Wolverine and the X-men (TV) - episode 6 - X-Calibre

It would be logical to look at the title of this episode and think "Wait, they're going to adapt an Age of Apocalypse series somehow in the middle of this?  How does that make sense?"  But amazingly, it actually does and works really well.  While in that comic series Nightcrawler was escorting humans out of an Apocalypse ruled America to the fabled land of Avalon, here he is helping out fellow mutants who are escaping the MRD in America and heading to Genosha.  And the ship where most of the action takes place is called Avalon.  That's actually pretty clever.

So a group of mutants are aboard this cargo ship and are being treated pretty poorly by the crew who only agreed to take them for money.  But Nightcrawler uses his teleportation powers to get the mutants food and convince the crew to play nice.  Things get a bit more dangerous when pirates attack the ship.  These pirates are led by Spiral, who is actually looking for mutants to recruit for her master Mojo.  Her fellow pirates are the Reavers, and their ship is being piloted by a mutant she calls Ricochet, though the female character presented here has nothing in common with the male one from the comics. (It occurs to me now this may be a reference to the fact that Spiral was once known as Richochet Rita before Mojo changed her.)

Nightcrawler defeats Spiral by teleporting off her cybernetic extra arms, and he teaches the mutants on the boat that they are all gifted rather than cursed and they work together to help fix the damage that has been done to the ship.  We also get a flashback moment in the episode where we see Professor Xavier rescue Nightcrawler from the mob that was attacking him.  The X-men show up after the conflict is all over and ask Kurt to rejoin, but he tells them he wants to help these mutants get to safety first.  Logan understands and lets him go.

While the plot is fairly simple, I really like this episode.  It shows off Nightcrawler's strengths and what makes him such a fun and appealing character.  Mojo's presence also teases at a possible later conflict with him, and whenever you get Mojo involved it's usually a good time.  The hardest part about doing these reviews so far is that once an episode finishes I really want to move on to the next one!