'X-Men ‘97' Season 2 Episode 5 Recap & Ending Explained: Did Wolverine Get His Adamantium Back?

In X-Men ‘97 Season episode 4, the titular group and Nur arrived at a temporary truce because Xavier had managed to convince the latter that he and his team were merely time-displaced people who were looking to get back home; and Rama-Tut’s tech would help them achieve that task. Of course, that wasn’t the entire truth; the team wanted to stop Rama-Tut’s transformation into Apocalypse too. But since they were going with the white lie, Magneto destroyed Bishop’s time bands so that they would actually have to get to the fabled temple and use its tech to return to the ‘90s; at least that way their ruse would look authentic. That plan backfired as soon as the X-Men and Nur stepped into the temple and realized that it was actually Ship. They hadn’t prevented Nur from becoming Apocalypse, they had literally guided him towards his chrysalis phase. In the meantime, Beast managed to remake the time bands, and Magneto sent everyone through it. He wanted to stay back in 3000 B.C.E. and fix the mistake he had made but Xavier stayed back too. The two of them worked together to stop Apocalypse from destroying Rama-Tut and his citadel. Since Rama-Tut, after reverting to his Kang persona, had run away, all that Apocalypse was about to do was kill innocent people. Magneto somehow stopped that from happening and saved hundreds of lives. In retaliation, Apocalypse killed Magneto; but he showed mercy to Xavier and let him live with the pain of losing his oldest friend. Later on, Bishop came back to take Xavier to his time period. During the mid-credits, we saw Wolverine meeting up Captain America and Black Widow to attain a dossier on Weapon X and bring the band back together for a secret mission. What was that about? Let’s find out.

Spoiler Alert

Team X Reaches The New Weapon X Facility

In episode 5, we see that Wolverine, along with Morph, Maverick, Kane, Sabretooth, and Lady Deathstrike (collectively known as Team X), are headed to Weapon X’s new labs in their chopper because allegedly they are conducting illegal experiments once again. As they are about to reach their destination in the Arctic, a bunch of mutated crows fly into the chopper, causing it to crash. With the exception of Kane, everyone survives the crash. Immediately after that, they are attacked by a giant mutated polar bear, which gets its neck snapped by Sabretooth. During this fight, everyone comes to the realization that the subject of Weapon X’s latest experiments have been animals (or their experiments have created some kinda contagion which is leading to these bizarre mutations in the animals), and also, Wolverine doesn’t have any adamantium in his body. Wolverine manages to keep the focus away from his bone claws and on Weapon X. They get to their new facility and notice that it’s not exactly functional. The building’s outer wall is broken, there’s no security, and there aren’t any scientists roaming around as well. When Maverick pulls up the schematics of the building, they notice life signs in the control room (which is situated right above the hydrogen core). So, Team X heads there hoping to find Cornelius, one of the head scientists of the Weapon X program.

Team X Finds Cornelius

Team X does come across Cornelius but he transforms into a giant cockroach type alien and starts attacking Team X. The newly-transformed Cornelius is joined by several other roach-like aliens who come after Team X, which prompts them to run into the hallways and shut the door behind them. While taking a breather, Maverick points out that the walls of the bunker in the facility that they are currently in is laced with adamantium; which means that it’s gonna prevent the aliens from coming after them, at least until they find the exit route. Wolverine says that it’s pointless to outrun the aliens on foot; they need a vehicle. So, he and Morph are gonna go to the vehicle bay to see if there’s something usable there, while Sabretooth, Deathstrike, and Maverick will head to the server room to reboot the generators; that’d open the blast doors and allow them to get out of the facility. Given how they have seen Cornelius turn from a human into an alien, all the members of Team X start wondering if one of them is secretly an alien too and is guiding the rest to their deaths (real John Carpenter’s The Thing vibes).

Deathstrike Talk About Tomo

Morph stops everyone from tearing each other apart by pointing out the possibility that maybe the aliens didn’t do anything to Cornelius and Cornelius injected himself with whatever has led to the creation of the aliens. Still, Deathstrike is unwilling to trust one another. Hence, she orders Morph to tag along with her and Sabretooth as they head to the server room, while Maverick goes with Wolverine to the vehicle bay. During their trip to the server room, Deathstrike tells Morph the story of Tomo which, according to Japanese legend, was a magical shape-shifting fox who was the loyal sidekick of a heroic samurai. Tomo would “morph” into anything and everything to help the samurai, but its loyalty ended up leading the fox to its death. Of course, Deathstrike is comparing Morph to Tomo and the samurai is Wolverine. Why? Because while everyone on Team X has a bone to pick with Weapon X, Morph is there just to aid Wolverine. Is there any truth to this tale though? Kinda. Tamamo-no-Mae was rumored to be a kitsune fox spirit that took the form of concubines and then wreaked havoc in China, India, and Japan. Eventually, the fox spirit became a killing stone or something. So, no shapeshifting involved. In another story, involving a fox jewel, there’s something about the kitsune becoming the guardian spirit of a samurai. But yeah, I don’t really know where Deathstrike got her story from; maybe she has made it up to scare Morph.

