X-Men: The Animated Series Review – “Days Of Future Past, Part One”

Previously on X-Men: We got our first really good look at Apocalypse, who I’m sure will never show up again; also, his Horsemen show up but none of them are Mister Sinister, so who really cares; and lots of evil threats were made, which I’m sure were hollow.

With most of the sarcasm purged from my fingers, let’s start with this week’s episode! It should be fairly familiar to all of us: “Days of Future Past!”

Not-So-Short Summary: We begin in future New York–2055, to be exact, which isn’t quite the New New York of Futurama. A rogue band of mutants are fending off multiple sentinels, and then an older, greyer Wolverine shows up to help them finish off the last one, giving us a quip about his younger days.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s welcome Bishop into this X-Men family! He’s currently a tracker, a mutant working for the sentinels to take down and bring in rebel mutants that are still fighting against… the sentinels, I guess. Bishop takes them down and brings them in, but not until Wolverine wakes up to tell him that the sentinels will turn on him one day, too.

Later that day, the sentinels turn on Bishop and he is now going to be terminated. As they walk to their deaths, we get a panning shot of that iconic comic book cover: The X-Men’s graves. It infuriates Wolverine and they take out the sentinels. Then Nimrod shows up. The less important mutants tell Wolverine and Bishop to run, to finish “the mission.”

“The mission” turns out to be a time portal, run by Forge. The plan is to give the temporal transceiver to someone and it will hold them in time. The Nineties, to be exact! They want to travel back in time to stop the “assassination” and that may stop the sentinels’ reign.

Before Wolverine can pull a Marty McFly, Nimrod shows up and Forge decides to send Bishop instead. Nimrod knocks Bishop as he’s disappearing and the results make it look like he’s about to enter a Looney Tunes cartoon.

Bishop does indeed return to the past, but cannot remember what he’s supposed to do. He catches a newspaper that has Xavier in it.

Side-swipe over to Beast, who’s still in prison, being visited by Rogue and Gambit. It’s not really clear why this clip is in here, except maybe to give us a break from Bishop, but we hop back over to him and his transceiver where he realizes he has to take out the X-Men.

Jubilee is on security check at the Mansion and alerts the X-Men of Bishop’s arrival by saying, “Creepy-looking dude in Sector G!” He slams his bus right through the front door and starts firing his gun immediately. He’s easily beating Cyclops, Storm, and Jubilee, but Wolverine takes him by surprise and utters the line, “I’m gonna remember this, Rookie,” which he says in the future. Bishop’s time travel skills are subpar because he thinks Wolverine will remember him…even though he met him in the future…

Xavier intercedes and saves Bishop. Cerebro comes into the picture to see if Bishop tells the truth. It’s only then that they believe him. Hey, Jubilee should be dead in present-day! Her gravestone says 2010! Of course, Wolverine doesn’t believe him and shrugs off the idea.

The X-Men are set to help Bishop, who takes them to where he came through from the future because something followed him. It’s Nimrod! …At this point in reviews, can I just say “mutant fighting montage?” Yes? Okay. Mutant fighting montage. The X-Men disassemble him for several seconds, giving Bishop enough time to get rid of Nimrod’s temporal transceiver and delay his return for at least a little while.

They head back to the mansion where Wolverine asks who the assassin is. Bishop conveniently doesn’t remember. This is when Rogue and Gambit return from visiting Beast. As soon as Bishop sees Gambit, he’s threatening to kill, and the episode fades to white.

Badass Moment of the Week: Bishop hijacking a city bus just to make it to Xavier’s mansion. I’m actually impressed he knows how to drive a bus, coming from the desolate future and all.

Best One-Liner: “Come on, let’s go play your new cartridge!” a teenage girl tells a teenage boy. Yes, they’re talking about video games. Man, it’s so Nineties.

Truth be told, I’ve watched this pair of episodes multiple times in the past few months to get ready for the Days of Future Past movie. Then my mom wanted a refresher course before we saw the movie. Then we started watching episodes with Apocalypse in them. We’re a fun, nerdy family.

There’s a fun little homage to Cool Hand Luke when Xavier is looking through Bishop’s mind. The parade of mutant prisoners in the future is seen through the dark sunglasses of a guard, which is totally “the man with no eyes.” Haven’t seen the movie? Do, it’s great.

I like that Beast just bends the bars to let his mutant friends in and out of his cell. That seems like something he shouldn’t be doing and no one seems to care/notice. Likewise, there’s a fun little foreshadowing comment by Jean when she says the assassin could be anyone, even herself, because she’s had her dark days. We haven’t gotten to the Phoenix Saga yet! Get excited for whenever it is, because that is my favorite series.

Come back next week when we get the conclusion of Days of Future Past. I’m sure everything will work out juuuuust fine!