ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - X-MEN '97 Review! - ONE FLAW That Keeps the Show From Being Perfect

Episode Date: March 30, 2024

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Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Hey, welcome back Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie. And X-Men 97 has what I consider to be the perfect X-Men scene ever to be put on film. The show isn't perfect. In fact, I've got a big gripe with that I'm going to talk about a little bit later on. And also, guys, we have a special treat for you.

A little later, I'm going to be joined by comedian Mike Lawrence and our own Colton Ogburn to get their thoughts on the show. And if they think this might just be the best X-Men adaptation of all time. And of course, please don't forget our X-Men parody merch like the Exfuss Club, the Deadpool MCU Savior, X-Men Nighthawks, and many more, all for sale at our merch store where you can help support our channel. The link is below. So to explain why this show is so good, I think I can narrow it down to the most perfect X-Men scene I've ever seen, Magneto's Trial.

Now, when I say the perfect X-Men scene, I'm not talking about my favorite scene or something that's the most badass. The best scene is Logan dying in his daughter's arms, and I'll hear no quarrel on that. But the perfect X-Men scene is one that fully represents what these heroes are truly up against. In the same way that Spider-Man saving the runaway train shows how he puts the needs of others ahead of himself. The X-Men are superheroes, but they're defined by one statement. They protect the people that fear and hate them. And I've never seen that done better than what we saw in this scene. So let's walk through it. This is the scene where Magneto decides he's going to try to fulfill his friend Charles Xavier's dream.

After a lifetime of resenting humans for hating his kind, he has decided to turn the other cheek. He's rescuing human and mutant children, and we see this portrayed through the media. Across the globe, reports are flooding in mutants and humans aided and saved by the former mutant terrorist. But I think it's interesting that he saves the human kid on the news, but the Morlocks are done in secret, because the media wouldn't care as much about a group of mutants as it does about one human kid. X-Men the animated series was always hyper-aware of the media. The first shot in the series is of a news report, making people scared of mutants. The fact that the perpetrator is believed to be a mutant has fueled current anti-mutant hysteria now growing nationwide.

And we'll see this news and media play a huge role in this scene. So the trial is televised live. So when Magneto pleads his case, he's not just talking to the judges. He's speaking to the court of public opinion. He knows that for the world to accept him and mutants, they need to hear his own side of the story from his point of view. He starts by saying, My people's homes were burned to ash because we dared to call God by another name. And then he lays out the law of history, that if you're different, then society will always punish you.

By doing this, Magneto is trying to make regular humans relate to his plight. To ask themselves, well, what would I have done in his situation? It's a brilliant play because Magneto knows how much the media tends to distort the plight of mutants, which we have seen all throughout this show. But that's one thing that X-Men, the animated series, adapted so well from the comics. We always saw that the public feared and distrusted mutants. But how could you register her with that mutant control agency as if she were some sort of criminal? In season two, we see the Friends of Humanity fight the X-Men.

not with weapons, but with bad press, as they frame mutants for riots and attacks. Heck, even the first image of the show was a news broadcast. The one witness said only one isolated big Harry. She's one of them, worth it. The news media often distorts events because of a political or a profit bias. They want you to be afraid, so you'll keep watching the show. In fact, these days, everybody even has an algorithm that filters out your news to lean into your existing bias. And that's why it's good to know exactly where you're getting your news from.

