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tori_reviews2020-09-04 09:49 pm
jedi_of_urth) wrote in tori_reviews2020-09-04 09:49 pm
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Wolverine and the X-Men 1x01, 1x02
Wolverine and the X-Men 1x01: Hindsight (Part 1)
I don't know, nor think it's quite in my style to look into, if these first three episodes were originally shown as a long pilot or kept as separate episodes. This episode would actually suggest the latter to me, because it is a complete story in and of itself, just with a narrow focus. And that could be because it was always structured so it could be broken up but also shown a one set, but this had a very 'come back next time where we get the band back together' vibe.
This episode is both pretty light and trying to do a lot, and I'm not sure how much it does well. I suspect that somewhere in the opening three ep arc I'll be hooked, but this as a stand alone piece wasn't great. And the specific way in which it didn't seem very great is what speaks to it having to be a self-contained episode while also setting up plot threads that will play out over the season, not just the next episodes.
Because, quite frankly, the need for action and combat is easily the weakest part of the story. The opening Danger Room run is pretty bland and just there to introduce characters that aren't actually important in this episode. They could have found Kitty or Colossus during the rescue mission, but I'm sure they have different arcs to come.
The bits we get of the 'past' are also the most reminiscent of the movie-verse; probably because we see more character dynamics in general and specifically ones that were also focused on in the movies. The love triangle, Wolverine still acting like he's such a rebel and outsider when he clearly isn't, and of course Logan and Rogue. Logan/Rogue was always my 'I know it won't happen but I want it' ship in the movie-verse and I think their scene here might have been part of what sold me on this show the first time through. It's not exactly shippy, in text it's even called family, but it's kept as a very important relationship for both characters and I can approve of that.
The world of the X-Men has never quite made sense to me I have to admit, and I think it's why the movies work better (if still imperfect). The mutant discrimination we see in the movies seems like something that would happen as mutants were still seen as a very small portion of society, but the level things get to in other media never rings quite true to me. Don't get me wrong, I think people would be very afraid of mutants and their powers, and there would be some awful official rulings concerning them (my feelings on super-powered communities are...complicated, because I do see the inherently complicated nature of such a situation and the only people who are entirely wrong are the ones who say it isn't; reviewing an X-Men property will give me plenty of chances to discuss them I'm sure), but I tend to see something like Psi Corps as the more natural end point of such fear and suspicion as opposed to building giant robots that X-Men claims they have to deal with.
It's also a bit interesting to consider; at this point, what are Mutants an allegory for? Because the X-Men usually are some form of allegory; they were made as a stand in for racial minorities, the movies went primarily with a gay allegory, but what is this show going for? On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of allegory, because neither black people nor gay people (or illegal immigrants which is my first guess for the allegory here, but this was 2009 so they might not have been going for that so strongly with the families in cages) can shoot freaking laser beams out of their eyes or put you in a coma if they accidentally or purposefully touch you; and that's not getting into how powerful telepaths can be in this world. I guess we'll see as we go forward.
Another thing we'll see as we go forward is if I have a different (from what little I recall) feeling about Wolverine's role in this. At the time I was a very casual fan, if a fan at all, of most comic book related stories, and this one having a similarity to the movies was a plus. But the movies were very focused on Wolverine, and I've grown less okay with that over time. In a movie you also need a focal point more than you do in an ongoing series that can be an ensemble. I think this does turn out to be more of an ensemble than the title or this episode would suggest, but I could be misremembering that; as I said I don't recall much of this series. Mostly that I liked it enough to buy the DVDs when I could find a good deal on them and enough that this seemed like a good idea to review.
Wolverine and the X-Men 1x02: Hindsight (Part 2)
I want to start with something that is kind of both a strength and a weakness of this series (so far, and I assume going on), it feels like a continuation of another continuity. It's not spending a lot of time on exposition about the main characters or the world, because it kind of assumes you're at least passingly familiar with them. But at the same time, I'm not sure what that other canon is, and I suspect that there's some disagreement with the writers as to what happened in that nonexistent series before this one.
Yes I do recall watching at least a couple of the commentaries when I first got the DVDs and the main writers here also did a different X-Men show before this one, and in some ways this is a continuation of that, but I think there are also contradictions if that was the case. As noted before it's also like an AU of the movie series; like not quite all the same things happened but it's those versions of the characters...kind of. But also mixed with a dozen versions of those characters all put in a blender.
I'm not real sure I actually liked this episode. We're still very much in set-up mode; there was some getting the band back together, but Bobby and Kitty are not treated as very important characters. This is more about Rogue and Warren, who are both on the outside for now, and also about whether Wolverine can be the leader of the X-men though that's more expressed through other characters than development of Logan.
Warren isn't a character I have much to say about yet, but there's plenty they can yet do with him. I wonder if there's a bit of spite against the movies here where for this show that's drawing from the movies they made sure to give Warren an important role.
