I'm Jeremy Greer. And I'm Gary Butterfield. And this is Days of Future Cast, the podcast where we talk about all things X-Men. And we are back with more X-Men 97. Mr. Butterfield, how are you doing? A little sleepy. Uh-huh. You know, but that's always true. Saturday morning, you haven't had your IV of coffee yet. It's still clicking. It's still clicking the bloodstream. I've had a cup of coffee. It hasn't hit yet. You know?
So like halfway through this recording, I'm going to go fucking nuts. I got a fancy coffee machine recently. It does all of the things that you could ever want a coffee machine to do. Drip coffee, espresso, cold brew, foamer, grinder.
It's got a little thing that you put your dick into. It's just perfect. It's just really perfect. Yeah. Like it logs on the grinder. Yeah. It has a bean grinder. It logs your grinder. And it also grinds your beans. Like it does a lot of stuff. Yeah. Grinds your logs. it's got an Ashley Madison hookup yep 100% today we're talking about days of future no today we're talking about X-Men 97 season 1 episode 3 fire made flesh
When a visitor arrives at the mansion with a dangerous secret that threatened Cyclops and Jean's relationship, the team is propelled into a tragic confrontation with an immortal mad scientist. This episode aired on March 27th, 2024. It was directed by Enmi. Yonamura, and written by Bonamayo, Charlie Feldman, and, distantly, Stanley. Stanley gets some credit. Immortal Mad Scientist is a really...
like a real basic way to talk about Mr. Sinister, I think. It's weird because it doesn't narrow it down as much as you want it to. Exactly. There's a lot. It's kind of apocalypse. I don't know. Yeah. When I was watching this in the middle of it, I was like, oh, this is probably my favorite episode of the show. like recalling but it's really just my favorite sequence yeah
The nightmare sequence of this, I think, is the coolest thing the series does. It's one of the many times when this show was airing that I was like, oh shit, they got me. This is exactly what I want out of this X-Men. It was the first time too in sequence because the first two episodes I think are really good, you know, but they're kind of classic X-Men animated series stuff. It doesn't feel like it took advantage too much of like new animation techniques or higher quality.
you know, animation or kind of more bravery in terms of those choices. And the nightmare sequence of this really does. It's really, it's also like the first time I was like, you know, cause the first two episodes. do some like light adaptation but it's like oh this is kind of inferno um they're gonna try to and that's not a 90s story you know that's an 80s story they're gonna try to adapt some of this stuff And it ends up being, I appreciate them condensing it because Inferno is a fucking mess.
Yes. Did you read Inferno? I did. Yeah. And it is a mess. um and having them just be like okay here's here's the goblin queen like like go through a magical girl transformation like we don't have to do like a lot of like the the in-between steps to get from gene gray clone to daredevil's not there yeah yeah like there's a lot of stuff not hanging around
yeah real easy breezy like let's just get her let's like and like even like it's inferno like we were in hell for about four seconds right like for a couple minutes at most and then it's just like brought back Well, it's not a real hell. Exactly. The real one, the real Madeline Pryor actually went to hell and did hell stuff.
But it's very nice to have this. And then, of course, like you talked about, the animation and all of the crazy shit that they do to scare the X-Men before that, I think it's just really, really fun. That's so good. The other thing that's interesting is this is an example, I think, of how this show works best when you do know the comics a little bit.
The X-Men 97 is a good onboarding, right? Like you could say like, Hey, this is a great X-Men product. This is probably the best the X-Men have ever been adapted. Check this out. It's easier than reading like 50 years of comic. However, if you're not familiar with what this is referencing, if you're not familiar with Inferno, you end up having silly things like Mellon Pryor being like, just call me the Goblin Queen. You're like, what? The fuck did you say?
Why did you choose this outfit? What are you doing right now? Well, hold on. Just call me a Madeline Pryor. Why? Why? Where'd you get that from? Is that, did you like? Huh? Yeah. Did you just watch the end of The Usual Suspects and just pick some stuff off of a wall? Why did you get Madeline Pryor? Where did you even get that from?
