In the "Proteus" episodes, we learn more of Xavier and Moira MacTaggert's history as Moira's son, Proteus, escapes from the Muir Island Research Facility and wreaks havoc across Scotland looking for his father, a politician who has renounced his mutant son. The X-Men have to pull out all the stops in order to calm down this troubled teenage mutant who can alter reality itself.
But while "Proteus" is a good pair of episodes, the rest of the disc is better. "Sanctuary," which seems to be loosely based off of the "Fatal Attractions" comic-book event, has Magneto pulling a habitable asteroid into Earth's orbit and asking that all mutants leave Earth to live in space away from human bigotry. But problems arise when one of Magneto's new lieutenants disposes of the Master of Magnetism and frames the X-Men. Now Cortez (the usurper of Magneto's new society) plans to launch all of Asteroid M's missiles at the Earth at the slightest provocation. With Gambit trapped on the asteroid, the rest of the X-Men have to infiltrate the space-base and stop Cortez before he goes too far.
"Beyond Good and Evil" is the jewel this volume. This four-part epic has Apocalypse getting a hold of Cable's time-traveling capabilities and traveling to a nexus point that exists outside of time. He then gathers all of the X-Men's villains in a master scheme to abduct as many psychic mutants as possible. The X-Men end up taking on everyone from Magneto, Mystique, Sabertooth and Mr. Sinister, but Xavier and the rest of the team have a hard time trying to figure out what their goal is with the various psychics (including Jean Grey). But at least the X-Men have a bit of help in Cable and Bishop's sister, Shard. Bishop himself was knocked off course when Apocalypse traveled to the Nexus and finds himself walking around the same timeless area tormented by a strange creature who claims to be the custodian of time.
After these eventful episodes, the X-Men end up dealing with several short crises. In a Christmas special, Wolverine, Jubilee and Storm go into the sewers to help the Morlock known as Leach while "The Lotus And The Steel" has a restless Wolverine going back to Japan and facing The Silver Samurai in order to find a new balance in his life.
In "Love In Vain," the kid Rogue put into a coma when her powers emerged has woken up and for some reason can touch her. As their romance starts up again, Wolverine discovers an alien race, The Brood, has crashed on Earth and is planning on taking over the planet. It soon becomes evident that the two events, the invading Brood and Rogue's old flame, are connected, and it is up to Rogue, Wolverine and Storm to stop the bug-like aliens.
"Secrets, Not Long Buried" focuses on Cyclops as he travels to a community founded by an old friend of the X-Men. This community, Skull Mesa, seems to have found a way for humans and mutants to live in total harmony. Oddly enough, when Cyclops arrives, he not only finds that his powers are gone, but things aren't quite as peaceful in Skull Mesa as he once thought they were.
"Xavier Remembers" has an old enemy of the team, Shadow King, attacking Xavier in his sleep and forcing him into a battle on the Astral Plane. As the two psychics fight again, Xavier gets flashes of his past and we see how he first meets Storm and what finally makes him decide to create the X-Men. But Professor X's fight with the force he trapped in the Astral Plane doesn't go all that well and the Shadow King ends up taking over Xavier's body. Meanwhile, the X-Men that are at the mansion are feeling the repercussions of their fights as Jubilee faces Sentinels, Cyclops sees Jean captured by Sabertooth and Storm confronts her old claustrophobia.
And in the disc's (and season's) final episode, "Family Ties," X-Factor's Quicksilver and The Avenger's Scarlet Witch learn that the parents that raised them are not their biological family. The twins are sent to find the midwife that brought them to their humble parents and discover a man known as The High Evolutionary. Meanwhile, Magneto hears word that his long-lost wife might actually be alive. Before going on his quest, he stops by the mansion to tell Xavier of the news and forces him to promise not to get in the way. When the twins learn that their mother fled in terror from Magneto, their quest takes a new direction. What they don't realize is that Magneto's former wife and the Maximoff twins' mother could very well be the same person. When Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Magneto begin to fight, Wolverine jumps in to help Magneto (much to his own surprise) and all four are captured by The High Evolutionary for his own purposes.
Like the past three volumes, X-Men: Volume 4 Featuring Beyond Good and Evil doesn't have any special features, but seeing as these volumes are the first real chance to see the series again since it left syndication, if you are like me and loved the show when it first aired, that won't keep you from wanting to pick this up. While I feel like the last half of Volume 4 is fairly weak when compared to the rest of the series, it is still pretty good when compared to other animated super-hero series (both before and after this series).
