angelophile | Wolverine and the X-men Episode 9

And once more with the weekly review of Sniktbub and the X-men. On the ball this week, since the torrent showed the day the episode did and I've found time to work it into my hectic schedule.

As usual, written as I watch the episode, so spoilers lie beneath the cut.

And onto the action. Another thing I've been pleased to see in this cartoon is a continuous story arc. It's not just been one shot episodes (well, not entirely), such as the first season of Beast Wars, but episodes that are stand alone but also linking to create a proper arc. Something that's welcome in any cartoon series.

And taking a leaf out of the first (good) season of Heroes, apparently it's time to jump to the future and find out what's going on with Professor X and his amazing exoskeletal legs. Apparently it's not good. A sentinel wants to go all Goldfinger on him.

That's no moon. It's Cerebro in a handy carry sized holder.

BWAHAHA! Combat Forge! Daw, he's adorable. Make an action figure of him, STAT!

Whoah, they brought Xavier to cameo central! Is that Match? Marrow! Bishop? Shard? Thundebird III?

Wait, not Match. Unless there was a gender swap.

JULIAN! YAY! And not only that, but Julian not being a total jerk. Hooray! Although as cameos go, that was fleeting. Hope he's back again soon.

Omega Sentinels apparently suck even in the future. Apparently they can detect mutant powers except telepathy. Even when it's being used on them. Oy. And they're so dumb they'll fall for the deactivated collar routine, even when their prisoner took it off. Animation flub, presumably, but an unfortunate one.

Is that Synch? Without any other evidence I choose to believe it is. (Although it's more likely to be Nezhno without the tribal markings.)

Eh? Why is it so hard to believe Wolverine could be captured? The bugger often is.

Yay, Dom!

An back in the present, the Kitty and Bobby double act continues to amuse. They're such a cute couple. But probably aren't one. I'm pairing them up anyway. Sod it.

"This is way too easy."
"You're right, Logan. Let's do it the hard way."
Who says Scott doesn't have a sense of humour?

Aw, Forge woobie!

Wow, Marrow being more than just a cameo? You go girl!

No! Bad Sentinel! No torturing Julian! It's the rolled up newspaper for you!

Okay not Thunderbird III. I have no idea who a lot of these people are. Presumably they're meant to be cameos, as the characters are in fairly large roles, but I have no idea who the Grunge-a-like is now. Berzerker, I think, was a Morlock in 616. Anyone got any ideas?

And one of the Proudstars bumbling about like an oaf. Huh.

And the episode winds up with a big battle sequence and not much else.

After last week's episode this is a bit of a come down. Not bat, particularly, but just average and, while it's nice to see cameos, I wish they'd made it a little cleaer just who some of them were supposed to be. Setting up Marrow, Bishop and Julian as major players in the guture subplot was nice, but this episode didn't feel like it quite lived up to the potential. I was expecting a little more info about the world of the future - where are all the humans? The mutant camp was underdeveloped. And so on. Ultimately, the episode fell a little flat for me as I was hoping for more between the action sequences. The present day interludes didn't really advance the plot at all and they could have been jettisoned in place of fleshing out the main plot further.

That all said, not a bad episode. Just rather lackluster given the potential.

Rating - **1/2