Books SFF Bestiary Large Happenings for a Small Mouse: Brian Jacques’ Redwall There are talking-animal epics, and then there’s Redwall. By Judith Tarr | Published on August 3, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share Brian Jacques’ Redwall was a publishing phenomenon from the very beginning. Jacques wrote it (by hand, 800 pages’ worth) for children at a school for the blind in Liverpool, showed it to a writer friend who passed it on to his own publisher, and even though the book was nearly twice as long as the usual chapter book in the early 1980s, the publisher offered him a five-book contract. The gamble paid off richly: 22 novels between 1986 and 2011, an animated television series, games, merch, picture books, cookbooks, all the trappings of a runaway success. It’s still in print and the series (originally aired from 1999 to 2002) is still streaming, though the heavily promoted Netflix film has, alas, been canceled. It all begins with the story of a mouse named Matthias, a brand-new novice in Redwall Abbey near the Mossflower Forest. There are no humans in this world. The peaceful brothers and sisters of Redwall are primarily mice, but they share the abbey and the forest with numerous woodland creatures: squirrels, moles, hedgehogs, voles, shrews, an indomitable badger, an intrepid hare, and various other animals and birds. They have enemies, too: rats, ferrets, stoats, foxes, and a terrifying snake named Asmodeus (“Asmodeussssssss….”). The first volume is epic in plot as well as length. Jacques was well read in classical literature as well as adventure fiction and children’s stories. Matthias is the chosen hero, the fated victor, avatar of the legendary Martin the Warrior, complete with quest to find Martin’s tomb and win his armor, shield, and sword. His fated enemy is the terrible Cluny the Scourge, the one-eyed rat who wields his tail like a bullwhip and tips it with a poisoned dart. Matthias and his friends are flawed and, dare I say it, human. They squabble, bicker, make mistakes. Sometimes they do bad things, either because they’re compelled or because they have good but misguided intentions. They grow and learn and change, and when they come into conflict with each other, they eventually shake paws and make up. Cluny and his mob of cutthroats have no redeeming features. Even when they pretend to be good, they’re plotting evil, sniggering at the well-intentioned fools who buy what they’re selling. There’s no kindness in them, no goodwill and no gratitude. They’re bad to the bone. In between the two are the aggressive and warlike sparrows. At the beginning they own the upper reaches of the abbey, beating off anyone who tries to invade their domain. It’s Matthias who turns these enemies into allies, first capturing a young warrior named Warbeak and later being captured in turn. The king of the sparrows, King Bull Sparra, is a winged version of Cluny, but without Cluny’s evil intelligence. He’s a tyrant and a megalomaniac. Unlike Cluny’s mob, however, sparrows as a species are basically good; the king’s sister Dunwing is Warbeak’s mother, and she’s a kind and sensible person who sees the good in Matthias and undertakes to help him and, eventually, save the abbey. The trope of the hero making allies among other species is just about obligatory in anthropomorphic-animal stories. Bambi does it. Mrs. Frisby does it. Tailchaser does it. In every case, the ally becomes indispensable. The victory can’t be won without them. The lesson each of these stories teaches is that the fated hero only succeeds with the help of his friends—the ones he’s had all along and the ones he makes along the way. The hero is the leader, and the ultimate responsibility falls on him. But his triumph is a communal effort. Matthias wears the panoply of the legendary hero. The hero comes to him in dreams to offer warnings and guidance. That’s magic in its way, but it’s up to him how he uses it. As the wise cat Squire Julian Gingivere says: There are very few such swords as this one left in the world, but remember, it is only a sword, Matthias! It contains no secret spell, nor holds within its blade any magical power. This sword is made for only one purpose, to kill. It will only be as good or evil as the one who wields it. It’s all about personal responsibility, about making the right choices. Strong stuff, and a powerful moral theme, but it’s told with sweep and vigor. It’s a grand adventure with a huge cast of characters. It can be ruthless: good characters don’t always make it, and bad ones do very, very bad things before they get their comeuppance. These animals are heavily anthropomorphic. They talk, of course. They walk on their hindlegs. From the evidence (and the animated series illustrates it), they have opposable thumbs as well as full color vision. They wear clothes and carry weapons. They eat and drink incredible, varied, delicious things, grown and harvested and cooked with loving