Official Wolverine and The X-men, Episode 4, "Overflow" Discussion

[TheVileOne]

I hope we see more stuff like

Spoiler

Wolverine being humorously cruel to Forge.

 

[Ziggyman]

Congrats on 18,000 Vile...

You sure do love 'em spoiler tags!

 

[Dread]

As always, Heavy Spoilers. I'll add tags when I get more specific.

Before I get overly critical of this episode, it should be noted that while the story is fairly typical for long-term X-Men fans, it basically is a better version of "Whatever It Takes", an episode from 1993's second season of X-MEN, which had Storm (and Rogue) confront Shadow King in Africa. That episode revealed a bit about her origin in flashbacks and had her confront the psychic villain for the fate of a godson that she loved, who was introduced for this series. "Overflow" is basically WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN's more modern attempt at a similar episode. The plot is similar and in a way, so is the resolution. However, from animation to plot to animation, "Overflow" is the better episode in every way. It benefited from 14 years of hindsight.

Spoiler

Logan is awakened at night by Xavier's psychic voice. While their mentor is in a coma, his Future Version is able to communicate with Logan once he moves closer. I am curious whether Xavier's incapacitation is related to his Future self. At the very least, having the "Younger" version of himself in the Mansion likely acts as a "psychic anchor" for Future Xavier to send his mental messages from 20 years in the future. But now I'm getting deep into babble. Future Xavier warns Logan of an event in Africa that causes catastrophic destruction, which is caused by Storm herself. Logan doesn't believe it and immediately sets out to ensure that it doesn't happen.

Last episode, I commented about how I disliked how Future Xavier is used as a big, fat spoon to feed in some of the issues that the series needs. This episodes continues that in a more episodic sense, and I still don't like it. If all Logan needs to be leader is a Future Xavier telling him exactly what has to be done to prevent his dark future, then why exactly is Logan needed? Couldn't any X-Man in a similar circumstance produce similar results, such as Beast? The show needs to do more to show why Logan, distinctly, SHOULD be leader if they really want to work with the concept. The pilot was good for that because the idea of breaking into a federal facility to free folks the government deems "suspects" is exactly the sort of thing Logan would relish. But if it's just going to be, "do what Future Xavier says", then it will be more episodic and simplistic than it has to be, or should be. It makes Logan seem like he can't do anything without Xavier leading his hand. Time Travel is often used as plot convenience by writers and it would be a shame if it was being used that way here. A minor rewrite could have had the X-Men discover the situation themselves.

Emma Frost is spying on the psychic conversation, which Wolverine doesn't like. He doesn't trust her and they get into an argument over trust and manipulation. Of course, Frost is an odd character because while she is clearly manipulating them to her own ends, she does genuinely care about the cause as a whole, at least from her own perspective. Logan, of course, rightly doesn't like being "used", especially with his background. The Frost/Logan dynamic is one of those cases where you have two characters who by their composition are due to conflict, and when they do so, it can be interesting to watch and can make for some good scenes.

Cyclops, on the other hand, is a vacuum. He's still just "there", a hollow empty presence who barely gets in 1 line per episode, let alone two. Colossus spoke for one scene in one episode and probably got as many lines as Scott has in four. He's "Emo-clops" and it isn't very interesting. All he exists to do is give an occasional optic blast or have some other character go, "gosh, Scott is down". In this case, that other character is Kitty, who is surprised that Scott is lounging in his room when word of Ororo's distress is discovered, citing, "The Cyclops I knew would be the first one in the Blackbird" to Iceman. Instead, he is now the last. Now I know TheVileOne will go on and on about how this is a perfect comic translation, blah blah blah...I am just saying it could be written in a way in which Scott isn't so wooden and so boring to watch. It reminds me of X-23; she had a perfectly good reason to be a boring character (she was literally programmed to have no personality besides being aggressive), but that doesn't change the fact that she was boring, at least in EVOLUTION. There are ways to portray grief or a loss of purpose without just having Cyclops sit in the background with a frown, doing and saying nothing.

Now, I am no fool. I expect a VERY SPECIAL EPISODE at some point where Cyclops is motivated to maybe have a whole 3-4 lines in a row or do something dramatic. It will probably involve Frost, Jean, Xavier, or all three. That still doesn't excuse or explain why Scott has to almost be a non-character NOW. There are better ways to write this, and build to this.

