[6.2/10] The story of a distraught hero going off the hang with a group of indigenous people to find his mettle again is an uncomfortable trope, and frankly, just hacky. When I was a kid, I doubt it dawned on me that Wolverine communing with an Inuit tribe who taught him their ways as a form of healing was culturally reductive. But now, it’s hard for me to see it as anything besides backwards and dull, especially when modern shows like Book of Boba Fett have taken the same basic concept and done it much better. It doesn’t help that X-Men tries to jam this emotional and spiritual journey into twenty minutes and change, with a B-story and a heap of setup, so none of Wolverine's transformation has time to land.
Beyond that, I’m already kind of tired of Sabertooth. The notion of him and Logan having a mysterious shared past remains intriguing. But he’s just such a generic snarling villain, who basically goes full Snidely Whiplash here with tying the locals to a bomb, that I can't really care about him.
Oddly enough I ended up liking Kiyoek, the young member of the tribe who initially resents Wolverine for stealing his role as the tribe’s champion, and colludes with Sabertooth to get rid of him, only to work with Logan for redemption when he sees what Sabertooth hs done to his community. It’s a pretty basic arc, but it’s the sort of character with realistic flaws and an understandable change of heart and action to make up for his mistakes that works at a very basic level.
In terms of Logan’s story, while I don’t really like the means for achieving it, I like the idea of him just wanting to leave the world behind in some way. He’s tired of all the hardship that led him here. The sense of not being able to get away from it, to where Sabertooth is hunting him down even in a remote Alaskan village, gives him pathos in all of this. On top of that, there’s something gearnest about his plea to Sabertooth to just let it go, that he doesn’t care who started it he just wants this grudge between them to be done. The “native peoples heal me” crap is bad, but you o get a sense of Logan’s mental and spiritual exhaustion, which is a good beat for the character.
Cyclops comes off like an ass though. He’s the pea of “You’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole.” He’s right. Logan is a hothead. It would be difficult to have to rely on someone ike that. And he’s also right that spreading rumors about a dicey salvation could be problematic as well. But he comes off like such a condescending dick about all of it, which really makes it hard to see the fairness in his points.
Storm, Gambit, and Jubilee going to Genosha mainly plays like setup for the next episode. The idea of an island paradise that pretends to welcome mutants, while actually just trying to lure them for capture has merit. The prelude is fairly generic to start, though.
Overall, this is another misstep, but one that at least includes some solid moments for Wolverine and sets up an intriguing follow-up with the Genoshans.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2023-04-10T03:00:29Z
[6.2/10] The story of a distraught hero going off the hang with a group of indigenous people to find his mettle again is an uncomfortable trope, and frankly, just hacky. When I was a kid, I doubt it dawned on me that Wolverine communing with an Inuit tribe who taught him their ways as a form of healing was culturally reductive. But now, it’s hard for me to see it as anything besides backwards and dull, especially when modern shows like Book of Boba Fett have taken the same basic concept and done it much better. It doesn’t help that X-Men tries to jam this emotional and spiritual journey into twenty minutes and change, with a B-story and a heap of setup, so none of Wolverine's transformation has time to land.
Beyond that, I’m already kind of tired of Sabertooth. The notion of him and Logan having a mysterious shared past remains intriguing. But he’s just such a generic snarling villain, who basically goes full Snidely Whiplash here with tying the locals to a bomb, that I can't really care about him.
Oddly enough I ended up liking Kiyoek, the young member of the tribe who initially resents Wolverine for stealing his role as the tribe’s champion, and colludes with Sabertooth to get rid of him, only to work with Logan for redemption when he sees what Sabertooth hs done to his community. It’s a pretty basic arc, but it’s the sort of character with realistic flaws and an understandable change of heart and action to make up for his mistakes that works at a very basic level.
In terms of Logan’s story, while I don’t really like the means for achieving it, I like the idea of him just wanting to leave the world behind in some way. He’s tired of all the hardship that led him here. The sense of not being able to get away from it, to where Sabertooth is hunting him down even in a remote Alaskan village, gives him pathos in all of this. On top of that, there’s something gearnest about his plea to Sabertooth to just let it go, that he doesn’t care who started it he just wants this grudge between them to be done. The “native peoples heal me” crap is bad, but you o get a sense of Logan’s mental and spiritual exhaustion, which is a good beat for the character.
Cyclops comes off like an ass though. He’s the pea of “You’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole.” He’s right. Logan is a hothead. It would be difficult to have to rely on someone ike that. And he’s also right that spreading rumors about a dicey salvation could be problematic as well. But he comes off like such a condescending dick about all of it, which really makes it hard to see the fairness in his points.
Storm, Gambit, and Jubilee going to Genosha mainly plays like setup for the next episode. The idea of an island paradise that pretends to welcome mutants, while actually just trying to lure them for capture has merit. The prelude is fairly generic to start, though.
Overall, this is another misstep, but one that at least includes some solid moments for Wolverine and sets up an intriguing follow-up with the Genoshans.