The X-Men reunite then split back up to face off against the dual threats of Bastion and Magneto in X-Men ’97 season 1, episode 9, “Tolerance Is Extinction Part 2,” written by Anthony Sellitti and directed by Emi-Emmett Yonemura
“Tolerance Is Extinction Part 2” is emblematic of both the best and worst tendencies of X-Men ’97 as it nears its first season finale. On the one hand, it delivers action and jaw-dropping sequences on par with some of the season’s best moments. On the other hand, it blows through a ton of story in its run time. Critically, in doing so, it also speeds past some key character beats, missing the opportunity for its big moments to land even harder.
Picking up some nebulous time after the conclusion of the previous episode (It seems like it’s supposed to be maybe 12 hours, but a lot has to have happened in that 12 hours), “Tolerance Is Extinction Part 2” sees the scattered X-Men come together in the wake of Bastion’s attack on mutants and Magneto’s attack on the world. Professor X is back in the house. In one of the episode’s more effective “back to the ’80s” sartorial moments (because it’s given a few moments to breathe), Xavier is forced to eschew his hi-tech Shi’ar hoverchair, damaged in the Sentinel attack, for a more low-tech wheelchair/blanket combo. Storm returns, with Forge in tow. Along the way, she rescues Jubilee and Roberto from an angry mob and brings them home. Rogue wakes up. Meanwhile, Magneto, from the shores of Genosha, raises a new Asteroid M into orbit. The X-Men split into Blue and Gold teams (a nod to the 1991 relaunch of the X-books, which saw a larger team of X-Men split into squads to headline Uncanny X-Men and X-Men, respectively). One group will attack Bastion and try to shut down the Prime Sentinels permanently, so the other group can successfully lobby Magneto to undo the damage he’s done to Earth’s magnetic field to stop the Sentinels before even more people die.
Before they split up, Magneto arrives at the school, his new asteroid base hovering ominously overhead, to offer the X-Men a place at his side. It’s one of the few scenes in “Tolerance Is Extinction Part 2” that slows down enough for characters to have lively discussions about their worldviews. Most of the X-Men, of course, reject Magneto’s offer and insist he stand down. Rogue, wearing Gambit’s jacket, joins him, unsurprisingly. So does Sunspot. Magneto points out that by leading the X-Men and taking charge of the school, per Xavier’s wishes, he tried walking Xavier’s path. Genosha was the end result. Why not, he argues, try walking his path now? It’s a compelling argument, until you remember Magneto’s path involves the deaths of thousands of bystanders, and the creators effectively present Magneto as a compelling and rational enough figure in the moment to make it easy to forget that fact.
But ultimately, this is all setup for what is mostly an action-packed episode, as the two squads carry out their missions to varying, but ultimately minimal, levels of success. Gold Team features Storm and Forge fighting OG Sentinels in the air (they’re online despite Magneto’s attack because of Bastion’s technopathy which … ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) while Jean, Beast, Cable and Morph fight Mister Sinister on the ground (It’s pretty awesome when Jean just starts telekinetically chucking bowling balls at Sinister). Meanwhile, in a scene that echoes the climax of the OG X-Men animated adventure, “Pryde of the X-Men,” Nightcrawler teleports the Blue Team onto Asteroid M. Jubilee and Roberto fight each other. Rogue takes on Wolverine. Professor X tries to reason with Magneto, then takes over his mind to fix the damage he’s wrought before Cyclops, after an urgent telepathic SOS from Jean, stops him. Just then, Wolverine sneaks up behind Magneto and runs him through with his claws. Magneto responds by using his power to magnetically rip the metal from Wolverine’s body.
Look, I’m not a monster. I was there in 1993, picking up X-Men (Vol. 2) #25 off the stands and reading for the first time the moment when Magneto rips out Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton. I’ve revisited it several times since, and it’s a hell of a sequence. I was also there when the original X-Men animated series debuted. Never in a million years would I have imagined that sequence getting adapted into animation. Yet here we are.
The problem is, that moment lands for me because I’ve been sitting with it for decades, revisiting it and examining it. I bring to the animated version all the history and impact that comes with the comic book version. In the context solely of X-Men ’97, it doesn’t hit nearly as hard. It’s shocking, yes, especially if you’re not familiar with 30-year-old X-Men comics. But action works best when it’s an expression of character, a release of tension. After Wolverine’s attack, Magneto talks about the tension between them finally coming to a head. But the series hasn’t really shown that, because it simply hasn’t had enough time to do so. In the grand scheme of things, there’s at least two more people in that room with more on-screen history and tension with Magneto than Wolverine. But the creators want to adapt the Magneto/Wolverine sequence, so they shoehorn in some dialogue to buff up the tension between them.