care and in mouth-watering detail. Different species have different talents that correspond to their real-world versions. Moles are genius diggers and engineers. Otters are talented waterfolk and fishers. Constance the badger is a powerful fighter. Squirrels are champion climbers; shrews are hyperactive and quarrelsome. Foxes are clever and devious, rats are vicious fighters and killers, as are ferrets and stoats. The adder Asmodeus, also known as Poisonteeth, is wicked and horrible and evil and everything myth and legend makes a snake out to be (right down to the trail of slime—snakes are not slimy, not even slightly, but this is a fantasy snake, so…). Mice hold the good-guy side together. Redwall is a sanctuary, a place of healing and of peace. Its inhabitants only fight when forced to. Although Redwall is called an abbey and has an abbot, there’s no apparent religious component. No daily round of prayer and ritual, no altar or chapel, though there is stained glass. It’s about morality rather than dogma, history rather than scripture. The members of the community appear to be celibate; that’s hinted at in the end, when we learn what happens between Matthias and Cornflower. So why not tell it straight? Why mice? Why not tell the same story about an embattled abbey, a horde of ruffians, and, all right, some helpful animals and birds. Especially birds; in a medievalized setting, an air force is otherwise hard to explain. Maybe it’s because anthropomorphic animals let us see ourselves at a remove. We can indulge our biases, play on stereotypes, and examine complex moral issues. It’s the basis of the ancient and honorable beast fable, expanded and transformed into modern epic fantasy. There are other talking-animal epics, and many long-running fantasy series, but nothing else exactly like the Redwall cycle.[end-mark] The post Large Happenings for a Small Mouse: Brian Jacques’ <i>Redwall</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Books reading recommendations Five SF Works About Building a New Nation Sure, societal collapse is inherently dramatic — but nation-founding can be exciting too! By James Davis Nicoll | Published on August 3, 2026 Comment 4 Share New Share Nations have a natural progression from (presumably) optimistic formation to eventual collapse. Collapse has obvious dramatic potential (see here, here, and here for some examples); thus the many works set amid crumbling or recently expunged civilizations. However, the early days of new polities can be just as exciting. The first few volumes of Canada’s Hansard are one nail-biter after another! Not everyone has access to records of century-old Parliamentary debates to fill the quiet evening hours. Happily, authors have been happy to fill that gap with tales of young nations, some so young that technically they do not yet exist. Consider these five vintage examples of nation-founding tales. “The Inspector’s Teeth” by L. Sprague de Camp (1950) Relativistic travel, making for easy travel between the cluster of civilizations near Sol, could be a recipe for disaster. An Interplanetary Council aims to give the interstellar community a minimal bureaucracy that will draft and enforce a few necessary regulations, thus averting strife and war, and ensuring general prosperity. There is, of course, a catch. The Council requires its founders, all species sufficiently ambitious enough to have crawled out of the mud to reach the stars themselves, to set aside their personal ambitions in the name of an abstract greater good. Can human and alien agree on what this might be? The answer is found in a curious anecdote about an Osirian’s school days on Earth. To be honest, the Interplanetary Council isn’t exactly idealistic. Their main fear is that interstellar anarchy could lead to a space-Genghis Khan getting his grasping appendages on starships and nukes1. Still, the proposals are better than nothing. Luckily for the Council’s prospects, de Camp is in his “wacky college days” mode and not his considerably grimmer “Judgment Day” mood. Quatre Montréalais en l’an 3000 by Suzanne Martel (1963) Founded by Francophone survivors of the Great Destruction, the underground city of Surréal, deep beneath Montreal’s Mount Royal, has provided its inhabitants with comfort, safety, and civilization. In stark contrast to Surréal, the surface lands are still uninhabitably radioactive. Or so people are free to believe, as nobody has checked in centuries. When a tremor opens a passage to the surface, young Luke P9 explores. To his astonishment, the surface is a verdant wilderness. Furthermore, it is inhabited… by Anglophones. Can the two solitudes unite after two centuries apart or is strife inevitable? I know this book as The City Under Ground, which I remembered as a comparatively upbeat recovery-after-the-bomb juvenile novel. It’s still possible to read it that way, as long as you don’t stop to wonder at the event that enables a new Anglo-French