‘The Gifted’: Polaris Meets One of the X-Men in the Season Finale

Tonight’s episode of The Gifted flashed back on Polaris’ history. The scene showed Polaris meeting one of the X-Men for the first time.

SPOILERS for The Gifted Season One finale follow.

The episode opens with Polaris in a mental health facility. She’s visited by a woman named Evangeline. Evangeline introduces herself as a lawyer, but soon reveals that she’s a mutant. She reveals this by transforming one of her arms into a red, demonic-looking form.

Not only that, but she’s representing the X-Men. Polaris notes that the X-Men are an urban legend at this point. It seems Evangeline is the one who recruited Polaris for the Mutant Underground.

So who is Evangeline? She’s based on the character Evangeline “Vange” Whedon. Chris Claremont and Salvador Larroca created Vange in 2003, and she first appeared in X-Treme X-Men #21.

Vange is a mutant with the ability to transform into a red dragon. While that’s a pretty powerful ability, she more often uses her legal skills to help mutants. She is a lawyer, and was a member of the Mutant Rights Coalition. She first came into contact with the X-Men when she represented Bishop and Sage. She has continued serving as the lawyer for the X-Men in general. Most recently, she defended Primal, a member of Generation Hope.

Vange’s mutant gift is also a curse since she can’t always control her dragon form. She transforms after coming into contact with blood, sometimes against her will. The result can be an 18-foot tall dragon rampaging a city.

Vange isn’t the first member of the X-Men from the comics to show up on The Gifted, but she is the first character to be representing the X-Men within The Gifted‘s universe to appear. The X-Men and the Brotherhood have both disappeared in that universe. The X-Men left the Mutant Underground to take care of mutants in their absence, and they also warned the Underground of a coming war.

Thunderbird and Polaris were both chosen by the X-Men to help lead the Mutant Underground. Now that Polaris has defected to the Hellfire Club, the war the X-Men warned them about may be closer than ever.

The Gifted will return to FOX in 2018.