Deathstrike Talks About Tomo

Before Deathstrike can expand on the Tomo lore, Sabretooth restarts the servers and brings back the focus on the plot. They find a bunch of CDs labeled X-23, Ajax, Aurora, Mastodon, Winter Soldier, Psi-Borg, Fantomex, Wolverine, Silverfox, XVIII, Weapon VI, Ant, Garrison Kane, Sabretooth, Agent Zero, Kimura, Worm, Sluggo, Kestrel, and more. Morph picks out the one with XVIII written on it, puts it in the video player, and presses play. From there they learn that Cornelius’ biggest problem with the Weapon X program was that his subjects weren’t subservient. But then an alien species, called the Brood, landed in the Arctic (yeah, it’s very The Thing-esque). While experimenting on it, Cornelius and his team learned that they had a hive mind and were incapable of “divergent thought or emotion.” They only knew one thing: survival. Hence, they made a serum from the cranial fluid of the Brood, injected into their subjects, and hoped that it’d turn them into weapons as well as slaves. That obviously didn’t go as expected and Cornelius was doubtful about whether he and his team could ever achieve success in terms of having truly subservient weapons infused with adamantium. Cornelius probably wanted to shut down the project, but things got out of hand, and the results are in front of everyone to see.

Team X Learns About The Brood 

As the XVIII video comes to an end, one of these Broods shows up out of nowhere in the server room and attacks Morph, and it seems like Morph briefly gets access to its mind before Deathstrike kills it. Based on that, Morph has learnt that the Brood not only survives by killing others, it survives by increasing in numbers; which means that, kinda like the Viltrumites in Invincible, they mate with species that they think are their equal. Morph theorizes that they are gonna turn Wolverine into one of their own, and almost on cue, they get word from Maverick (on the comms) that he and Wolverine have been surrounded by the Brood. Morph, Deathstrike, and Sabretooth rush to Wolverine and Maverick’s location where they find Omega Red in some kinda cryostasis tank. When they inspect the room they are currently in, they find out that it’s the adamantium chamber. Before they can look around any further, Maverick appears, urging everyone (like Private Hudson from Aliens) to leave. Since they don’t heed his advice, and wait around looking for Wolverine, Brood-Wolverine (Wolverine infected by the Brood virus) shows up and kills Maverick. As if that’s not horrible already, the fight between Brood-Wolverine and Team X wakes Omega Red from his slumber, and he starts attacking everyone in his vicinity, including the Brood. Morph, Deathstrike, and Sabretooth manage to get away from them and hide in what looks like the cafeteria section of the facility. Deathstrike and Sabretooth think they should cut and run but Morph isn’t going anywhere without Wolverine. They don’t agree with Morph’s plan because they know now that Wolverine had no intention of stopping Weapon X or its experiments; he just wanted the adamantium back in his body. And now, his selfish plan has led to the deaths of two people.

Wolverine Gets His Adamantium Skeleton Back

Morph accepts that Wolverine has duped them but the fact of the matter is that it is now their responsibility to stop the Brood from getting out of the facility and killing or infecting other humans and mutants. Sabretooth and Deathstrike listen to reason and ask Morph how he intends to de-Brood Wolverine. He says that, in the tapes that they saw earlier, Cornelius pointed out that the Brood are incapable of tolerating adamantium. So, if they give Wolverine his adamantium skeleton back, it’s gonna purge the Brood virus from his body. Once Sabretooth and Deathstrike sign off on that, they work with Morph to lure Wolverine into the tank that’s used for injecting adamantium into one’s body and let it do its work. By the way, during this process, Morph is injured by Wolverine, thereby furthering the parallels between Tomo, the samurai, Morph, and Wolverine. As the adamantium-infusion is happening, Morph, Sabretooth, and a severely-injured Sabretooth are attacked by the Brood and Omega Red. Just when it seems like it’s truly game over for Team X, Wolverine comes out of the tank with his adamantium skeleton back and the Brood virus gone; and he tears through the Brood and knocks out Omega Red. As the facility is about to blow up, Wolverine, Morph, Deathstrike, and Sabretooth rush to the one of the planes that are functioning and take to the skies. The explosion seemingly kills all the Brood and possibly destroys Omega Red. I say “possibly” because it’s nearly impossible to kill him; so, he probably got singed by the explosion but he’s alive.

Morph Criticizes Wolverine For Lying To Him

In episode 5’s ending, Morph criticizes Wolverine for not telling Team X about his plan to get his adamantium back. In addition to that, he’s disappointed in Wolverine that he needs adamantium to feel worthwhile in the impending fight against Apocalypse. Wolverine doesn’t retort and everyone just sits silently, mourning the loss of their teammates and feeling sad for Wolverine’s odd mindset. Look, I think it’s a good thing that Wolverine knows his limitations. He is a very strong and efficient weapon and he wants to stay that way. He isn’t a leader. He doesn’t have cosmic superpowers. He can heal really fast and he is solid fighter. His bone claws aren’t the best weapons. If he can tolerate the adamantium-infusion process and be important in the battle against Apocalypse, why shouldn’t he do that? I don’t know what would have happened if Wolverine had told Team X about his true intentions. Wolverine knows those people better than I do, and it’s possible that he knew that they would have refused to come with him to the Arctic just so that he can be himself again. Hence, the ruse. Was it worth it? Well, that’s for Wolverine to decide; he has to make sure that Maverick and Kane’s deaths do go in vain. What are your thoughts on Wolverine’s selfishness? Let me know in the comments section below.

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