Like, for instance, Ground News. Like, Ground News is an app and a website that gathers related, articles from across the world into one place. But they give you the context about the sources political leaning, their reliability, and their ownership. So this means that you can see through their bias and think critically about the news you consume. That is why I'm proud to have ground news as a sponsor for this video. So let me show you an example. Here's a story about the U.S. and the UK going after a Chinese spy campaign that may have compromised the data of millions of people. It's a pretty important story that I didn't see on any of my regular

news feeds. But here I can see who reported the story, which way they lean politically, the factuality and whether or not the news came from independent ownership. This story was covered by 13 sources, 5 left, one right, and 7 center. They even show you what aspects of the story these different outlets are focusing on. Especially with the election coming up, I want to be informed and know that my news isn't trying to sway me one way or the other. They even have this section called Blind Spot that shows you news stories that each side is ignoring. And by the way, this is all backed by ratings from three independent news monitoring organizations. This is an incredible resource, and I have been looking for a service like Ground News for years, so I highly

encourage you to check them out. If you go to groundnews.com slash Screencrush or click this QR code, you'll get 40% off their vantage plan, which includes unlimited access to every feature. Or you can try their pro plan for less than $1 a month, totally worth it. Your subscription will not only help this channel, but you'll be supporting an independent platform working to make the media landscape more transparent. Now, back to X-Men. So back to Magneto's trial. He talks about the vicious cycle of violence and says, You're oppressed, become oppressors. But then, Magneto kind of makes the case

against himself, making it seem as if the world can never change, so by extension, neither should he. I have only ever acted to avenge crimes against my people. And right when this courtroom drama reaches its fever pitch, protesters stormed the U.N., this is

proving Magneto's point. He claims that the rule of law was just an excuse people used to carry out their own hatred and prejudice, so when the system attempts even handed justice, the mob no longer believes in the system, and instead takes the law into their own hands. This way to the traitors! Then the X-Men have to step in to peacefully stop the rioters.

Now, if the X-Men were facing a bunch of supervillains or robots, and they could just kick ass. But instead, the X-Men have to act as if these people are not their enemies. These are the same people that the X-Men fight to protect every single day, and they're also fighting to protect the institution that's about to convict their leader to die. And then, in one single act of violence, we see the end result of hatred, extermination. This is your dream, my kind, splayed before you, powerless and afraid. So Magneto takes the assassin and pins him against the crest of the UN, what is supposed to be a symbol of world justice, and then flays him like he's about to be crucified,

spinning him around, like he's on the wheel of fortune. We're wondering, how's this going to end? Where is the wheel going to stop? Can Magneto truly change? So when he takes the judges and the assassin into the atmosphere, it looks like he's putting on his display of his God Almighty power. Like he's brought them into the heavens to show them how small and insignificant their power is compared to his. Except what he's actually showing them is that the world is small and insignificant. It's a riff on Carl Sagan's Blue Dot essay when he wrote about how the Earth is very lonely in the cosmos and we only have this one small planet to help sustain us. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping

cosmic dark. In one gesture, Magneto shows everyone that our differences are petty and the values that unite us are strong. This is a shared world with a common future and that my kind like yours have the right to live in it. And yet, he really does want to drop them. Like he has this tear rolling down his cheek and his final perfect sentence leaves us unsure if this whole hero thing can even stick. After saying he's trying to do better, he says, Do not make me let you down. So to me, that's the perfect X-Men scene. So to me, that is the perfect X-Men scene.

I actually think the show made a mistake in episode three that kept it from being totally perfect so far. But now I want to talk to Mike Lawrence and Colton Ogburn. So Mike, you're like me. You're a longtime comic book fan. You approach these things from the point of view of comics first, and this is a mere adaptation. For you, three episodes in,

what are your thoughts on X-Men 97 so far? Yeah, I think it's really great so far. it's weird hearing American voices in an X-Men cartoon I'm used to everyone being really Canadian Yeah, it's saying Surrey and things like that Yeah, yeah

We need to do something about this Mr. Sinister You know, but yeah And I think some of the old voices Some are better than others I think Storms still got it She's even better now Oh my God, yeah

