X-Men: The Animated Series Review – “Days Of Future Past, Part Two”
Previously on X-Men: We started the “Days of Future Past” saga; Bishop traveled back in time from 2055 to stop the assassination that sends humanity down a dark path; Beast is still in prison, so this must be important to know; and Gambit entered the room at the end of the episode and was immediately threatened with a futuristic gun because he’s the assassin.
Not-So-Short Summary: Rogue is driving her convertible crazily and scaring the crap out of Gambit. They join the X-Men in mid-discussion of where we left off with the last episode when Bishop freaks out upon seeing Gambit. He fires the gun, but Rogue intercepts. He keeps screaming about Gambit being the assassin, but everyone flocks to Gambit’s side.
Professor X explains who Bishop is since Rogue and Gambit are out of the loop, but nothing dissuades Bishop from being ticked off. “Because of him, the whole world is going to be enslaved,” he says.
Bishop continues that the assassin is Gambit, and it happens in Washington DC. People blame all mutants, and mutant control laws are passed, which results in more sentinels. Remaining mutants are put into detention camps and are slowly wiped out. No one ever leaves. And then the sentinels start targeting everyone, not just mutants. There’s a lot of grandiose images of sentinels treading over the world.
Everyone mulls over who could be the potential person to be assassinated, ranging from the president to anyone to Professor X. Gambit tries to argue that everyone’s trusting Bishop too quickly when Wolverine points out they don’t know that much about Gambit. Apparently no one trusts Gambit, so he takes off…
Or at least he tries to. Bishop corners him and then Wolverine corners the two of them. Gambit is headed to Washington, which makes him look guilty, but he wants to stop the assassination. Everyone shows up and decides that Gambit and Bishop should stay behind–and Wolverine offers to babysit.
They waste the time by playing poker, and it goes poorly. Bishop and Gambit face off with their powers until Wolverine threatens them. “Now sit down, both of you, or cards won’t be the only thing that gets cut around here,” he growls. Gambit lights up a card, tells Bishop to cut the deck, and it explodes, giving him a long enough chance to sneak away in a jet.
Flash to Washington. Storm is in position at the Capitol. Rogue is babysitting Jubilee, who’s having stupid dreams, and off in the distance are several mutants I get confused with the Nasty Boys, including Pyro, Blob, and Avalanche! They are part of the Brotherhood.
Professor X is on trial and asked by Senator Kelly if he has ever dealt with renegade mutants in the past. While Senator Kelly goes off on Professor X for not answering the questions even though he was, the Brotherhood intercede and create chaos. There’s a mutant fighting montage with all of the X-Men. Bishop and Wolverine show up at some point to finish off the Brotherhood, leading to Cyclops being a dick about where Gambit is since neither of them are supposed to be there.
Senator Kelly is led into a trap by his secretary, who is actually Mystique. She changes into Gambit and makes some grand remarks, which gives the real Gambit enough time to charge in and create chaos, only to have Bishop show up and shoot the wrong Gambit. He then realizes there are two of them.
This is when Rogue decides to show up, right at the point where Bishop talks about killing both of the Gambits just to play it safe. She breaks his temporal transceiver and sends him Back to the Future. Senator Kelly leaves without questioning much of anything–so pretty much your standard Senator, am I right?!
Mystique changes into her blue form in front of Rogue, who gets ticked off, remembering her from all those Apocalypse encounters. She then changes into Rogue’s mom to get Rogue on her side. It works. Mystique as her mom tells her that Apocalypse will be angry with her because Senator Kelly was supposed to be assassinated. It ruins his plans.
Bishop reappears in the future and Forge tells him it didn’t work. Everything looks the same, and Forge tells him he can try again and again. Back in Forge’s lab is Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton floating in one of those futuristic tubes.
“I stopped the assassination!” Bishop explains, but Forge just shakes his head and says something else must have happened.
Flash back to the past and Senator Kelly has been kidnapped–by Magneto! Dun dun dun!
Badass Moment of the Week: The awful chanting of “Humans yes! Mutants no!” of the protesters outside the Capitol. Oh, sorry, it’s “badass,” not “bad.” Let’s go with Rogue getting stuck in the Blob’s stomach and getting thrown into the Washington Monument.
Best One-Liner: “This kid’s crying–do something!” Wolverine says as he throws a little girl at Storm.
Can I just throw out there that Pyro’s costume is super tacky? Am I allowed to say that?
Bishop sure does know a lot about the rebels plans for only learning about them thirty seconds before he came to the past.
Hilarious fighting comments: Rogue flying into the Washington Monument. Blob using the Reflecting Pool to try to drown Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Jubilee. And then Storm freezing the Reflecting Pool with Blob in it. He’s up to his waist, but the Reflecting Pool is only a couple inches deep. Whatever.
There is an episode in Season Two that show’s Rogue’s back story, and it includes Mystique helping to raise and train her. If you were in Rogue’s position and a shapeshifting mutant changed into your mother and tried to convince you she had been your mother by making broad statements about your youth, wouldn’t you not exactly trust them?
This completes our dabble into the “Days of Future Past” plot. There are some parallels between the cartoon series and how the movie played out, but it’s mostly plot points; traveling back in time to save the future, stopping an assassination both spring to mind. There’s no Kitty Pryde in this one at all.
We are down to the last month of reviews for X-Men: The Animated Series. It’s been fun so far, right? I’m enjoying reliving the Nineties. When Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. comes back on September 24th, we will take a hiatus on TAS until next summer.
Come back next week when we will find out what Magneto has done with Senator Kelly. Maybe it’s something like the first X-Men movie! But probably not. It is also the last episode of Season One, but we’re not constrained by seasons with our Classic Reviews!