The episode's comedic moment is when Forge has just finished fixing and cleaning the Blackbird when the X-Men need it for a mission again; Logan appears to take pleasure in scratching it to "ease" Forge. Now, Forge is also coming off as a cliche'; he is the stock tech/mechanic guy. Granted, this doesn't deeply offend me because I've never been fond of Forge. Teams always have this sort of character (even BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES had a mechanic for the Batmobile, although he sadly wasn't added to the main cast), and if anyone is going to serve that role for the X-Men, it may as well be Forge. It still seems a bit stock, and if I wasn't an X-Men Fan, I might wonder if he was actually a mutant or if he was just a human with a cybernetic leg, because his powers haven't been explained or defined. Logan comes off as a jerk in this sequence, but that doesn't bother me either; once upon a time in the comics, Wolverine WAS known for being a jerk. It offered a break from the "Grandpa X-Man" role the show is hammering into us. Still, it was more like a "ribbing of a kid-teammate" than something malicious.

Shadow King is naturally a body-swapping psychic villain whose has to inhibit hosts to survive, whose ambition is to claim ownership of Storm. Chris Claremont and other writers have turned this plot into an overdone hack sequence, but that still doesn't mean it is unworthy of animation, I suppose. I've not been Storm's biggest fan, and I see Shadow King as cliche himself, as no end of stories and movies have been told with similar villains. I'd rather see Mojo than Shadow King, frankly. Still, the introduction sequence where a Good Samaritan trying to help a man stuck in the desert, only to become the King's next host (as that man is presumably left dead or dying behind him) was a good scene to showcase the nature of the power and the cruelty of the villain. I may not like Shadow King, but there's little doubt that W&TXM has given us the best version ever put to another medium.

Shadow King of course gets to Storm, who is begrudgingly accepting gifts from grateful African citizens for her efforts. It is implied, but not outright said, that Storm has been in Africa for a year and has been using her powers to benefit the region. She is uncomfortable in the role as "worshiped being" as she of course is being altruistic and doesn't seek reward. In a flashback sequence, her past as a street thief who once was practically "owned" by Shadow King before being rescued by Xavier is done very well; like I said, this is basically "Whatever it Takes" done better, and this flashback is no better. While Shadow King seems unable to completely "possess" Ororo, he psychically tricks her into destroying Africa by making her believe he is burning it, so she floods it.

The action is typical weather-fighting stuff for a while. I almost felt sorry for Forge when the X-Men make a water-landing with the Blackbird and Cyke has to blast a hole into the hull (which at least meant the past scene worked). Storm's weather gets worse and the wind/hail begin to overwhelm Iceman, Beast, and Shadowcat. Frost chooses a convenient time to display her diamond ability, and it works a lot better in a world where this wasn't an awkwardly explained "secondary mutation" as it was in the comics. I have to admit, a bit where Wolverine and Cyclops slice & blast at ice-shards that blow at them probably looked better in storyboards than animation, where it almost looks like they're hacking at the rain.

Emma Frost suggests that Cyclops blasts Storm out of the sky and end it. Scott almost shows emotion at balking at blasting a comrade (someone might note he was hardly apologetic when he blasted Wolverine in episode 2). But of course this would mean that Wolverine can't do something cool in an episode where by design, he can't beat the villain himself. So they have this awkward sequence where Wolverine climbs a mountain, Cyke blasts him to get him aloft, and he grabs Storm. It seemed artificially built to cater to Wolverine. Cyclops can control his blasts so they aren't lethal. He could have blasted her, and had Logan catch her. But that would make Logan appear secondary, and he's the star of the show; he NEEDS a lot of the dramatic action. These sorts of situations, where things are clearly catered to Wolverine, need to be smoothed over so they seem more organic.

The rest of the episode goes as anyone could predict. Emma Frost engages in a psychic duel against Shadow King, and prevails despite being of lessor power, risking her life. She thus "earns", or starts to, respect from Wolverine. The psychic fight is basically a typical thing in animation; "clear" character models engaging in melee combat. It does done rather well, though; better than such scenes were done in the 90's, or in EVOLUTION. Watching Shadow King get sliced in two and then explode was pretty cool.

Naturally, Storm returns to the X-Men at the end. I am just curious how this effects Future Xavier's time-line.

The animation is fine and the voice actress for Storm does a good job. It is a bit more of a formulaic team episode and one most X-Men fans can predict from the opening credits.

But, when THE BATMAN was running new episodes, I would often criticize that show for, instead of finding the few areas where B:TAS failed to do well and use those to define itself, it picked areas that had been done better and couldn't improve on them. W&TXM, at the very least, have chosen an episode and plot idea that previously had not been done as well (or at all) by both prior X-cartoons. If you're not a Storm fan, it may seem slow, but was otherwise a decent episode. The show still has some flaws and kinks to work out; hopefully they succeed in shrugging them. There's potential here; there always is with a lot of shows. The trick is to capitalize on it and use it wisely.

