Episode #71 - The Fifth Horseman
Original Airdate 8th Feburary 1997

Fabian Cortez attempts to help Apocalypse find a new body

Credits
Written By: Steven Melching, David McDermott
Music Composed By: Shuki Levy
Animation Services By: AKOM

Review: This is one of the first episodes to feature the revamped designs, and I for one think the episodes are a lot better looking. I know they have their detractors, but I’m not among them. They can come across as a little rubbery, but I think they’re much prettier than AKOM’s work.

The plot of the episode is actually interesting; it’s just not carried out in the most interesting way. The resurrection of Apocalypse could’ve been one of the show’s best stories, but it suffers greatly from a lack of The X-Men. Beast and Jubilee are the only ones found, and whilst they’re both good in their roles, I’d have loved to see more characters in there. I thought the creatures that Cortez created were lame, too. I thought Cortez himself came across much better than he did in Sanctuary, and it was nice to simply learn what happened to him, and what Apocalypse’s reasons for saving him were.

Speaking of big A belt, his new design was actually really cool. It made him look much less of a tool, and actually gave him a really creepy presence, similar to Mr. Sinister’s design. I thought his vampire look really clicked for the character, and they finally fixed the colour and got rid of that silly pale purple and replaced it with a darker colour with worked with the blue. Thumbs up on his revamp from me.

Another character that got a much-improved look from the revamp was Jubilee. It appears that the majority of the females got boob jobs from the revamp, which was good for Jubilee, because the bigger bust and longer hair made her look a lot less butch.

I really liked the episodes ending. It’s a shame we never got to see Apocalypse again, because the last few seconds of this episode made him seem so much more ruthless than any previous episode. It sort of makes up for his rather poor ending last time. Another stellar episode of X-Men!

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