“Tolerance is Extinction - Part 1” brings the fate of mutantkind with the X-Men desperate to stop Bastion! This is the first of three parts concluding X-Men `97. Re:cap - “Bright Eyes”; Rogue had been hunting Bolivar Trask. The X-Men are sent by Trask to the UN building in Madripoor. Rogue lets go of Trask at the edge of the building. He has been transformed into the Prime Sentinel and blasts her! Cable arrives to take out the Prime Sentinel. The mastermind behind it all is Bastion.
“Tolerance is Extinction - Part 1” is directed by Chase Conley. The writers arre Beau DeMayo and Anthony Sellitti. At the mansion grounds, Cable is using his rifle to target practice shooting bottles. Cyclops watches him from the window of Xavier’s office when Jean Grey enters. He says his son has been avoiding him. Scott struggled to give up baby Nathan and now finds himself estranged from him. Jean tells him that Bishop was separated from Cable in the time stream.
At the conference room, Cable reports to the rest of the X-Men about Bastion. He says the Prime Sentinels use the techno-organic virus that Mister Sinister used on him when he was an infant. Beast says this could lead to a new species that be dominant over mutants and humans. Cable says Bastion’s war took 300 years. We see Cable’s view of the future which he says is a utopia. Humans are upgraded, flying over a futuristic city, mutants are forced to be workers. They are all in green jumpsuits from the Days of Future Past storyline.
We see an older Polaris using her magnetic powers. Rachel Summers uses her powers to lift up girders for a bridge. Cable tried to stop Genosha many times, but was pulled away. Beast brings up Absolute Points that are unchangeable parts of the timeline. Jean realizes that Cable was the person that made Madelyne happy in her final moments. Cable says a rebel found one of Bastion’s bases. His cybernetic eye flares as he vows revenge on his mother’s killer. He doesn’t have too much information about Bastion and thinks he may be a “backup android” from Master Mold.
Jean breaks up the tension with Cyclops and Cable to show the newscast reporting on Charles Xavier! The anchor says that the X-Men faked his death and Henry Gyrich was murdered! The screen is slashed by Wolverine! They all know that Bastion has been setting up his endgame. An X class dissolve to New York. On television, William Stryker rants about the mutant conflict. Jubilee and Roberto are at a dinner party. Nina DaCosta is hosting her Genosha fundraiser.
Jubilee is upset at her and leaves with Roberto for “retail therapy”! At the X-Mansion, Jean and Nightcrawler are checking on Rogue, still unconscious. Jean thinks about Madelyne and her baby saying he is perfect, human or mutant. A family moment. I wonder if some reality show could cover the X-Men to see them as very much human. She says the memories are lies. Nightcrawler says he was abandoned by his mother, but met Rogue, Mystique’s adopted daughter, and they became family. Nightcrawler says, “Family is a choice.” The writing is just perfect.
The new “Blackbird” launches with Cable, Jean, and Cyclops, Beast directs them to the town of Harmony. There is a protest outside of the X-Mansion. Mister Sinister is at the laboratory looking at a screen. Valerie Cooper enters, her arm in a sling, I’m surprised she is a double agent. Mister Sinister wants to use Bastion for a number of mutant test subjects. Valerie goes up to Magneto strapped to an X, inhibitor collar with his gag.
We see the concentation camp tatoo on his arm. The reports come in about nations turning away Genoshan mutants. Valerie says she didn’t know, still she is complicit, then Magneto’s eyes open. At Beast’s lab, Trish Tilby has brought him cocoa, and tries to apologize. She notes the X-Men have captured a key figure for the Genosha attack. The Prime Sentinel, Bolivar Trask, is contained in a tube. She wonders about other Prime Sentinels. Beast activates a world map hologram and waits for the scan.
It is night when the team has reached a suburban row of houses. Jean realizes that this is the home of Bastion when he was a child. Cable sees a photo of Bastion as a child blowing out a birthday cake with his parents. They go to the next room where we see an elderly lady, the mother of Bastion, Rose (Kari Wahlgren) is sitting in a chair. Creepy. This makes me think of the old woman, Mrs. Kersh, in Stephen King’s IT.