Yeah Wolverine the healing factor is not working on his throat go easy on him pal he just sounds off I don't know what it is he sounds really different

you're not wrong but he invented that the graph Wolverine you know before that he was Australian want a piece of fruit no but like Cal Dodd like it doesn't sound you know

he's older so but then yeah I think I think it's been pretty good like you know the animation took like a little bit uh time to get used to but i think this last episode was the best animation i've ever seen on either series the mask fogged up you know on the baby yeah the nightmare sequence was fantastic um you know the inferno stuff i think yeah i think it's been pretty good um and you know it's interesting

because it was very clear that the people who made the first one were really into the Claremont-Burned stuff. And it's like, and now we're, you know, in 2024 and they're adapting, you know, these stories, Inferno, the Trial of Magneto, these were stories that had already existed when the first cartoon was made. But these are the stories that the people making the cartoon now grew up with. and you know and they're very they revere everything like that Magneto's suit is awful

it's always been awful but I love that they're they're going full pull in on it because he had another one too right he had like a it was like all purple yeah they ditch the M

after I think after 200 maybe it was around the new unions for a bit but they ditched it right away and they give him sleeves it's like when he's like running the new munits and stuff. Yeah. And he no longer, you know. Yeah, like puffy sleeves, right? Like pirate sleeves almost. Yeah, it's so funny like in this, yeah, in this third episode when he's getting like cut by the glass of his arms. I'm like, yeah, put some sleeves on you, dumb ass. Yeah, John Ramita Jr. has

given us a lot of great pages, a lot of great designs. That magnet suit with the end was definitely not one of them. Yeah, I just talk to say, you can't see the Holocaust tattoo. If he's sleeveless, you should be able to see his Holocaust tattoo. That's true. Was it not in, I didn't even think to look for it. Was it in the episode when we see him sleeveless? No. Because he has it in the comic.

Well, he gave in the comics around issue 150. That wouldn't be an Easter. That wouldn't be an Easter egg, right? Yeah, it'd be a pretty big Easter egg for us to notice. If it's in there, I definitely missed it. You know, I just talked about that Magneto trial and how I thought it was like the best. Like, if you're going to say, this is the X-Men scene. This scene shows you what the X-Men are, then it's this scene.

And I don't think in the original series, which I've watched countless times, recently rewatched it for the show here, I don't think we ever got a scene like that. Colton, what about you so far on the show? Like, what are your thoughts on X-Men 97 and where it's at and how it holds up as an adaptation? Well, you know, I hadn't seen the original animated series since I was a kid. And I always held that show, you know, to a very, you know, high bar. I thought that, you know, I loved that cartoon when I was a kid. But I simultaneously had this memory of it being.

I don't know, maybe a little kiddie, a little corny. So when X-Men 97 was coming out, I found myself kind of wondering, am I really, do I really want to watch this like Saturday morning cartoon? Is it going to be kind of too kid-like? And that's really hypocritical of me, because I'm usually the guy that if anyone, like, disses on a show simply because it's animated, I will immediately scold them for that, yet there I was doing the same thing.

But, dude, like, as soon as I started that first episode and, you know, bench the three. I was hooked. It is it is just as good as the original. I'd argue maybe even better. It has these mature themes. It's so true to the X-Men comics. It also has like that vibe of the early 2000s like Fox era X-Men movies that I'm a big fan of. That's probably some of my favorite X-Men stuff because that's kind of what I grew up with. And so I've just been really pleased with this series. I'm excited to see what they're going to do with the rest of the season. And I'm glad they're, I'm glad they're being kind of weird with it. You know, that third episode, that was a little out there. And I'm glad that they're going out there and

doing the weird stuff, even if it might be a little off-putting to some fans. I'm here for it. Well, I want to ask Mike about that third episode, because you said, okay, they're adapting the stuff that came after Claremont Burn. Great. You know, and the Claremont Burr stuff is revered. I personally think the brood story that Claremont did after Byrne was better than the Dark Phoenix Saga, but I'll die on that hill. So they're adapting those stories. You will die on that hill. Hey man, there's a whole thing there where Kitty, like, she's 13 years old. She's just joined the X-Men. She's learning about death for the first time because an alien parasite's about to kill her. And she has like this really just rooted conversation about death in this fantastical circumstance.

