I'm just wondering what gave Xavier the authority to imprison people. Whether or not he was doing illegal stuff, that's false imprisonment and what's with Cyclops being such a bellend this episode?
I know this is a one shot episode but it covered so much cool X-Men history and had a fun battle with X-Force as well. This was one of the best episodes outside one with Apocalypse.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2023-05-14T17:53:51Z
[7.4/10] I enjoyed this one. I like Iceman as a former X-Man who turned away from Xavier’s philosophy, and is still resistant to them, leading to regrets and resentments from the members of the team who were there. I like portraying Bobby as something of a forerunner to Wolverine, someone who struggled to play nice, bristled with Cyclops, and eventually bolted when it got to be too much. The way Professor X laments how things went wrong, Beast misses his friend, and Cyclops still disdains the guy for being “coddled” creates an interesting dynamic when they run into him again.
In contrast to the Longshot episode, I also like Jubilee’s role in this. Her admiring Bobby for being someone who breaks the rules and goes his own way, when she feels penned in because of her age and wants to chart a bolder path, makes a lot of sense. The episodes of X-Men I tend to enjoy are the ones focused on character, and between Bobby’s own complicated feelings about the X-Men and his girlfriend, and the various X-Men’s different feelings about Bobby, there’s a lot of good character material in this one.
The mission itself is solid too. Hunting down a missing former X-Man, who is coincidentally Iceman’s girlfriend, is a good spine to build around. The introduction of X-factor is a little silly, since they have generic equivalents of many of the X-Men and don’t hesitate to point that out. Plus “Strong Guy” has to be the laziest name for a superhero I’ve ever heard. But I do appreciate the coolness of seeing Forge in the present for the first time, and the idea of a rival mutant team, one working more closely with the government, is an intriguing development.
I like where things land with Bobby too. He’s not unreasonable to not want to fight this fight forever, and instead take a chance to just live his life as a normal person. (Cyclops went through a similar thing after Jean died, which might make him more sympathetic, but ya know.) But realizing that Polaris was an activist at heart, and when Bobby became content rather than willing to get in the fray, he lost her, is an unexpectedly mature way to depict people falling apart. This is X-Men, so there’s still some melodrama and “I love Havok now!” business, but the idea is a strong one.
Overall, after a couple of disappointing episodes, this is a breath of fresh (cool) air, and I hope the start of us seeing more of Iceman and his unique, challenging perspective on the X-Men and their project.