She says her son had told her they would arrive the next day for her. The woman goes to pack and Jean goes into Bastion’s room seeing his drawings. She picks up one to see images of his past at school where he could hear machines. The DC hero, Ram, could listen to electonics. Bastion hears the voice of Master Mold saying he would be the most powerful mutant. Young Bastion runs out of class. Jean says his father, the janitor, was infected by “Sentinel technology” from the future. Nimrod! He was a powerful Sentinel from the future introduced in Uncanny X-Men #191 (1985).
Bastion pleads to his mother if he will be normal. Then, we see the face of Bastion. Jean explains that he comes from every Sentinel. Screens are activated at Bastion’s headquarters. Magneto is held captive there. Bastion says Gyrich made Xavier a martyr so he caused Genosha. On screen, Dr. Doom (Ross Marquand) says he is working with Bastion, but takes an “indifference” position with him.
Baron Zemo (Rama Vallury) says Bastion’s Sentinel program will be stopped by President Kelly and the X-Men. He is informed that Dr. Cooper has to stay with him to make certain his memos are released. Bastion takes Valerie on a tour. He says Genosha is “time management” with the number of mutants compared to humans. cold. He shows her the lab with Mister Sinister monitoring a man lowered into a tube. Operation Zero Tolerance, OZT! This was an X-Men crossover event that started with Cable #45 (1997). Three people are lowered into tubes with bubbling green liquid!
Bastion explains that they are the people displaced or angry at mutants. Valerie turns to see the Prime Sentinels in hospital gowns using their powers. Bastion didn’t fully explain what would happen to these volunteers to “Technopathic Augmentation.” Their memories of the process are wiped out to live as ordinary people. Bastion’s mother opens the door, she said Sebastian’s birth was difficult, then she shows them his last painting at age 16.
His mother says he called it, “The Final Dream” which has Master Mold. He is there with Prime Sentinels over a hellscape of suffering mutants, something out of Dante’s Inferno. Bastion should have gotten help very early on. Then, she starts snapping, twisting, transforming into a Prime Sentinel! Apparently Bastion didn’t care about his mother! At a mall changing room, Roberto waits as Jubilee tosses out clothes. She loves her new black outfit. Roberto’s butler, Ford, is a Prime Sentinel and tells them to surrender!
Trish asks Beast if the Prime Sentinels can be detected and he says not at an early point. Then, the hologram sounds an alert, Australia starts to light up! As a family watches television, the parents are transformed. Hank gives out his classic, “Oh my stars and garters” and is about to warn the others. His arm is twisted back by Trish Tilby, now a Prime Sentinel!, she punches him back. Then, she floats over and steps on Beast with her high heel.
Beast is hurtled though the wall crashing by Nightcrawler, Wolverine, and Morph. Wolverine pops his claws, but is blasted out of the X-Mansion by the Prime Sentinel! The burning house at Harmony, The Summers Trio are in a crater, Cyclops asks about Cable’s electromagnetic grenades. Then, the entire town rises as Prime Sentinels! They start to run, Cyclops blasts Bastion’s mother who forms a shield that blocks his optic blast. The Summers race to the Blackbird and immediately take off. A bit difficult to see any jet or spaceship take off in seconds, but ok.
Nightcrawler bamfs Beast away. Juggernaut(?) rises up to take on the Prime Sentinel. She tosses him into a teleported Nightcrawler! They shatter into Xavier’s office along with Morph. Jubilee and Roberto start to run from what she calls the “Sentinel zombie.”! They pass others who transform into Prime Sentinels and blast at them. One tackles Roberto to a bottom floor, but he unleashes his Sunspot power at him! He tells Jubilee to split up. Some of the protestors outside the X-Mansion turn into Prime Sentinels and launch into the sky!
The others run away. Xavier’s office starts to burn and we see the photo of the original X-Men. The Prime Sentinel turns to see Wolverine with his claws out! She grabs him and hurtles him into the sky. Wolverine jabs his claw into her, but then he is thrown down! Wolverine slashes the Prime Sentinels as he falls, full berserker mode. Logan is crashed down into the mansion by the Trish Sentinel. Rogue is safe, resting, but the glowing eyes of the Prime Sentinels are seen in the room! “Tolerance is Extinction - Part 1” has the X-Men outnumbered by endless Prime Sentinels that looks like their last stand!
Four Sentinel Blasters out of Five1
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