Yeah, you know, it's it's a it ends up making like when you know, it's what it's referencing in the comics. It's like, OK, they're they're dovetailing and like putting these two universes. But if you don't know that, it's just like, huh. That feels arbitrary and dumb. It's really clever, too, because I feel like that's the way I felt about the 90s cartoons. If I would watch the 90s cartoons, I'd be like, man, who the fuck is Apocalypse?
like what is this guy like what is this guy's deal like i would get just enough and then i would rush to the comics to try to find like more apocalypse stories because i was so curious about him right like it just got me way more into the x-men and x-men 97 does a really good job of doing that um So we're going to start out with our, we get a little previously on segment. Basically Xavier is dead. Magneto has inherited the X-Men.
He was put on trial. He was almost assassinated, but Storm stepped in in the way of the bullet and got her powers taken away from her. And she leaves the X-Men, so she's not on the team anymore. Gene of Cyclops has a baby. And then at the end of the second episode, a second Gene shows up at the door.
The only notable things I saw in the intro this time were like a brief glimpse of Lalandra and then Gambit and Rogue like doing it like a little not kissy thing on the basketball court. I didn't notice anything special. that no nothing more than that they're reminding you of things that are going to either be in the future or in this episode because this does deal with a gambit jealousy stuff
I really wish this had turned into, you know, Scott, there's a lot of different things you could do with two wives, you know, and do that Simpsons. I hear shopping, but I don't hear digging. Scott is such a shitbag in this episode, my man. I like, I don't.
it's amazing like i would i would so stick by my clone wife in this situation like i just watched this woman have a baby with me like that that is my wife i don't care who this other wife is like you don't know when other wife switched out though i know so like you know when you got married that was that was maybe clone wife You know, and you got to think of that memory too. I say you get both wives. Like this isn't necessarily just me doing a bit. I think that like, no, these are both people.
you know, who I love, who I've had these experiences with. This is the best argument for a throuple that has ever happened in X-Men, including the Krakow era. Can you imagine Wolverine looking at Cyclops with two Jean Grey wives? Are you fucking kidding me? It's not enough that you had her since she was 16. Now you've got the new one, too. This is ridiculous.
It's the only thing I would have accepted as Scott, you know, because for Scott, it's got to be super weird that like just the wife he had the baby with just leaves at the end. Yeah. See you later again. It's stuff that if you're just watching the show without knowing, him being a dick in this is also referencing him being a dick in the comics about Madeline Pryor and everything. This is a bad Cyclops era. They're just trying to make it work.
you know uh so they they immediately they have new gene hooked up to some machines and old gene who is pissed this whole time yes which i love like of course she is um, scans her mind, uh, and finds out that it has these fragment fragmented memories. One of which is waking up in a lab and then just finding a way to escape and finding the sense of home. Seeing the X-Men on TV and identifying that as home.
but it's so scattered like the stick is barely put together so you can barely put any of these memories together in like a logical order yeah Morph is very funny. They want to call her Jean Doe, which I find very funny. And they turn into Spiral so that they can raise up all their horns. Get the votes in.
This is the closest the this series comes to like a morph episode to like morph getting some kind of kind of closure a little bit like he goes and confronts Sinister. I was kind of surprised he's not more involved in the final fight of this. Yeah. So Beast has used gamma rays to carbon date the new gene. I don't know why I feel like this is a violation of her. It just feels bad. Don't carbon date my wife, Beast. What are you doing? Stop carbon dating my wife.
And he, with no bad side manner, is just like, I know it sounds weird, but this new gene is the real gene. She's the right age. This old gene, they're identical, but there's been longer. It's been existing not quite as long. And Eugene's like, that's ridiculous. You know, you all know me. I'm Gene. Right, Scott? And Scott won't say anything. Scott's being...
A dick. I'm just amazed that he's not like, well, yeah, we're going to figure this out. Maybe he's just like, I don't know. There's a lot to think about. He just says like, there's been a lot going on. He's just like, I don't know with Magneto back with troubles here and abroad.
