X-Men '97 Season 2, Episode 3
"Rise of Apocalypse Part I"
Writers: Beau DeMayo & JB Ballard
Director: Chase Conley
Cast: George Buza, Isaac Robinson-Smith, Matthew Waterson, Adrian Hough, Ross Marquand, Lenore Zann, Michael Dorn, Adetokumboh M'Cormack, John De Lancie
I kinda love the structural chutzpah of dedicating the first three episodes of your season to a sort of "past, present, future" survey of the cast and releasing them all at once, but then ending the third episode on a cliffhanger and making it the first part of two-parter as well as the finale of the unofficial introductory trilogy.
Walk Like An Egyptian
No cold open or fake cold open this time, just right into the episode after the opening credits! The opening credits are back to normal, by the way, after last episode's X-Force deviation (though they are once again specific to the episode, meaning only the main characters appearing in the episode are featured). We're inside the X-Mansion with the half of the team that got sent out of the future by Cable's arm at the end of the last episode. They're wondering where the rest of the team, including Bishop, is. Forge says he can't locate or contact them, so Storm says they have to put their faith in Mother Askani's plan of having them stop Apocalypse in the past.
But in the year 3000 BCE, it turns out the X-Men aren't so much focused on stopping young Apocalypse as they are teaming up with him and his Sandstormers in their rebellion against the pharaoh Rama-Tut. In fact, Magneto is pumping up the young Apocalypse with talk of his power and living as a god amongst insects. As the Sandstormers approach Rama-Tut's (delightfully voiced by Star Trek's Q aka John De Lancie) fortress, he orders his general Logos to engage them, desperate to stop Lil' Apocalypse (aka En Sabah Nur) from reaching a celestial temple — and the power inside it — Rama-Tut seeks. Logos rides in on the back of a massive elephant like a baller and tells Tut's slaves not to listen to Nur's talk of freedom cuz they're better off living as slaves.
Overlooking the imminent battle, Magneto and Professor X have a legitimately interesting debate about predestination, elevated by the fact that it's the traditional villain (Magneto) arguing for giving En Sabah Nur the same benefit of the doubt he received when he took over Xavier's school, especially because this version of Apocalypse has yet to do any wrong, and the "enlightened" hero (Xavier) arguing with increasing histrionics that Apocalypse is rotten to his core regardless of his age and nothing can change that and they should't even try because Apocalypse is The Worst.
Below, the battle turns in En Sabah Nur's favor thanks to his prowess and power, but with Magneto looking on, he declines to execute Logos and takes him prisoner instead, much to the dismay of his "soul father" and right-hand-man Baal. In the wake of Nur's victory, Xavier sends Nightcrawler to retrieve the broken futuristic androids which comprise Rama-Tut's army, in the hopes that Beast can use the technology to get the X-Men home. Alas, Beast's latest effort fails, stymied by the contrast in the pharaoh's technology between advancement and primitiveness. Magneto, however, is confident that the captive General Logos may be able to help them. Rogue urges Xavier to simply get the info they need from Logos telepathically; he counters, nonsensically, that doing so may alter the past irrevocably (uh….okay…). Nightcrawler argues that it sure is providential that Xavier is with them and has the power they need to get the info out of Logos' head, and that has to count for something, while Beast smartly points out that the longer they stay in the past, the larger their disruption of the timeline absolutely will be.
The Rocks of the Eternal Shore
Returning to his base, En Sabah Nur warmly greets the X-Men, though Baal is less than pleased with Nur's decision not to press their advantage against Logos further, and tells him he has until tomorrow before Baal will kill Logos himself. Later, Xavier and Magneto continue their debate over Nur, with Xavier realizing Magneto's interest in Nur has less to do with getting them home and more to do with changing the past by convincing the young Apocalypse to embrace Xavier's dream of human/mutant co-existence. Once again, the tension between Xavier and Magneto's traditional positions and their current ones adds some dramatic heft to their exchange — especially after Xavier tells Magneto Genosha wasn't his fault, and Magneto agrees, saying it was BOTH their faults, but insisting he needs Xavier's help to turn Nur.
Elsewhere, Nur attempts to get the secrets of the pharaoh's technology out of the captive Logos, but he seems largely nonplussed by Nur's threats, in part because he's the one who first enslaved Nur, a revelation which pushes Nur to the point of executing Logos before Magneto stops him. Logos does brag of the pharaoh's imminent acquisition of a power left behind in a temple by lost beings from the stars, power such that it will turn Rama-Tut into a god. Believing it could be the power the X-Men need to return home, Xavier finally reads Logos' mind, breaking through his psychic barriers in search of the location of the celestial temple.
Inside Logos' trippy-ass mindscape, Xavier hears Apocalypse's introductory dialogue from the '92 animated series repeated back to him, sees a moon that looks an awful lot like Onslaught's helmet, and senses a presence who declares that, in time, all will see that "he is where the end begins." He is then kicked out of Logos mind, and tells the X-Men he only knew pieces of the temple's location. He also credits the source of the presence he detected in Logos' mind to that temple.
Just then, Baal makes his move, revealing to Nur that the X-Men have been hoarding Rama-Tut's machines. It's enough to lead Nur to execute Logos and order his forces to attack the X-Men, at which point Bishop reveals himself hiding amongst the Sandstormers, and helps the X-Men fight back. He gives them time traveling bracelet dealies and tells them they need to get back to their own time. But a tracker inside Logos, activated by his death, alerts Rama-Tut to their location, and he triggers a massive blast of energy that burns its way into En Sabah Nur's base, hitting the young mutant and triggering an enormous explosion.
Recommended Reading
Rise of Apocalypse #1-4 by Terry Kavanagh & Adam Pollina
Much of the aesthetics and supporting characters, including Baal and General Logos, in this episode come from this later 1996 miniseries chronicling Apocalypse's rise from an abandoned infant in Ancient Egypt to the inheritor of a massive cosmic power which he uses to topple an Empire. The quirky, languid art from Adam Pollina is a highlight, enhancing both the "alien-ness" of young Apocalypse's appearance and the casual disdain and arrogance of the Egyptian power players.
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