X-Men ’97 S2 Ep. 6 Review: “Danger.exe” Exposes the Season’s Growing Problems
Having been a huge fan of the beginning of X-Men ‘97 S2, this episode, “Danger.exe”, felt like a highlighting of a lot of its key flaws. While modern television and comics often suffer from glacially slow pacing, dragging stories out well past the point of interest, X-Men ‘97 did the exact opposite, jumping from one story to the next so fast you can hardly breathe. S1 barely holds the balance it needs to let its characters react and develop against the stories it tells, but even in the first few episodes of S2, which I greatly enjoyed, the cracks begin to show as we breeze through Cyclops and Jean’s time in the future and barely let their relationship with young Nathan develop. Only the strong performances manage to anchor the emotional core of one of my favourite Marvel family relationships into a great episode. Fast forward to Ep. 5, which again, I greatly enjoyed, but the conflict of Wolverine being desperate to regain his adamantium, the metal that was bonded to him against his will in the worst moment of his life, is denied the emotional weight it deserved by the fact we do not get to see him struggle without it aside from a brief few seconds in the first episode, the ONLY one he appeared in before that one. I get that “feral Wolverine” arc isn’t a beloved era, and I’m not asking for the man to go all “noseless animal”, but some sign of struggle to adapt as he grows gradually more animalistic in the background would have allowed some already hard-hitting moments to hit even harder.
As we progress further into this season, the pacing issues become even more apparent. Episode 6, “Danger.exe”, seeks to do 2 things: properly introduce Polaris to the team, and tell the story of “Danger”, the X-Men’s danger room gone rogue and turned against them from Joss Whedon and John Cassiday’s Astonishing X-Men’s “Dangerous” arc. That arc itself is quite dark, Danger first emerges by talking a young mutant boy, “Wing” into killing himself, as it’s revealed the sentience of the Danger Room emerged years ago and was buried by Charles Xavier to keep using it. While Wing is still injured by Danger, it all happens off-screen and he survives, and while Danger’s birth seems to be prompted by Charles Xavier’s repeated revisiting of the death of Magneto, an interesting take for the adaptation, a Danger driven to keep the X-Men safe no matter the cost, that just doesn’t come up again, and Danger is reduced to a generic murder-robot, ultimately torn apart by a Polaris/Xavier combo as she embraces her parenthood thanks to Xavier’s help.
“Danger.exe” also features another big issue I have with the show, which is huge revelations being revealed off-screen if they’re deemed too “common knowledge”. Magneto is revealed as Polaris’ father in this episode, something known to comic readers since only 2003, long after the original series, but instead of letting Polaris process this alongside his death, it’s treated as something she already knows just because the audience do. This is just another rushed aspect of Polaris’ arc, much like her being kicked off of X-Factor instead of being allowed to make an ethical choice, or the vague way characters speak about her losing control of her powers. It’s all tell, no show, and we don’t ever get to see Polaris properly process anything, as she quickly loses focus in later episodes making you wonder why they even bothered. Polaris also strikes up an odd romantic relationship with Bishop, but it’s told entirely through the odd quip and eyebrow raise instead of anything meaningful. Carolina Ravassa gives a strong performance with what she gets, but it ultimately feels wasted.
A key skill in writing the X-Men, and any super hero team, and really also any large cast tv show, is juggling characters. If you’re going to have a bunch of superheroes in a scene, even if they’re kids, they can’t just do nothing when an action scene erupts. It’s so frustrating in this episode when several beloved characters, some of which are famously powerful, just stand around and do nothing, without even a voiceline, while everything goes on around them. It’s a complaint I want to dismiss as being too attached to my favourites, but what’s the point of introducing a mutant school when you’re wholly uninterested in the students beyond background cameos?
This brings me to an even bigger issue introduced in Danger.exe as it introduces radically different status quo shifts at the same time without any thought into the fact they are totally different. In the original series the school functions much like it did through the 60s->90s, a school with anywhere between 1 to maybe 10 students, where they make vague references to essays in-between superheroics. It wasn’t until Morrison/Quitely’s New X-Men that it becomes an actual school, but ‘97 takes more from Astonishing X-Men, which frames the school as a return to the X-Men’s proper purpose and refocusing of their goals. This clashes with ‘97’s inclusion of X-Corp, again from New X-Men, which was followed by Charles Xavier finally admitting to the world that he himself was a mutant, and shifting the X-Men’s goal to be larger, worldwide outreach. While I’m not familiar enough with XM:TAS to know if Charles is already publicly a mutant, ‘97 makes it incredibly vague with his role. While these directions co-existed in New X-Men, they weren’t both established at the same time, leaving a real uncertainty of what the X-Men’s focus is now. The school becoming larger fits the show’s direction naturally, but X-Corp feels fairly abrupt and like an excuse to adopt the Quitely jackets to sell more toys. Probably not helping that I’ll buy all those toys.
While less of a big issue, “Danger.exe” also highlighted an issue in the first season I was hoping to see fixed with the replacement of the showrunner, the treatment of Emma Frost. The previous showrunner was very open about his disdain for the character, and that was clear in her treatment in the first season. She’s such a key aspect of the stories this season is now adapting, and it’s a shame to see key iconic moments either adapted without her, or being given to other characters.
Despite a solid introduction to Polaris, the cracks in X-Men ‘97’s approach to lightning fast storytelling are becoming increasingly clear with “Danger.exe”. So much potential feels constantly passed by as they juggle far too many plots at once, often relegating too much character work to off-screen. With such a strong start to the season, it’s disappointing to see it struggle to find a clear focus now that it’s dealt with last season’s ending.
Check out our review of the first few episodes!
