X-Men: The Animated Series begins with one of my favorite opening title sequences of my entire childhood. I think they slightly changed the opening for season 5, but it was enough for me to think “aw, that’s a shame” the first time I saw it. My favorite part of the opening: the end, before the title screen, where the X-Men and a group of villains are running toward each other for a head-on collision. On the far end of each line, you’ll find Jubilee running headlong toward the Juggernaut… I would LOVE to see that fight. If you freeze the frame and look closely enough, you’ll be able to see that little twerp with a look of absolute terror on her face, and about ready to shit her raincoat. Also notable: Magneto is about to punch Xavier out of his stupid flying chair like a bitch.
Alright, episode starts. Sabretooth is on the news, just destroying things for fun. A cool way to start. Don’t worry, it goes downhill quickly. We cut to Jubilee’s foster parents talking about how her dad enrolled her in the Mutant Registration program…because apparently some stupid kid who shoots plasma fireworks out of her fingers is a threat to their way of life. To me, that seems like one of the most manageable genetic mutations I can think of. I mean, if it was something like a Scott Summers situation, then I could understand. Your mom wakes you up in the morning, and you accidentally blast her head off her shoulders. THAT is a danger. Then the truth comes out: Foster dad is afraid the neighbors will find out their daughter is not only of Asian descent, but also a mutant! As if they didn’t already know this by the way this idiot dresses…CASUALLY…in her OWN HOME
Her stupid April O’Neil-style yellow raincoat and her Bret “The Hitman” Hart sunglasses. Fuck Jubilee.
I take back any hint of remorse I may have had earlier. This bitch deserves to be in a mutant concentration camp. I’ve always hated Jubilee and I hate it even more that she was a main character on this show. Even when I was 9 I thought she was retarded. They only threw her into this show to make it more accessible to kids because she’s one herself. Guess what? You don’t have to make it more accessible to kids because IT’S ALREADY A SHOW ABOUT SUPER HEROES! But I digress because there’s a big fuckin’ robot that just tried to eat somebody’s dog.
Back to the foster home. Foster dad is pissed because Jubilee ruined his VCR. Boo-hoo. His wife is probably thrilled because now she doesn’t have to worry about walking in on him beating off to a VHS of Female Nutchuggers. Let’s face it: this foster dad is a real asshole. He wants to send his daughter off to some mutant agency because she broke the VCR and because he’s embarrassed to be seen with her.
Alright, so cue the Sentinel, knocking over trees, stomping craters in the street and flipping cars over. Yet, nobody seems to notice that ANY of this is happening. Foster parents just hug and continue their stupid conversation. Hell, even Jubilee is oblivious. “Hey not-dad, does it sound like there’s a giant fucking robot outside?” In Jubilee’s room, her alarm clock says it’s 7:30. Where do they live that it’s dark out at 7:30? If it’s dark out at 7:30, then that means Jubilee shouldn’t be wearing fucking short-shorts. At the very least, it's March or October--not exactly shorts weather.
So the Sentinel bursts through the side of the house, and AGAIN the parents are fucking clueless. Oh, is Jubilee okay? It sounded like something broke upstairs. Yeah, your HOUSE just broke. How did you not feel that?! But, never fear, the Sentinel is on her trail. Though somehow she managed to sneak out of the house and get to the local mall before the Sentinel even realized she wasn’t IN the house anymore. It makes sense not because we want it to, but because we have to let it.
So Jubilee breaks some douche’s arcade game, and gives a pretty clever line about the machine only costing a quarter as she pulls down her stupid Bret Hart sunglasses. Then she runs. Because that’s all she does in this entire series. She collides with Storm and Rogue, acts like a real unapologetic twat, and runs off again. Sentinel enters mall. Everyone screams. Real discreet shit.
Meanwhile, Gambit is buying playing cards at some unlikely shop in the mall. Even as a kid, this scene made me wonder why the hell Storm and Rogue were in street clothes while Gambit was in full costume right down to the metal boots and pink chestplate. You go to a mall dressed like that and you’re just a mutant asshole. Speaking with a Cajun accent certainly doesn’t help you be any less of an asshole either.
Well, it’s been about 5 minutes into the episode and so far, Jubilee is a complete bitch. She must take after her foster dad. Sentinel grabs the bitch, but Storm saves her. In the process, she saves the viewer from the potential of some nasty Sentinel/Jubilee tentacle porn. Then Rogue saves them all from an energy blast by pulling up the escalator stairs as though it were a big metal carpet (is that even how an escalator works?). More fighting. Sentinel blasts the floor from under Jubilee and she falls…right into Gambit’s arms. Wasn’t that asshole just upstairs literally 20 seconds ago? Then we get subjected to the Cajun’s charming wit with gems like “Hey, apprehend ‘dis!” Classic cheese.
