Review: X-Men ’97 “Motendo/Lifedeath” (Part 1)

Overview

“Motendo”

On her 18th Birthday, a nostalgic Jubilee is forced to relive the X-Men’s greatest adventures when an entertainment system transports her into a 16-bit video game.


“Lifedeath” (Part 1)

Storm meets someone who promises her an offer she can’t possibly refuse…


Our Take

For this episode, the first half involves Jubilee’s 18th Birthday and given who’s currently in charge of the X-Men, their “current leader” doesn’t believe in giving special treatment even on birthdays and demands her to be in the danger room to hone her powers like everyone else. In frustration, she decides to play a videogame with Roberto in her bedroom instead and discovers a mysterious game system that previously wasn’t there before, only for some unusual shit to happen involving a classic X-men villain who represents the worst aspects of entertainment…

While the 2nd half, focuses on Storm meeting a mysterious stranger in Texas named Forge who was not only previously introduced in the 92 series, but here the plot is more of a retelling of another 80’s X-Men story called “Lifedeath” which plays like a soap-opera, but unlike the comics, the proceedings felt a bit rushed as we’re not given room to breathe or given a clear idea at how much time has passed for their connection to mean something until the big twist is revealed on why Forge is so determined to fix Storm’s current problem, only for both of them to fall into an even bigger problem themselves…

Overall, this episode was a bit of a “tonal shift” with the way these two separate storylines were structured yet entertaining in different ways. The “Motendo” episode was decent for what it tried to accomplish as it attempted to give Jubilee her moment to shine, while also being a bit of a love letter to the 2D animated classic X-Men videogames of old which provided a nice bit of visual fanservice. And as icing on the cake, the original voice of Jubilee from the ’92 series Alyson Court has a guest voice as an obscure character I didn’t even know existed, and much like that Edgar Wright film “The Worlds End” the whole experience for Jubilee as a character felt like a meta-commentary on the dangers of living in nostalgia, and how that can cause problems with your personal growth. Realistically when most people have a job/obligation that just so happens to fall on their birthday, they still go to work and if they’re lucky, rarely get any sort of special treatment… and whether Jubilee knows it or not, it’s part of being an adult, but it doesn’t have to be a definitive buzzkill. While “Part 1” of Lifedeath felt like a slow-paced soap opera that tried to cram as much story and drama as they could with Storm and Forge to make their chemistry feel authentic within the 2nd half of the episode’s runtime and for what it accomplished, the two actors do sell the drama of their respective situations and inner-turmoil’s on display, but with the way it ended, I’m curious how they could get out of their new predicament…