alliance: both groups are threatened by a third. A group that existed when the book was first published. And still exists. And might have strong feelings about being villainized. The Tangent Objective by Lawrence Sanders (1976) Independent since 1958, the tiny African nation of Asante is ruled by King Prempeh the Fourth. While Prempeh may not always prioritize Asante’s prosperity, he does have a keen instinct for his own financial well-being. This is a problem for Starrett Petroleum, who would like to exploit Asante’s newly discovered oil reserves without the bother of revenue-sharing with Prempeh. Solution: a sudden change in government, to be orchestrated by Peter Tangent, agent for the oil company. Tangent’s choice? Captain Obiri Anokye, who has every virtue a greedy oil company could want in a would-be coup leader. More virtues, in fact: Anokye has a grand vision of the nation Asante could be… as part of a unified Africa, finally taking its place as one of the world’s great powers. Starrett thinks Anokye is their pawn. They are simply one of Anokye’s. There are not many 1970s books about brilliant African nation-builders. This is definitely one. The bad news is that The Tangent Objective is very much a disco-era lurid, sex-filled thriller, with all the carefully crafted prose and subtle characterization—or rather, lack thereof—that implies. It does not, however, lack for energy. The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. Le Guin (1978) The Brasil-American exiles who founded Victoria’s lone City value the pacifists in nearby Shantih Town. Shantih Town provides the City with an ample workforce to abuse and exploit. In return, the City provides Shantih Town with exploitation and abuse. It is the perfect symbiosis. The flaw in the City’s reasoning is that Victoria is a planet, most of which is nowhere near the City. Shantih Towners could simply migrate far from the City and found a community to their liking. A bold proposition! Or as the City would frame it, flagrant theft of City property: their serfs. I don’t think there was ever a sequel to this story, so we don’t find out how matters play out over the centuries. Did the City reform? Did it collapse without its workforce? Did it set out on a campaign of planetary conquest? Worst-case scenario, the Shantih Town migrants bought themselves time, which isn’t nothing. Nor Crystal Tears by Alan Dean Foster (1982) By the era that is the setting of Icerigger and The Tar-Aiym Krang, Foster’s imagined Humanx Commonwealth is simply a backdrop, a vast, wealthy, powerful and efficient polity that enables peace and prosperity on a galactic scale. However, a neutral observer might wonder how it came to be. Why would the beautiful insectoid Thranx even consider partnering with hideous soft-skinned humans? First contact between people and humans goes poorly. Humans are even uglier than the lizardoid Aann and no doubt even more violent. Clearly the Thranx must protect themselves from the humans, who are doubtless egg-eaters. Eccentric Ryo disagrees; perhaps there is some good in these space-horrors. Easy enough to prove… provided Ryo doesn’t mind committing a legendary crime spree. Every SF author gets their one impossible assumption. In Foster’s case, it is that something lacking an exoskeleton might not be the monster that they appear to be. This is hardly a comprehensive survey of the young nation genre. I didn’t even mention the Antarctican Republic! If I have overlooked your favourites, please mention them in comments below.[end-mark] See Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade for a comedic exploration of what might happen if Crusades-era Englishmen were handed a spaceship and nukes. ︎ The post Five SF Works About Building a New Nation appeared first on Reactor.

News Spider-Man: Brand New Day Tom Holland Warns That You Don’t Want Marvel To Release Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s “Fan Cut” It doesn’t always pay to listen to the “random people” By Matthew Byrd | Published on July 31, 2026 Photo Credit: Marvel Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Photo Credit: Marvel Studios “Jokes” about MCU movies being written in the editing room aside, those films are usually found during editing when mountains of footage become a story. It is also not uncommon for the biggest films to be tweaked in the editing room based on early viewer/fan feedback. According to Tom Holland, there was even a cut of Spider-Man: Brand New Day that was edited largely based on early fan feedback that you (probably) wouldn’t want to see. “What’s really interesting is, we’ve seen loads of different cuts of this movie, and one of the cuts was, they took all of the notes from all of the random people that saw the film, and they changed the movie,” Holland said in an interview with Quotable. “We watched it, and… we hated it. It totally didn’t work. It’s what the people were asking for, but it wasn’t quite what we