How am I supposed to deal with this? Autumn and I had a conversation one time and... I think we were mostly joking, but she was like, you know, if we're ever propositioned to be into a threesome, if you even look at me and like... lift an eyebrow like we're gonna be we're gonna have some problems like i don't i don't even want you to lift the eyebrow right i'm like i feel like that's what like scott is me in this situation scott's like uh just frozen i don't know what to do
I'm going to let the genes handle this. Yeah. Like, I mean, basically that's what I would do. Just be like, beast, please figure this out. I want to go hang out and play game boy. Yes, absolutely. Or, you know, it's Scott. I'm going to go play Go against myself. And Jean Grey is very pissed.
uh what we're gonna call i think i have her as old gene gray now uh but like she's she's pissed and she's like start she's like y'all i'm on your team like how many how many times have i literally sacrificed myself for you guys yeah and finishes with nobody
It's so weird that nobody will. I understand Scott being confused by this. I'm a little bit sympathetic to Scott, even though he's a dick in this, just because I don't know what I would do. I don't know which one's the wife that I did the what moments with. But the everyone else on the team just be like, I don't know. She looks a lot like you.
the science you know i'm very surprised by that we've never seen a twin before yeah we've never seen a fucking clone before like you're the x-men jesus you know uh she finishes out like storm would have believed me if she was still here Yeah. And that night she's trying to calm Nathan down when Scott arrives to kind of help her. And she says, you know, I want you to trust me. I want you to trust in ourselves and the relationship and the life that we were going to build. And he says that he does.
But he also doesn't know what to believe. And she's just like, you've never really been able to lie to me. But like, this is a new low. I just need you to leave. I need you to get the fuck out of here. You know, like, this is my baby. He's like, okay. And Jean's like, we could leave. I wanted to start this new life. We could still do it. She's in a dark spot. But then a voice comes through the baby mom. kind of taunting her. And we know who this is.
Yeah, of course. Even though they did, the voice actor is different. I like the effect on the old one. I like campy 90s Mr. Sinister a little bit better than new Mr. Sinister. Yeah, it's pretty much equal for me, I think. He's so over the top and hammy in this. I'm just into it again. I am absolutely ruined by Kieran Gillen comics where it's all ham. It moons over my hammy fucking Mr. Sinister. He's just a fop. I'm very spoiled by fop sinister.
So back in a little bit of clumsy exposition, Bishop's like, my time band's almost fixed. And Beast goes, yes, after I finish this, I'll be able to fix it. Also, scientists like artists have signatures. um i figured out who's clone gene a man who is so evil he could only be called sinister oh okay like time may be of the essence beast maybe we shouldn't stretch this out hank what are we doing um
Somebody's still talking to Gene upstairs, asking Gene to call him father. Of course, this is sinister. He wants their jeans, not their blue jeans, not their buckle jeans, their vintage buckle for Japanese jeans. He wants their G-E-N-E-F. which is why he clones Gene to begin with. And he wants to usher them to their royal destiny.
And he has a bit of control over his clone. We see as he's been cloning Jean Grey, he puts his little like sinister gem in her head, basically allowing him to mind control her somewhat. And this gene begins to rebel. Her eyes turn green. She slings the baby monitor across the room. It starts breaking the pictures in the room. She starts picking up pictures of the X-Men and her.
and smashing everything. And then she begins to transform like straight up magical girl style, like straight up, like sailor moon, um, into the goblin queen. uh and she says like they shall know my inferno uh obviously a big big x-men thing if you if you know what you're talking about uh this is amazing this is probably one of like five or six transformation scenes that they do in this show. And I love every single. them. It makes me think I should probably watch Sailor Moon at some point.
I used to watch Sailor Moon as a kid. The transformation scenes are real fun. The scenes of her slowly walking and complaining about being hungry are less good. Well, yeah, that doesn't sound as interesting as I thought it would be. It makes me want a transformation scene myself.
A little bit. I'm going to start spinning in a circle when I put on my clothes until I fall over and vomit. I'm just going to fall down at the end of that. I'm calling sick. I'm sorry, Cole. I can't come to work today. I fell over trying to do a transformation scene. We get Morph being a delicious little bitch here in a moment with the ghost's warning doors opening as Gambit, Wolverine, and Morph leave the danger room.
And Morph's like, you know, he's like, Gambit, you know, does a little barb to Morph. Like, maybe I should take it easier on you, but the cards, they wild, no. And Murph goes, okay, well, we'll get another timer training. Oh, it looks like Rogue and Magneto are scheduled next and the next day and the next day after that. And if you look at it, they're just two-hour blocks.
