X-Men ’97 introduced this season’s big bad in Episode 7. “Bright Eyes” brought Bastion into clear view as the biggest threat facing the mutants. As Episode 5 concluded, it was clear that there was someone pulling the strings behind the massacre of Genosha. A lot of fans thought that Cassandra Nova could be in the wings, waiting to ruin the mutant safe haven. Or maybe it could be Mister Sinister as he’s already popped-up once this season. Well, it ended up being something far more grave. Because Bastion is a living Sentinel bent on destroying mutant kind at all costs.
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There were subtle clues about the new adversary earlier in the episode. When Rogue was talking to Captain America about the location of Bolivar Trask and Henry Gyrich, the soldiers involved were working for the OZT. In the books, that acronym belongs to Operation: Zero Tolerance. Just like in the storyline, the government becomes scared of mutants and hands over control to Bastion. He then develops a program to “locate and detain” mutants. The newest weapon on that front? Prime Sentinels.
Bastion is a hybrid of Master Mold and a future sentinel, Nimrod. If you’re a longtime X-Men fan, you know that name is nothing good for the mutants. The sentinel is from the same timeline that Cable is trying to avert. (Hence why he intervenes when things hit the fan at the end of this episode.) So, now the X-Men and their allies must rally to protect their future in the face of overwhelming technological superiority. It’s interesting because Bastion has Magneto and has demonstrated the ability to control people. Could the Master of Magnetism end up being the next on the chopping block?
X-Men ’97 Teases All-Out War
This latest X-Men ’97 episode was a feast for Marvel universe fans. Captain America’s moment with Rogue was teased in the marketing for this episode and lived up to the billing. ComicBook.com’s Phase Zero podcast asked director Jake Castorena about the Marvel cameo and the new status quo for the X-Men. The director argues that this period will make or break the team going forward.
“I mean, call space spade. We saw Cap’s shield. You know what, a lot of people tend to forget that Cap of the nineties wasn’t the same as our Steve Rogers. (Referencing the MCU’s popular portrayal.) Steve Rogers in the 90s had a little bit of a bias against the mutants… But, yeah, what I will say is, the reason why I love the X-Men so much, and why I value them over a lot of the other Marvel teams that we have, because there’s a lot of great ones at the end of the day, is they’ve got the danger room. Man, the X-Men trained for this stuff. They have a danger room, and everybody else just wings that stuff.”
“So, this is knocking the team off off their rocker a little bit. This is gonna be some non-sequitur stuff that they have to face. An experience that they’ve never had before. But, I would love to see how the audience reacts to how the X-Men handle it. Do the X-Men come together? And if they do, How do they do it? Especially after, something like this. And, how does our team dynamic shift? Does it shift? Or does it strengthen? We don’t know, because just like 9/11 or COVID or anything in between, it brought people together and it separated people. And, it did some stuff in between. There’s a lot of people on this planet, we all got to coexist. So you know, I really look forward to the audience watching our X-Men catch up to the future.”
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