It's a great, like, when I reread it, I was like, how did I skip over this? Everybody talks about Dark Phoenix saga, but I don't know. Everything's also a product of its time. So, you get into these later issues. Or Claremont saw Alien was like, I could fill eight months with this shit. Eight months or like, it felt like eight years. There's a part in the later books. I know, Mike, I know you know this.

I'm talking to all the people who watched and don't necessarily know comics. I talked in our Easter egg video about this with Madeline Pryor, right? How much Claremont hated that? He intended Madeline Pryor to be Scott's happy ending to be like this. He loved the character, thought that he deserved this after Gene died. and then you can kind of tell when you go through and reread it. It's like she's this thing. And then she becomes like a member of the X-Men and she's the guy at the chair.

And then all of a sudden, like, she meets a demon and is evil. I personally kind of hate Inferno. I've got some thoughts on how they did it in this episode. What do you think about how they adapted that big crossover into this single episode? I mean, I think they did a great job. I just read it for the first time, knowing that I was going to be on the show. and I was out of X-Men by then, and, you know, the Jim Lee stuff,

you know, like, I think Claremont-Burn stuff is my favorite stuff ever. And then, you know, and then there's good stories. There's good stories after that. You know, and even Inferno has the feeling of, like, a dark Phoenix retread. But I think that, I think they did a great job. I think they, you know, to take a long crossover in a one episode, I think what they did was smart.

was they just kept the emotional beats. They really did make it a story about Scott and Gene. It was the best Mr. Sinister has ever been. Mr. Sinister has always been one of those characters. An X-Men has this, a lot. Apocalypse is another one. Characters that look cool, but they, like, never really do anything? No, Apocalypse can turn his hands into mallets.

What are you talking about? He doesn't know the time. It's the dumbest. Yeah. And I love that. I hope they bring back that old voice actor. was the best, the Apocalypse guy. But no, Sinister was like genuinely scary here. And everything in the episode was about hyping him up when, you know, Beast is like, I found his signature.

Oh dear. Yeah. The sinister stuff, too, when you go back and you read those comics, which I also recently reread. I'm like you, I kind of, I had gaps in my collection in different places. So it's been fun for me to like read the connective tissue and different stuff. and as an adult to go, ooh, it doesn't quite land as well as I thought it did when I was 13. Sinister is another villain, though, who in the comics seems like

he kind of came out of, like he was just there for the Madeline story, you know, and they recond it later and said he was in charge of the marauders and stuff like that. You're not the biggest Cyclops guy, right? Do I remember this right? I am in the sense that, like,

I was on a show earlier this year called Tears of a Clown where we ranked the X-Men and I was the only one who put Cyclops at S-tier because I think he is the X-Men. Him and Storm

like it's like you know they're the quintessential you need them both you know which is why I can't say I love those Fox movies because I think they did a disservice to both those characters and you know

seeing how well they've been taken care of on this show but I mean you know the life death stuff with Storm and how they really nailed that. And then Cyclops, yeah, it's like he is a dork,

but that's what's awesome. Like, he's the guy who never leaves the school. He's Screech. Remember when Screech? He stuck around for Stained by the Bell, yeah. Then he was in, and I know Banshee should be called Screech, but Screech was in Save by the Bell.

Then he was, you know, then he was in the college years. And then he was in the new class, right? And Screech built robot. Screech was really smart, but he doesn't want to leave Bayside. And Scott doesn't want to leave the mansion. And even like how insecure he feels when Magneto takes over and he like feels like he was like, you know, cock blocked by Xavier's will. You know, maybe because Xavier, maybe that, obviously like Magneto would be a better headmaster for the school if he turned good. And Xavier has his reasons, right? I always thought, though, watching that second episode, if his reasoning was

maybe he wanted something else for Scott and Gene, because Gene was pregnant and he wanted them to go off and have a family. Yeah. You know, he does say, in the comics, when Xavier comes back from space, the second or third time, I can't remember. He tells Scott, it's after Scott had to send his baby into the future to become cable, he says, oh, I wish I could have met that kid, I would have called a grandchild, you know? So there's that kind of sweet fatherly thing where maybe he just wants him to be able to get out. I'm not sure. Yeah, but it's It's like he has gone through a real journey. He's the first X-Man.

