Seeing your favorite heroes working side by side is what makes a team like the X-Men so special. Whenever a pairing that you don’t often get to see works together, it can make you feel like cheering and jumping up and down.
Or at least that’s what happened when I watched X-Men ’97 season 1, episode 8: “Tolerance Is Extinction – Part 1.” I am someone who loves Wolverine and Nightcrawler very deeply. They are two of my favorite comic characters, and I love getting to see them take on the bad guys of the world. What I wasn’t expecting with X-Men ’97 was for the two of them to tag-team fight.
When the human sentinels are activated by Bastion and coming after the mutants, Wolverine’s first move is to go and protect Rogue (who is lying in bed, healing). When they say, “Why resist the inevitable?” to Logan, he responds by saying, “Lady, I have six reasons why.” He is, of course, referring to his adamantium claws. But right when you think that Logan is going to try to take all this on by himself, it gets even better!
“No, my friend. Nine,” Kurt says, and the two begin fighting back to back against the human sentinels. Even as the sentinels put themselves back together, watching these two take them on as a team was something I wasn’t expecting and yet everything I wanted out of this series.
Would watch Wolverine and Nightcrawler forever!
The joy of the X-Men is that you never quite know who is going to be a team for whatever adventure. I love when Kurt gets to play with the group, and in this episode, we even heard him talk about his mother, Mystique—which is even more special when you realize that he is protecting Rogue (who was found by Mystique) in that moment.
Look, I think seeing either of these characters fighting would have made me happy. But getting to see Wolverine and Nightcrawler use both of their skills to their advantage just made me so happy. Is this maybe the best tag-team to ever exist on the team? I think so. They’re two people who are just incredibly skilled fighters who use their mutant abilities in a way that always make me cheer.
That’s the gift that the team always gives to us. Seeing the Summers family working as a unit was also pretty amazing. Magneto channeling the same energy that his daughter, Wanda Maximoff, can have? Perfection! But seeing my boys fight back against the sentinels was just so amazing.
(featured image: Disney+)
