The Mutant Ages

Mr. Sinister is a bad, bad man. X-Men: The Animated Series sure did remind us of that in "Descent," a truly disturbing origin story about our favorite villain. Apparently, he tortures homeless mutants (typical), works with Jack the Ripper (what, what??), and invents sunglasses. Okay, that third thing was more cool than scary, but still. Ryan and Maddy get pretty deep in to analyzing potential quee...

Remember when Wolverine fought in World War II along with Captain America and punched out a bunch of Nazis? Well, Logan remembers, even though his Weapon X amnesia should not allow for that. Apparently, an affair with Steve Rogers in Paris is too romantic and too powerful for anybody to forget. This episode is very gay. We enjoyed it, even if it could've gone a bit deeper on its politics, but hey....

Remember Fabian Cortez? It's been a while. The last time Ryan and Maddy saw him on X-Men: The Animated Series, he had just failed an attempted coup against Magneto and gotten kidnapped by Apocalypse. Now Fabian Cortez is in South America, convincing native people to worship the mutant-god villain that Maddy and Ryan love to hate. Jubilee and Beast run afoul of Fabian and Apocalypse's plans in this...

Up top, Maddy and Ryan want to encourage their listeners to donate to bail funds and other methods of supporting the protests against racist police brutality (https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co) and also to remind any listeners participating in these protests of their rights (https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights). Now it's time to talk about the much-maligned "Jubilee's Fairy Ta...

Ryan and Maddy do a big listener mail episode to catch up on voicemails, emails, and comments from you lovely Mutant Ages listeners. The most important part of this episode is the listener question that sparks us to tell the story of teenaged Ryan meeting Hugh Jackman, and also teenaged Ryan coming out of the closet. That's all one story, by the way. Next week's episode: "Jubilee's Fairytale Theat...

In the second half of X-Men: The Animated Series "Storm Front" two-parter, Ryan and Maddy decide they like this storyline after all, because Storm finally gets to turn the tables on the abusive tyrant Arkon and fling some tornadoes around. Plus, Logan and Jubilee get some great moments in which both of them stand by their friend in their own ways as she works through her feelings. Ryan and Maddy r...

No one should kidnap Storm, but for some reason, that's what happens in "Storm Front," the latest two-parter in X-Men: The Animated Series. Luckily, Jubilee and Logan are amazing in this episode, but it doesn't really make up for the fact that we have to watch some random alien guy treat Storm like crap. She better kick his ass in the second half of this two-parter. Or else!! Next week's episode:...

This week, we watched one of Ryan's favorite X-Men: The Animated Series episodes, and we're delighted to discover how well it holds up. It's Halloween night and one of Wolverine's boyfriends shows up at the door: Nightcrawler! With the help of Rogue and Jubilee, Logan and Kurt have to go save Nightcrawler's mother from the Friends of Humanity. Also, it turns out Nightcrawler's mother is also Rogue...

If Mojo knew about The Mutant Ages, he would make sure we were canceled. Or he'd force us to pivot into a battle royale. Luckily, he has no idea! Unluckily, we had to watch "Longshot," a very uneven episode about the Mojoverse. Longshot crash-lands in Jubilee's car and has amnesia (of course), and then he falls in love with Wolverine all over again. Beast and Rogue have to put up with everyone's b...

Let's go back in time to season three of X-Men: The Animated Series, when Jean was way off in the universe somewhere protecting the M'Kraan Crystal. In this episode, Scott decides to quit the X-Men and go on a personal journey, revisiting the orphanage where he grew up. "No Mutant Is An Island" is definitely out of sequence, but it originally aired as part of season five, so that's when we're watc...

You know who Maddy and Ryan forgot about? Omega Red. The communist tentacle cyborg has returned to remind us that people used to spend a lot of time thinking about Soviet Union submarines armed with nuclear weapons. The prospect of nuclear war is still scary even now, but this episode isn't. Omega Red and Wolverine tie each other up in bondage, and in the background, Storm and Rogue have to do all...

Here's a first: the second half of a two-parter in X-Men: The Animated Series gets just as rave of a review from Maddy and Ryan as the first half. Thank goodness for that, because "Phalanx Covenant" tells the story of a terrifying virus sweeping over the entire planet, and if this episode was either bad or a downer, we're not sure our poor stressed hearts could take it. Luckily it's got just the r...