He is the ideal of the dream. You know, and he's a guy who really can't function in regular society. You know, like, he's hot enough to not be a Morlock, but, you know, the glasses thing is still. They try. They tried. Colisto tried to breed him. It's like an archive of our own post. Yeah.

That's my favorite about the X-Men. All the high. Hot people live in a mansion and the ugly people live in a sewer. So it is like life. They invited the Morlocks to come live in the mansion. And Colisto was like, no, I think we're going to kick it in the sewer for a while. We really dig it down here. And I think somebody like, Leach must have been like, wait, Colistow, hold on.

Can we talk about this real quick? Can we like, there's a tunnel right here that goes into their mansion. We can just literally dip back and forth whenever we want. Colton, talking about little baby Nathan Charles Christopher Summers, did you think that it was obviously like the way he was born while Magneto during his trial I thought was phenomenal

like how it's intercut with Magneto saying you know we're fighting to live in this world at the same time Gene is fighting to give birth gives me chills even just talking about it now so well done probably my favorite X-Men scene ever put to film but I was really surprised in the second episode they went they went straight into it man

they went straight into like all right baby Nate off you go into the future we got other shit to do. I thought that they would have kept him around for a few episodes. Did it seem abrupt to you? How did that emotional beat land for you? Well, I think it would have felt a little abrupt

in like an hour-long, like, live-action adaptation, like of the X-Men, like, put into a series format. But when you're watching something like X-Men 97, you kind of get into that groove of each episode is its own story. Yeah, there's an overarching story, I guess, for the season. But it didn't feel very jarring for me with it being part of X-Men, the animated series. That is kind of how each episode felt.

You had your resolution come the end of the episode. And I also just really quick wanted to add that this series, and they already did this before back in the 90s, they're giving Cyclops justice, like big time. I just wanted to throw my two cents in on that because he is such a phenomenal character. He's the leader of the X-Men. And so I am so glad that before Cyclops is brought into the MCU, we are with this cartoon getting, kind of giving like general audiences, if they're watching, kind of a taste of how cool Cyclops can be.

I think that in the movies, they especially went, okay, so who's the, okay, Wolverine, he's the popular one. He'll always be, it's like Wolverine and Magneto had to be in every single X-Men movie. Wolverine, I get, but boy, Magneto, they really struggled to squeeze him into a popular. and Dark Phoenix. Mike, where are you thinking, like, you've watched, I mean, you've watched a lot of these adaptations over the years. I know, you didn't even, I don't think you liked first class. I think I remember having that talk with you when it came out. Where is this kind of sitting? Like, how do you think this show is maybe doing justice to some of the injustices we've

seen happen to these characters over the years? I mean, I think it's up there, you know, and I think it's elevating it. I think that, you know, if we're going to be really honest here, you know, what Colton was saying yeah you know when Colton was saying like his concerns about like

revisiting this like here's the reality right this came out the exact same time as Batman the animated series and one of those

is a transcendent masterpiece that still holds up but the other is X-Men and they had a smaller budget and they used twice as many shots

per episode I mean the scripts I think were right up there with the quality maybe not the best Batman's episode

I was like it's even close, dude. I'm sorry. I don't know, dude. There's some of those you get into, like, Beauty and the Beast. I'm not saying Beauty and the Beast is as good as, like, the Clayface episodes, which are very similar. But I do think it's pretty incredible. The two best came out in the same. Oh, incredible.

