"Speed and Spyke"
Writer: Bob Forward
Director: Gary Graham
Original Air Date: December 9, 2000
Introducing: Spyke and Quicksilver
Synopsis/Review: This episode begins
at a high school basketball game in New York City. Storm is there, with
her sister and her sister's fiance. Storm is in the crowd watching her
nephew, Evan Daniels, play a basketball game, and the score's reeeally
tight. It's your typical "tied, couple seconds left to make the winning
shot" situation. Anyway, another guy on Evan's team, Pietro Maximov, gets
handed the ball to take down the court a few seconds left. Seeing that
he (apparently) can't make it down the court in time to take a shot, the
coach makes Pietro pass the ball (reluctantly) to Evan, who makes the shot
for the team and wins. It shows, in slow-motion, Evan getting knocked backwards
by a member of the opposite team after throwing the ball, and, as he lands
on the court floor, a couple bone spikes emerge from his right elbow, and
he scrapes the floorboards as he's knocked backwards. Storm is, apparently,
the only one who sees Evan's powers, while everyone else is apparently
so concentrated on Evan's winning shot that they don't notice. Whee. Anyway,
the team celebrates and picks up and carries off Evan- minus Pietro, who's
still standing in the court, glaring at Evan for an, as yet, unknown reason.
Later, in the boys'
locker room after the game, the guys all leave after congratulating Evan
again, and Pietro comes up afterwards. He's mad at Evan for taking the
last shot instead of him, but Evan reasons that there's no way Pietro could
have made it from way back on the other side of the court. Pietro just
responds with a vague "I've got moves you can't even imagine, and I'm through
holding back just to make guys like you look good" before walking off.
Ooo, Evan got the smackdown! Anyway, Storm comes in right afterwards, commenting
about how Evan and Pietro seemed to have had such a competition going on
between them forever. Storm then proceeds to talk to Evan about what happened
in the game earlier, and about his Mutant powers. Evan just shrugs it off,
and tells her that he's got it under control- until he sneezes and bone
spikes shoot out everywhere (except where Storm's sitting...luckily). Heheh.
Back at the Daniels'
house, Evan's parents are having a cookout in the backyard celebrating
his well-played game, and Storm and Evan are several yards away, stil discussing
Evan's powers. He's sort of fed up since Ororo keeps bugging him. He still
says he's got his powers under control most of the time, and that he knows
out to use it, demonstrating what will happen if anyone messes with him
but making a bunch of bone spikes come out of his arm and slashing it against
a tree. Oooo. Storm tells Evan that that's not how he's supposed to use
his powers, and that the Xavier Institute can give him training on how
to use them the right way. Evan, tired of arguing with Storm, finally gives
in to letting his parents know about his powers- but tomorrow night, and
not right now, since it's such a big night for them and all. Storm reluctantly
agrees.
The next day after school,
Evan opens up his locker to get his wallet- only to open it and find out
that his money is gone! Apparently, this had happened before, and he's
really mad. Pietro appears out of nowhere and asks Evan what's wrong, and
he tells him. Pietro, being the woonderful guy that he is (yeah, right),
lets Evan take some of his money as bait so Evan can bust the punk tonight.
Evan happily agrees and thanks Pietro profusely, while Pietro just smirks.
That night, at Evan's
house, he sits reluctantly while Storm and his family discuss his Mutant
powers with him. Scott and Jean are there too, apparently having come in
with the Mansion to invite Evan to the Institute. Evan pretty much blows
them all off, saying that he doesn't need training, and goes up to his
room to take care of homework. Scott, Jean, and the others are all distraught
at Evan's decision, when Jean suddenly has one of those psychic flashes
of hers- it appears that Evan just went out the window of his bedroom.
They all hurry to the front door, only to find Evan already skateboarding
down the street, too far for them to catch up to him. Oh joy...
Evan skateboards over
to his school and somehow- yes, SOMEHOW- breaks into the school at night,
and hides in the hallway that his locker is in. He's apparently going to
catch whoever keeps stealing his money and spyke his lights out. He waits
for a little while, when a white flash suddenly goes past him. All the
lockers seem to open by themselves very quickly, and whirlwind of books,
folders, and shoes starts to form, the white blur at the center. Evan,
completely baffled by all this, uses his powers to form a spike "cage"
around him to keep out whatever force is causing the whirlwind. The white
blur stops just short of the "cage" revealing- Pietro! It's now revealed
that he's a Mutant too, a super-fast one. And he likes the code name "Quicksilver"
better. Spyke tries to stop Quicksilver from stealing his money- who really
just liked to steal stuff for the challenge, since he lived his life so
fast he needed something to occupy his time- only to horribly fail at it,
since Quickie was too durn fast. Quicksilver- again, being such a wonderful
guy- hears the police coming (the school alarm was probably tripped or
something) and takes off, leaving Evan behind as the scapegoat.
In the next scene, we
see Evan behind bars as his family, Scott, and Jean come up to him. Evan
tells them that he didn't do it, and they believe him- especially since
Jean can read his mind and confirmed it anyway. Scott makes a deal with
Evan- they'll use Xavier's influence to get Evan out of jail, but in return,
he has to give the Institute a shot. Evan reluctantly agrees.
The next morning, at
the Insitute, all the X-Men (minus Spyke) are all gathered around breakfast.
