X-MEN ‘97 S2 Ep 5 Breakdown: Every Detail You Missed!

Wolverine got his adamantium back, but. lost a few old friends to some. face-sucking aliens, so it feels like a. wash. I'm Gina Ippolito and episode 5 of. season 2 of X-Men '97 paid homage to two. classic horror movies and had callbacks. to no fewer than five episodes from the. original series. So, this baby is dense. with Easter eggs, details, and. references. I'm going to break it down. scene by scene for everything you might. have missed. But, before I get into it, go over to nerdriot.shop to check out. our sweet merch. We've got a bunch of. new designs over there, including a lot. of X-Men designs, and buying some merch. is the best way to support the channel. This video is sponsored by Squarespace,

the all-in-one platform that makes. launching your own website a breeze. Episode 5, "Weapon X Lies and. Videotape", was written by Anthony. Scullatti and directed by Chase Conley. Morph speaks the previously on. Morph is. the outsider here, peering in at. previously unseen, at least by a lot of. the X-Men, parts of Wolverine's. personality. Morph starts this episode. considering Wolverine to be a best. friend and ends it very upset with the. revelations uncovered about his. motivations. We see Wolverine stabbing. Magneto and Magneto ripping the. adamantium from his skeleton, Morph. sitting by Wolverine's bedside as he. calls out for Jean. This is right before.

Morph changed into Jean and said, "I. love you" to Wolverine. It was very. heavily implied last season that Morph. is, in fact, in love with Wolverine. Wolverine fights the cyber hounds in the. future, now with his very breakable bone. claws. Then, the future group is back in. the present waiting for the past group. to arrive. Then, we see what happened in. the post-credit scene last episode with. Captain America giving Wolverine a. Weapon X file. During the opening, most. of the team is back together minus. Magneto and Gambit, who are presumably. dead. So, we get a pretty full roster. Jubilee and Sunspot are still off. somewhere with Cable's group, so they're. not here, either. But, Forge gets his.

own intro for the first time. He stands. on the Blackbird and unleashes some very. futuristic-looking guns and missiles, which are probably his own inventions. Notice that in Wolverine's intro, he. still has his bone claws, which make the. ripping sound when they extend. And I. assume that this is the last time in the. intro that he'll have these. Next. episode, we should be back to the. adamantium snikt. Then, we get some new. footage in here. This first one never. happened exactly like this in the. original series, but it's a mashup of. stuff we did see. It's Team X, who in. the original series was Wolverine, Silverfox, Maverick, and Sabretooth, seen in season 4 episode 16 Weapon X.

Lies and Videotape. On a rescue mission. to save Janice Hollenbeck, she's the. blonde doctor here, and we saw her in. Sabretooth's tortured memories in. original series season 1 episode 4. Deadly Reunions. That mission went wrong. and Hollenbeck died. Wolverine and. Sabretooth fighting in the snow is from. original series season 1 episode 6 Cold. Vengeance. In that one, Wolverine left. the X-Men to go to the Canadian Arctic. and Sabretooth tracks him there to kill. him. That episode is praised for. portraying Wolverine as a lost and. wandering soul and a kind of samurai, which the live-action movies featured a.

ton. Then Wolverine kisses Yuriko Oyama. and she makes her transformation into. Lady Deathstrike. This is from season 3. episode 1 Out of the Past Part 1, and. I'll get into their backstory in a. minute. Then the episode opens like a. certain breed of '80s action movie with. mostly military-esque guys yucking it up. with blustering bravado on a helicopter. right before all hell breaks loose. I'm. thinking of movies like Predator or. movies involving the Vietnam War. I. wonder if the X-Men '97 team even tried. to get permission to use Creedence. Clearwater Revival's Fortunate Son to. play over the scene. It also brings to. mind X-Men Origins: Wolverine when the.