They're like training from 8 p.m. to like 4 a.m. for the next couple of days. Really intense. He's like, Rogue sure is training her stanima with the boss. And Gamut goes, better yet, maybe I do check on Rogue. uh and walk away and wolverine fucking loves this wolverine is absolutely having the time of his life it's real good it's important to remember that wolverine that morph has always been uh wolverine's uh precious precious precious yeah
He said something about that he put his boudin balls on the fire or something like fried his crawfish. Some weird thing that Logan says here that I didn't write down. He put his hush puppies up into his gut. That's what it was. He put his hush puppies up into his gut. And this is when the show starts taking a little bit of a twisted path. Morf decides to take a shower when the water comes on by itself.
Gambit starts seeing a green light coming out of a door. Roberto in Jubilee's movie that they're watching starts acting weird. The characters are looking at them.
um and morph sees logan in the shower and like immediately is like hey you need me to help you reach those hard to reach places and and pop's claws yeah yeah this is one of the most innuendo-esque things that's uh i think they want to fuck logan i think that's what i think they'd really enjoy that uh as a thing and you know uh but they're a nightmare realm so it's not going to happen
Logan is always with the jokes, being kind of sinister here. Gambit, when he steps into the room, he sees Rogue and Magneto. This is a... tribute or a reference to a really famous rogue costume uh that in the current comics they're making a big deal about bringing back oh which is savage land rogue okay uh who's just like in a loincloth bikini
And, you know, made everybody horny in the 90s, but they're like, the iconic costume is back in Rogue Savage Land. Okay. Miniseries coming from the Ashes team. And what makes this, you know, and I think that that was one of the periods in which she hooked up with Magneto possibly.
What makes this cool and horrific is that they're holding each other and their skin is like melting into each other. Yeah, this is awesome. Like when you realize it's incredible when it zooms in and you realize that they're literally attaching to each other skin to skin, especially like with the.
ramifications of what that means with rogue's power like it's just it's just double on double drama yeah uh for for gambit i can touch him and i can touch him deeper than like you know an actual just surface touch and she goes so far as to like taunting like oh i found myself a real Yeah. You know, the woman emerges from the TV. The woman kind of that they're watching Roberto and Jubilee are watching morphs into the man and kind of.
comes out as like a shagath ringu uh kind of thing and this is multi-armed yeah uh trying to do some yeah trying to do some some spot stuff i still feel like that character arc doesn't work very well in this series for me but uh this is they're kind of foreshadowing it uh and then morph just sees mr sinister in the shower uh but that's a big deal you know if you if you've watched the original series mr sinister found morph when he died kind of rebuilt him and then turned him evil
Uh, basically Cyclops and Bishop, uh, break into Cyclops room. but instead they are taunted by their past. The toys in the room begin to twist and turn. This weird elephant doll turns into Xavier telling Cyclops that he's a complete failure, that he failed to get the right wife pregnant, which is just very funny. He gives them demerits, which I love as a reference. He's like, two demerits. Failed to get the correct right wife pregnant.
uh three demerits uh it's fucking love it um you know uh really really good great body horror great surrealism horror just amazing amazing animation and like the voice work and everything is so so Then we get, you know, Roberto, you know, his mother monster is like, you know, you're not my son. uh, here until Jubilee knocks it away. This great little beat with beasts where he gets off on the elevator from resident evil village. Yes. Um, just, uh, this big baby demons tongue rolls on the floor.
And Beast is just like, I think we're on the wrong floor. It's like, I'm going to get out of here. See you later. I love it. He's not being tortured by anything specific to Beast. He just got a scary elevator. And then we get one of the funniest line reads in the thing where they all get together in the main room where Wolverine's there. And Wolverine's like, what's going on? And Worf goes, don't y'all get it? We're in hell. It's so good. And it's at this time, as soon as they say this.
the floor opens and they literally fall into a pit of hell now we've now we've got lava and flying demons and the whole the whole thing um yeah so it's it's time to do some x-men We get some pretty basic punching and kicking. Beast falls on Logan. And then Bishop is like, hey, psych, you know, power me up. So he gets all powered up.