Firstly; I remember now that I didn't like the way this show handled Rogue's hair. Why is it see-through? How is it see-through? Why isn't it always see-through? It's a decent character design otherwise, but the hair is distracting. Mild suspicion that this was approximately how she was being drawn in comics around this time, but if you take most of these shots as individual stills they wouldn't be so bad, it's just a bad design for animation.
Also we're back to the issue with the prequel we didn't see. What is Rogue's history with the Brotherhood? I feel that that's kind of important to understand if I believe she would join them. I heard somewhere that she was part of them in the comics at some point (like I said, I know a fair bit more about comics than I did when I first watched this) but not having that history I can't judge whether that made sense. I feel like I mainly recall the point was that Rogue started out as a villain who came around and joined the X-men, but I could be wrong. And that would do nothing to explain why this Rogue, who seems to have been an X-man for a while would flip and join the Brotherhood. Yes, they're offering to both allow her an outlet for her rage against the system and to fill the void of the broken team that she doesn't have anymore; but if she's been an X-man long enough to have that kind of bond with the team, then I would have thought they had come into conflict with the Brotherhood along the road. Alternately we don't know if Rogue maybe always had some issues with Xavier's pacifist position and this is indulging a side she wasn't using before. Her relationship to Logan may be using the movies as a base to build on, but there are aspects of her character that definitely aren't using that same starting point.
I don't understand the Brotherhood's plan here. What did they want to happen? How does it help them to make the X-men look bad? They still didn't get to Kelly if that was important; and they just made the calls for registration more likely to happen (and does). But it's also not like they weren't there at all meaning all blame would end up falling on the X-men while the Brotherhood wasn't at any risk. I'm not sure even that would have been a great plan, but it would have been something.
I'm also not quite sure how I feel about there not being more questions for Rogue when she returned. Since the relationship between her and Logan is clearly going to be a pillar of this season, I can find value in saying that with it being his call, he was easily willing to believe her (but I think he has doubts by the end, which should be interesting); but practically, I kind of think there should have been a few more questions. And to backtrack even further, Warren didn't see how hesitant Rogue was against Worthington (I think that will work as a distinction), nor did it come to anything in this story since it didn't cause her to turn against the Brotherhood (unless she's a triple agent and they'll tell us later). The Brotherhood abuses her in this episode (even if Rogue here doesn't find her powers as difficult as movie-Rogue, she still clearly sees it as wrong to use them that way), and there are apparently no consequences.
Also, Toad yanks off Rogue's glove, then she takes it off again later in the scene (noticeable because as she's removing the glove she's clearly wearing one on the other hand, or I would be willing to say she was taking the second off). Bad continuity when even I notice.
I don't know, nor think it's quite in my style to look into, if these first three episodes were originally shown as a long pilot or kept as separate episodes. This episode would actually suggest the latter to me, because it is a complete story in and of itself, just with a narrow focus. And that could be because it was always structured so it could be broken up but also shown a one set, but this had a very 'come back next time where we get the band back together' vibe.
This episode is both pretty light and trying to do a lot, and I'm not sure how much it does well. I suspect that somewhere in the opening three ep arc I'll be hooked, but this as a stand alone piece wasn't great. And the specific way in which it didn't seem very great is what speaks to it having to be a self-contained episode while also setting up plot threads that will play out over the season, not just the next episodes.
Because, quite frankly, the need for action and combat is easily the weakest part of the story. The opening Danger Room run is pretty bland and just there to introduce characters that aren't actually important in this episode. They could have found Kitty or Colossus during the rescue mission, but I'm sure they have different arcs to come.
The bits we get of the 'past' are also the most reminiscent of the movie-verse; probably because we see more character dynamics in general and specifically ones that were also focused on in the movies. The love triangle, Wolverine still acting like he's such a rebel and outsider when he clearly isn't, and of course Logan and Rogue. Logan/Rogue was always my 'I know it won't happen but I want it' ship in the movie-verse and I think their scene here might have been part of what sold me on this show the first time through. It's not exactly shippy, in text it's even called family, but it's kept as a very important relationship for both characters and I can approve of that.
The world of the X-Men has never quite made sense to me I have to admit, and I think it's why the movies work better (if still imperfect). The mutant discrimination we see in the movies seems like something that would happen as mutants were still seen as a very small portion of society, but the level things get to in other media never rings quite true to me. Don't get me wrong, I think people would be very afraid of mutants and their powers, and there would be some awful official rulings concerning them (my feelings on super-powered communities are...complicated, because I do see the inherently complicated nature of such a situation and the only people who are entirely wrong are the ones who say it isn't; reviewing an X-Men property will give me plenty of chances to discuss them I'm sure), but I tend to see something like Psi Corps as the more natural end point of such fear and suspicion as opposed to building giant robots that X-Men claims they have to deal with.