whole squad is on the jet before their. first mission. Lady Deathstrike even. sharpens her claws here the way Wade. Wilson sharpened his sword in that one. The song they use here is actually an. original one written and performed by. the Newton brothers called Baby Come. Home and they do a great job of sort of. parodying those '70s anti-war songs used. in those kinds of movies. Garrison Kane. laughs and shares battle stories. Originally, he was just a highly trained. man, but when his limbs got blown off, he was turned into a cyborg by the. Weapon X program. We saw him briefly in. the original series as a member of. Cable's resistance group Clan Chosen in. season 2 episode 7 Time Fugitives. Here.

he's essentially a redshirt designed to. be killed off in the first 5 minutes. Okay, so I'm going to pause here to. briefly go through Wolverine's backstory. timeline from the original series since. a lot of those events from those. episodes are referenced in this one. His. events were never shown in chronological. order and were purposely muddled because. his memory had been messed with. So. obviously, Wolverine is is with an. advanced healing ability and a slew of. other mutant powers like enhanced. reflexes and senses. In 1944, he worked. together with Captain America during the. war. I went over that last week. That. was shown in season 5 episode 7 Old.

Soldiers. He didn't yet have his. adamantium. Then at some point after. that, years later, he dated a Japanese. woman, Yuriko Oyama. He left her to take. care of some business promising her he'd. be back. But on this trip he was. ambushed and then experimented on. This. was shown in season 3 episodes 1 and 2. Out of the Past parts 1 and 2. He was. brainwashed and given psychoactive drugs. and. along with other members of Team-X. This. was shown in season 4 episode 16 Weapon. X Lies and Videotape, the precursor to. this current episode. Then he was. experimented on more and given the.

Weapon X procedure that fused adamantium. to his skeleton. This procedure was. invented and performed by Professor. Kenji Oyama, Yuriko's father, and Dr. Cornelius, who we'll later see in this. episode. Trauma and confusion from the. experiment caused Wolverine to break out. and wreck the lab causing an explosion. which presumably killed Professor Oyama. Then an almost feral Wolverine ran. through the Canadian wilderness until he. encountered Heather Hudson and her. husband James, aka the Canadian. superhero Vindicator. Heather. rehabilitated Wolverine and nursed him. back to health and she and James. convinced him to join Alpha Flight,

which Vindicator was the leader of. And. that team is basically the Canadian. version of X-Factor in that they work. for the Canadian government. Eventually. he left Alpha Flight pissing them off. and the Canadian government off who'd. invested time and money into him. This. was all shown in season 2 episode 5 Repo. Man. He goes back for Yuriko, but she's. gone. She blamed Wolverine for her. father's death and was also furious that. Wolverine hadn't come back. So she had a. procedure done to turn her into a cyborg. and joined the group of cyborgs known as. the Reavers. Animated series Yuriko is. not a mutant like she was in the.

live-action movie when she was played by. Kelly Hu. All her abilities here come. from cybernetic enhancements just like. Garrison Kane. Then Alpha Flight lured. Wolverine back to Canada to force him to. rejoin the team. When he refused the. Canadian government who was. unsuccessfully trying to replicate the. Weapon X procedure threatened to. basically dissect him and retrieve the. adamantium. Heather and most of Alpha. Flight helped him escape and he went. back to the X-Men. Then Yuriko, now Lady. Deathstrike, lured him to the sewers to. use him to open an alien ship, which. unleashed a crazy soul-drinking alien. monster thing. Throughout all of this,

Wolverine and Sabretooth frequently butt. heads and fight. They have a rivalry. that has spanned years. At one point, Team X is lured back to the lab where. they were trained and they discover that. a lot of their memories were falsely. implanted. This includes Wolverine's. memories of Sabretooth leaving Silver. Fox to die, who Wolverine was. romantically involved with. So, basically these two realize that their. rivalry was kind of based on events that. never happened. And then after that, they have a very tenuous kind of. ceasefire. So, to sum up, Wolverine is. always being lured places by scientists,

rivals, and old lovers, and the dude is. always leaving and then coming back and. is tortured for one reason or another. All that insanity I just ran through. there will come back in this episode. Here, Sabretooth tells Lady Deathstrike. that he's got the real guns right here, lady. And I love that lady has a dual. meaning of him trying to be derogatory, but it's also her villain name. Lady. Deathstrike is voiced by my friend Erica. Ishii. In the original, she was voiced. by Jane Luke. Sabretooth is voiced by. Darren De Paul, who also voices Omega. Red later. Don Francks was the original. Sabretooth voice. He passed away in. 2016. Wolverine has duped the others. into coming out to a different Weapon X.