Uh, and he says, Tom Ford exorcism punks. And then he just kills a bunch of demons with his hand lasers, which is lasers them up. And then they both have big smirks on their face. They'll keep each other and go, you're welcome. At the same time. It's cute. This is the way to invoke Inferno, which dealt with real demons. There's another little Easter egg later with Magic being involved. Magic was heavily involved in the Inferno storyline. She shows up later, kind of.
We get the zombie sentinels, these skull-faced sentinels show up. I love these things. I would have liked to have seen these guys for a little bit. But Gene comes in, breaks in, actual Gene. Surrounded by light, the music picks up, and she pulls them out of this hellscape. And basically shuts down the psychic projection. before collapsing. She's not good at controlling her powers yet because she's still in a coma hangover of some kind. And now the Goblin Queen appears.
and she announces that she is, in fact, the Goblin Queen and everybody's like, okay. What an odd thing to say. Whatever. She's got Nathan and so she's telekinetically carrying Nathan behind her and is like, hey, I'm going to leave. See you guys later. And as the team tries to follow them, she just turns around and blasts the entire fucking team. Like, they all just get...
I love that Rogue and Magneto were just fucking in the danger room. Yeah, the whole time. They've just been boning in the danger room this entire time. At some point, I think... Gambit is like, they were out of patrol. And then like... Patrolling under the fuck tree, maybe. Xavier... institutional factory rogue walks up to gambit who has like a cold pack on his head it's like oh rami i'm sorry i should have been there uh and cam it's like it's okay gambit okay
He sounds so defeated. So defeated. It's really bleak. With everything that we know is going to happen, it's pretty sad. Morph does a little exposition about how Mr. Sinister is a mutant that steals genes, mutant genes, for his own power. uh uses them to prolong his life and um also take mutant's free will which of course morph knows very well and as he says as they say this they turn into the version of morph that we saw in the 90s comic where that was
Punished morph. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Kojima, for coming up with the perfect description for these things. It's the only thing I like about that man. That is an adjective for like the down bad version of like any character. Yeah, that's good. So the clone gene, you know, Cant is in a clone coma from using her powers. And Scott goes, how can I protect the team if I can't even protect my son?
And is angsting. Maynita says we're going to attack. Like, I'm going to lead a surgical strike. Beast, Wolverine, and somebody else I can't remember. Stay here and take care of people. I'm going to take everybody else. And we cut back over to Mr. Sinister, who now has Nathan, and puts him in a tank of green steaming goo to be made invulnerable. And as the team...
I love how Sinister's Lab now actually looks like a Frankenstein castle. Yeah, it's just straight up like a witch castle, man. It's crazy. I love it. It's really good. When they show the outside of it, it's Castlevania. It's like a vampire lives here. Like it's amazing. It's so good. It's super good.
uh they arrive at the i called him sinister's halloween castle um yes and they're closing down sister's castle to make a spirit halloween exactly yes for this yeah um they find the goblin queen waiting for them in this light church hall and Morph turns into Illyana and the Goblin Queen comes over and does like a weird little mind control hex on Morph and Morph then turns into from Illyana to like the demon version of Illyana which I think is really really cool
just a nice a nice little like tribute like you mentioned earlier just uh but because you know iliana was a big part of the story and like that she was a big thing so like having having at least some version of her show up i think As somebody, I'm not super current with X-Men, but who kind of keeps a little bit of a finger on the pulse. uh magic star is rising so much right now like she's part of the like general marvel logo now
and is a big part of X-Men, which is cool. I love magic. I think magic's great. But yeah, it's real cool to see. And I wonder if that was part of why, you know, because her... Part of their decision to invoke her.
in this is that she's just like extremely popular right now magic awareness has never been higher could be yeah i mean i feel like i feel like magic has been on the rise for quite some time right it's true the and the i mean certainly the video game um it was as underplayed as that game it probably is like she was a big part of it so probably the best part of it you know in terms of characterization yeah and her and um
Oh, the other magic chick in that game. Nico? Yeah, Nico. Nico. Nico Monroe. Played by the same person that played Nico in the live action show, which is interesting. Yeah. you know they're releasing fucking another like mobile tactical marvel game the card base that's not that like and i'm just i'm just i'm just so mad about it like i didn't even look i watched the trailer and i was like i'm just so pissed that you guys are not doing like another
Midnight Sun's game. Why would you do this instead of that? I just hate all of you. It just didn't sell well. Firaxis couldn't do it. It didn't sell well enough, which makes me so mad because I think it would have. without as many of the social persona stuff. They bet real hard on that. And like, I've only talked to people who have grudgingly tolerated it.
