'X-Men '97' Episode 3 "Fire Made Flesh" Review
Image Source: Screen Rant
X-Men '97 Episode 3 "Fire Made Flesh" continues the strong momentum from the first 2 episodes and manages to cover one of the most famous story arcs of all time, albeit with a lack of clarity at times.
The episode starts with the X-men dealing with the fallout of a second Jean Grey turning up at the X-Mansion. Beast is running some tests, which confirm the newly arrived Jean Grey is, in fact, the original, and the one who has been at the X-Mansion (through the first two episodes) is actually a clone. The newly arrived Jean is unconscious, and we see a brief flashback of her escaping a laboratory. The clone Jean doesn't take this development very well and runs off to her room, baby Nathan in toe.
Mr. Sinister then reveals himself to the clone Jean and calls himself her father. He then takes control of clone Jean's mind, making her do his bidding. She turns the X-Mansion into a house of horrors. There are some great visuals here, we stuff a demon come out of a TV set ring-style and attack Jubilee and Sunspot. Gambit sees a nightmare vision of Magneto and Rogue getting hot and steamy together, with their bodies melting together like you would see in a Kronenberg film.
RELATED:
The Original Jean, although still incapacitated, manages to thwart the attack of the clone Jean, and saves everyone in the X-Mansion, but the clone escapes with Nathan. The X-men surmise that Sinister is behind this (duh), and Morph offers to take them to his lair.
Magneto, Cyclops, Morph & Bishop go after Sinister and are confronted by Clone Jean, who now is referring to herself as the Goblin Queen(!). She Easily deals with all the present X-Men, including Magneto. But the Original Jean, feeling better now, arrives to save the day, and Stops Sinister's Mind Control, Leaving Cyclops and Mags free to chase down the evil geneticist and Save Nathan.
Image Source: Indie Wire
The group achieves this, but when they return to the X-Mansion, it becomes apparent that Nathan has been infected with some sort of Virus, which Beast says is unstoppable.... in our time.
Bishop believes he knows someone in the future who could help the kid out, but he can only take Nathan back to the future with him, not Scot and Jean. Long-time X-Men fans will be buoyed by this. seeing the birth/formation of Cable is a massive win for this episode.
Clone Jean then leaves the X-mansion, after a heart-to-heart with the original. She thanks her for stopping Sinister's mind control and giving her a second chance. But she can't stay with the X-Men, she’s been wanting to leave and start her own life for a long time, and this is her chance. The clone then says from now on call me Madeline Pryor, giving us the final missing piece from the Clarmont Goblin Queen arc.
Image Source: Screen Rant
To end, we see Storm for the first time, who is in a bar and gets approached by Forge (likely, the man in the future Bishop was alluding to seconds ago), who wants to help her get her powers back, giving us a thread hint and the next storyline the series will cover.
Overall, a very strong episode. It's really good to see the showrunner's continued commitment to dealing with mature themes like blood and body horror. It's also a real achievement that the writers have managed to condense the beloved Goblin Queen comic book arc into 30 minutes of TV. At times the episode can feel a bit rushed to make sure all the story beats are hit, and it's not massively clear how sinister was controlling Madeline (was her body in his laboratory all along and she was just projecting herself to the Mansion? or was Sinister able to just reach out and take her over?) I hope some of these areas are explored in future episodes. The issues don't affect the overall flow of the episode, which keeps you engaged. But the fast pace and the at times vague storytelling does keep this episode from reaching the heights of the first two.
Rating: 7/10
READ NEXT:
Latest News
Featured
