By Joshie Jaxon 

Greetings, geek fans! Time for the third of my X-Men themed posts. Now, I know the next two series aren’t exactly old enough to be considered retro, but they’re just so fun that I can’t ignore them. Also, I promised four posts, and you’re gonna get four posts. I’m a giver like that, so just lie back and take what I’m about to give ya. If you’re having difficulties getting through it, or find yourself ready to end before my post does, just think of England. Let the geeks begin! 

  

Unlike the last two series, the opening credits don’t have the Mouseketeer role call during them. Yes, we get to see the characters, but it’s a more tonal piece, than a here’s their name kinda thing. We can see from the state of the credits, that the MRD is rounding up mutants, one of which is Marrow, who I mentioned in my Evolution post. Then we see the various X-Men using their abilities against the mutant-hating humans. The series’ official cast is Wolverine, Cyclops, Angel, Emma Frost, Nightcrawler, Storm, Iceman, Shadowcat, and Beast. As we’re about to see, there are several others as well. Having seen the series I could explain why they’re not in the credits, but, spoilers. 

Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, afternoon. Outside, children are playing and having fun, as Storm and the professor take a stroll. No hover chair in this version either. Wonder why the 90’s were so special. We cut inside to the Danger Room. Do you have your checklist? That’s three for three on DR sightings in the premier. However, no one is in there by accident, Kitty and Colossus appear to be training. She phases through a wall and leaves Peter stuck between it and another that’s closing in. As she comments that he’s being schooled by a girl, a metal tentacle snatches her up, and holds her high off the ground. Colossus laughs that school is out, as he escapes the wall trap. Then we see Nightcrawler teleport in, and away from some laser blasts. Kitty shouts for one of them to get her down. Kurt teleports up to her and suggests she phases. Kitty says she does want to fall on her face, and asks for help. Kurt says she an X-Man and to do it herself, as he teleports away. Have I mentioned I love Nightcrawler? Peter smashes a laser, and looks pleased, until a giant magnet captures him. He doesn’t revert to flesh in time to avoid being hoisted up. He says, hello kitty, and I giggle. Nightcrawler BAMFs in and says five more seconds and he wins. On cue, he gets splattered by some goo that sticks him to the ceiling, and gets in his hair, and no, it’s not white. Kitty asks what happened. Peter looks at the control room and says HE happened. Logan gets on the mic and tells them it was his way of saying goodbye. Goodbye? But the show is called Wolverine and the X-Men. We kinda need Wolverine. Kitty says he better run. Then realizes they’re still trapped. She shouts for him to get them down. Logan? LOGAN?! 

  

Logan steps out the front door, and makes a face. We see Scott and Jean arguing. He wants to know how many times he needs to say he’s sorry. Jean says Logan is the one he needs to apologize to. Scott says he knows. Jean blows Logan a kiss, and waves. He waves back, and heads over to his motorcycle. Beast is sitting under a tree, and states he didn’t want to miss Logan. Logan asks where Rogue is. Thanks for caring about Beast, jerk. Now he’s glad you’re going. Hank says for reasons beyond his understanding, Rogue doesn’t like the thought of him leaving. Angsty woman that she is, she’s at the edge of a cliff, staring out at the ocean. Logan asks if she’s gonna say goodbye. No. He says he’ll be back. She says why bother. Maybe she’ll just leave too. Logan says this place is her home. No, not when he’s not there, which is most of the time. I miss 90’s southern sexpot Rogue. This one says Logan is like her family, since they’re the same. She runs off, and Wolverine lowers his head. She’ll get over it, Logan. Maybe she’ll absorb someone with a spine some day. Back at the front of the mansion, Storm and the professor are still watching the kids play, as Logan approaches. The professor gets a look on his face, then grabs his head. As Logan rushes over, the professor looks over at Jean, who is also experiencing something. Scott asks what’s wrong. Cut to Logan running, a blinding flash, and then nothing. 

  