I've never been, you know, talked to anybody who's like, man, I don't really like the combat in this, but I love just making, you know, Iron Man and Ghost Rider go on play dates. And like, I'm sure somebody does think that, but I haven't seen it. You know, generally I think it. has largely held people back. Even the people that I know that are like, I really like all the social link stuff because I ended up coming to like a lot of that stuff as the story played out.
they front load so much of it that you're like, oh, is this what this whole game is about? And then once you finally get into the actual mechanics of the gameplay, you're like, oh, this is way more fun. Regardless, even if I really like towards the end all of the way that social link stuff works.
but the gameplay of that game is way, way more exciting. It's incredible. Yeah. I could have lived totally without the social stuff altogether. The, the balance is wrong too. Like the idea of like, go wander around. this big empty world yeah and then try one of four magic words on different runes blocks or whatever yeah yeah different blocks to get different collectible upgrade materials like that was really misguided but the actual core combat is like so my favorite
stuff that's ever happened in games. I still need to play that DLC. I bought it and then never actually got it. Anyway, it makes me, I got to replay the real, the main game, which I don't have to, but my brain tells me I do. Yeah. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. Yeah. I got a diseased brain. So, um, morph has turned into a punishedly.
and is attacking the team. Magneto begins using his power to start slinging metal bits at the Goblin Queen, but she's moving around this little church area too fast. And it's like, oh, hey, it's nice that you can use this on metal, but my power works on everything. And she starts using the broken stained glass.
slash at him um and he's barely able to keep like a magnetic field around in fact he's cut up pretty badly during this um it's a yeah pretty pretty big example of like oh shit like magneto is not magneto is powerful but this chick is also extremely Yep. And, you know, she's got Magneto on the ropes when Scott hits her in the face with a beam and like draws blood, you know.
She smiles a little bit, wipes on her lipstick, floats over and gives him a kiss and says, don't worry, you'll bleed too, darling. Nice. step on me yeah you can i can kind of sympathize with scott here yeah as being like i don't want to you know this is the mother of my child i don't want to hit her in the face with a concussive beam but she's possessed and she's attacking with glass
Back at the mansion, Logan is trying to get Jean to remember how to control her power and says, hey, focus on me and my memories. And she does and sees how much that she means to him. And more. As Logan said. And more. No, not more. I can read your mind. I know exactly the right amount. This is all the thing. I'm literally in your head.
No, this is, I got the, this is me, this is beer. Yeah, yeah. This is somebody named Yuriko. This is someone named Yoshiko. This is somebody named. Did you know your name was James Howlett? Did you know that? Or has Xavier told you that? Probably not yet. We haven't really. No, no, no. I can, there's a lot of stuff I can tell you.
So she then uses her powers to see that Cyclops has been captured by the Goblin Queen, wants to save him. You think she's going to get up and go to fight. Beast tries to stop her because she's in no condition. Your body is in no condition. You need to rest. And she says, my body's not going to be a part of it.
and sends a psychic projection out to fight the Goblin Queen. She channels the power of the Phoenix and being like, do you only remember the painful parts? And starts walking through her memories. This is another kind of like sub-theme of the show that is foreshadowed here that is a big payoff in the end, which is, you know, the quickest way to subvert or defeat your enemy is to make them a friend. You know, like the Goblin Queen in this is a victim.