Jubilee runs outside, finds Cyclops. He kills Sentinel with one shot. Storm, Rogue, and Gambit should feel like useless bags of shit. Jubilee wakes up in the mansion and we get to meet all the cool, classic X-Men characters: Beast, Morph, Jean and the Profes—wait… Who the fuck is Morph? Oh that’s right, it’s supposed to be Changeling, but they can’t use “Changeling” because DC owned the rights to that name in 1992. So we’ll call him Morph because the writers wanted a “red shirt” that they could kill off in the pilot to make the show seem real edgy. Unfortunately, Morph comes back in season 2 to annoy the piss out of you in one of the more obnoxious storylines. Jubilee sees Morph change into her and speak in her voice, which is kinda weird consider he has no idea what she sounds like. But whatever.
Jubilee wanders into the command room or whatever and televisions just start turning on for no apparent fucking reason. On the TVs we get glimpses of mutants that are far cooler and rank way higher on the give-a-fuck meter than Jubilee. She runs out..again. Jean and the Professor enter and Jean is all “hey, those monitors were on”…7 seconds ago when Jubilee walked in, and now they’re off! Now the X-Men try and hunt down Jubilee within the mansion.
Since Jubilee is a foster kid, she’s obviously poorly educated, right? That’s the only way the next scene makes sense. Obviously she can’t read, otherwise she would have seen the big illuminated sign that says “DANGER ROOM” and said to herself “that doesn’t sound good, maybe I’ll see what’s down the hall”. But no, this dummy wanders into a training session between Gambit and Wolverine. They fight and stuff, and Jubilee blasts Wolverine with her fireworks display. He gets embarrassed. I would be too, old man. I would be too. The guys all laugh at Wolverine because clearly he’s a pussy. Wolverine pops his claws and growls… This will happen a lot in the remaining 5 seasons.
Storm talks to Jubilee about Xavier and the school. Nobody gives a shit. The Professor figures out through some strange piece of knowledge he has that the Sentinels came from the Mutant Registration Agency. Sure. Like an ass, Jubilee returns home to see if her parents, who don’t give a shit about her, are okay. A Sentinel gets the jump on her…because again, she has the observation skills of a ballsack. There is a giant robot watching you from over the top of a TREE! How do you not see this?! How does a robot the size of a building manage to sneak up on you?!? Well the Sentinel gasses the bitch again, but unfortunately for us it wasn’t toxic.
Professor sends Storm into the Registration Agency along with Beast, Wolverine, and Morph (because remember, he’s the “red shirt” crew member). In fact, Morph literally IS the X-Men equivalent to a red shirt on Star Trek. He’s wearing the lame, default X-Men uniform for fuck’s sake! Who didn’t think he was getting offed?? Cyclops runs after the Professor and whines about using mutant powers to fight the bad guys who are trying to kill them. Makes sense… Wolverine insists on going to look for Jubilee, as she has managed to sneak out of the mansion. Sneak out? She just woke up there and she’s never seen the place before. How the hell did she manage to sneak out? AND get all the way back home AND get kidnapped by a giant fucking robot before anybody realized she was gone?! I guess she just knew the way out. Teenage instincts. Hell, in 5 seasons I don’t think I’ve seen the X-Men go from the mansion to their underground base of operations. Is there an elevator? Batpole? What the fuck?
The X-Men land outside the Mutant Control Agency (or whatever the fuck it’s called). Cue Rogue’s filler banter about how she can’t touch anyone. Couldn’t we save this for another episode? This is supposed to be a covert stealth mission and these jerks are all blabbing to one another, laughing, and having a good time. Oddly enough, Wolverine feels the same way. Says they’re making way too much noise. No shit. He’s actually written pretty well for the series as far as dialogue and whatnot. Any time I ever quoted the X-Men cartoon when I was a kid, it was usually a Wolverine line. They were typically the lines that gave my child brain a chuckle. Other than that, I tended to like the villains more. Any normal kid would say the same.
So the X-Men sneak in, and I guess Morph realizes that he’s bored and instantly decides to wear a jacket:
And then take it off 3 seconds later, you know, as a goof:
Then put it back on:
And so they make their way inside. They stop because Wolverine can smell electronic security beams. Duly noted. I was unaware that he could smell lasers... Beast deactivates the lasers and they head to a door. But behind the door—an ambush! And not just any ambush:
That’s right, the Mutant Control Agency is guarded by a ruthless army of GINGERS! Will the X-Men make it out of this alive (aside from Morph), or will the soulless Gingers blast them to hell and consume their flesh?!?
Stay tuned for: “Night of the Sentinels – Part 2”, or “Morph Goes Fishing”
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