"X23"
Writers: Chris Yost and Craig Kyle
Director: Curt Geda
Original Air Date: August 2, 2003
Introducing: X23
Synopsis/Review: This episode begins
with a masked figure (who, for simplicity's sake, I'll just reveal to you
now is X23) breaking into S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. She accesses their
files and finds out where Wolverine is before she leaves, even though a
bunch of agents try to stop her.
The next day, at the
Mansion, Wolverine is putting the New Mutants through a super-hard training
session- so hard that none of them make it through. Logan is unimpressed.
Back in the Mansion,
Xavier tells Rogue that according to testing, she's fully recovered now.
Rogue says that she feels mostly better, but she still isn't ready to be
around a lot of people yet. Xavier responds that he's SURE that it doesn't
have anything to do with Logan's sessions...
Back outside, a S.H.I.E.L.D.
helicopter lands and waits for Logan. Apparently, they called in ahead
of time, wanting to see him, so Logan enters the helicopter and it takes
off. Beast is left with the kids to finish up the training session, and
he's much easier on them.
Back at S.H.I.E.L.D.
headquarters, Fury asks Logan what the heck's going on. The person who
broke in there last night had his claws and they found his DNA on the scene.
Logan insists that he knows nothing, and Fury knows him well enough to
believe him. But they did find someone who knows what's going on- a female
doctor who used to be involved in a rogue scientific agency called HYDRA.
The doctor explains X23's background- how she was cloned from Wolverine
after 22 failed attempts, and she essentially had no life outside of training
sessions. But she wasn't completely cloned- she had some modifications
made, as you can obviously tell by looking at her. (One is apparently super-jumping
ability- she can jump nearly as high as Toad!) Thing was, the modifications
made her strangely volatile, even though they tried to do away with emotion.
Although they tried to get her to blend in with society, whenever she saw
families having fun with their kids, she'd act up. She eventually went
rogue, and that brings us to where we are today. The doctor says she came
to S.H.I.E.L.D. because she was ashamed of what she had done to this child,
and she wanted to try to set things right.
Back at the Institute,
X23 is watching Beast have fun with the kids during the training session.
She's about to strike out when Beast ends the training session, forcing
her to wait until a better opportunity.
That night, X23 continues
to watch what the X-Men are doing through different windows, and eventually
all the fun they're having together gets to her. Xavier is wheeling down
a hallway when he hears a child crying in an adjacent room, so he enters.
There is X23, head down on a table, weeping. Xavier, confused, comes up
to her and asks her gently who she is. X23 looks up, composes herself,
and quickly throws a doo-hicky on Xavier's forehead. The thing shocks Xavier
into unconsciousness.
Now, with some accompanying
(and KICKIN') background music, X23 takes out the rest of the X-Men in
the Mansion one by one, until all that are left are Rogue, Cyclops, and
Berzerker. Berzerker is about to try to remove one of the shocking devices
from Xavier's forehead, but Logan comes in the door at this time, and tells
him not to take it off- they're wired to explode. Wolverine himself has
been given a mission by Nick Fury to capture X23 within the hour or S.H.I.E.L.D.
is coming in, and they won't be gentle on her. Together, they all go to
seek out X23. However, X23 manages to carve a hole in the floor from the
level below, right below Logan, and he falls down there while X23 quickly
deals with the three teens. By the time Logan makes his way back up, they've
all been knocked/shocked out. A X23/Logan fight scene then begins, and
it moves out onto the front lawn. During the fight, we learn that X23 is
attacking Logan because this is HIS fault, HE did this to her. Logan insists
that he knows nothing, and then refuses to fight her any longer. She tries
to get him down, but can't, and eventually realizes that he's telling the
truth. She collapses into his arms amidst heavy sobbing- and about this
time, the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopters show up. Logan tells X23 to run away-
quickly- and she does, leaving Logan to tell Nick Fury to leave her, or
he'll MAKE Fury leave her. So Fury reluctantly relents.
The next morning, another
training session is about to start, with Logan as the trainer yet again.
So, of course, the New Mutants are bummed. Until Logan reveals that the
name of the game is Mutant Dodgeball! Xavier asks why Logan changed his
tactics so suddenly, and Logan responds that "Sometimes, you just got to
let kids be kids." End.
Last Words: Y'know, I have to admit, when I first heard about the premise of this episode, I wasn't too thrilled. It sounded like a bad fanfic. But, even though I'm still not crazy about the whole "cloning" thing- especially when it really didn't need to be done- it was pulled off rather well. And they never really explained how the shocker devices were taken off the rest of the X-Men. Such stuff being overlooked what were cost this rating a few points- but the fight scenes and accompanying music were REALLY awesome, so I had to throw in an extra point because of those.
Overall Rating: 9/10 Excellent
(NOTE: Although "X23" was aired as the tenth episode in Season 3, it is in actuality the eleventh.)
(Picture courtesy of Comicscontinuum.com)