One year later, Wolverine wakes up from a nap, having presumably been dreaming about the events of that day. A convoy of RVs, wait, is convoy the right word for that? I say it is. A convoy of RVs goes by, and a little girl waves at Logan. He waves back, then gets on his bike. The RVs went left at the crossroad, so to avoid family fun time, Logan goes right. There’s an explosion in the direction of the RVs. Logan watches in the mirror. Pan to the flaming wreckage. A non-Jean redhead is being removed from the destruction. Her African-American husband is walked out as well. Erica? Where’s Erica? She’s still inside! Cause of course she is. Fire extinguishers aren’t putting out the blaze. What the hell happened? Gas tankard on a train, perhaps? There’s an explosion, and the dad yells his daughter’s name. Logan pulls up, and throws off his helmet, rushing towards the fiery RV. One of the workers says it’s too dangerous. Wolverine shoves him aside, and said not for him, as he pops out the claws. The yuppies with the sweaters around their shoulders watch on. Logan cuts an opening in the RV, and finds Erica under some debris, holding her teddy bear. From the yuppie standpoint, there’s an explosion. Non-Jean redhead falls to her knees and sobs. Cut to however long later, as she and her husband sit under a blanket crying. Workers move a large sheet of metal, and find the mutant. There’s a girls arm sticking out as well. The parents are elated that she’s ok. They discover Wolverine is alive. The dad says to spread a blanket so they can move him. Um, I’m no EMT, but as a general rule, don’t you generally try to avoid moving injured people? The dad and his friend pick up and move Logan. A man whose bones are covered with the strongest metal on Earth, and would presumably be pretty heavy. Nah, they got this. The dad, Randy, thanks him for saving his little girl. White yuppie, Carl, says he’s the MRD’s problem now. Randy can’t believe he turned him in. He’s got razors in his hands. Sound argument. Randy says they won’t find him there. They secure Logan’s bike to their RV, and drive off. White yuppie Carl does not look pleased. 

  

In the RV, non-Jean redhead notices that Logan is already healing. Erica tells him to please wake up. Logan opens his eyes, and we get a POV of Erica’s fuzzy face. Logan remembers the other black girl he knows, and flashes back to Storm and the professor just before the blinding flash. This time we see some of the aftermath. Kids carrying each other. Scott shouting for Jean. Storm, with clothes, but not shoes, intact, kneeling over a crater that has Xavier’s wheelchair in it. Logan wakes up in a house, and pops his claws right near Erica’s face. It sounds dirtier than it is. She says he’s safe. He asks where he is. She says they’re at her house, as she gives him a glass of water. Erica comments on Logan healing so fast, and says her dad suggested he’d want to avoid the hospital. Smart move. Non-Jean redhead gets a call from Mrs. Kravitz, ok not really, but she tells her neighbor it isn’t her business who stays at their house. Wolverine sighs, as he hears the choppers and sirens. He opens his bag, and we see his Wolverine outfit. Category is, super hero eleganza. Meanwhile, the MRD busts down the door, and storms up the stairs. The only thing they find is an open window. Outside, attention grabbing, fear mongering, white yuppie Carl is repeating that he’s got razors in his hands. The MRD asks the family where he is. Where who is? The MRD isn’t playing, and places them under arrest for harboring a fugitive mutant. From the rooftop, in full Wolvie glory, the claws come out, and two “officers” go down. I put them in quotes cause I don’t know if they’re government sanctioned in this universe or not. The chief MRD gets the family into the helicopter, cause after all, the suburbs don’t have a local mutant jail cell, and says they can deal with Wolverine. Um, if they are fighting the guy they’re after, why still punish the family that has no evidence but a yuppie’s word that he was harbored there? Stupid small-dicked, power hungry, supremacists. White isn’t right, you know. They must be mad cause it’s a mixed race family. Here I thought mutants were the only enemy. Oh well, one day they’ll evolve. Oh wait, they have. Homo superior will see them gone some day. Until then, flex your power, and fight your extinction, boys. They try to net and gas Wolverine, who gets free and asks who wants some. Able to recognize the danger of a confrontation, they order a retreat. Wolverine tries to jump to the copter, misses, but throws something at the propellor to make it crash. Right on serves you right white yuppie Carl’s car. Justice! 

  

At the MRD facility, a group of them walk past cells containing Wolfsbane, Abomination, and Boom Boom, before stopping at the family’s cell. They ask about the mutant. Erica says they don’t know what he’s talking about. He says his name is Wolverine, and he’s dangerous. Erica says he isn’t, the man steps into the light and we see three scars across his face, and he angrily says, yes he is! 

At the ruins of Xavier’s school, Logan pulls up on his bike, why things are still in ruin after a year is beyond me. Maybe without Xavier around signing checks, no one bothered to clean it up. At any rate, Logan walks the grounds, until he picks up a scent, he lifts a giant slab, revealing a passageway. He pops the claws, and jumps down, using them to slow his decent. We see Beast at a microscope, taking notes. As he goes back to look, Logan takes his pad and asks what he’s working on. Beast gets startled, and asks if he always has to make an entrance. Logan tells him to learn to relax. Beast says with Jean and Charles unaccounted for, he can’t think of anything else. Beast says the explosion was centered on Charles’ position, so he was the likely target. Logan asks the cause. Hank says it defies classification. There was no combustion, chemical reaction, radiation, or electro magnetism. It rules out the MRD, and probably Magneto too. Hank wants to know why Logan stopped by. Logan says the Marties are out of control, and snatched a family just for helping him. He has to make it right. Beast declines, and suggests Logan try the others. Logan doesn’t know where anyone else is. He asks Hank again, and gets a yes, since Logan generally doesn’t ask for help. 

