X-Men: The Animated Series Review – “The Unstoppable Juggernaut”
Previously on X-Men, we got a great look at the island of Genosha where Mastermold and Trask were making a bunch of sentinels; Cable showed up for a couple minutes to explode random things; and we ended with the team heading home to find the mansion in ruins.
Not-So-Short Summary: So Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters is in ruins and the entire team searches for him. Cyclops takes everyone into the War Room where they find a message from Professor X saying he’s taking a journey that could change everything, but that’s all he can tell them.
Wolverine’s been looking for clues in the rubble when Cyclops goes all “we need to work as a team!” on him, which obviously makes Wolverine take off; Storm, Rogue, and Jubilee head to tail Wolverine. They find his Jeep parked on a street and decide to split up.
Jubilee finds a construction site where all the workers are grumbling about a new foreign hire who can single-handedly take down an entire building. They conclude he is a mutant, so Jubilee goes to check it out just as the building starts to collapse. Conveniently, Wolverine swoops in to save her.
The mysterious foreigner is Colossus! All of the workers take on Colossus, which is a bad idea. As he scares away the workers, Wolverine takes him on because he thinks he destroyed the mansion. Colossus takes them down easily and Wolverine smells that it wasn’t him. “Crazy Americans,” Colossus muses as he leaves them.
Meanwhile, the First National Bank is being robbed by “somebody big.” As the foursome shows up, the cops are shuttling Colossus off to prison. Looks like a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, because Wolverine smells the same scent that was at the mansion.
Rogue and Storm break off to break Colossus out of prison… rather easily. They also happen upon Beast, who is waiting for his trial once more.
As this is happening, the real culprit is breaking into another bank vault. Who does this guy think he is, one of the Ocean’s 11 members?! Wolverine and Jubilee watch everything from a rooftop. That includes the police shooting at Juggernaut with both guns and tanks with nothing working. He literally flattens a cop car by walking on it.
Wolverine takes on Juggernaut and gets thrown into a wall by his claws. Turns out Juggernaut is looking for Xavier, couldn’t find him, and decided to rob some banks to get his attention. Cue the standard mutant fight that happens in every episode, but this one has the added component of Colossus.
Jean’s powers cannot penetrate through Colossus’s metal helmet, so the X-Men crew work as a team to pry it off his head. Rogue leaps up to absorb Juggernaut’s powers, which takes longer than usual. She absorbs them a little too much and freaks out. Why she did this rather than just trying to get Jean to take mental control is beyond me; that plan makes the most sense, but whatever.
As Rogue is struggling in midair with Storm, Jean finally approaches Juggernaut and does some weird psychic stuff to him so he doesn’t remember who he was or what he was doing. He wanders off.
Rogue explodes full of lightning and falls back to Earth, Colossus catching her. We end on Wolverine and Jubilee offering Colossus a place to stay, but he declines because he has to look for his sister. But first, he has to finish rebuilding the X-Men’s school.
Badass Moment of the Week: Colossus taking down a ten story building with three giant shoves. Also, Colossus breaking a giant hole through a prison wall, which Storm then fills up with ice. Basically anything Colossus does is badass.
Best One-Liner: “What is this, the Fourth of July?!” Juggernaut exclaims when Jubilee tries to fire her powers at him. He’s saying what we’re all thinking.
I think I liked Jean Grey’s powers most of all when I was a kid because you can visibly see her moving things. The blue light that pops out from her forehead to surround whatever she’s moving is a cool visual effect, even for a Nineties cartoon.
Juggernaut’s helmet protects him from Jean’s powers, but Magneto’s didn’t in an earlier episode? Is this a continuity error or was the helmet Magneto wearing at the time not as powerful as he thought it was? If I recall correctly, that was in a flashback with Xavier, so he may not have had it pimped out then. Let’s keep that in mind for future episodes with Magneto.
Colossus’s accent is horribly Russian, and it reminds me of hockey players. If you’ve never actually read my bio on here, then you don’t know my other big love is hockey. So if you’re looking for some real Russian accents and some hilarious English, I present to you Pavel Datsyuk winning a couple of awards back in 2008. He is hilarious.
Also a quick thought to keep in mind, Juggernaut mentions that he’s not a mutant and his powers are magical. That’s pretty much the simplest way to put the background of his powers.
Come back next week when we hear all about “The Cure” and some dude named Apocalypse shows up. I am curious as to who this strange new character is…