We're just talking about Batman the rest of the time. I mean, but look, like the X-Men animated series, they didn't have a Harley Quinn. They didn't even have a Renee Montoya. They didn't do anything on that show that then invented itself on the comic. They invented Morph. That's about it, yeah. Yeah, and Morph was Changeling, so they didn't even do that. But anyway, you know, but I'm saying it's like, I think that this is their shot now

to make that kind of series, and I think they're doing a great job. I think, you know, the one downside is they are rushing things. You know, they only got 10 episodes. They don't know if they'll be renewed. It's not like the old days when you get a huge order all at once. so they have to like I mean this inferno thing I thought could have been built through the season the sinister teases and all of that it did feel a bit rushed you know him yeah bishop taking him to the future at the end we didn't really get much of a concern of bishop in the

first two episodes about wanting to go back he just felt like a member of the team yeah I thought that was strange because season four was originally going to end with bishop and shard joining the team and then they were renewed for a fifth season that by then all the guys good people had left all the good animators so they had Sabonte over and did not the last six episodes yeah but but good scripts though good scripts no no the animations I'm never going to try to claim the animations as good as Batman obviously Batman the animated series is transcendent anywhere near tell me come on let's no I'm not saying that it is I'm saying like there's a book I read by Eric Lulwood who created the show he said that the comparison they would make is that like

Batman the animated series is opera it's classical X-Men's a garage band And you appreciate it for that and for the level that it was on. And also, like, look, it's not like they watched Batman the animated series and then said, oh, let's raise the bar from there. They were made at the same time. So when you look at everything else that came out the years before, and even that same month, because they came out in the same month, which is crazy. X-Men still leagues ahead of Muppet Babies and Popeye and Sun and stuff like that.

Sorry, Colton, we talked over you. What were you saying? Oh, I was going to say I don't want to get fired here, but I have to agree. Batman is totally the superior animated series. I'm not saying it's not. Come on. You guys are acting like I'm over here saying, you know, Kevin Conroy was the worst Batman or something.

Like, obviously he's the best. I think that's exactly what you said. I have you right here. That's exactly what I said. Look, Batman the Animated Series is not only the best animated superhero show. It's the best version of Batman. Sorry, Mike. I have a quote right here.

Ryan Airy says Batman the animated series is underrated. Overrated, damage. But just even comparing them, we're both like, how dare you? Yeah, I know. It's not like they came out in the same month and covered the same genre. Well, you know, because I think what it was, was, yeah, there was such a reverence, and X-Men was so popular. Let's do these adaptations.

You know, let's do the serialized thing, like comics. And I think that works in a lot of ways. But, you know, we also, I mean, let's be honest, every time you were a kid and they cut back to Magneto and Professor X in the Savage Land, that sucked. Yeah, yeah, it did. I wanted that.

Again, as an adult, I can look back and say all the constraints they had. Like, they wanted to keep that whole season serialized, but instead of doing that, they were told, oh, no, you can't do that because there's going to have. So they just had to leave 90, they had to, like, leave out 90-second blocks, and they were like, whatever gets done in that slide, we'll slide it in at that point. But you have to admit, as far as, like, adapting the X-Men, this is leagues ahead of, okay, so how are we going to put Magneto in this and are we going to have to explain why he's

in his 60s but he still looks like Michael Fastbender? What do you think this is this kind of thing is going to do I'm, we've all been curious since Disney bought Fox, right? How they were going to be doing these movies, the live action movies. Like are they going to introduce them slowly like the mutants slowly? Now it looks like

they're setting up Avengers versus X-Men and different universes so they can finally wrap up the Fox X-Men universe. Mike, what is it you think that has been missing from like live action at that maybe we're seen in X-Men 97. The fact that they're superheroes, you know, I think that people who do the X-Men get so stuck on the metaphor,

you know, Brian Singer definitely did, which is not the worst thing he's done, but, you know, like people get so obsessed with the civil rights thing, which was, you know, and it's like, and I think that it is important, but the X-Men should also save people and help people like that scene in the second episode where Magneto

just stops a roller coaster and saves human beings that there wasn't a mutant that attacked the roller coaster or anything he just like the X-Men should do stuff like that but they should also go to space they should look the Savage Land

I don't think has ever worked but I like seeing them there I like seeing them in Mojo World I like seeing them go on adventures and save the universe from cosmic beings and stuff sometimes. It shouldn't just be the good mutants versus the bad mutants all the time. I think that gets old. Yeah, it does, especially when you consider that it really wasn't what Lee and Kirby intended when they did the original book. I saw a Facebook post the other day.

