There are two Jeans now. Absolutely, 100% true.
Last week, at the end of a two-part episode, the entire group is in the mansion. They’re sitting there mourning the loss, even though she’s not dead, of Ororo Munroe, who has left. Left due to a violation of her person and the stealing away of her powers by anti-mutant extremists in the FOH, the Friends of Humanity, the terrorist organization that has risen up against them. And at the very, very end there’s a knock on the door. Morph answers it, and there is Jean Grey.
This week, in the episode “Fire Made Flesh,” we get all the answers. It’s not bad. It’s not bad at all. It’s very intense, and there’s a lot packed into it.
The Jean on the Couch
The episode starts literally where it left off, with the woman who looks like Jean showing up at the front door. Beast does some tests. Beast is going to Beast. He does what he does, and what he finds out is that the Jean Grey we began the series with is younger than the Jean Grey who just showed up.
“My friends, words will fail to prepare you, but the Jean that lies on this couch would appear to be the actual Jean Grey.”
But when did they get turned around? When did they get separated? When was one created? Why do they both have the same memories? And why is it so unclear? It sounds to me like a sinister plot.
Mister Sinister, and What He Did to Morph
Mister Sinister is the villain in this episode. Those of you who remember the old series remember that when Morph left, or was thought to have been killed during the Sentinel attack, you find out later he wasn’t. He was rescued by the likes of Mister Sinister, and he was messed with and toyed with and ultimately pointed at the X-Men as an assassin, which is when he came back to the series.
And there’s actually a brief moment here, when Morph is talking about how evil Sinister is, where his face changes back into that same purple, sallow-eyed human from the original show. So the old Morph still exists. This is the Morph who has seen a few things. This is the Morph who has worked through their things, their issues, and has ultimately come through to become the mutant that they are.
The Voice on the Baby Monitor
Jean doesn’t want to hear it. Our Jean doesn’t want to hear this at all. She’s upset by it. It freaks her out. And Cyclops is like, look, we just have to figure out what’s going on. She takes the baby and she goes to the room, and she’s sitting there and she’s upset. That’s when she hears a voice. A voice from the baby monitor, and that voice is Mister Sinister himself.
“Only I can usher you and your son to your royal destiny. Every cell in you belongs to me.”
Oh, yeah. It’s rough. Luckily, Hank understands enough about Mister Sinister’s handiwork, and he’s the one who calls him out on it.
It was really exciting to see Mister Sinister as the quote-unquote villain of this episode. You get to see he’s somewhat limited. He’s not very intimidating, though clearly he does something to push Jean over the edge, and she begins to get enraged. Her eyes turn green. A little diamond shows up on her head. So clearly he’s got an influence on her, and she changes outfits.
The Goblin Queen Outfit
This outfit is known as the Goblin Queen outfit, and by the way, she does take that name on a little bit later. Big spoilers. But this is a variation, clearly done for the sake of animation, because otherwise you’d be looking at the outfit from the comics. And yeah, that might be a problem for an animated show that, while mature, is ultimately still very much for kids. So instead we get this outfit. It’s not a bad outfit, especially when you put them side by side. It’s great.
So she declares herself as that, and she begins to use all her powers and create all this stuff, and it’s very hellfire. They turn Xavier’s mansion into a house of horrors. Everybody is being chased by things, and the floor is dropping out, and at one point Gambit walks in on what looks like Magneto and Rogue literally melting through their skin. It’s very nightmarish, and everyone’s dealing with some form of creepiness along those lines.
Jean and the Goblin Queen
The Jean we saw at the end of last episode, the one who just appeared, the real Jean if you will. Matter of fact, I’m going to start calling them Jean and the Goblin Queen.
So Jean, in a moment where the X-Men are all putting up the best fight they can in what looks like hell, shows up and rescues them. That’s when the Goblin Queen steals away Nathan and leaves, and now they have to go confront her. And they go after them, and it’s rough. The Goblin Queen attacks everybody, and Morph at one point turns into Illyana Rasputin, known as Magik, with a K, who also has very hellfire-esque abilities.
Meanwhile, Sinister takes Nathan, the baby, from the Goblin Queen, and says he’s going to help Nathan reach his full potential and become his perfect form.