wanted as the creatives.” Sadly, Holland doesn’t elaborate on what made that version of the movie different and seemingly not work. He only says that the process proved how a movie “can change in a thousand different ways in the edit room.” This actually continues a rather charming trend of Holland becoming increasingly fascinated with the inner workings of the filmmaking process. The actor previously gushed about all of the things he learned while making The Odyssey with Christopher Nolan and even said that he applied some of those lessons to the production of Brand New Day. One wonders what he will take from, and bring to, his upcoming Fred Astaire biopic. As for that other cut of the film, the easiest assumption to make is that it probably tried to do too much as a result of incorporating so much feedback. What may have ultimately been cut from the movie (perhaps scenes with those notable actors who didn’t quite make the final version of the film?) may never see the light of day. And while that’s probably a good thing for the film, one could argue this is why we used to have physical releases for every new film loaded with deleted scenes. C’est la vie.[end-mark] The post Tom Holland Warns That You Don’t Want Marvel To Release <i>Spider-Man: Brand New Day</i>‘s “Fan Cut” appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man: Brand New Day Is a Reminder We Could All Use Right Now You ARE saving the Shire for you, doofus. By Emmet Asher-Perrin | Published on July 31, 2026 Image: Marvel Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Marvel Studios The MCU has now given us four Spider-Man films, and they’ve ranged, shall we say. Homecoming was beautifully done, Far From Home was… messy, No Way Home was enjoyable but also mostly an ode to all Spider-Man films simultaneously. Does it feel a little trite to say the Brand New Day really brings us back to why Homecoming worked so well? Yes. That doesn’t stop it from being true. Is the movie still flooded with Marvel Studios setting up their next thing? Also yes. But it doesn’t detract nearly as much as I was expecting, and that’s because the movie never forgets to be about Peter Parker. And that’s good because where we left him at the end of No Way Home was quantifiably heartbreaking. [This is a spoiler review, by the way, so watch out.] So, it’s been four years. Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya) have already made it through college, and Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has been Spider-Man this whole time. Just Spider-Man. Only ever Spider-Man. He avoids developing relationships, moves further and further up in his apartment until he’s in a creepy roof space where he keeps his tech, his takeout, and his police scanner apps. He puts flowers on May’s grave and he works. He’s even made friends with Detective DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas)… and by friends, I mean that he calls her to ask about working. She’s worried about him and we can all see why. There’s a note here that I’ve got to make about continuity because one admittedly annoying thing that Brand New Day does is make it clear that the films of the MCU are not even remotely interested in in figuring out how they align with any of the television we’ve seen. There’s even levels within the film hierarchy itself, if you take the meta commentary to its logical conclusion: Peter goes to get advice from Yelena (Florence Pugh, now the new obligatory “RDJ cameo” of these films, clearly having the time of her life just popping in and out to display all of the character’s idiosyncrasies) and she tells him bluntly that the work he does is “small potatoes.” She and the New Avengers work on the “big potatoes.” It sounds innocuous on its face, but the opening of the film is a gleeful run-through of Peter’s day-to-day that feels an awful lot like a Spider-Man comic come to life. In it, we’re told that Spidey has spent the last four years rounding up basically every(!) crime boss in the city; he even manages to stop and capture the Hand all by himself. You know, the Hand? The greatest threat in the world that Daredevil could barely knock back an inch? Oh, and apparently Kingpin didn’t warrant a spot on evil folks Spidey needed to pull down a peg, even when the city he lived in was under martial law and there was a vigilante task force running amok and throwing costumed heroes into an underground cage prison. Brand New Day is making it very unsubtly clear: Marvel Studios does not care if these things line up. They’re not meant to play nice together, even if they’re all stacked into the same timeline. It’s more than a little irritating, even if their breezy intro is adorable. Image: Marvel Studios Marvel is aware that fans have their quibbles, both major and minor. When we encounter Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) for the first time in the film, he’s teaching at a university. One of his students wants to