We don't just need to punch her until she stops moving. We have to treat her like a victim and try to help her. So by going through all these memories, that's what they do. And this ends up being shadowed later with Bastion at the end of the series. This is part of the way that this show is more progressive than it was when it first came out. It's not just about punching mentally unwell people. It's about helping them. It's kind of what that last Spider-Man movie was trying to do too.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a very much so, you know, it's, it's a, it's a pretty zeitgeisty theme right now in superhero movies, uh, non-derogatory. Like I like it. Um, They start watching Jean's memories of meeting Xavier for the first time, and they start thinking about what triggered Jean Grey's powers, and we see Jean's friend getting hit by a car, which awakened her gift. And the Goblin Queen says this is all her pain, not the clone Jean's, but they can't separate their memories.
And she says to Nugene, like, we are what we remember and you remember nothing. Therefore, you are nothing. And she literally dives into. Gene's mouth. And again, this is all like a psychic representation, right? Like we're not necessarily on the psychic plane, but they're having this mental battle with themselves. And she goes into presumably a clone gene.
womb where she sees nathan uh as a giant monster baby again this real imagery is great absolutely love all of this yeah um and then as this as she's looking at this at this at this fetus basically as this child and uh we we flash back to gene gray clone gene gray having this baby with rogue delivering it and cyclops being right there
And as she holds Nathan in her arms after he's delivered, she says it's the greatest moment of her life. And that's when the control over the real Gene finally breaks. And she's realized she's got to save him. Yeah. Yeah. Or control over Goblin Queen. Goblin Queen. Sorry. Yeah. This gets kind of confusing with the clones. It gets super confusing. Do we got clones?
So she grabs Cyclops' hand and says, let's go get our baby. They walk in where Mr. Sinister has the baby and the nutrient fat and is monologuing at it. And Cyclops blasts Sinister into the wall. If, you know, from the TV show continuity, Cyclops has the ability to hurt Sinister. You know, the first time he blew up, I think, in the Savage Land in the old cartoon was from Cyclops. So he's like, face it, Sinister, you're on the ropes.
Cyclops drains the nutrient bath to get the baby. Cyclops also blasts the glass container of nutrients that his baby is into, which I think is just a little... Like I don't think that I would, like that's made of glass. Like you don't, I would have just gone over there and picked up the baby. We also don't know what the goo is and stuff. It could be explosive. Sure. Yeah. We don't know. Exactly. Yeah. We don't know how volatile it is.
As they take Nathan back to the mansion, we hear Sinister fading into the dark and he starts reading a fucking poem or some shit. Lady Bird. But ending with your house is on fire and your child is... And back at the mansion, we learned that Nathan has been exposed to a techno-organic virus. Surprise, Gary. Did you know that this was going to happen? Who knew? Yeah. I did. Yeah. Because this is directly from the comic.
But it's a it's a great little bit here of, you know, the beast kind of tries to guess like, oh, he's trying to make him invulnerable, which is real weird the way they keep talking about being invincible. Yes. You know, from getting this thing is just like a toggle. And he's like...
Beast says, yeah, we don't have the technology to do this. And I love this little leap here where Gene goes, what you're saying is we don't have the technology in this time. Huge jump. I can read between the lines. Huge jump. Huge jump. I don't think he was saying that. I feel like Beast could have offered that idea. But she says, isn't Bishop's time bracelet basically repaired?
And immediately everyone just understands exactly what they're going to do. And like for an episode where Cyclops is kind of a dick, like this is the one time where I'm kind of with him where he's like, I don't want to do this. Like, I don't think that there's any of this is right. Like I don't.
I don't want to do to my child what my dad did to me. Like he's got abandonment issues and he feels like, he even says, don't you know, don't any of you know how it feels to be abandoned? I won't have him feel that. He can't even be there when this is happening. He just walks out of the room as they make this decision for him. It's crazy. Yeah, it's a lot to ask. So they're going to do it. They're going to send him into the future with Bishop.
Gene tells Scott before he leaves, he's not going to feel abandoned because she gives him a little telepathic message. We loved you. We thought about you all the time. You're very perfect. We owe you a future. That's why we did that. You know, we owe you the best possible future, even one without us in it. Yeah, which is very important. Don't get me wrong. But it's also at the same time, like maybe.
I don't know. You guys have some future science people right now on Earth. Talk to Tony Stark. They still know that she are. Yeah, they know that she are. Take them to space. Why do we have to take them into the future? For old time's sake, will you do us this favor? Bird people, you know. Bishops goes later and goes through the portal and takes the baby into the future.
