The most obvious of these out-of-place episodes is "No Mutant Is An Island" where Scott tries to work out his feelings after apparently losing Jean Grey after the events of the 5-part "Phoenix Saga" episodes. In this episode, Scott revisits the orphanage he grew up at and realizes that the mutant-friendly home has a few issues that only someone with Cyclops' unique talents can take care of.
"A Deal with the Devil" was another Season Three show originally pushed back to the last season. In this episode, the US government thaws out Omega Red to have him move a downed nuclear sub. Wolverine and Storm end up joining the Russian mutant in order to keep him in line. Needless to say, it isn't long before the russkie-brute takes control of the Russian sub and the two mutants must stop him while confined to the bottom of the sea - something the claustrophobic Storm has a bit of trouble coping with.
While not necessarily feeling out of place, Longshot (whom the episode is named after) and Mojo's return to the animated series also appears in this collection. Hearking back to events from "Mojovision" where the X-Men were put on an inter-dimension television series, Wolverine and a few other heroes are a bit on edge when Mojo's main star stumbles onto their world (and in Wolverine's Jeep), but without any memories of his past or why the intergalactic television producer is after him.
Rounding out the out-of-place episodes is "Bloodlines" where Nightcrawler's mysterious past is finally revealed to him. While Nightcrawler's mission to save his mother starts off appearing on the up-and-up, when his mother's true identity is revealed, one of the members of the X-Men begins to have some problems with the monk-mutant's parentage. Another aspect of this episode deals with the Friends of Humanity former leader Graydon Creed when he learns that Sabertooth isn't the only mutant in his family tree.
Before these four misplaced episodes is the two part event "The Phalanx Covenant." In these episodes, an alien bio-mechanical race has started invading Earth and assimilating everyone and everything into its hive-minded society. If the idea of a bio-organic race trying to assimilate everyone sounds a bit too much like Star Trek's Borg, don't worry, the parallels weren't lost on the TV series writers as The Phalanx shouts "Resistance is futile" more than once. When Beast ends up being the only X-Man left free, he ends up teaming up with Forge, Quicksilver and even Mr. Sinister and Magneto in order to stop the alien invasion, and their only ally from the opposing race is a strange character who goes by Warlock.
Another two-part episodes, "Storm Front," focuses on the mistress of nature as she is brought to another dimension in order to help another planet deal with meteorological troubles far more destructive than anything Storm has ever seen before. While Storm is able to subdue the destructive forces, her reward is far from what she expected. The planet's leader, Arkon (the person who brought Storm to this strange place), asks for her hand in marriage. While Storm quickly accepts the proposal, her fellow X-Men find that her decision might be brash and we learn that the benevolent Arkon might not be as peaceful as Storm and the others might believe.
"Jubilee's Fairy Tale Theatre" is the first episode in this collection under the new animation company, and besides changes in the visual style of the show, there is a definite difference in the voice acting, thus making many of the characters not sound quite right. Anyway, in this Jubilee-centric episode, the teenage mutant is tasked with taking a group of kids on a tour of the caves around Xavier's school. When an earthquake traps the troupe in a large cavern, Jubilee decides to tell the young ones a story of elven heroines (Jubilee), a side-kick troll (Wolverine), a rogue (Gambit, of course) and a lovely king (Cyclops) and queen (Jean). The party must stop the evil sorcerer Magnus (Magneto naturally) from obtaining both halves of a magical crystal.
In "Fifth Horseman," Apocalypse tries to rear his ugly head again when Jubilee and Beast spend time exploring the wilds of South America. It seems that Fabian Cortez (the betraying mutant on Magneto's Asteroid M) is now following the immortal mutant and wants Jubilee to act as a host to Apocalypse so he can be freed from his Astral Plane prison.
One of the more interesting episodes of X-Men: Volume 5 is "Old Soldiers" where Wolverine remembers an encounter he had back in World War II. Not only does this episode give those fans who have only seen the TV series a glimpse at just how old Logan might be, but he also teams up with Captain America in order to break into a NAZI base. While the Cap might not be the best hero from the Marvel universe, it's kind of hard to avoid the character if you deal with WWII.
In the next two episodes, "Hidden Agendas" and "Decent," a young mutant tries to live a normal life with Rogue heading up his learning and and we finally get to see the origins of Mr. Sinister. While "Hidden Agendas" is an average side story, it is easily overshadowed by "Decent" and the strange debates in Victorian Era England between Dr. Nathaniel Essex and Dr. James Xavier that lead to Essex performing strange experiments and eventually becoming the recurring villain.
The series finale, "Graduation Day," quickly take a dramatic turn when a debate turns ugly and Professor Xavier is put into a coma and mutants around the world rally in a revolt led by Magneto. As fights break out across the world, the X-Men must approach their rivals and convince the Master of Magnetism to stop the revolt, one way or another. I have to say, the way this series ends is one of the stranger series finale's I've seen in a long time, and apparently I never saw this particular episode when it originally aired, because I would have definitely remembered it.
Like the past volumes, there are no special features, and while this particular collection feels very out of sorts (mostly because of the change in animators and the shuffled episodes), it is still a part of one of the greatest animated series of all time (and best animated Marvel series). If you're like me and you watched the series when it was originally on, or have been watching them for the first time through these DVD releases, then you won't want to miss out on X-Men: Volume 5 Featuring Old Soldiers, especially since it not only wraps up the show, but contains several key episodes like "No Mutant Is An Island."