know why Thanos didn’t just Snap more resources into the universe if he was so worried about abundance. Bruce lets a Hulk fanboy student answer for him with a “Hulk smash!” It’s a cutesy way to have one of the biggest story houses on the planet (for the time being) collectively shrug emoji at its audience. And I’m not even getting into my bother over the fact that we never get to see any of Bruce Banner’s notable status quo changes. It seems like every time we see the guy, he and Hulk have a different dynamic (he’s currently suppressing him with a mechanical inhibitor). Too bad we never get to find out how or why any of these changes occur. The plot of this film is nothing to write home about, as you’re liable to see most of the twists and turns coming a mile off. There’s also a lot of convenience built into the story where things just happen because they have to, and you roll your eyes and decide whether or not you’ll let it pass. The CGI is half well-rendered and half mushy mess, but the action sequences are thankfully mostly well-done and never over-long, which has been the standard of the MCU films for an age. Director Destin Daniel Cretton brings all of his experience from Shang-Chi to bear in making those sequences fresh and dynamic, resulting in the first appearance by the Hand in NYC that doesn’t make them feel like interchangeable (and therefore infinitely murderable) ninja stereotypes. The mutant question looms large over the whole film, as the MCU is itching to bring in the X-Men, but knows that each micro step they take down that road will inform everything about how successful they can be going forward. To that tune, they do something that no film associated with the X-Men has ever done before: They do right by Jean Gray. It was rumored from the start that Sadie Sink had been cast as one of the most prominent redheads in Marvel Comics, and the reveal comes fairly quickly: Someone is hopping minds to break into Damage Control facilities and keeps searching the classified files. Once we know it’s Jean, the question of who the film’s villain is gets muddied for Peter. (It’s probably never been muddy if you’re enough of a comics fan to know that Damage Control is bad news.) But it’s hard for Spider-Man to crack the case because Jean finds him first and goes straight for the heart: She threatens MJ’s safety, and also finds the note Peter meant to give her at the end of No Way Home, explaining how the world forgot him. Once she’s got him figured out, and busy trying to keep MJ out of harm’s way, her obstacles diminish. Image: Marvel Studios This is the place where the film shapes itself into a worthy piece of story, for two very notable reasons. One, the film begins to question how Peter has handled the last four years and unequivocally shows him to be wrong. And two, the film allows its two central female characters to be (respectively) angry and unsure. Jean, in particular, has never been allowed her rage in a manner that didn’t relate to the Dark Phoenix power and also didn’t elide the reasons for her anger and its justification. Brand New Day does both: Jean Gray hasn’t been touched by the Phoenix, but she’s furious and hurting and she has every reason to be. The movie doesn’t fear her anger or any potential instability that might come from it; she has as much right to it as any male character that Marvel has gotten the audience to side with over and over in the past two decades. MJ is the one who is allowed to be unsure. She eventually gets that letter (though Peter doesn’t give it to her), and realizes that she’s forgotten someone important to her life. But love can’t save anything when there are literally no memories attached to anchor it. She doesn’t tell Spider-Man to hit the curb, but she’s clear about the fact that she doesn’t love him, and that he made a mistake in not delivering the letter immediately. She still asks him if he wants to come up and say hi to her roommate Ned, the guy responsible for a Spider-Man tracking app, who is admittedly desperate to figure out who the masked man is. Ned Leeds is the key connection that Peter starts and finishes the film with, and this was the part of the film that wrung tears from me. Because love is great and Spider-Man movies can’t help but focus on who Peter Parker is besotted with on any given day. But good Spider-Man movies are about what it means to be a hero within your own community. I’ve written about this before, in fact, about how all the best Spider-Man films showcase that Peter Parker must lean on his community just as much as they lean on him. That’s the pact and precisely what makes Spider-Man a singular in the superhero pantheon. He’s your friendly neighbor; he just also happens to have super strength. But in all the lessons that he’s absorbed over the years, Peter failed to recognize that serving a community you’re not taking the time to be a part of is missing the entire point. MJ invites Peter up and Spider-Man