It’s Brood trouble in the big Arctic as Wolverine gets the old Weapon X band back together in “Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs.” X-Men ’97 Season 2 Episode 5 is written by Anthony Selliti and directed by Chase Conley.
You can’t fault “Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs” for its ambition. While it is, on the surface, a bottle episode dressed up as a Wolverine showcase and a vehicle for a range of cameos from the hilariously abrupt (Kane) to the surprisingly effective (Lady Deathstrike) to the confusing (Sabretooth), it also digs a little deeper in a way the original series rarely had the opportunity to do: It chooses a horror lens through which to tell its story and tries to explore what makes the two X-Men at the center of its tale — Wolverine and Morph — tick. Ultimately, it succeeds at the former far better than the latter, in another example of the series struggling to escape its partial role as a Leo Pointing Meme generator as well as some of the limitations of its form and genre.
Picking up where last episode’s post-credits stinger left off, Wolverine has assembled a team of former allies and (mostly) enemies, including Garrison Kane, Maverick, Lady Deathstrike and Sabretooth (Why would Wolverine ever ask Sabretooth to be part of anything? Why would Sabretooth ever agree? I have no idea, and this episode makes no effort to answer those questions). They are joined by Morph, who has more or less invited themself along. Wolverine claims the mission is to suss out what a revived Weapon X project is up to (and shut it down), but things take a turn when they reach the facility and find it overrun with the alien Brood.
Just like in the comics, the Brood are good for some fun horror stories, thanks to the body horror elements of their schtick, the paranoia they instill (who’s infected?!?) and the way they operate as a swarm. The result is an episode filled with horror movie pastiches as Wolverine’s ad hoc team explores a dark, broken Weapon X facility littered with bodies. We get allusions both subtle and obvious to everything from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to The Thing to Aliens and beyond. The episode is at its best when it’s disquieting and tense.
Ultimately though, all of the horror stuff is just a backdrop to some character work of mixed success. After the team splits up (and pointedly splits its two X-Men due to concerns over who may possibly be infected by the Brood), Morph takes center stage, with Lady Deathstrike interrogating their devotion to Wolverine and the episode effectively yet subtly recalling Morph’s previous post-death struggles with PTSD, as they visibly react to the threat of the Brood with more fear and hesitation than the rest. Less effective is the characterization of Wolverine, particularly the revelation that the plan all along was for Wolverine to get into the facility as a means to restore his adamantium bones. Even putting aside the logistical issues (even as depicted previously in the animated series, implanting Wolverine with adamantium was a big deal, one that devolved him into a feral state for months vs. the mere seconds it takes here), it simply seems inconsistent with his previous characterization that Wolverine would believe so steadfastly that he’s nothing without his adamantium bones – especially when earlier episodes this season showed him to be as effective a fighter as ever despite his bone claws and lack of metal skeleton.
As a result, the poignant ending, in which Wolverine sadly admits that he believes he can never be anything other than a beast with claws, ends up hitting harder from Morph’s perspective than Wolverine’s. Here is someone deeply committed to Wolverine, for whom they clearly carry a torch, being reminded of just how broken their problematic crush is. Their sadness, that Wolverine can’t see himself the way Morph sees him, is far more palpable than Wolverine’s own sadness, because it’s grounded in existing characterization and not just an idea introduced in the same scene. To be clear, the idea that Wolverine only sees himself as an animal with claws, that he believes he only has value if he’s the ultimate killing machine version of himself, to the point that he would voluntarily seek out the bonding process again, isn’t an inherently bad one. It would be interesting to see the series explore it further – as well as the fact that, while Wolverine didn’t know the Brood had infested the station, his quest to “better” himself resulted in the deaths of Kane and Maverick, whose deaths are now on his conscious.
I just don’t know if this show is capable of – or interested in – exploring those ideas. This is X-Men ’97 after all, not Wolverine ’97, and in the shorter seasons of today, there is preciously little narrative real estate. While Wolverine will obviously be involved in the rest of the season, this is likely the Wolverine spotlight episode, meaning the full implications of what it raises will likely go unexplored at worst and explored in passing at best. Because ultimately, this is a Saturday morning cartoon, dressed up though it may be for the modern streaming era, and searing examinations of character aren’t exactly its bread and butter. The Morph material in “Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs” works because it’s built on the backs of several episodes featuring the character; the sad reality is, it’s harder to do “new” stuff with characters in this format when the series no longer has the runway it used to in terms of episode count. Maybe I’m wrong, and we’ll see Wolverine’s struggle with his identity continue to be a runner throughout the remainder of the season. I hope I’m wrong.
Until then, this episode will simply have to stand as an effective bit of horror storytelling serving as a quietly sad showcase for Morph, rather than the slam-dunk Wolverine episode it intends to be.
X-Traneous Facts
- The title is, of course, an allusion to “Weapon X, Lies, and Videotapes” from the first series (which was itself a reference to the 1989 film Sex, Lies, and Videtotape.
- Forge has been added to the opening credits.
- The opening credits also feature a scene lifted directly out of Maverick’s first appearance in X-Men Vol. 2 #5.
- Kane getting Deadpool 2-ed was pretty hilarious.
- Wolverine mentions this is he and Lady Deathstrike’s second alien invasion, a reference to her first appearance in “Out of the Past,” the two-parter that featured the Shi’ar Soul Drinker.
- The names on the DVDs Morph finds include X-23, Ajax, Aurora, Fantomex, Psi-Borg, Mastodon, Winter Solider, Silver Fox, XVIII, Weapon VI, Ant, Kane, Sabretooth, Agent Zero, Kimura, Worm, Sluggo and Kestrel.
- Maggott making his animated series debut via archive footage in which he dies is a low blow.
- The shot of Wolverine standing over Maverick’s body is from the cover of Uncanny X-Men #234.
- Similarly, the shot from the trailer that homages Wolverine #1 is from this episode, after Wolverine emerges with new metal claws.
- The real rub in Morph’s face in this episode has to be the fact that when they try to stop Broodverine by pleading with him as themself, nothing happens, but they break through when they transform into Jean.
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 @austingorton.bsky.social.
