X-Men 97 Episode 9 Breakdown: Tolerance is Extinction - Part 2

The X-Men take the fight to their biggest adversaries, Bastion and Magneto, to ensure the safety of mankind and mutantkind alike and save the Earth from dying while at the same time digging through their personal issues.

The article contains major spoilers from this episode and references events from previous episodes.

Professor Xavier returns to The X-Men

In the previous episode, we saw Bastion activate his Prime Sentinels: humans infused with the Techno Virus and try to take over the world by taking down the X-Men one by one. When the X-Men hit rock bottom, an old friend reappears.

The return of Professor Xavier from the Shi’Ar Empire isn’t very successful at the start. Xavier has to explain to Cyclops why he left the school.

Cyclops feels like he would have done a better job than Magneto. To which Xavier replies that he did it so that Cyclops and Jean could live a normal life instead of the one he gave them.

Xavier wants Cyclops andJean to live their life, scene from X-Men 97 Episode 9

They have been loyal to Xavier and he found it was time to repay their dedication by giving them a life of their own.

Cyclops however disagrees and tells Xavier that the choice should have been their own on whether or not to stay with the X-Men. And while Xavier meant well, Cyclops is right, it should have been their own choice.

The X-Mansion is still in ruins after the Prime Sentinels destroyed it right before Magneto hit his Electro Magnetic Pulse and shut them down. Magneto’s actions caused the whole world to be set back centuries.

If it wasn’t for The X-Men’s access to Shi’Ar technology, they would have been set back as well. Instead, they are getting ready to move to their base on Muir Island, Scotland.

Xavier isn’t the only one who is reunited with the X-Men, Storm also returns with her new lover and fellow mutant Forge. The reunion is wonderful, with Jubilee in tears and Jean elated to see her old friend.

It was only a matter of time before we saw Storm again. The reunion is wonderful and I have to say that without Storm the X-Men kind of looks limp, as her personality, leadership, and skill set are indispensable to the team.

The Blue Team and the Gold Team

The team is pretty much complete when Magneto comes down to Earth bringing Asteroid M with him. I never thought I would see in the X-Men: Magneto going all out using his full power. It was a sight to behold.

Back when Xavier left Magneto the school for gifted youngsters, he did not only leave him the school but also put someone in a leadership position that was the complete opposite of what Xavier stands for.

Someone who believes that violence is a means to an end. Someone who lived through a traumatic experience having lived his teenage years in a concentration camp in World War 2. And some students and members of the X-Men started to agree with him. In particular Rogue and Roberto DaCosta.

The three of them left with Magneto to live on Asteroid M. Despite the pleas of Xavier to Magneto to restore Earth’s magnetic field to aid those who were wounded by his EMP action to no avail.

Rogue and Magneto don their villain outfits in X-Men 97 Episode 9

What I loved about the scene is that we see Rogue and Magneto in their villain clothes. In the comics, Rogue wore that same green outfit when she was part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

Magneto wore the iconic red and purple outfit when he was the world’s most wanted mutant villain. Roberto never joined an evil organization but he joined regardless because his mother just turned him over to the Prime Sentinels. He feels betrayed and thinks Magneto’s way is the way to never get hurt like that again.

To take down Magneto and make him restore the Earth’s magnetic field and Bastion, Xavier creates two teams: The Blue Team and the Gold Team. The Gold Team pays a visit to Magneto and the Blue Team takes down Bastion.

The Blue Team and The Gold Team is another highlight from the 1990s comics when they split the X-Men into two teams. It was a marketing tool mostly because two X-Men teams meant double the sales. But it also delved more into the backgrounds of the characters at the time.

X-Men getting ready for battle

While the X-Men prepare for their missions, the scenes that follow are the best scenes of the entire season so far.

In the background, you can see the old costumes of the X-Men from the 1970s and 1980s. The original Marvel Girl outfit for example but also the classic brown outfit from Wolverine.

And on top of that, we find Cyclops and Cable have a father-and-son moment where Cyclops gives him his old outfit. The same one that Cable wore in the comics when he joined The X-Men.

The battle scenes are amazing. We find Jean Grey fighting Mr. Sinister who keeps taunting her about Madelyne and how he completely dissected Jean and spliced her genes while doing so.

Jean is less than impressed and keeps fighting him until Sinisters pits Cable against her. And while she is seemingly killed the scene pops to Cyclops Gold Team.

The Gold Team is having a hard time with an unleashed Magneto. The entire team isn’t enough to take the man down. He has the upper hand and despite the efforts to take away his helmet so that Xavier can telepathically enter his mind and use it to restore the magnetic field when they finally do get the helmet off and Xavier does what he needs to do, Magneto strikes back hard by blocking Xavier’s powers using the helmet.

Wolverine shows once more that he is the best at what he does and stabs Magneto and seemingly kills him. But Magneto is resilient and in a twisted turn of events he takes away the Adamantium that covers his bones through the wounds that Wolverine sustained during the battle.

The entire scene is incredibly important for the X-Men in the comics and hopefully also on the show.

First of all, Wolverine without Adamantium is going to make him more feral. The Adamantium also slowed down his mutation. And he will still have claws but made of very dense bone that can grow back.

Second of all, Xavier entering Magneto’s mind also marks the birth of Onslaught, an amalgam of Xavier and Magneto in the comics. It created the crossover event called Onslaught and spanned several comics with Franklin Richards of the Fantastic Four eventually putting the heroes in a pocket universe where they are reborn.

Next week is the show’s season finale and I am looking forward to getting some closure on some of the plotlines. Like, will Rogue come back to the team? Will Roberto finally get a code name because Roberto sounds so…Roberto? And how will Xavier live with what he has done to Magneto? He did to Magneto what he was fighting against.