Today's episode of X-Men '97 features two stories: "Motendo" and "Lifedeath." The former sees Jubilee and Sunspot transported into a video game by the villainous Mojo, an iconic X-Men villain who puts both heroes through their paces on Jubilee's 18th birthday.
After being forced to revisit past battles, Jubilee receives a helping hand from her digital doppelganger, Abscicca. Holly Chou voices the mutant in this X-Men: The Animated Series follow-up, but the original Jubilee - Alyson Court - returns to the franchise as this older version.
With several helping hands from Spiral, Jubilee and Sunspot escape Mojo's video game reality and return to the X-Mansion where they share a kiss, leading to even more romantic tension (earlier in the episode, Gambit's jealousy over Rogue and Magneto's continued flirtation is apparent).
In "Lifedeath," we catch up with Storm as she works with Forge to restore her powers. We learn that he was once a member of X-Factor and that he helped the government create technology to control dangerous mutants.
He regrets his past actions and confesses his love to Storm, only for her to angrily reject him.
Later, she has a bizarre vision which culminates in her and Forge being attacked by Adversary, a villain who, in the comics, was an ancient mystical entity, possibly demonic in nature, and sought to destroy the universe to create a new one in its stead. The Cheyenne also referred to the Adversary as the Great Trickster and Forge was trained from birth to combat it.
Could this demon be what leads to Storm regaining her abilities? We won't find out next week as the second part of "Lifedeath" isn't set to air until April 17. Next week, we anticipate catching up with Cyclops and Jean Grey after the real deal returned ast week and revealed the team had been spending time with a clone created by Mister Sinister.
In our review of the show's first three episodes last month, we concluded by saying, "A triumphant return for X-Men: The Animated Series, X-Men '97 is an eXtraordinary epic which, while a little overreliant on nostalgia, should satisfy fans of the original show and serve as an eXcellent entry poin
X-Men '97 revisits the iconic era of the 1990s as The X-Men, a band of mutants who use their uncanny gifts to protect a world that hates and fears them, are challenged like never before, forced to face a dangerous and unexpected new future.
The first four episodes of X-Men '97 are now streaming on Disney+ with new instalments following weekly.