X-Men ’97’s “Tolerance is Extinction” Part 2 rips the X-Men apart, sets up a final stand against an old enemy and dials up the gore massively.

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for X-Men ’97 episode 9

The three-part finale is now more than half complete, and X-Men ’97 episode 9 built on Magneto’s shocking attack on Earth with a three-front battle that will have massive shockwaves for Marvel’s mutants. Introducing a shock Civil War between the X-Men, a final stand against Magnus, and one of the most R-rated moments in all of X-Men history, the middle chapter of the finale delivered on the promise X-Men ’97 has consistently shown throughout the season.

The pieces are all in place for the finale – and then what comes next – with two more hinted X-Men deaths, a life-changing new path for Wolverine, and the Doomsday clock ticking even closer to midnight for Earth. While the team were brought back together for the first time since the season’s earliest episodes, there is little comfort after the brutal X-Men ’97 episode 9 ending quite literally tore things apart. Here’s what it all means.

X-Men ’97 Episode 9 Key Story Takeaways

So what happens in X-Men ’97 episode 9? We’re now deep into the three-part finale event, with the X-Men reunited under Charles Xavier’s leadership and racing to stop both Bastion (with Mister Sinister in tow), and Magneto.

Magneto’s electro-magnetic attack on Earth has destroyed the magnetic fields, kicking off a countdown to an extinction event.
Magneto successfully recruits Rogue and the disillusioned Sunspot to join his new mutant haven on Asteroid M.
The X-Men split into Gold and Blue teams, taking on Magneto and Bastion separately. Forge goes down with the Blackbird.
Mister Sinister reappears, terrorizing Jean Grey, and activating his mind control of Cable, who seemingly kills Jean in battle.
Wolverine stabs Magneto, but he survives long enough to strip Logan’s Adamantium from his bones.

Is Wolverine Dead?

In the final moments of X-Men ’97 episode 9, Wolverine steals a march on Magneto as he attacks Professor X, stabbing the long-time X-Men adversary through the chest and saying “the brave are always the first to die”. That killer line was first used by Magneto himself in 1993 episode The Final Decision as the X-Men set off on a seemingly impossible mission to take down Master Mold and rescue Senator Robert Kelly.

Unfortunately for Wolverine, Magneto remembers his superpowers are magnetic, and in a moment taken straight from the Fatal Attractions comic run, rips the Adamantium out of Logan’s body. The shot in X-Men ’97 episode 9 is a perfect redo of the 1993 panel in Fabian Nicieza and Scott Lobdell’s crossover event comic, showing Magneto turning the rare metal into liquid and removing it through Logan’s skin.

The tragic likelihood is that Wolverine is not actually dead, despite what he’s just been through. His healing factor isn’t Omega level, but it is incredibly impressive, and he can survive near-unthinkable things: heavy metal surgery included. In Fatal Attractions, Logan does indeed survive, but reverts to a more feral state in the wake of Magneto’s attack, sporting his original bone claws right up until the Adamantium was eventually restored in 1999.

Is Jean Grey Dead?

It might seem that Jean Grey is, sadly, less likely to survive than Wolverine, because she doesn’t have a healing factor to rely on. But that would miss a significant part of Jean’s past and her superpowers. Faced with a battle against Cable – under the control of Mister Sinister – Jean psychically calls Cyclops to tell him she loves him, before she is apparently vaporized by Cable’s onslaught of energy blasts. Cyclops is clearly broken, particularly because he had only just reconnected with the son he’s just witnessed killing his wife: could he be pushed over the edge and away from his usual stoical approach?

The question now is what happened to Jean Grey, but there’s reason to be hopeful, albeit with a pretty major caveat. Thanks to the Phoenix Force, in the comics, Jean is immortal, for all intents and purposes, and has been resurrected multiple times in the comics. The Phoenix Force is, after all, one of the oldest cosmic entities in all of Marvel lore, and is the literal manifestation of life force.

While X-Men: The Animated Series showed Jean separated from the Phoenix Force at the culmination of the Dark Phoenix arc (in which Jean Grey was also resurrected from death), 2018’s Phoenix: Resurrection – The Return of Jean Grey reinforced the idea of the connection between the force and its favored host. There’s no reason to believe that the Phoenix couldn’t return to Earth once more to resurrect Jean as it did in the comics. It just might not happen right away.

How X-Men ’97 Episode 9 Sets Up The Final Episode

So, what comes next? Bastion is still active, Mister Sinister has Cable under his control. Magneto is gravely wounded, but probably won’t die, Wolverine is in bits, and Earth is still headed towards disaster. Just as Fatal Attractions led to a face-off between Magneto and Professor X, it seems likely that X-Men ’97 will end with a battle between the old friends and adversaries. And that won’t end well for Magneto.

Bastion may well be defeated, but it seems unlikely that both he and Mister Sinister will fall in the same episode, and Cable’s return potentially sets up the exciting prospect of Apocalypse’s return. Magneto also needs a solution, given his electro-magnetic attack on Earth has welcomed an apocalypse that will presumably kill off humanity, but he doesn’t yet appear to care for those potential victims. That means Xavier will have to take more extreme measures.

In the Fatal Attractions comic event, Xavier defeated Magneto and placed him a coma, which ultimately led to the arrival of iconic X-Men villain Onslaught. If that’s coming in X-Men ’97, Magneto’s defeat will be temporary.

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