sits in their living room with Ned Leeds while they built Star Wars legos and quote Lord of the Rings at each other. And you realize that Peter must think he’s Frodo in all of this: He’s saving the Shire, but not for himself. It doesn’t have to work that way for him, but it absolutely will if he doesn’t return to the people he needs most. That’s people plural. Image: Marvel Studios The uncertainty that MJ feels evaporates on watching Spider-Man hang out with Ned. It makes all the sense in the world because love—yes, even romantic love—doesn’t exist in a vacuum. She and Peter were never a duo alone and apart; they were part of a trio. The love MJ felt for him can’t possibly resurface in absence of who they all were together. She lost the man she loved, but her roommate lost his childhood best friend. The hole that Peter left in MJ’s life is paltry by comparison. We never even touch on how Ned has attempted to fill in the gaps left by the person he spent nearly every day of his life with, and that’s probably for the best because that’s more tragedy than my soft heart can take. Peter Parker is someone wracked by loss at every turn. He somehow thought he could voluntarily continue that loss indefinitely. But he still creates bonds even when he doesn’t mean to—with Detective DeWolff, with Bruce Banner, with the freaking Punisher. That’s where we get to my second favorite part of the film, which is acknowledging that giving Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) the opportunity to parent any relatively young person he comes across can only improve your story. Bernthal and Holland have worked together quite a bit. They even helped each other film their MCU auditions. Those years of rapport make all the interactions between Frank and Peter sing with an ease and comfort these characters are meant to have with each other. All I can say is that I really hope they keep Frank’s new digs for television because his waterside hideaway is leaps and bounds above his Daredevil sadness basement and his One Last Kill empty Queens apartment. Frank does seem to be doing a little better, despite his usual well of sadness and pain. The man instantly knows that Spider-Man is not alright because he won’t even take his mask off to drink a cup of coffee (the Punisher’s love language is caffeinating people and occasionally feeding them too), but he offers to look after MJ all the same. It’s an equally good idea to have Castle in this story because he moves things along by being who he is; the choices might be terrible, but he’ll never not make one with his whole growling chest. He runs as a very sharp contrast to Jean Gray at the same time—a pointed commentary on how the fury of men gets treated differently without really having to say anything at all. Image: Marvel Studios There’s a thematic undercurrent in the film about refusing to accept who you really are. Peter’s spider DNA is evolving; Jean is coming into her power; Bruce is stuffing the Hulk into a lockbox. That’s the surface of the theme, true, but the underlying subtext is far more affecting: What Brand New Day ultimately tells its audience is that change doesn’t need fighting at every turn. You will not be the same person tomorrow that you were yesterday, and fearing those changes as they emerge is likely to cause far more damage than the alternative. Let yourself mutate a little and maybe you’ll like what you find. Another thing that Brand New Day gets exactly right? Fans are accustomed to Spider-Man’s central lesson: With great power there must also come great responsibility. And it’s a good one, but it ignores the fact that most people don’t really have a ton of power. It also ignores that Peter Parker needs more than a single all-encompassing lesson to be a full human being. May Parker (Marisa Tomei) was a wonderful parent to Peter, and her wisdom could never been so conveniently summed up. So we find that there are other gems in Peter’s memory, truths that May offered up that he wasn’t quite ready to assimilate. Peter Parker never stops learning to do better and neither should we. Peter also knows when to gift those gems to others who need them. And he knows how to be a true friend to people—even the ones he barely knows. With this in mind, Brand New Day manages to be a Spider-Man film that continues the arc of Homecoming, acknowledging that the community and who you fill it with were always the point… but also that you cannot exist cordoned off from it, high above. Because you’re not saving the Shire for who comes after you.  You’re saving it in order to be a part of it.