X-Men '97: Season 1, Episode 3 - "Fire Made Flesh" Review
Warning: this review contains full spoilers for X-Men ‘97: Episode 3!
X-Men ‘97 may be a show built inherently around ‘90s nostalgia – it’s right there in the name – but it also owes a clear debt to older incarnations of the X-Men franchise. Episode 2 took its cues directly from 1985’s Uncanny X-Men #200, with Magneto donning his garish new purple costume and putting himself on trial before a UN tribunal. Now, in Episode 3, the series turns its attention to adapting 1989’s Inferno, one of the biggest and most game-changing X-Men storylines around. There’s an awful lot of ground to cover in just 30 minutes. It’s a testament to the show’s execution that it manages to not just do justice to that source material, but actually improve on it in some ways.
X-Men ’97 manages to squeeze an entire crossover into one episode mostly by trimming every ounce of fat possible. What was originally a sprawling epic about a deranged Jean Grey clone unleashing demonic hordes upon New York City becomes a much more intimate affair. This episode is solely about Madelyne Pryor lashing out at the X-Men. Inferno is now a family drama. It’s a shift that works surprisingly well. That spectacle doesn’t really matter. What matters is the core of the story: Madelyne discovering her entire existence is a lie, Cyclops finding himself torn between two versions of the same woman, and the supervillain mad scientist pulling everyone’s strings. That’s all here.
The one complaint to levy against this adaptation is that it moves very quickly: One minute Madelyne is grappling with the discovery that she’s a clone, the next she’s donning the leather bondage-queen outfit and playing the cackling supervillain. It’s a bit of a rushed transition, even with Mister Sinister’s mind-meddling serving as the plot catalyst. I wish there had been time to explore Madelyne’s more gradual psychological breakdown.
Still, “Fire Made Flesh” manages to do justice to a character who hasn’t always been treated well in the comics. On the one hand, this episode serves as a reminder of just how dangerous Jean can be when the guardrails come off. The epic battle between Madelyne and Magneto and the equally cool psychic showdown between Madelyne and Jean are a welcome counterpoint to the many scenes of Jean doing her “telepathic scan followed by moaning and fainting” shtick. Action scenes remain a strong suit with this series.
And on the other hand, Episode 3 never forgets that Madelyne is not the villain of this story. She remains sympathetic throughout – a new mother facing a crisis of identity and a lack of support from her friends. Again, the comics haven’t always been kind to her: Co-creator Chris Claremont famously said that he never intended her to be anything more than Jean’s physical doppelganger and a second chance for Scott to find happiness after her death. Marvel editorial made the decision to transform Madelyne into a demonically possessed Jean Grey clone.
This episode successfully finds a path forward that maintains Madelyne’s status as a sympathetic figure and ultimately delivers a somewhat happy ending – as happy as can be expected when Maddie has just lost her son and entire family, anyway. There’s even a clever whiff of Rick and Morty’s Beth/Space Beth dynamic here, as we’re left to wonder when exactly the real Jean was replaced and how much of the original series was actually focused on Madelyne.
What We Thought of X-Men ’97 Episodes 1 and 2
“X-Men ‘97 represents the best kind of nostalgic exercise. It pays loving tribute to the original X-Men: The Animated Series while also smoothing over some of that show’s rough edges. It features a solid voice cast and a vibrant new visual style marked by several spectacular action sequences. It’s also a series that illustrates just how powerful the mutant metaphor is even three decades later. Marvel fans of any age would do well to give X-Men ‘97 a look.” -Jesse Schedeen
Read the rest of IGN’s X-Men ’97: Episode 1 & 2 review.
It should also be said that “Fire Made Flesh” does far better by Cyclops, too. Quite possibly the worst decision Marvel ever made with the character was to have him abandon his wife and child after learning the real Jean was still alive and well. It’s something the comics have never been able to fully reconcile. X-Men ’97 wisely avoids presenting that choice to Scott, instead emphasizing his confusion and conflicted loyalties.
Episode 3 even finds some time to address one of the flaws of the first two episodes by giving secondary characters Morph and Bishop more to do. Morph, naturally, is none too thrilled at the return of Mister Sinister, and we see him contend with his psychological demons and ultimately conquer them. It’s great seeing Sinister himself back in action, particularly with Christopher Britton voicing the character again. Given his limited screen time, I’m hoping this episode is merely a taste of things to come on the Sinister front. It feels like he’s due a much bigger comeuppance for his latest crime against the X-Men.
As for Bishop, we finally get some explanation as to why he’s been hanging out in the past, along with a hint of the much different role he’s set to play in the future. Seeing Bishop become the caretaker to baby Nathan is intriguing, and it’s enough to make me wonder if the show will be combining the traditional Clan Askani mythology with elements of X-Men: Messiah Complex comics. The original series always hit pay dirt where Bishop’s time-traveling adventures were concerned, and hopefully the same will remain true for X-Men ’97.
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