  

In the city, we see a billboard that reads, “a personal invitation to all mutants, to live in peace, paradise, prosperity; Genosha.” Apparently in this world, Magneto doesn’t need asteroid M, he’s got prime real estate here on Earth. Nice to see he’s moved up a bit in the world. It certainly beats lurking behind the scenes. Also, scorecard moment. Slight Magneto appearance, without being the focal point of the episode. 

  

In an MRD truck, one of them asks the other what’s wrong with the radar. The other responds it’s busted. It can pick up a mutant, but can’t tell if it’s two feet away or two miles. Wait, the humans have the ability to detect mutants? Why does Charles even have cerebro if the freaking human nazis have a device that can track their prey? That’s messed up. Hunt mutants the old fashioned way. Logan knocks out the Marties, and takes Hank as a prisoner to their facility. Don’t ask me where he left the unconscious humans, he didn’t care, and neither do I. Hank says the prisoner section smells. Logan says prisoners shouldn’t ride in the front. Beast thrashes in the back as Logan checks in at the gate. He says he’s hauling a big hairy beast, and to hurry up, so it doesn’t bust out. Inside the facility, Hank is struggling to get his shackles on, when the back is opened, and the Marties take aim at him. Beast assures them he’s a pacifist. Wolverine knocks them both out, then asks Hank if the cuffs chaffed. Hank swears he was trying to put them back on. Clearly Logan’s had a kinkier sex life than Hank has. He says, let’s go, Chewie. Hank is sent to find the prisoner area, while Logan takes care of the guards. Elsewhere, Randy is taken to an interrogation room. Scar face asks him about Wolverine. Randy says he’s a hero. Scar face says he’s in a sensory assault helmet, and asks again. Randy says he’s the one people should watch out for, not the mutants. Scar face pushes the button and Randy screams. Beast runs into a Martie and asks if it needs to be a fight. He’s forced to knock him out. In the control room, Hank hangs from the ceiling, and tells the guards there are two ways to handle it. Cut to them being kicked out of the room. Logan walks in and Hank says it was their choice. He didn’t say a word. Randy is returned to his cell, and non-Jean redhead says they’re animals. Scar face says maybe Erica knows something. Beast and Wolverine approach, and Beast asks easy way or hard way. Wolverine growls, and slashes at scar face’s gun. He throws him up against the wall, and says the great line, hard way it is. We know you like it hard, Logan. What, with your healing factor, you could probably take the biggest there is and not suffer any rectal trauma. Yes, I said it. Moving on. 

  

Wolverine tells scar face to leave the nice family alone, and pressed the button on the sensory assault chair that he’s in. Atta boy! The X-Duo free the family, and the captive mutants, and manage to steal a helicopter. As they take off, Logan asks if anyone can blow the hangar. Pyro tells Boom Boom to light it up. She produces three fireballs, and he sends them flying. Two jets take off. Fireballs aren’t stopping those. There’s a mutant named Dust, who turns to, well, dust, and goes after the jets, clogging their engines. Dust gets back on the mighty mutant Martie copter, as Wolverine stares down at an enraged, yet free, scar face. This ain’t over. 

  

At a remote cabin, Logan is telling Randy and family that in a few weeks the Marties will lose interest in them. Erica tells him not to leave. He has to. It’s time he went home. Back at the ruined mansion sub-basement, Logan is looking for Hank, who surprises him. Logan says to say something when sneaking up on a guy. Um, doesn’t Wolverine have super sensitive hearing, and sense of smell? He could smell Hank underground earlier. Shouldn’t have have “seen” Hank coming a mile away? Whatever, it was for comedy. Logan’s asks where the other mutants are. Hank says they went their own way, though the cells they freed, will be full again tomorrow. Logan says a war is coming. Hank agrees. What’s next? We bring back the X-Men. Credits
  

Let’s recap. Prof. X, Logan, Scott, Jean, Storm, Rogue, Magneto cameo, and Danger Room. Check! Beast is in Evolution, but isn’t a regular until later on, still counts though. Keep your scorecards ready for the next post. We’ll be able to see what staples there are between all the X-Series. Until next time, stay geeky, and keep gabbing!