This is a problem throughout “Tolerance Is Extinction Part 2.” The moment when Storm rescues Jubilee and Sunspot is fun, a neat parallel to her appearance in the series premiere. Later, she gets a moment to reunite with Jean. But we never see her ask after Gambit, or acknowledge Xavier’s return. Similarly, Sunspot’s decision to join Magneto is predicated on the fact that his mom essentially handed him over to Operation: Zero Tolerance to be collared and contained. It’s a sympathetic motivation, but the series doesn’t make the time to show Roberto’s angst about his mother’s actions prior to it (It doesn’t even show us Jubilee and Sunspot going from “captured by Sentinels” to “on the run from a mob”). As a result, the beat doesn’t work as well, and we’re left puzzling over the speedrun Roberto has made from “reluctant mutant” to “fighting his girlfriend on a supervillain’s orbital base” over the course of just nine episodes.
To be clear, I had a blast watching “Tolerance Is Extinction Part 2.” The series has proven itself capable of delivering big moments, and this episode has several that will likely rank among the season’s top. But it’s hard not to wish the show was able to take the time to develop the characterization behind those moments a bit more, to give the narrative some time to breathe between its big moments, to explore some of the big ideas it’s introducing before speeding on to the next. If it did, the moments would have a bigger impact, and the action would hit on a deeper level than the pure spectacle of it. “Remember It” showed what X-Men ’97 was capable of when firing on all cylinders. “Tolerance Is Extinction Part 2” tries — but doesn’t quite succeed — in emulating it. Hopefully, the series tries again — and succeeds — in the finale.
X-Traneous Thoughts
- Wolverine does the “Previously, on X-Men” voiceover.
- Storm returns to the opening credits, now wearing her new/old Dave Cockrum-designed costume.
- I love the little hit of bagpipes that plays over every establishing shot of Muir Island to remind us it’s in Scotland; it’s the musical equivalent of Moira’s terrible accent.
- In other “between episode” happenings, I guess the X-Men know where Bastion’s headquarters is now?
- Also, while I wouldn’t ever suggest this series isn’t heavily serialized at this point (This is literally a “part X of Y” episode), it is disappointing that the Prime Sentinels appear to have been a “done in one” threat, with the X-Men back to battling the big, less thematically complex Sentinels again, in another example of the series burning through interesting ideas lightning fast.
- Beast and Forge rebuild the mnemonic scrambler that was used on Jean as Dark Phoenix, though no one points out that the device ultimately failed (Jean burned through it).
- Magneto gets the line of the episode by dismissively referring to Lilandra as Xavier’s “Shi’ar bird queen.”
- Rogue’s angry observation that Morph died after being on the team for 30 minutes is a reference to the fact that they died at the end of the series’ very first episode, though at the time it was implied that Morph had been a longstanding member of the X-Men even if we, the audience, had just met them for the first time shortly before their death.
- Pedantic nerd time: Nightcrawler shouldn’t be able to teleport everyone to Muir Island — he can only jump a few miles at a time, and the more people/stuff he carries, the harder on him it is (also, this has come up before, but Morph doesn’t have access to the powers of the people they mimic. For example, they might be stronger as Hulk due to Hulk’s greater muscle mass, but Morph shouldn’t be as strong as the real Hulk).
- The jet Gold Team takes to Bastion resembles the X-jet as designed by Dave Cockrum used early in the run of the “All New, All Different X-Men.”
- Also, in the Muir Island hangar, Wolverine’s “Mutantcycle” motorcycle from the first series of X-Men action figures can be seen.
- Cyclops asking Cable if he was expecting black leather after giving him a uniform that resembles the one worn by Cable in comics in the mid-’90s is a nod/dig at the early 2000s X-Men films, which eschewed colorful costumes in favor of more “realistic” black leather ones.
- Speaking of, with their “regular” uniforms presumably destroyed in the Sentinel attack, nearly all the “regular” X-Men don classic versions of their costumes, to match Storm’s new look. Interestingly, this means that Wolverine is slightly off model relative to the comic book version of Magneto’s attack.
- Xavier’s dialogue as Magneto attacks Wolverine, and the closing image of the episode, are both lifted almost verbatim from X-Men (vol. 2) #25 (Magneto showing up on the grounds of the X-Mansion with his asteroid home at his back to offer them sanctuary is also lifted pretty directly from Uncanny X-Men #304, the chapter of “Fatal Attractions” which precedes X-Men #25, with Colossus joining Magneto after the death of his sister instead of Rogue joining him after the death of Gambit).
Austin Gorton also reviews older issues of X-Men at the Real Gentlemen of Leisure website, co-hosts the A Very Special episode podcast, and likes Star Wars. He lives outside Minneapolis, where sometimes, it is not cold. Follow him on Twitter @AustinGorton
