This show keeps stressing me out, man. I just can’t, in some ways.

Normally a penultimate episode is there to set something up. What Beau DeMayo and the folks at Marvel have done with X-Men ‘97 is combine the last three episodes into a magnum opus of events, and it’s unreal to me.

It’s Wednesday morning, which means it’s time for X-Men ‘97 and part two of “Tolerance Is Extinction.”

Magneto Didn’t Set Off a Pulse. He Killed the Planet.

We start right on the heels of last episode, with Magneto having shut down the world. And what he’s actually done is way worse than a standard electromagnetic pulse. He’s crippled the planet. Even Storm can feel the poles die.

For those of you who don’t know, when you play the science game, a lot of things on our planet, everything from navigation to how birds track their courses, are run by the spin of the planet, by the magnetic core and the field our planet generates. So Magneto setting off that pulse killed the planet.

We got a look at it at the end of last episode, but the beginning of this one is where we fully realize exactly what I said last time. We get to see Asteroid M, this giant rock that’s supposed to be the new home. It’s supposed to be the new Genosha.

Were You Expecting Black Leather?

Xavier has gotten all the X-Men ready, because he’s begging the president to give him an opportunity. They’re all wearing the classic outfits. That’s all they have left.

So you get a really clever line. Scott throws a uniform over at Nathan, and Nathan’s like, really, what am I supposed to do with this, go to the circus? And Scott’s like, “Were you expecting black leather?” That’s a complete nod to the X-Men cinematic universe, where they had the same moment going the other way. “What would you prefer? Yellow spandex?” Okay. All right.

You also get a brief moment at the very beginning where Cyclops and Xavier have a back and forth, and Xavier says exactly what we would have thought. He made the decision to give everything to Magneto so that the kids could have a chance to be free. I call them the kids. It’s Scott and Jean, who were his first students.

And you find out this interesting backstory I was not familiar with, which is that there’s a universe in which Professor Xavier tried to recruit Bastion to the original X-Men. Even Storm points out that he could very well have been on that portrait they have on the wall, had things gone differently. And apparently his mother was the one who shut it down, the second the word mutant even got said. Yeah, this thing is raw.

Blue Team and Gold Team

So they split into two teams. “Rogue, you’re going with me and Blue Team to find Magneto. Storm and Jean will lead Gold Team to shut down Bastion at his headquarters in the Galapagos Islands.”

It’s great. It’s Blue Team and Gold Team. You have Scott and them making their attack on Magneto, trying to move the needle with him, either change his mind or figure out a way to stop him, so they can restore the planet and save it. They can’t even start to solve the other problem while the planet is in its current state and condition. And you’re just like, Magneto, bro, what are you doing?

The other team is doing their best to shut down Bastion. It’s Bastion and Sinister over there, and Bastion’s using his technopathy to run things, because everything else is dead. There’s no technology working anywhere on the planet.

And when Magneto shows up with the asteroid at the Xavier School, some folks leave. Rogue and Sunspot. Sunspot, by the way, is wearing the classic X-Men outfit for him, which I thought was dope.

The Old Pilot, and a Wolverine Who Sounds Like Jason Statham

Everyone is in their classic X-Men costumes, and it’s such a great callback to the old X-Men pilot, which I actually saw. Dazzler and some of the X-Men, and Wolverine talking with this weirdly Australian Cockney accent, which I thought was hilarious. “Welcome home.” “Wait, she’s not joining the X-Men, is she? She’s just a kid.”

If Jason Statham played Wolverine, it would have been the Wolverine from that classic X-Men pilot.

Thirty Years in the Making

Everybody’s on their missions, everybody’s doing their thing, and you get an unbelievable fight. Finally, Jean Grey versus Sinister. That is a fight that has been 30 years in the making. It’s just unreal.

Meanwhile, you also get this amazing battle up on the asteroid. They went there, y’all. They went there. We got Fatal Attractioned.

For those of you in the comments saying I don’t talk about the comics enough: first, this is not a comic book show. But at the same time, I respect it, and I need to show my bona fides. Fatal Attractions was a comic book story from 1993 where the X-Men faced Magneto. It was the culmination of a big storyline they had begun. And in that story, Wolverine practically gutted Magneto, to the point that Magneto gets pissed off enough to rip all of the metal out of Wolverine.

So that’s what happened here. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Magneto’s doing his thing, everything’s looking like it’s going to crap, and all of a sudden, bam. Claws pop out of the front. Magneto’s shocked. He turns, and he gets so mad. This is the start of that moment. Next thing you know, all of the adamantium in Wolverine’s body comes ripping out.

Now, I’ve always thought that was interesting, because in the comics adamantium has also been described as a non-magnetic metal. I don’t know how they reconcile those two things, but I don’t care. I don’t think anyone cares. Comics, and then plot armor. Who knows? Either way, you get this amazing moment.

The Height of Quality Right Now

The thing I’m continuously blown away by with X-Men ‘97 is that this is the evolution, the advancement, of the series we saw in the ’90s, and on top of that it’s genuinely taking the best aspects of anime, serious storytelling that moves the story forward, and giving it to us in its best possible form. That’s what’s got me blown away. It’s storytelling that we’ve never seen before.

This comes hot on the news of Bob Iger and them at Disney stating that from now on they’re going to do no more than three movies and two series a year. That’s smart. That’s great. But that means quality is important, and X-Men ‘97 is the height of quality right now. It’s storytelling like you’ve never seen in terms of the X-Men, in terms of the MCU, in terms of anything when it comes to Marvel stuff. They’re following this amazing storyline, and they’re taking their time seeding the bits. It’s wonderful.

There you go. Now you know. And if knowing is half the battle, you’re halfway to knowing it all yourself.

The Verdict

X-Men ‘97 Episode 9, “Tolerance Is Extinction, Part 2,” is a 10 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.

Baby Know-It-All said to me last week, “So are you basically just giving every episode nines and 10s?” And the problem is, yes. These episodes are all nines and 10s.

I was expecting some form of filler bridge, something that was going to set up other things. And by the way, it does set things up, but it’s epic on its own. This episode just blows the mind. I could easily see all three parts of this as their own standalone thing, a 90-minute X-Men movie.

And I can’t wait to see how they stick the landing. Because if I know anything about Beau DeMayo and his storytelling style thus far, if I know anything about the classic X-Men series, if I know anything about what it looks like we’re seeing, this is all going to end in a series-altering cliffhanger that sets up the second season. Which, by the way, was still written by the fiercely steady hand of Beau DeMayo.

The man’s a magician. The man is like the storytelling Messiah at the moment. He’s to the anime what I believe Kevin Feige has been to the MCU so far. This is storytelling on a next level that is just beyond words, and it understands the assignment. It gets what it’s trying to do.

I’m so excited, so tell me what you think in the comments on the video above. And if you just caught this bug because you’re seeing your people talk about it, go back to last week first, because “Tolerance Is Extinction” part one sets everything up.