Episode #12 - The Cauldron, Part One
Original Airdate May 5th, 2001

Scott is reunited with his brother Alex, as The X-Men and The Brotherhood battle each other for a place in Magneto's sanctuary.

Episode #13 - The Cauldron, Part Two
Original Airdate May 12th, 2001

Scott is reunited with his brother Alex, as The X-Men and The Brotherhood battle each other for a place in Magneto's sanctuary.

Credits
Written By: Simon Furman (Part One), Greg Johnson (Part Two)
Directed By: Gary Graham (Part One), Steven E Gordon (Part Two)
Music Composed By: William Anderson
Guest Starring: Kirby Morrow as Cyclops/Scott Summers, Scott McNeil as Wolverine/Logan, David Kaye as Professor Charles Xavier, Brad Swaile as Nightcrawler/Kurt Wagner, Maggie Blue O'Hara as Kitty/Shadowcat, Michael Donovan as Sabretooth, Christopher Judge as Magneto, Richard Ian Cox as Quicksilver and Matt Hill as Alex Masters.

Review: The season finale of X-Men: Evolution attempts to be a little more ambitious than all of the previous episodes, and delivers, to a degree. Yes, these two episodes are a lot better than nearly all that came before them, but unfortunately, they still aren’t too great.

A lot of things prevent it from reaching a higher mark, the first one being the plot isn’t really all that great to begin with. The idea of having winners and losers was pretty good but quickly stumbles when you realise you’re in for yet another X-Men/Brotherhood fight. In hindsight, the main other thing is that this episode doesn’t have anywhere near the excitement, twists and turns of the later finale. Comparing this to Day Of Reckoning almost makes this finale come across as laughable.

The Scott/Alex subplot started well, but quickly lost it’s footing. The reasons for this are two, one being that it was laid on a little thick, and the other being that Alex was your typical surfer boy, bombarding the viewer with cheesy dialogue with an annoying voice to boot.

The real highlight of the episode was finally seeing Magneto announce his presence, which was practically the only thing that separated it from any other episode. I’m not sure his plan made total sense, but by the time he and Xavier started talking, I really couldn’t have cared less. Magneto would have far better appearances than this, but it was still damn cool seeing him back on TV. The design is reminiscent of classic Magneto before he got hideous costume revamp after hideous costume revamp, but the large amounts of black used bring freshness to the character. The Batman style white eyes on black face also looked very menacing, and oddly enough, Magneto was able to come across as a total bad ass.

Overall, these episodes come across as better than the average first season episode, but still lacked a lot of spark, in my opinion. Thankfully, things picked up in a big way in the next season.

Part Two