facility, telling them they can find Dr. Cornelius and the other scientists who. experimented on them. And while all of. this is true, he leaves out the main. reason he wants to go on this mission, which is that he wants his adamantium. back. He's willing to put all of them in. danger for his own selfish reasons. Maverick says that the old band is back. together using the same language. Wolverine did last episode. Maverick is. the mutant Christoph Nord. He can absorb. kinetic energy and also has a very. high-tech armor suit, which can do. things like infrared scans of the area. Morph gives a much more succinct version. of the past events I just spelled out.

And for the first time in this episode, Morph is asked, "Why did you come on. this mission?" Morph will be asked this. several times and will never answer. You. don't need to know the chemistry of fire. to appreciate fireworks. You just look. up, point, maybe say, "Ooh" or "Ah" and. enjoy the show. That's how it should be. when you build a website. You shouldn't. need to know what's going on under the. hood. Your energy is better spent in. just getting a site to look the way and. work the way you want it to. Squarespace. is an all-in-one tool that gives you. everything you need to make your website. that looks great, runs flawlessly, and. does whatever you need it to do. Every. Squarespace website is optimized to be.

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free trial. When you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com/newrockstars. to save 10% off your first purchase of a. website or domain. When the helicopter. goes down, this turns into a full-blown. horror movie. >> Garrison Kane is dead, although since. he's a cyborg, I guess that could. theoretically leave the door open for. him to return in a later season. He. looks pretty damn dead to me though. Everyone is separated for a brief. moment, which leads to the paranoia. later on regarding who might be. infected. When the crazy-looking polar. bear jumps out, Morph changes into. Sasquatch, a member of Alpha Flight who. we saw in the original series. Sasquatch.

was a scientist who got turned into this. thing due to his gamma radiation. experiments. The team notices. Wolverine's bone claws, and Lady. Deathstrike is shocked since it was. always assumed that the adamantium. process her father developed couldn't be. reversed. This already dysfunctional. team grows even more suspicious of. Wolverine after he omitted this detail. Sabretooth was always jealous of the. fact that he wasn't the one who got the. adamantium. Morph calls Wolverine and. Sabretooth alphas, and just like. Sabretooth's use of the word lady. earlier, this has several meanings. They're both acting like stereotypical. alpha males here, or the alpha males in.

a pack, but it's also a reference to. Wolverine's Canadian team. The setting. and a lot of the events of this episode. are an homage to John Carpenter's The. Thing. And this snowy lab recalls the. Antarctic research station where that. film's events were set. Inside and. around the facility, there's wreckage, debris, and blood that make it clear. some crazy [ __ ] went down. On their way. to the control room, they see dead. bodies with claw marks on them. everywhere. There's also the same green. blood around that the birds and the. polar bear were bleeding. Sabretooth. stabs one of the scientists to see what. color his blood is and to smell it for. irregularities. Morph says this:

>> When Logan told me Graydon Creed was. your kid, I couldn't see it. But now. Ugh, can't unsee [music] it. >> In the original series, Graydon Creed. Jr. was ahead of the Friends of Humanity. anti-mutant hate group. He created a lot. of issues for mutants, including helping. engineer a plague that he blamed on. them. Wolverine infiltrated the ranks of. the Friends of Humanity and outed Jr. as. being the son of Sabretooth and his. followers turned on him. In season 4, episode 14, Bloodlines, it's revealed. that Jr.'s mother is Mystique, making. him Nightcrawler's half-brother. Jr.'s. followers deliver him to Sabretooth as a.