[end-mark] The post <i>Spider-Man: Brand New Day</i> Is a Reminder We Could All Use Right Now appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV X-Men 97 It’s All About Faith and Redemption in X-Men ’97’s “Strange Land, Savage Heart” Nightcrawler offers an interesting religious twist on Xavier’s dream, but Exodus is no Magneto. By Ben Francisco | Published on July 31, 2026 Image: Marvel Animation Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Marvel Animation Our “official” cast continues to grow, with a full dozen characters featured in the opening credits—including a title card for Polaris for the first time. The episode opens with a flashback to the genocide in Genosha, with Colossus (Robert Cait) and Illyana (Courtenay Taylor) both rescuing bystanders from the wild Sentinel’s brutal destruction. Illyana sacrifices her life, leaving her brother Colossus grief-stricken.  In the present day, anti-mutant leader Graydon Creed (Ben Pronsky) declares his candidacy for President of the United States at a huge rally, with several attendees wearing yellow “Friends of Humanity” caps and other anti-mutant messages. The rally gets crashed by a group of mutants calling themselves the Acolytes, including Colossus, Frenzy, and Exodus (Bo Poraj). On live television, Exodus explains that the Acolytes are carrying on Magneto’s legacy and demands the release of all mutants being held by the government-sanctioned X-Factor team—or else Creed will die.  Image: Marvel Animation Despite the objections of X-Factor director Val Cooper (Catherine Disher), Professor X (Ross Marquand) sends a team of X-Men to the Acolytes’ base in the Savage Land to rescue Creed. Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith) and Polaris (Carolina Ravassa) flirt, and Nightcrawler (Adrian Hough) and Rogue (Lenore Zann) fret about their family drama, since Creed is a half/step-brother for both of them, all three being children of Mystique. The X-Men’s jet is hit by missiles—and worse, by radiation that disables all their powers. Polaris manages to deploy a parachute, allowing her and Bishop to land safely amidst dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures of the Savage Land. After a crash-landing, the rest of the team is met by Colossus and a group of Acolytes. Shockingly, they don’t immediately fight. Instead, Nightcrawler asks that Colossus give them a tour of their home and an intro to the Acolytes’ way of life.  Colossus shows them a shrine honoring Illyana, Magneto, and other fallen mutants. He explains that Exodus offered him a home at one of the darkest moments of his grief, and that every day the Acolytes bring another mutant to the safety of the haven they’ve created in the Savage Land. Creed is bound in handcuffs but still alive—and reacts scornfully to Nightcrawler’s overtures. Nightcrawler asks for a trial to prove that his half-brother is worth redeeming, offering to join the Acolytes if he loses—so long as Colossus presides over the trial. Image: Marvel Animation On the outskirts of the Acolytes’ base, Bishop and Polaris continue to make eyes at each other while they gather weapons and make plans to disable the radiation tower that’s neutralizing their powers. The trial of Creed begins with a crowd of rowdy Acolytes booing the defendant as he spouts anti-mutant slurs. Exodus makes the case for the prosecution, noting that Creed founded the Friends of Humanity, created a virus that kills mutants, and has taken a string of wretched actions borne of his hatred for mutants.  For the defense, Nightcrawler interviews Creed, who reveals that their mother Mystique abandoned him as a baby and his father abandoned him as an adolescent—when he realized his son had no mutant powers. Nightcrawler posits that Creed does not hate mutants, but rather hates his two mutant parents for making him feel like being human wasn’t good enough. “Creed is just a man,” Nightcrawler pleads to Colossus, “haunted, just like us.”  Before Colossus can render his verdict, an impatient Exodus calls him a heretic and attacks him. Just in the nick of time, Bishop and Polaris swoop in riding pterodactyls and disable the tower, giving all the X-Men their powers back. Nightcrawler intervenes to protect Creed from Exodus, and a battle between the X-Men and the Acolytes ensues—with Colossus taking the X-Men’s side. In the chaos of the melee, Creed picks up a gun and shoots Exodus, who falls to the ground, apparently dead. Creed threatens Nightcrawler too, but he teleports them both to the cold Antarctic just beyond the boundaries of the unnaturally warm Savage Land. Kurt tells Creed that though he is not a mutant, he is very much his parents’ son. He shows his half-brother mercy by leaving him alive.  