It's also a bit interesting to consider; at this point, what are Mutants an allegory for? Because the X-Men usually are some form of allegory; they were made as a stand in for racial minorities, the movies went primarily with a gay allegory, but what is this show going for? On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of allegory, because neither black people nor gay people (or illegal immigrants which is my first guess for the allegory here, but this was 2009 so they might not have been going for that so strongly with the families in cages) can shoot freaking laser beams out of their eyes or put you in a coma if they accidentally or purposefully touch you; and that's not getting into how powerful telepaths can be in this world. I guess we'll see as we go forward.
Another thing we'll see as we go forward is if I have a different (from what little I recall) feeling about Wolverine's role in this. At the time I was a very casual fan, if a fan at all, of most comic book related stories, and this one having a similarity to the movies was a plus. But the movies were very focused on Wolverine, and I've grown less okay with that over time. In a movie you also need a focal point more than you do in an ongoing series that can be an ensemble. I think this does turn out to be more of an ensemble than the title or this episode would suggest, but I could be misremembering that; as I said I don't recall much of this series. Mostly that I liked it enough to buy the DVDs when I could find a good deal on them and enough that this seemed like a good idea to review.
Wolverine and the X-Men 1x02: Hindsight (Part 2)
I want to start with something that is kind of both a strength and a weakness of this series (so far, and I assume going on), it feels like a continuation of another continuity. It's not spending a lot of time on exposition about the main characters or the world, because it kind of assumes you're at least passingly familiar with them. But at the same time, I'm not sure what that other canon is, and I suspect that there's some disagreement with the writers as to what happened in that nonexistent series before this one.
Yes I do recall watching at least a couple of the commentaries when I first got the DVDs and the main writers here also did a different X-Men show before this one, and in some ways this is a continuation of that, but I think there are also contradictions if that was the case. As noted before it's also like an AU of the movie series; like not quite all the same things happened but it's those versions of the characters...kind of. But also mixed with a dozen versions of those characters all put in a blender.
I'm not real sure I actually liked this episode. We're still very much in set-up mode; there was some getting the band back together, but Bobby and Kitty are not treated as very important characters. This is more about Rogue and Warren, who are both on the outside for now, and also about whether Wolverine can be the leader of the X-men though that's more expressed through other characters than development of Logan.
Warren isn't a character I have much to say about yet, but there's plenty they can yet do with him. I wonder if there's a bit of spite against the movies here where for this show that's drawing from the movies they made sure to give Warren an important role.
Firstly; I remember now that I didn't like the way this show handled Rogue's hair. Why is it see-through? How is it see-through? Why isn't it always see-through? It's a decent character design otherwise, but the hair is distracting. Mild suspicion that this was approximately how she was being drawn in comics around this time, but if you take most of these shots as individual stills they wouldn't be so bad, it's just a bad design for animation.
Also we're back to the issue with the prequel we didn't see. What is Rogue's history with the Brotherhood? I feel that that's kind of important to understand if I believe she would join them. I heard somewhere that she was part of them in the comics at some point (like I said, I know a fair bit more about comics than I did when I first watched this) but not having that history I can't judge whether that made sense. I feel like I mainly recall the point was that Rogue started out as a villain who came around and joined the X-men, but I could be wrong. And that would do nothing to explain why this Rogue, who seems to have been an X-man for a while would flip and join the Brotherhood. Yes, they're offering to both allow her an outlet for her rage against the system and to fill the void of the broken team that she doesn't have anymore; but if she's been an X-man long enough to have that kind of bond with the team, then I would have thought they had come into conflict with the Brotherhood along the road. Alternately we don't know if Rogue maybe always had some issues with Xavier's pacifist position and this is indulging a side she wasn't using before. Her relationship to Logan may be using the movies as a base to build on, but there are aspects of her character that definitely aren't using that same starting point.
I don't understand the Brotherhood's plan here. What did they want to happen? How does it help them to make the X-men look bad? They still didn't get to Kelly if that was important; and they just made the calls for registration more likely to happen (and does). But it's also not like they weren't there at all meaning all blame would end up falling on the X-men while the Brotherhood wasn't at any risk. I'm not sure even that would have been a great plan, but it would have been something.
I'm also not quite sure how I feel about there not being more questions for Rogue when she returned. Since the relationship between her and Logan is clearly going to be a pillar of this season, I can find value in saying that with it being his call, he was easily willing to believe her (but I think he has doubts by the end, which should be interesting); but practically, I kind of think there should have been a few more questions. And to backtrack even further, Warren didn't see how hesitant Rogue was against Worthington (I think that will work as a distinction), nor did it come to anything in this story since it didn't cause her to turn against the Brotherhood (unless she's a triple agent and they'll tell us later). The Brotherhood abuses her in this episode (even if Rogue here doesn't find her powers as difficult as movie-Rogue, she still clearly sees it as wrong to use them that way), and there are apparently no consequences.
Also, Toad yanks off Rogue's glove, then she takes it off again later in the scene (noticeable because as she's removing the glove she's clearly wearing one on the other hand, or I would be willing to say she was taking the second off). Bad continuity when even I notice.