punishment and it's assumed that. Sabretooth really did a number on him. In the original series, Dr. Cornelius. was frequently shown as simply a shadowy. figure behind reflective glass. And. here, when he pops up, his eyes are. obscured by his glasses before we can. fully see him. He's voiced by Todd. Haberkorn, who also voiced Henry Gyrich. last season. An alien bursts out of. Cornelius and then we get another. quintessential alien movie parody, which. is Aliens. Morph changes into Puck, another Alpha Flight member. Originally. in the comics, Puck had no mutant. powers. He was just a small guy who was. good at acrobatics and fighting. But.

later, he was retconned to have been. cursed this form after he trapped an. ancient sorcerer. And then, to hammer. home that this episode is an homage to. The Thing, Morph smashes down as The. Thing. Wolverine reveals again that he. wasn't being entirely honest with the. team when he brought them out here when. he says that the reports had said. something fishy was going on. Throughout. the episode, Lady Deathstrike, Sabretooth, and even Morph clock these. moments and become less and less pleased. with him. Wolverine says that he caught. a whiff of something similar once. He's. referring to the Colony, a hive-mind. parasitic alien species that showed up.

in season 3, episode 19, Love and Vein. Wolverine was actually almost turned. into a member of the colony in that. episode, but his healing factor helped. him fight off the change. Reportedly, the aliens in this episode, the brood, were supposed to be featured instead of. the colony, but were deemed a little too. horrific for children, so they switched. it. I'm guessing that the reason. Wolverine was able to fight off the. change in that episode, but not in this. one, is due to the fact that he still. had his adamantium then. Wolverine tells. Lady Deathstrike that this is their. second alien invasion, referring to the. events of out of the past that I talked. about earlier. Everyone starts accusing.

one another of being infected with an. alien, another plot point from The. Thing. Like in any good horror movie or. D&D campaign, they split the party. Wolverine and Maverick go one way, Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, and Morph. go another. Lady Deathstrike is the. second person to ask why Morph came. along, and Morph again doesn't answer, opting instead to deflect and ask why. she keeps saying the word Tomo. She. explains that Tomo was a magical. shapeshifting fox who was a companion to. a heroic samurai, and Tomo's story did. not end well. In Japanese mythology, kitsune are shapeshifting fox spirits, and Tomo or Tamamo-no-Mae was one of the.

most famous. After basically wreaking. havoc and destabilizing whole. governments, she was hunted down and. killed. And again, in media, Wolverine. is frequently compared to a wandering. samurai, and Lady Deathstrike is calling. Morph the Tomo in this relationship. Sabretooth gets the lights back up, and. I love [clears throat] that he's a tech. bro, very on brand. I could write an. entire breakdown just on all the names. on these DVDs and their connections to. the Weapon X and Weapon Plus program, but instead, I'll very briefly summarize. who each one is. First, because I've. seen this asked online a lot over the.

years, the Weapon Plus is the huge. program that's been running since the. 1940s and is responsible for pretty much. every hero who got the super soldier. serum, like Steve Rogers. That program. basically uses mutants and regular. humans to try and create living weapons. Weapon X, or Weapon 10 since it's meant. to be a Roman numeral, is a project. under that larger Weapon Plus umbrella. that is responsible for Wolverine, Deadpool, Sabretooth, and a bunch of. others. It was the 10th installment in. the Weapon Plus program. It's confusing. because Weapon X is also the name of a. facility that conducts experiments and. the name of some of the test subjects.