In the comic books, Sinister believed firmly that a child that came from Jean Grey’s DNA and Scott Summers’ DNA would be a beyond omega level mutant, one he’d ultimately be able to control. The entire point of Sinister is to genetically find the perfect mutant. That’s what he’s there for. That’s literally his goal, and what he began centuries ago to do.
The Fight in the Mindscape
At the same time, Jean and the Goblin Queen are going at it, because Jean decides she can fight in her mind. So they’re in the mindscape, and it’s visually very interesting. I love some of the things they’re doing, allegorically speaking, with a lot of those visuals.
What it boils down to is they start to uncover things. They uncover memories they didn’t even remember they had. That leads them to the doorway of what is real and what isn’t, and ultimately Jean helps free the Goblin Queen from Sinister’s control. At which point Sinister abandons the whole situation, and that leaves the Goblin Queen and Scott to find Nathan.
When they pull Nathan out of the chamber he’s in, the big tube, this experimental aquatic tube thing, he’s been infected with something. It’s the Legacy Virus. It’s a techno-organic virus, and it’s going to end up killing him.
At the very beginning, they foreshadowed the fact that Beast is almost finished with Bishop’s time bracelet, the thing he wears. And they come to the conclusion that the only place Nathan is going to find the kind of help he needs is in the future. At one point even Bishop mentions it: “Yeah, I had a friend who might be able to help in the future. He can build almost anything.” Talking about Forge, ironically enough.
So Nathan goes to the future.
Call Me Madelyne Pryor
At that point, the Goblin Queen decides it’s time for her to leave also. Jean’s like, this is your home, this and that. And she says no, the next place I go, I’m going to find my own place. And she says, by the way, call me Madelyne Pryor.
A little bit on the nose in terms of how you stick the landing. In the comic books, Madelyne shows up as somebody Scott ends up falling in love with as Madelyne Pryor. Here, the clone Jean has taken on the moniker of Madelyne Pryor. And who knows? I’m assuming we’re probably going to cross paths with her again in the future. But for the sake of this story, her leaving is a really nice, fine, handy dandy place for it to end.
Then we get the button. They cut to a bar of some kind, and we see Storm. Storm’s in her biker look, most wonderful, with her mohawk, her vest, the whole nine yards. A man shows up, he sits down, he talks about the weather, and she’s like, “Speak plainly.” And it’s Forge. It’s a younger Forge. He says he wants to try to help her regain what she’s lost.
And that’s the cliffhanger we end on.
Inferno in One Episode
There you go. Now you know. And if knowing is half the battle, you’re halfway to being a know-it-all yourself.
“Fire Made Flesh” is a really fast, hyper condensed version of the Inferno saga, which was, I think, seven or eight issues in the comic books. It spanned essentially the same type of storyline. Scott Summers discovering that Jean is actually alive. Remember, Madelyne Pryor was a different person who just happened to look a lot like Jean. So he ends up leaving her. Straight up abandons his kid. Oh, yeah. And goes to the new Jean. It flips Madelyne Pryor into being the Goblin Queen, and it’s the whole thing.
So again, it’s hyper condensed. This is how the show used to be, and people don’t seem to remember that. Every episode was essentially anthology style, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. And once in a while, every couple of episodes or so, you’d get a two-parter or even a three-parter. We’re going to get that, by the way. The finale is a three-part finale, and I believe there’s another two-parter coming up in a couple of episodes.
That being said, I’m not a fan of the hyper condensed storytelling style. I wish we’d gotten more of an opportunity to live in that space. But we didn’t, and that’s okay.
The Verdict
X-Men ‘97 “Fire Made Flesh” is an 8.5 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
The animation is still top-notch, and the storytelling is still amazing. There was an entire fight scene between Magneto and Madelyne that was awesome and super devastating, and I really enjoyed seeing that whole thing.
This is a really great show. If you haven’t jumped on the X-Men ‘97 bandwagon yet, what are you thinking? What are you waiting on? Get on that.
Your turn. What’s your Know-It-All Index score for “Fire Made Flesh”? Are you enjoying what they’re doing, are you familiar with the comics, and what did you think of the compression of the storytelling? Let’s discuss in the comments on the video above.