 

[JP]

This show actually makes me hate Emma even more then I already do.

 

[Phoenix_Flare]

Good epi.!!! They actually showed Storm as the goddess she is!!! and the voice/accent is spot on...if they do an X4 take note!!!! LOL

 

[Angamb]

This show actually makes me hate Emma even more then I already do.

why you hate her?

 

[Cyma]

Spoiler

Nice to establish Emma's diamond form and keeping with the fact that she loses her telepathy when in it. No doubt this will come into play later.

Really hoping for an incident like the one in [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]NXM #139[/FONT] happening in the future season

 

[the a1ant]

Emma was really bad a$$ in this episode. I love all they're doing with her so far.

I'm also glad Storm is back with the team. This was a great Storm/Shadow King episode.

 

[Angamb]

seen it again.

What I liked the most of this chapter was the interaction between Emma and Logan.

I think it is excelent, and one of the best relationships in this series.

 

[TheVileOne]

I definitely agree Angamb. One reason I really like it is because this is basically a relationship that the comics generally never touches.

Usually it's Emma making some derogatory insults or comments about Logan. Or during Civil War when Cyclops and Emma are chastizing Logan about hunting Nitro, and Logan goes in detail about how much of a **** Emma is by airing alot of her dirty laundry.

This series does much more interesting things with the characters than I believe the comics do more often than not, even the better ones.

A show isn't going to just dump past writers' work or particular events like some comics tend to do.

 

[stillanerd]

Okay, just caught this episode and quite frankly, it was just okay. Not bad, but certainly not as good as the three-part series opener.

Spoiler

Dread touched on most of these points in his review but it does bare repeating. If the set-up for the show is to have Xavier communicate to Wolverine 20 years into the future to prevent certain calamities from taking place via, for lack of a better word, "psychic hotline" it does make Wolverine a bit of a tool, which is ironic because the character is someone who doesn't like being manipulated given his history. Likewise, why Wolverine, other than the obvious "he's the titular character of the series?" Also, wouldn't the X-Men changing the future result in Xavier not remembering the changes that take place in the future world? Heck, over in Heroes, we get a similair idea and their take is that trying to prevent a certain future from taking place makes things worse. But then again, shows built around time travel have always had these paradoxes.

I do like, however, how the interaction between Logan and Emma is shaping up. He doesn't trust her completely and knows she has another agenda, but at the same time Emma is also sincere in wanting to help the X-Men, so it makes for an interesting dynamic. Also, both of them have a lot more in common than they care to admit, being that they both come from shady beginnings and yet are trying to make admends. Wouldn't surprise me in the least if the shows creators make some kind of love/hate relationship between them. After all, Cyclops (even though he's the one who is having nookie with Emma on a regular basis in the comics) is behaving in classic "The love of my life is gone so I just don't give a damn" mode. Sure, Kitty tells us that Scott was once a go-getter "First one on the plane" type, but it's hard to think that given with how little he's done so far other than be emo and shoot his eye beams when told.

BTW, nice use of Emma Frost's diamond form and Logan's reaction.

Oh, and Forge is still acting like the resident "tech-geek," especially with that whole "OMG! I just fixed the Blackbird!" scene. Although Logan scratching the underbelly really did make him look like a dick--which was how Claremont portrayed him often enough--except he's supposed to be the leader. Yeah, way to show off those "leadership" qualities to inspire loyalty to from your subordinates there, Logan.

Storm seemed fitting in this episode, and we get an idea that, even though worshiped as all but a diety by her grateful African subjects (which country in Africa is another question entirely) and that she doesn't consider herself above them. Although, considering how this episode establishes that her weather controlling powers are capable of destroying an entire contentient, one would think the other X-Men would be window dressing if they ever had to go up against evil mutants, Sentinels, and Magneto, but that's a flaw in the source material, I guess.

Likewise, the Shadow King was pretty good, although the whole business of him swapping bodies to get closer to Storm reminded me way too much of that scene in Fallen, in which the demon keeps transfering itself to other people while taking to Denzel Washington. Yeah, I know it's the Shadow King's power and that he's a telepath, but it was getting excessive with the whole transference scenes where he makes his way from one host to another.

But the last couple of minutes just seemed a little bit much. First, in order to stop Storm, instead of going with the most obvious suggestion made by Frost to have Cyclops hit Storm with his eye beams (he can control the intensity of the blasts so it's very likely he wouldn't have killed her) Wolverine comes up with a watered down version of the "fastball special" in which he climbs up a cliff, jumps off and has Cyclops blast him in the back to propell him forward. Umm, yeah.