All the names here have something to do. with the Weapon Plus program and some. were also members of the Weapon X. program. First, from left to right, there's X-23. That's Laura Kinney, who. was created from Wolverine's DNA. A. version of her was played by Dafne Keen. in Logan and Deadpool and Wolverine. Then there's Ajax, Francis Freeman. He. has enhanced strength and reflexes and a. very high tolerance for pain due to his. nerve endings being destroyed. He was. trained at the Weapon X facility to. become a member of their staff. He was. played by Ed Skrein in Deadpool. Aurora. is Jean-Marie Beaubier. She's a member. of Alpha Flight that we saw in the.

original animated series. She's. Northstar's twin sister. Fantomex, also. known as Charlie Cluster Seven, also. known as Weapon 13, is a techno-organic. organism fused with nanotech who escaped. the Weapons Plus program and went on to. join pretty much every hero group at one. point or another, including the X-Men. Then Wolverine, then Silver Fox. Then. there's a DVD with the Roman numeral for. 18 on it. Since this is the one Morph. grabs and watches, it's likely just the. 18th video in a series of videos. specifically about the brainwashing. techniques used on T-Max. Then Cyborg, aka Aldo Ferro, a Weapon X scientist and.

cybernetic mutant and a member of Team X. at one point. Mastodon is another. enhanced member of Team X and Weapon X. test subject. Winter Soldier, I think we. all know who that is, James Buchanan, Bucky Barnes. We've seen him a ton in. the MCU. Weapon Six refers to the. super-soldier serum that gave Luke Cage. his powers. Cage was never officially. part of the Weapon X program. I'm. honestly not sure who Ant-Man is in this. context, so if anyone knows, put it in. the comments. The only thing I can think. of is that it's somehow related to. Ant-Man or one of the experiments. related to Ant-Man. Garrison Kane and. Sabretooth, we already know. Agent Zero. is David North. We saw him in X-Men.

Origins: Wolverine, played by Daniel. Henney. He can absorb kinetic energy. In. the movie, he was also an expert. marksman. He's also, in different. versions, a name that Maverick sometimes. goes by. Kimura was X-23's evil, abusive. handler when 23 was still in the. facility. She's a skilled fighter with. indestructible skin. Worm is the name of. one of Magneto's Savage Land Mutates, but that one had nothing to do with the. Weapon Plus program. So, this might be. referring to Worm Cunningham or David. Cunningham, who we saw in Deadpool in. the facility with Wade being. experimented on. Sluggo is Bernard. Hoister, who we saw in Deadpool 2 in the.

icebox. In the comics, he was a member. of Weapon X and is invulnerable. Kestrel. is John Wraith, played by will.i.am in. X-Men Origins: Wolverine, another Weapon. X test subject. He has teleportation. abilities. The last one is hard to make. out, but it looks like m a r something. I think it's Marrow, aka Sarah, since. she has Weapon X ties. Marrow was killed. on Genosha and remember it and we saw. her dead body. Morph takes the disc with. the Roman numeral 18 on it. Cornelius. and Akiyama are on there discussing the. brainwashing techniques they used in. Weapon X lies and videotape. Then. they're excavating the spaceship the.

Brood were found in. We saw a similar. excavation and excavation site in The. Thing and nothing good came from that. The scientists used the Brood's cranial. fluid to create a serum to make their. test subjects more pliable and open to. control. Morph almost gets alien face. impregnated, making them all realize. that the Brood are killing most hosts. and only breeding with the best of the. best. And then they stumble upon Omega. Red. I'm so happy to see this psycho. back. He's from the original series. season 2 episode 4 Red Dawn and season 4. episode 2 A Deal with the Devil. In. those episodes, the Russians thawed out. a frozen Omega Red, a super strong.

unkillable mutant who was the Soviet. super soldier version of Captain. America. Red is crazy and fanatical. about Soviet supremacy, so he goes. rogue. He always goes rogue. Storm. managed to use her powers to freeze him. again, but then later he was thawed out. by the Americans who wanted his help to. retrieve an unstable nuclear Russian. sub. Shocker, dude went rogue and. Wolverine and Storm helped sink the sub. to the bottom of the ocean trapping him. But I guess they retrieved his ass. because here he is and with his same. Russiany intro music and everything. We've seen Morph change into Omega Red. before, so they've obviously crossed. paths at one point or another.