Cable is then raised by the Ascani. I don't think he was taken by Bishop in the future in the comics. I think he was taken in the future some other way. I love the idea of just him and Bishop almost as like a Cable and Hope thing. Yeah, exactly. Like Bishop and Baby Cable would be real fun. Really fun, like six-issue miniseries, I think. Yeah. Somehow the Ask Connie, you have to get involved though. And whenever that happens, I go to sleep. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'd say I go to sleep.
Um, the, uh, so clone gene, uh, or real gene. Yeah, no, it's okay. Real gene, uh, is watching Madeline Pryor, uh, leave. She's getting on a bus and she's, you know, they're having a talk like. hey, how much of your memories are real or back? And she's like, basically all of them. She's gotten her memories back and no longer fragmented.
She's like, well, then in that case, you know, you know, that I really want to start my own life. The implication here is that she's got the memories that Madeline Pryor developed. Yes. As well. You know, like she remembers giving birth and everything when they were in the mindscape together. So it's almost like they have melded their brains together. Now they really can't figure out which one experienced what first, right? Like they don't know who the quote unquote real genius is.
Yep. So she says, you know, all we have is this unknowable future built on an unknowable path. And Madeline says, you know, whatever my future will be, it's going to be mine. Just call me Madeline Pryor. Okay. And kind of smiles. And it's just like, oh, what an odd thing to say. Weird, but sure. I'll take it. All right. You worked and workshopped out for very long, but okay.
And then she leaves. And then we get our little stinger at the end of this bar in Texas. Storm is drinking and they're talking about a drought. And Forge walks in and says, you know, I wish somebody could change the weather. Hey, baby, you want to make it wet? Basically, she's going to fall in love with him irredeemably in like 15 seconds. I'm an old friend of Charles Xavier's. I'm going to help you get your powers back.
Done, done, done. Again, bringing in another classic 80s storyline. Yeah, which I think is, you and I agree, is kind of the worst storyline throughout this whole show this season. It's just too quick. it's like too quick and it's also in another way too long like they spend too much time on it and also it's a little boring yeah yeah it's boring but it doesn't make sense for a storm to fall in love that quickly i also think that there might actually even be
evidence in this series of them having met. And there may be a picture of Forge in the background. The X-Men met X-Factor in the original series. I can't remember if Forge was there, but he's in the picture that they show here in the series. So I feel like she has met Forge.
When they're talking about sending Nathan to the future, Bishop has that whole thing of, I know a God in the future that can fix anything. He's just a miracle. He's obviously talking about forge. So it's like, how many forges are there in this world? How many forges do we have to put up with? It's a nice quinky dink. That's the end of the episode. I think this episode, the ending of it gets good emotional stakes. Nothing is quite as fun visually as the nightmare sequence.
I think that's incredible and was super signal to me going into it that like we're on next level shit. This show continues to be just better and better with almost every single episode. Like, I remember... Again, I think you and I talked a lot about having almost zero expectations for this, of just being like, oh, this could just easily be a cheap money grab because X-Men are popular.
They don't want to put in, you know, they got delayed because of COVID for making mutant movies. So now we're just going to do these cartoons to kind of get everybody excited about it. And no, no, they fucking really killed it. Like the writing on this has been really exceptional. Yeah. Take care about it. Very excited to keep going.
Yeah. The next episode, we have that two-parter, which is just like a fun episode, the Mojo episode, and then the beginning of life death. Yes. Which is not quite as fun, but that's okay. Yeah. It'll be a weird one to cover because it's just like two episodes in one, but that's okay too. We'll deal with it. Then we get to the beautiful climax of everything going fucking nuts.
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Enjoy. We also started a Game of Thrones podcast. We're having a lot of fun with that. My sword is hungry still because we don't have a goddamn calm bone in our bodies. We're not naming podcasts anymore. Everything is named like a panic at the disco album or something like that. It's insane.
the Lord of the Rings podcast we did is seek for the sword that was broken. It's all swords. We're all insane people around here. Love it. Check all that stuff out. Come listen. Come hang out with us. And we'll be back soon with more X-Men 97. you