Oh, and then, after finding out from Emma that Shadow King is influencing Ororo's mind and that he's too powerful for Emma to fight against telepathically, what happens? Why, the Shadow King, having weakened Ororo to the point where he has to go into Logan, gets cold cocked by Emma after she uses her astral form to tackle him, ensuing a psychic battle that mostly consists of Emma's and Shadow King's arms morphing into weapons. Didn't we just establish that he's too powerful for Emma to take on? And how the hell can the other X-Men see incorporal psychic manifestations? I thought astral forms, by definition, were invisible (but then again, Dr. Strange's astral form can be see by people with psychic powers aparently as well)? And there's no one else close enough for the Shadow King to possess so he gets weaker? What about all the villiagers hiding in the trees to escape the flooding? Aren't they still around? And wouldn't the same weakness apply to Emma since she too has been out of her own body for as long as Shadow King has and is supposed to be weaker than he is? Yeah, I know it's a cartoon based off of a comic book series, but you think the writers of the show could have come up with something that would have been a little more logical and still showed Emma as a bad ass telepath.

All in all, I'd say this was the weakest episode so far, but still, it's only the fourth episode, so I'll cut it a little slack. Hopefully, the next one will be a step up.

 

[Rincewind]

Spoiler

And there's no one else close enough for the Shadow King to possess so he gets weaker? What about all the villiagers hiding in the trees to escape the flooding? Aren't they still around? And wouldn't the same weakness apply to Emma since she too has been out of her own body for as long as Shadow King has and is supposed to be weaker than he is?

Spoiler

I think it's because the Shadow King didn't have body at all. I mean, it was mentioned that his physical form was destroyed already, so the only thing that was left to him was his spirit transfering itself into various hosts. So, without a host to take like a new body, he's what, dead? Emma had her body alive and well functional, and it may have been like a... returning point, if you like, while the Shadow King had nothing.
At least that's how I explain it, it can be a plot hole just like you say.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Spoiler

Didn't we just establish that he's too powerful for Emma to take on?

[blackout]She seemed to get him in transit between Storm and Wolverine, and I'm guessing he's meant to be less powerful outside of a human host.[/blackout]

 

[Primal Slayer]

It was an ok episode but not that great. Apart from the Emma/Logan interaction and seeing Storm again I wasnt as interested in this episode as the first three. While Storms VA brings something different to Storm that we havent had in a long time (if ever) it seemed a bit forced but I imagine that she will grow into it.

 

[Angamb]

I think from the 21 episodes I've seen this one was the poorest, yes.

but what is VA, primal¿?

 

[Primal Slayer]

Voice Actress

 

[YoungE808]

^ Yea I loved that part. I love that you can sorta see Cyke and Emma getting close. He was helping her and what not. I wanna see Cyke take off the visors and go full power with his optic blasts.

 

[Superhero 101]

So Do Nightcrawler and Colossus get there own eps and then join the X-men?

 

[Ziggyman]

So Do Nightcrawler and Colossus get there own eps and then join the X-men?

Possibly...!

 

[usagicassidy]

Yeah, I don't know whats coming up in the next handful of episodes (DONT TELL ME), but I feel like this episode would've been better suited for episode 6 or 7 or something. I think the series needed to keep rolling in momentum in MRD issues, rebuilding the mansion, Rogue and the brotherhood, etc., BEFORE they start going to different global locations/alternate timelines/the future/etc.

 

[Neto Magnus]

yea i love how each character gets a centric episode like Lost. I hope soon we see what Xavier is up to in the future.

 

[Jango X]

Emma was losing the battle until the Shadow King became weakened because he didnt have a host body. They did explain it, it isnt a plothole.

 

[Ratcrawler]

Overall, a great way to get Storm back. It played with both her urchin/goddess origins. It reminded me of the season 1 episodes of Evo where they went out and recruited there central teammates. All the characters were handled well.

That was pretty bad ass!

Not really. Just dickish. I imagine in a future episode, Logan will steal Forge's lunch money & give him swirlies.

This show actually makes me hate Emma even more then I already do.

You're gonna hate her a LOT more if...

Spoiler

you're a Psylocke fan.

So Do Nightcrawler and Colossus get there own eps and then join the X-men?

Nightcrawler gets some AWESOME ones.

 

[04nbod]

This show actually makes me hate Emma even more then I already do.

same for me. It also ups my hatred of kitty and her whiny ways. I preferred evo so much to this.

 

[usagicassidy]

Ratcrawler....I'm guessing you've seen a lot of if not all of the show...was wondering how much of the series Psylocke is in? One episode? Two? More? Feel free to put it in spoilers if you want - also, I kinda just wanna know how much and not to what extent. Like if she isn't an ally or has an altered origin or dies or any of that kind of stuff, I don't want to know about. Thanks!