The season five premiere of X-Men: The Animated Series is all about a virus that takes over the planet in a terrifyingly short amount of time. Ryan and Maddy didn't plan to talk about covid-19 this week, but now we kind of have to. But don't worry! Even in the midst of a crisis, Logan is still madly in love with Sabretooth, and Beast is fed up with that bullshit and making a new alien BFF. Also, M...

This week, we watched Generation X, a made-for-TV movie about Emma Frost being amazing and also a bunch of other bullshit. This movie is obscure, and it probably should be. Maddy and Ryan brought Todd Harper back on as a guest for an hours-long breakdown of this very silly movie, complete with our Irish accents (apologies to Sean Cassidy) and tons of reminiscing about the '90s. Ahhh, what a time....

Maddy and Ryan wrap up the fourth season of X-Men: The Animated Series with this acid trip of an episode, in which Magneto finds out that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are his kids, but also the ThunderCats are there. And they're mad. And then there's a UFO? Wolverine hides behind a tree and live-tweets the whole thing for Beast and Xavier's benefit. If you think this description of the episode is...

For a Xavier-centric episode of X-Men: The Animated Series, Maddy and Ryan actually had a pretty good time with this one. We would've enjoyed it even more if we'd been high, but the animation is gorgeous even if you're not. If you're watching along with us, strap in for some Shadow King illusions and astral plane fights. Jean screams. A lot. Also, Logan keeps having "nightmares" about Sabretooth....

This episode of X-Men: The Animated Series makes no sense, to the point where most of the recap section of this episode is Maddy and Ryan just debating what literally happened in each of the scenes they have to summarize. "Secrets, Not Long Buried" features Cyclops going to a secret mutant town in the middle of the desert and getting fucked by a bunch of cowboys, but somehow, it also manages to be...

Logan's in a whale! Maddy and Ryan were very punchy while recording this episode because it was late at night. We somehow manage to straddle the line between silly and serious, talking about how Logan's in a whale (no, really, he's inside of a whale for most of this episode) and also about how this episode depicts an abusive relationship between Rogue and her long-lost boyfriend Cody. Also, this e...

Would it shock you to learn that "Lotus and the Steel" is full of over-the-top Japanese accents and stereotypical storylines? Maddy and Ryan weren't shocked. We've seen X-Men: The Animated Series before. And we know how this works: Wolverine is going to leave the state of New York only to find that the entire rest of the planet is rife with helpless peasants who desperately need his help. We were...

Maddy and Ryan return with a very special listener mail episode focused around a long email we received from a level designer for the Quake conversion game Ravages of the Apocalypse, which The Mutant Ages hosts have been playing on our YouTube channel (youtube.com/themutantages). Join us as we reflect back on what video games and the modding community were like in the late '90s, and also learn a l...

Finally, an X-Men: The Animated Series episode that does right by the Morlocks. It just so happens to be a Christmas special. Ryan is obsessed with all Christmas specials, so he's on board by default, but Maddy also liked this one since it does the classic X-Men: The Animated Series move of mixing levity with intense political commentary. X-Men Spotlight: Leech! Also Morph? Not really. E-mail us y...

After the dark themes in "Sanctuary Part 1," Maddy and Ryan were expecting more political commentary in "Sanctuary Part 2," and it delivers. But we weren't expecting this episode to be so hilarious, and also so... horny? And it's not just our imagination! Although we do realize that's what we do on this show. This episode is an example of X-Men: The Animated Series doing what it does best; it's go...

"Sanctuary: Part 1" is a very serious episode of X-Men: The Animated Series, so our politics section gets quite serious as a result. Would Maddy and Ryan go to the queer version of Asteroid M, if it existed? That depends on whether it's founded by someone we like as much as we like Magneto. This episode also contains a very lengthy digression about D-Men (if you don't know what that is, you're goi...

Somehow, Ryan and Maddy survived watching all four parts of X-Men: The Animated Series' four parter, "Beyond Good and Evil," and all of the Apocalypse monologues that entails. Their reward? The fourth part contains a lot of bad-ass Magneto moments. Except there's also Apocalypse doing a PowerPoint presentation about the nature of time and space. Can't win 'em all. X-Men Spotlight: There isn't one!...

Ryan and Maddy have grown weary of watching X-Men: The Animated Series' four-part chunk of episodes all about Apocalypse's convoluted time travel plan, but at least now they're 75% of the way through it. Part 3 isn't any better than Parts 1 and 2, but we do have a pretty great time mocking it, and Cable's got some great lines in this episode. We also get some great listener emails this week, inclu...