastion. But as Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale) was despatched by her own son Cable (Chris Potter) and Magneto decided to rip every atom of adamantium off Wolverine’s (Cal Dodd) bones, all looked lost. But never count the X-Men out, even in the face of complete failure. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode and series as a whole, so there may be [SPOILERS] ahead.

In today’s review, we will first look at how well that final episode went before exploring the season as a whole, and wow, did they stick the landing here or what? When you have such a build-up like this, it can be hard to make sure you can actually pay it off. However, here, small threads come together into something grand, the tiny seeds that grow into something profound. An excellent example of this is Roberto (Gui Agustini), who has spent the whole season trying to find who he truly is and failing as much as he succeeds. But in this final episode, he becomes who he was always meant to be: a hero.

Two main throughlines permeate this episode’s narrative, and both are equally as strong. You have the X-Men regrouping to stop Bastion’s attack on the asteroid, who now wants to turn it into an extinction-level event. Then you have Charles stuck in Eric’s mind, trying to walk him back from the abyss. I liked the fight against Bastion, where we got to see different powers try and take him down. Indeed, it was nice to see Jubilee (Holly Chou) shown as someone who can throw down. Personally, the choice to try and recruit him was ridiculous but also utterly in-line with what I expect the X-Men to do.

While the spectacular fighting is going on, we get this smaller and quieter exploration of grief and trauma. Of a friend reaching out to a friend, of companions that know each other intimately as years of enmity and castigation wash away. It was a very emotional sequence because you could feel the weight of all those years, a moment I think they only truly captured in Days of Future Past. But that emotion washed through me, combined with the suicide mission to stop the asteroid, Jean and Cyclops (Ray Chase) getting to say goodbye to Cable, and Nightcrawler (Adrian Hough) giving last rights, it was a deeply profound moment.

Of course, throughout this episode, we are also hit with a metric arse tone of cameos, from the expected to the ‘wait, did Spidey find MJ?’. I liked that while they were there, they didn’t take away from the main focus of the episode. It also meant that we got to end the series in an interesting place, as many of the X-Men were now out of time and place. The idea of Forge (Gil Birmingham) and Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith) going on a time-hoping adventure to find them all sounds like a fascinating premise for a second season that I hope we get. Also, I hope we can get a better Apocalypse (Ross Marquand)/ En Sabah Nur (Adetokumboh M’Cormack) than his last appearance.       

I think they 100% stuck the landing on the final episode. The question then becomes how the season work as a whole, and here I will start with the narrative progression. Now that we know the entire shape of the season, I think I have a better appreciation of where they were going. It is still remarkable just how quick a pace they blasted through the season, with some of the big reveals that Jean Grey having been cloned that could have been a whole season in their own right, being smashed out in a couple of episodes. But the important thing is that even as we raced through the narrative, they still made sure that we cared for all the characters because if they didn’t, it would have all fallen apart.

The highlight for the season has to be Remember It because I was not ready for what was about to happen. I am not sure anyone was genuinely ready for that onslaught. Just as things were starting to get frustrating, they honed the story into a knife and let carnage lose. Gambit (A. J. LoCascio) was always my favourite character from the series, so I gasped in horror when I realised what was about to happen. It hit like a punch to the gut, but it needed to. It also helped that Bastion and Mister Sinister (Christopher Britton) were incredibly strong villains singularly, and it felt plausible that together, they could rip the X-Men apart.   

However, it was not all highs this season, as we found a number of frustrations along the way. I know that it was probably true that, in the writing times of The Animated Series, there would be a strong reliance on love triangles to move the story along. At this time, they all started to feel forced and actually started to rip me out of the narrative. Also, when it comes to the arc of the series, following up one of the most impactful episodes of the series so far with Professor X trying to get married in space but then having to teach everyone a life lesson, could not have been more of a wrong choice if it tried.

Thankfully, the production design helped make up for any shortfalls. They did a good job of keeping it close to the style of the original series so that you could watch them back-to-back but also modernising it in a way that didn’t make it feel dated. I think this helped give the show the impact that it needed, as did the slight loosening of its censorship obligations. I loved that they kept updating the opening titles, even if that was brutal at times. The updated music was a delight, even if I wished there was not a sad version of the opening titles because I can’t unhear that. But more, I am glad that we got moments like Magneto becoming the head of the school, Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith) showing her full force, Rogue (Lenore Zann) going on a rampage, Morph (JP Karliak) being the king of cameos, and of course Nightcrawler being the very best.  

In the end, do we recommend X-Men ’97 – Tolerance Is Extinction – Part 3 & Season 1? Absolutely. Sure there were some highs and lows, and we probably would not have gotten this if they had worked out how to add the Mutants to the MCU already. However, I was constantly delighted at nearly every turn, and they completely stuck the landing with this final trilogy. I, for one, look forward to what comes next.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen X-Men ’97 yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    
Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of X-Men ’97
Directed by – Chase Conley, Jake Castorena, Emi Yonemura & Emi-Emmett Yonemura   
Written by – Beau DeMayo, Anthony Sellitti, Charley Feldman & JB Ballard
Created by – Beau DeMayo
Based On – Stories by Marvel Comics, X-Men Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby & X-Men: The Animated Series Developed by Eric Lewald, Sidney Iwanter & Mark Edens
Production/Distribution Companies – Marvel Studios, Marvel Animation & Disney+
Starring – Ross Marquand, Matthew Waterson, Ray Chase, Jennifer Hale, Alison Sealy-Smith, Lenore Zann, Cal Dodd, George Buza, Adrian Hough, Holly Chou, JP Karliak, Isaac Robinson-Smith & AJ LoCascio with Gui Agustini, Gil Birmingham, Chris Potter, Chris Britton, Theo James, Ron Rubin, Catherine Disher, Donna Jay Faulks, Anjali Bhimani, Christine Uhebe, Kari Wahlgren, Travis Willingham, Rama Vallury, Jeff Bennett, Eric Bauza, Morla Gorrondonna, Lawerence Bayne, Alyson Court, David Errigo, David Errigo Jr., Todd Haberkorn, Gavin Hammon, Cari Kabbinoff, Josh Keaton, Martha Marion, Michael Patrick McGill, Courtenay Taylor, Abby Trott, Kimberly Woods, Gates McFadden & Adetokumboh M’Cormack  
Episodes Covered – To Me, My X-Men, Mutant Liberation Begins, Fire Made Flesh, Motendo/Lifedeath Part 1, Remember It, Lifedeath Part 2, Bright Eyes, Tolerance Is Extinction – Part 1, Tolerance Is Extinction – Part 2 & Tolerance Is Extinction – Part 3