You mentioned that X-Men was very obviously the last book of the month they did, and neither of them really put that much thought into it. Lee even said at one point, and I, by the way, I think that Kirby had way more to do with creating the X-Men and Lee did, but Lee said, oh, I just couldn't come up with powers, so I said they were born with them. So this idea that Xavier was Martin Luther King and Magneto was Malcolm X was not even close. Like, if early Magneto was supposed to be Malcolm X, and they had a really bad vision of what Malcolm X was, because he was a mustache twirling villain who talked like he was from a Saturday serial, you know?

Yeah, and Magneto's hollow, you know, Magneto was in that first issue. He threw. Rose wrenches at people. He's not a Holocaust survivor. None of that comes until almost 20 years later. And, I mean, that's the beauty of comics, too, that they are monthly and you can add things and you can make layers of things. And, you know, it's like, it is a Claremont thing

where it's like, here's a guy who wasn't the biggest writer. And he's like, give me this book. I will make it my own. And he made it the biggest thing. Are you reading any X-Men books now? Where are you up on that? No. No, I've been reading a lot of the older stuff. Like I said, like, you know, I'm trying to fill in some of the gaps. So I did just read Inferno. I just read Crisis and all the tie-ins. I don't know. Like, there are modern comic books that I love, but there's also stuff that I missed. And with digital, you can read everything, you know, between Marvel Unlimited and DC Infinite, you know, they curate the stuff for you. So you can fill in the gaps and all of that. And I don't know. I don't know. And I kind of love doing that.

So I've been doing that a lot. And I find a comfort in that 80s storytelling, that 90s storytelling. It's interesting, this show, you could see they really revere the late 80s. And then, you know, Executioner, who I bought his action figure because I'm like, oh, man, I love that, I love that character. They have new action figures now. Like now? Or you bought it then? I had him back then.

but they have a new one that came out and it's got the Sentinel Blaster and it's got the gun that takes away Storm's powers and then he's such a gibroni on the show but it was like they got me to buy that figure and you could tell

whoever was writing it is you know just like yeah some of that mid-90 stuff sucks and executioner's like the epitome of that X-Men 97's reintroducing these characters classic, but Mike Lawrence says, you know what? That racist assassin, that's the one I got to bring home and show to my kid. Well done. Yeah, I'm loving that whole aspect of it. And there's a lot of stories. Like, we don't know what's going to happen for the rest of the season, but we've seen episode titles. The next one's called Life Death, which I'm pretty excited for. It's one of the all-time greatest Claremont single issue. And Motendo. And Motendo. So, yeah, we'll be crossed over with Mojo World, too, and with presumably some, like, snows. N-S-16-bit game stuff, which I'm excited for.

The last three episodes are called, they're not called Extinction Agenda, but they have Extinction in there somewhere. And here's Magneto, like, shipping some Morlocks off to Level on Genosha. And I'm like, ooh, Extinction's agenda, extinction agenda was this. It's really the first crossover they did that was a true crossover, where you had to read X-Men and then read New Mutants and then read X-Factor,

at least in the X-books. It was like that. And I think they might combine that with the Marauder story. which is another, like, when you read the X-Men run all the way through and you get, like, oh, this is cool, we've got Wolverine and Cyclops and Colossus. The Marauders are basically these serial killers, mutant serial killers who go into the Moorlock tunnels and just kill people. If they're going to combine those two, then X-Men 97's about to get brutal. Yeah, and I think it's important that, like, you know, we've obviously seen more violence on these last few episodes than the originals. but I hope that

you know what I think I've liked about these shows has been the emotional storytelling and I hate when people think that violence equals mature storytelling you know like you can you can show these

Morlocks murdered in brutal ways and that doesn't make the story adult what makes the story adult is how people react to it you know the monologue that storm gave when she lost her powers that I can't feel the breeze anymore. That was one of my favorite moments ever on the show.

