The final arc of X-Men ’97 is upon us and has brought us a lot of answers, like who is behind the attacks on mutants and why he is so determined to hurt them. It isn’t a great revelation, because we know the power that Bastion has.
Throughout the first part of the show’s three-part finale, “Tolerance Is Extinction – Part 1,” one thing became glaringly obvious: Magneto was right. For a lot of the run of the X-Men, Magneto has stated that human kind and mutants cannot coexist. It is why a place like Genosha was so special to Magneto and the mutants. For most of the first season of X-Men ’97, we have seen Magneto trying to live by Charles Xavier’s rules and trying to believe that the X-Men can (and will) live alongside the humans they protect.
“Tolerance Is Extinction” has shown that it doesn’t seem possible. People like Bastion will always be there to destroy what the mutants have built because they are different. For all his years of telling Charles that his dream of seeing the X-Men coexist can never happen, it is looking like mutant dominance isn’t that far off from what the X-Men need to do.
Yes, Magneto has been drastic with his vision, but like any “BLANK was right” phrase, it isn’t necessarily about fully supporting their beliefs. It is recognizing that their concerns were valid, even if the actions they took weren’t always the right response. In Magneto’s case, he was unfortunately right that certain subsets of humanity were not going to allow mutants to exist peacefully.
This line has popped up before in the X-Men fandom, even appearing on a t-shirt in the comics as far back as 2003, and now it’s made its way into X-Men ’97.
Valerie Cooper even knows it
The end of the episode took a turn when Valerie Cooper, the National Security officer who dealt with mutant affairs, agreed with the sentiment. She said that Magneto was right after having preached for years about Charles Xavier’s plea for his X-Men and humanity.
To see someone with power recognizing that Magneto was right all along and freeing him from Bastion’s cage? It shows that while maybe human eradication isn’t the best solution, Magneto was right about what humans would do to fight back and try to destroy the X-Men.
So, is Magneto right? Was all his preaching about humanity falling on ears that should have listened? We will soon find out because the end of the episode featured Magneto starting a war (and honestly, rightfully so) against people like Bastion and his sentinels.
(featured image: Disney+)
