Previously on our Summer TV Binge review of X-Men: The Animated Series, we covered the first season up to its finale “The Final Decision.” This is it. This is the end. Not of the show, mind you, or even our coverage–we’ll be sticking with the show until the end of season two. But this does mark the end of many of the plot threads that had been laid out across much of the end of 1992 and beginning of 1993.
After the cliffhanger of “Days of Future Past,” we find Magneto ready to see through the failed assassination of Senator Robert Kelly before they are interrupted by a sentinel, one made of plastics, Magneto’s greatest weakness. Seriously, you could kill the guy with a spork from KFC. This sets off a story that sees Master Mold going rogue–no, not that Rogue–and plotting to turn world leaders into robots. Wouldn’t they really be more android than robot?
Semantics aside, this episode and its plot are bonkers. Acting as one of the weakest episodes of the series and one of the most unintentionally hilarious, “The Final Decision” is one that makes you question how this series is so revered. Here are five thoughts on the season one finale of X-Men: The Animated Series. I probably shouldn’t need to give this warning for a twenty-plus-year-old-show but, as always, beware of spoilers.
1. It Will Be a Vast Improvement
On the subject of this nonsense story, let’s begin by breaking that down. When a sentinel refuses creator Bolivar Trask’s command to return Senator Kelly to his campaign headquarters, Trask complains to Master Mold that it is defective. He is then informed that there is no defect and Master Mold is in control. The giant sentinel factory that is also a sentinel declares it is now in charge and gives Trask his marching orders: “You will remove Senator Kelly’s brain and replace it…with a computer.”
Hearing these lines delivered today is side-splitting but as an eight-year-old, I had to think this was just the coolest thing ever. This is further proof that children are stupid. Regardless, no matter what a joke of a premise this is, the episode itself plays out quite well and offers up some truly incredible moments.
2. The Brave Are Always the First to Die
A battered Magneto is found by the team and taken back to the X-Mansion. As they discuss returning to the sentinel HQ to destroy Master Mold and save Trask and Kelly, he enters the room to let them all know they’re idiots; because Magneto is a dick. Also, he’s wearing bandages over his costume because reasons.
However, as the team takes off on their doomed mission David Hemblen provides a line that eliminates the deepest of cynical jabs in me. “You’re all fools, heroic fools. The brave are always the first to die.” It’s not exactly in keeping with the character from the beginning of the episode, where he exposits his backstory to Kelly, telling him how he saw men, women, and children executed in his own childhood.
His proclamation how he would never allow this again seems to go against his decision to stay behind from the team’s mission. But Hemblen’s chewing of the scenery and Magnus’s entering the battlefield in the final act are awe-inspiring, especially for a kid’s cartoon from the early nineties. It truly was a zenith for the medium.
3. More X-cellent Cameos
One quick tidbit, as I’ve been highlighting these throughout my reviews, we have a couple of quick cameos in “The Final Decision.” When Xavier tells Gambit he is “looking through your mind’s eye” searching for Gyrich’s identity we are treated to several flash images. Two of these are worth noting.
The first is that of Bella Donna Boudreaux, whom Remy actually married in the comics. Bella Donna is never mentioned again throughout the series, to my knowledge, but this is one of several nods to hardcore fans that the show made over the years. No kid would have picked up on this, it wasn’t put there for them. It was put there for me, a nerd writing about a twenty-year-old show on a website before the creators knew that would even be a thing.
Continued belowThe other important flash, for the purposes of this entry, is Ghost Rider. Yes, at some point in the Earth-92131 canon of Remy LeBeau, he encountered the Spirit of Vengeance, in a sewer. I am convinced the creators of this show had a dartboard with random shit from Marvel comics they would use to drop these tidbits in, as they often make little to no sense. Ghost Rider did appear in both the Fantastic Four and Incredible Hulk animated series that exist within the Fox Kids universe and it is likely there was an animated series planned, as an action figure line was released during this time period. But for the purpose of X-Men: The Animated Series this would be his only appearance.
4. Mutants Are Humans
One of the greatest moments of “The Final Decision” comes as Master Mold explains to Trask why he is not following his original parameters. Trask exclaims that Master Mold was created to protect humans from mutants to which Master Mold rebutts “that is not logical. Mutants are humans.
The look on Trask’s face at this emotes a horror that one would expect from a giant robot telling him to remove someone’s brain, not informing him another person is of the same species as himself. But this hits at the heart of what the X-Men, as a property, is all about across comics, animation, and film. They are an allegory for racism–and later in Singer’s films homophobia–a representation of how the majority fears and hates minorities.
As goofy as “The Final Decision” is, this is a great moment.
5. Not This Time
I’ve given Scott Summer a lot of flack, across both Twitter and these reviews. It is no secret that Dexter the DrunkComicsFan is no fan of Ol’ One-Eye. I’ll be frank, he’s trash. Though this iteration does find some redemption in “The Final Decision,” even if he’s kind of a douche about it. Slim tells Jean he’s “not leaving anyone behind, not this time” before racing back to retrieve Gambit and Wolverine.
Although he does snarkily as Logan “You comin’ or is this your day off?” when he has clearly had the shit kicked out of him by giant robots. You know what? I take it back. Fuck Cyclops. To circle the wagons, though, this is a throwback to the premiere which saw the loss of Morph and the imprisonment of Beast. He may still be a garbage pile walking around in a skin sack, but the first season of X-Men: The Animated Series does at least see some character development for the cheating, child-abandoning, kid-soldier-recruiting, Xavier-murdering dumpster fire that is Scott Summers.
Seriously, though, the original and most long-standing leader of the strangest superheroes of all is just a massive knob all around.
Our summer binge will continue next week as we delve into the two-part premiere of the second season of X-Men: The Animated Series. I’ve a feeling they’ll be encountering something…sinister. Join us in seven days and, as always, excelsior!