Between the funny banter and antics (namely of Nightcrawler), we gather
that Xavier's already enrolled him at Bayville High, and that Evan will
still continue to play basketball there as he did at his old school. Evan's
sleeping through breakfast, however, as he had a rather late night. Xavier
hopes that Evan's hate for Pietro will die down soon, though, and that
his desire for vengence is short-lived. Evan, coming down the steps in
the other room when he hears this, just spykes out (i.e., those bones spikes
come out of his entire body), effectively ruining his bathrobe, and turns
back towards his room, obviously still furious.
Later, at Bayville High,
we see the gathered Brotherhood members waiting outside the Principal's
office and Miss Darkholme/Mystique and Magneto confer on what to do about
Pietro. Magneto explains the situation to Mystique, and the rivalry between
Pietro and Evan. Magneto wants Pietro to join the Brotherhood, but Pietro
thinks that he needs no one, so they want to prove him wrong so he'll join.
Mystique responds that she knows just how to bring the two together, and
get Pietro to join the Brotherhood...
Then we see a rather
cool scene in which Spyke does a little training session in the Danger
Room. Shadowcat comes in at the end and tells Spyke that the coach just
called, and he has an unexpected game tonight- Principal Darkholme put
it together last minute. It's against PS 104, his old school...
So, that night, we see
Spyke waiting around for Pietro as the super-quick guy steps off the bus.
Scott and Jean are there, too. And all the other athletes participating
in the game have already gone inside- of course. Spyke is fed up with Pietro,
and tries to fight him. But Scott and Jean hold him back, figuring out
that Pietro was the guy who framed Evan (right before Pietro confesses,
saying that there's nothing any of them can do about it). Scott tries to
take Pietro with him to, supposedly, the police or something, but Pietro
reacts quickly and pushes Scott away from him before the X-Man can lay
hands on him. Evan is fed up and launches himself at Pietro- only to have
the white-haired wonder quickly sidestep and have Evan make a fool out
of himself again. He then challenges Evan to "show what he's got", and
takes off like a lightning bolt, headed towards the downtown area of Bayville.
Spyke, yelling after Pietro, quickly takes out his costume from his backpack
(do they ALWAYS bring that around with them!?) and takes off after Pietro
on skateboard. Scott and Jean follow.
As he gets to downtown
(a street where no one else seems to be, oddly), Pietro slows down a bit
to let Evan catch up, just for the fun of watching Evan fail miserably
as the X-Man tries to catch and beat the stuffing out of Pietro. Pietro
just laughs at Evan's failed attempts and starts running like a madman,
going all around town and busting up windows and cars just by the intense
windgust coming off of him because of how fast he's going. Jean and Scott
catch up with a very frustrated Evan (Now they're in costumes, too. Where'd
they keep those things, in their pants!?). Scott tells Evan (in a very
corny way, I might add) that the guy can't do it by himself- but all of
them, working together, might be able to. Quicksilver soon races by again,
obviously having a very fun time destroying Bayville. Jean uses her psychic
powers to lift Quicksilver off the ground- only to have him start accidentally
spinning himself around and around, creating a mini-tornado with him at
the epicenter. Struggling to hold on to their surroundings, the X-Men try
to figure out how to stop Pietro from destroying the town- or at least,
the street. Cyclops fires a blast at Quicksilver, knocking him into a nearby
building wall. Spyke then follows up by launching a bunch of his "quills"
at Pietro's surroundings, sticking Pietro to the wall.
Pietro is still snide,
however- Spyke still can't prove that he had anything to do with getting
the X-Man in trouble in the first place. Spyke merely smiles and takes
a tape player out of his pocket, playing a recording of Pietro's confession
a little earlier. Cyclops congratulates Spyke on his first success, but
then they all hear police sirens. I suppose all the people on the street
FINALLY noticed all the damage, or something. The X-Men quickly take off,
leaving Quicksilver stuck to the wall as the cops arrive.
In the next scene, we
see Pietro in jail, struggling to get out. A hole suddenly opens up in
the ceiling, and Magneto hovers him. Through the conversation they then
have, we gather that Pietro already knows Magneto somehow. Magneto agrees
to help get Pietro out of jail- if he will join the Brotherhood. Pietro
agrees, and Magneto bends the bars of the jail and helps Pietro out.
Back at the X-Mansion,
all the X-Men are out in the backyard pool. Xavier congratulates Evan,
mentioning that he's been cleared of all the charges after Pietro was found
to be the culpirt. Evan admits that he's liking the Mansion a bit, and
shows Xavier and Ororo his "wonderful" dive into the pool. It might have
been cool, if his spikes didn't involuntarily come out of arms during the
jump, and if he didn't land on Shadowcat's air float, effectively popping
it. And the episode ends there, with Shadowcat mad at Spyke and everyone
else rather amused by the whole ordeal. Way to go, Spyke, on your wonderful
first impression!
Last Words: Spyke comes across as a rather uninteresting character, with a bit of a big head, in his introductory episode. He's also rather arrogant, and he's just not that likable of a character, at least to me. He's still pretty well developed in this episode, however, and his motives for joining the X-Men are pretty well explained. Quicksilver was what really stole the episode, though- he's a very well-done villain, and one of my favorite characters in the show. And he talks rather fast, too, which is always cool. There was quite a few corny lines in the ep, though, most of them made by Spyke. And there were a few times when the Mutants should have been discovered, such as the basketball game at the beginning or the street fight scene at the end. It just becomes apparent at this point that the average person in the show is reeeeally ignorant of his surroundings. Still, not that bad of an episode, when it's all said and done. Just not one of my favorites.
Overall Rating: 7/10 Good