In a holographic confab, Professor X and Val Cooper debrief. Xavier notes that the X-Men left Creed alive in Antarctica for X-Factor to pick up, as promised. Cooper tells Xavier that he’s playing a dangerous game and threatens to take away both X-Corps and the school if he crosses the line. Back at the X-Mansion, Nightcrawler welcomes Colossus home and asks if he had convinced him that Creed was redeemable back in the Savage Land courtroom. “No, you did not convince me,” Colossus says, “but you would have convinced Illyana.” In Athens, at Apocalypse’s abandoned base, the X-Force team finds what appears to be Apocalypse’s corpse, along with a charred playing card—the signature of the deceased X-Man Gambit! Image: Marvel Animation I was surprised this episode opened with a flashback to the genocide in Genosha, which was now over a season and a half ago. On one hand, seeing Illyana die “retroactively” felt like it detracted from the power of that moment. On the other hand, there’s a certain realism to it that I appreciated. When a tragedy happens on such a large scale, it can often take months or even years to know all the consequences and losses. Genosha is as large-scale as a tragedy can get, so it seems apt that the mutant community would continue feeling its losses and ripple effects for a long time afterward.  The rally scene was potent, not only because of Creed’s speech, but also for its portrayal of the crowd’s casual yet consuming bigotry against mutants. The yellow caps and anti-mutant chanting certainly have many disturbing real-world parallels, especially as we live through a time when expressions of xenophobia, racism, and other prejudices are often even more overt than they were just a few years ago. Creed scapegoats X-Factor specifically, accusing the current president of using tax dollars to fund X-Factor and protect mutants instead of humans. A mere few minutes later, Exodus calls X-Factor “race traitors” for rounding up other mutants. It’s a poignant depiction of just how badly collaborating with the oppressors can go—and how, when you try to play both sides against the middle, you may find yourself with no one on your side.  Image: Marvel Animation This episode continued the show’s trend of spotlighting a character who’s previously been underutilized, in this case focusing on Nightcrawler—and, to some extent, Colossus. As in other recent episodes, the writers do some interesting mixing and matching of storylines. This episode draws on the comics plot where Colossus joined the Acolytes in the wake of Illyana’s death, but in this version, she’s lost to the Genosha tragedy instead of the legacy virus. Colossus often has an… impressionable quality to his character, and this episode captures that aspect of him well with his multiple conversions and shifts. Nightcrawler serves as a kind of faith-oriented alternative to Xavier in this story, offering up an idealistic vision of mutant-human harmony, with a strong faith-based belief in the possibility of redemption for everyone. I thought that was well done, with some great voice work by Hough. And I appreciated that the show leaned into the complicated family dynamics between Nightcrawler, Rogue, and Creed, along with Mystique and Sabretooth (though the latter don’t appear in this episode). Dare I hope for them to round out the family by shining a light on Destiny’s role as Mystique’s long-time partner and the second mother figure for Kurt and Rogue? Nightcrawler provides an interesting variant of Xavier’s idealism, but Exodus… well, Exodus is no Magneto. I see what they were going for in this episode, juxtaposing Nightcrawler’s faith-based idealism with Exodus’s faith-based extremism. But it doesn’t quite come together for me, because Exodus never really gets a chance to explicate his point of view. Even in the trial, his prosecution of Creed is barely a paragraph long, accurately cataloging Creed’s many transgressions but never offering a clear case for why killing him is the best solution. In the comics, Exodus’s powers are amplified by faith, and part of me wishes they’d found a way to more explicitly integrate that distinctive aspect of him in this episode. It certainly would have dovetailed with the themes. This episode also left me with more logistical questions than usual. How did the X-Men locate the Acolytes’ base? Why were other mutants’ powers not affected by the tower? Do Bishop and Polaris have a natural knack for taming and riding wild pterodactyls? Most of these questions have easy potential off-screen explanations, and minor holes like these are inevitable in a 30-minute cartoon, but it felt like there was a bit more hand-waving than usual. That said, I low-key loved Bishop and Polaris flying on pterodactyls, even if it stretched credulity. Image: Marvel Animation This episode also gave us another round of cameos with the Acolytes, many of them pretty obscure. It was great to see Frenzy, but I’m not sure many fans were clamoring to see characters as random as Gargouille and… Random.  This episode again ended on a cliffhanger centered on Gambit’s apparent resurrection and Apocalypse. I continue to be skeptical about bringing Gambit back, but I certainly was surprised to see Apocalypse’s decaying corpse! We’ve mostly had bottle episodes since the X-Men got back to the 1990s; I’m interested to see how they bring all the threads together in the final two.[end-mark] The post It’s All About Faith and Redemption in <i>X-Men ’97</i>’s “Strange Land, Savage Heart” appeared first on Reactor.