Sabretooth points out that while. Wolverine said he was headed for the. vehicle bay, this obviously isn't that. And they see the adamantium chamber and. again, Wolverine, you lying ass. Maverick says this. >> Game over. >> That's it. It's game over. >> A play on the famous Bill Paxton line. from Aliens. >> That's it, man. Game over, man. It's. game over. >> And then Maverick dies. X-Men '97 is. running through mutants like it's. nothing. Wolverine turns into a brood. alien and then Morph changes into. Vindicator from Alpha Flight. In the. comics, his powers all came from an. advanced battle suit, although at one.

point he went to space and he and the. suit merged, so he really had those. powers. Sabretooth tells Wolverine, "Take that, you lying runt." Runt is one. of his favorite nicknames for Logan. because of their size difference. Omega. Red is released and now they're really. screwed. Omega Red has an old grudge. against Wolverine because they faced off. many times and Wolverine keeps helping. to defeat him. Morph changes into. Deadpool, then a little later the Silver. Samurai, who we saw in season 4 episode. 15, Lotus and the Steel, which was. another Wolverine-centric episode. Morph. is mostly changing into. Wolverine-related characters in this.

one. In Lotus and the Steel, Wolverine. helped a small Japanese village defeat a. gang that was serving Silver Samurai. And it was inspired by the movies The. Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven. Notice that when Morph stabs the door. with the sword, the sword end kind of. melts. This is because Morph created the. sword out of flesh and although Morph. can add density to created weapons, they're not as strong as the originals. Sabretooth and Lady Deathstrike attempt. to disabuse Morph of his romantic. notions of Wolverine. But in the. original series, Wolverine was the one. who never gave up on Morph and even came. to blows with Cyclops for leaving Morph.

behind in the pilot. Although by the end. of this episode, it seems like Morph has. taken off the rose-colored glasses when. it comes to Wolverine. To purge. Wolverine of the brood DNA, they have no. choice but to give him his adamantium. back. And this gives us my favorite. moment of the episode, Morph pretending. to be Cyclops. It's awesome. >> I'm going to tell Jean. He's going to be. so upset with you that I'm just going to. have to give her extra smooches tonight, Logan. >> It reminds me of Loki turning into. Captain America and mocking him. >> On my way down to coordinate search and. rescue. On my way down to coordinate. search and rescue.

>> Cyclops's voice actor, Ray Chase, is. really having some fun here. Sabretooth. calls an audible and just straight up. tries to murder Wolverine. Morph tries. to appeal to Wolverine, but it's only. when Morph turns into Jean that it. breaks through. Lady Deathstrike, who's. really just kicking so much ass in this. episode, throws Wolverine into the. chamber and he gets his adamantium back, which successfully purges the brood. parts of him. Omega Red gets a few last. licks in. Morph changes into Spider-Man, then Wolverine does this. >> I'm back, baby. >> It's a recreation of the 1982 Wolverine. number one comics cover. The lab.

explodes with Omega Red still inside, crushed under a pillar. This team loves. wrecking labs. My guess is Omega Red. will be back at some point since some. rubble and a fire can't keep this dude. down. The team is back on the plane, now. two members down. Wolverine's got his. claws back, but he may have lost Morph's. love and respect for good. And Lady. Deathstrike gives Morph a look that I. think is her asking once again, why did. you come on this mission? And once. again, Morph doesn't answer. So, that's. it for this breakdown of episode five of. X-Men 97. I'm all about a Wolverine. episode and a good horror movie homage.

Let me know in the comments if you dug. this one. And [music] a special thanks. to Bro who supports us at the executive. producer level. Big thanks to studio. tech Brian Kim and New Rockstars editors. Josh Hurd and Abby Freel and all the. supporting editors. Follow me everywhere. at Gina Ippolito. Subscribe to all. channels in the New Rockstars network. for breakdowns [music] and news coverage. of everything you love. Thanks for. watching. Bye.

>> [music].