X-Men – 07

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: 

At Sasaki-sensei’s cabin, the X-Men and she discuss her starting the Sasaki Institute and its closure as well as whether or not Xavier would be coming to Japan. Hisako asks if Sasaki remembers a mutant boy who was younger than her but whom she can no longer recall. Sasaki says there were too many children to remember based on Hisako’s vague description which disappoints Hisako. Three of Sasaki-sensei’s mutant medical research staff emerge to remind her of a meeting. After she departs to attend the meeting, Wolverine, Beast, and Storm return to the Blackbird as the blizzard has past. Cyclops, Emma, and Hisako discuss Sasaki-sensei where Hisako states that Sasaki has changed. Emma says that Sasaki is lying about having met Xavier once but is using her female intuition rather than telepathy to reach this conclusion.

Beast, Storm, and Wolverine discover that the Blackbird isn’t trapped by snow and ice but some sort of mineral that mimics it. Beast contacts Xavier to have the spare Blackbird sent to them.  A giant snowball appears and tumbles down the mountain, steering itself to them. Wolverine goes to meet it with his clawed fist and gets punched by a yellow-skinned mutant inside. A second, tall, long-haired, gray-skinned mutant appears near Storm and Beast and greets them. After they make their intentions to kill the X-Men clear, Storm attacks the gray mutant but misses and he counter attacks. The yellow mutant attacks Wolverine. After the short fight, the gray mutant has caused a massive avalanche, forcing the three X-Men into the Blackbird as the two mutants escape.

Meanwhile, Sasaki contacts Xavier and says she’ll cooperate with the X-Men but wants them gone as soon as possible. When Xavier reveals that his mental probes of the Tohoku region have revealed her and some boy who’s face he’s yet to see, she reveals that this is probably Takeo, her and Xavier’s son.  He’s surprised to learn of this son and wonders if the son is invading his mind. Sasaki says this cannot be because he’s dead. Returning to her lab, she gives her three assistants vials to inject into themselves, telling them not to reveal this to the X-Men.  Back upstairs, Emma notices that Hisako has been rubbing her hand.  Hisako says that a mark she’d always assumed was a birthmark started hurting when they arrived at Sasaki-sensei’s place and the mark is growing. She leaves to find some ointment, giving Emma a chance to talk with Scott.

Xavier decides to take the SR-71 to Japan while Emma discusses Scott’s hesitation in the recent battle, citing Hisako’s concern as well as her own. He agrees to open his mind to her where she now understands his relationship with Jean and why he thought she was controlling Jean. Scott comes to better understand things as well and even forgive himself. Meanwhile, Beast, Storm, and Wolverine start to return to Sasaki’s place and chat. Wolverine says he’s sure that there’s another person at the institute. Beast finds it interesting that Sasaki-sensei’s school and the U-Men would be at the center of the area where strange things happening with mutants, including Cerebro’s inability to detect them. Storm says they need to keep an eye on her.  Meanwhile, Sasaki-sensei is walking down the hall in her research facility when she is attacked by something.

Thoughts/Review:

One of the nice things about the X-Men series has been some thought into character work.  My problem with the Wolverine anime was that it degenerated into an almost non-stop action series with there being opponent after opponent for Wolverine to fight.  For the X-Men, the writers have at least taken the time to give Scott’s character some work, both as X-Men leader Cyclops and as the person who lost is lover and best friend in combat.  The characters of Emma and Hisako are also getting some decent character work. I sense that the writers may be trying to establish an Emma-Scott romance.  That may be due to the fact that some of you guys let me know that in the modern comic books, they are (or have been) in such a relationship.  We’ll see if that continues.

On the downside, the characters of Beast, Storm, and Wolverine aren’t getting any character development.  What is really frustrating to me is that this episode provided an opportunity to at least give Wolverine some work.  For example, when the yellow mutant had a sword that came out from his arm, I would have liked Wolverine to have made some remark about Kyoko, who had a similar ability in the Wolverine anime.  OK, so that isn’t exactly character development but it would have been a nice touch.  That aside, it would have at least helped establish Wolverine’s Japanese connections and that could have been further expanded when he spouted off about kabuki.  I would have liked some remark about him having been to Japan previously but that didn’t happen.

Story-wise, we have more questions and no answers (to be expected since it is only episode 7).  For starters, what kind of research is Sasaki doing in reality that she doesn’t want the X-Men to know? I figure she’s turning her assistants into mutants.  Next question is why Hisako’s mark on her hand is now hurting and growing.  I figure Hisako was research material when she attended Sasaki Institute.  Next up is who were the yellow and gray mutants? Are they connected to the U-Men?  Are they working for Mastermind?  Why did Sasaki keep her pregnancy hidden from Xavier?  What killed Takeo or is he really dead?  What attacked Sasaki-sensei at the end?  Who is the extra person at Sasaki-sensei’s place? Takeo? Mastermind? Someone else?

So, an interesting episode is to be found here with Scott apparently putting some of his personal demons to rest as the story moves forward. I’m looking forward to more. ^_^