The breeze is gone. I cannot feel it, nor the moisture, nor the air. And it was so mature. And, you know, because we, look, this show, I don't think is very entry level. I don't think it's very new user-friendly. And, you know, but what it is doing is it's taking advantage of the care you have for these characters and look like we've seen them

in three episodes we've seen these people be put through hell already literally and we bond with them because of it it's wild how 30 years later I could have seen them being tempted to have this show be a bit of a reboot and kind of like a season one type thing maybe in the same universe changed the characters up a little bit

I'm so glad they didn't do that because this really does just feel like the next season. Like it picked up right where it left off. To Mike's point, it's not like an entry-level thing. You need to be familiar with that previous animated series to really appreciate what they're doing. And I'm really glad that they went that direction with it. Well, luckily, we have a recap up here on the channel

that people can watch at home to get caught up. So Mike Colton, thank you guys. I wish I could do this for another hour. Thank you so much for joining me. And now I want to tell you guys what I thought really didn't work about Episode 3. Now, you guys know I'm always going to approach these shows through the lens of a comic book reader. Some X-Men comics are great, truly shining classics. The Phoenix saga, the Brood Saga, that one where Kitty Pride fights a demon,

fantastic stuff. And when I get to see these adapted into a show or a movie, I'm able to judge them on their own terms. Days of the Future Past is a solid adaptation of the comic book and even expands on many ideas that the original never addressed. The movie Logan was a better Old Man Logan story than the original comic Old Man Logan. So I was looking forward to seeing how they adapted the Madeline Pryor story, one of the weakest stories from Chris Claremont's original run.

Claremont created Madeline to be a happy ending for Scott after Gene died. But then, Gene returned from the dead and Madeline resented Scott for abandoning his family to go off and be a superhero with her. Claremont hated the decision to turn her into a demon clone, but like a good soldier, he wrote it out. Good soldiers full of orders. And to be fair, when you do read those comics, they kind of suck. Madeline's heel turn comes out of nowhere, and Scott comes off.

is a dick for abandoning his wife and child. I've abandoned my child. I've abandoned my boy. The one thing that the Madeline saga gave us was that Cyclops had a son, a son that he and Gene started to raise for several issues until he was tragically torn away from them like he is in the show. So in the show, I just didn't see the point of the Madeline clone story. If she's not going to become a full-on villain,

or if she has no reason to resent Scott for leaving her, then why are they adapting this story? That could have easily just been Gene and Scott's baby that they have to send into the future. Gene and Maddie have the same memories, so they're kind of interchangeable, which makes me wonder, why did we even do this? Like, if Maddie had been around since season two, then it would mean that Jean missed years. She wasn't part of the Phoenix. It would have been this whole thing. But they shared the exact same memories, so they're essentially the same

person. Now, if Madeline wasn't in the story, this could have just as easily been Gene and Scott's baby that they have to send into the future. Like, I also would have rather have seen the baby stick around for a few episodes, so it would stink even more when they're forced to say goodbye. And look, I know this show has long arcs, and I know that it's building towards something. But I thought that as a standalone episode, I really did not understand why they chose to adapt this mediocre story from the comics and then rushed through it really quick and have ultimately no point to it. Well, guys, that's just my thoughts, though. Big thanks to Colton and Mike for joining us. You could find their social links below. What did you think of the episode?

Let me hear your thoughts down in the comments or at me on Twitter. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe and smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie. Thank you.