X-Men ’97’s Bastion Villain, Explained

X-Men ’97 Episode 5, “Remember It,” was an incredible episode of television that shocked viewers. Adapting the iconic storyline “E is for Extinction,” the island nation of Genosha was attacked by a massive wild Sentinel that saw many injured or killed in action. While the sixth episode, “Lifedeath – Part 2,” picked up on previous plotlines established prior, both storylines converged with the characters realizing the devastating attack on Genosha. It also felt like fans would be left waiting to figure out who sent the Sentinel and orchestrated the attack.

It was quickly ruled out that it would be Cassandra Nova, like in the comics, mainly because she is set to be the villain of Deadpool & Wolverine. The following week’s episode, “Lifedeath – Part 2,” revealed that Mister Sinister had something to do with all this, but he was not, in fact, the main orchestrator of the attack. He has been working with someone else, the true evil mastermind behind everything.

The actual villain of X-Men ’97 was revealed at the end of episode 7, “Bright Eyes.” The true villain turned out to be none other than the character of Bastion, voiced by Theo James. Bastion might not be as big of a villain in the X-Men canon as Magneto, Mister Sinister, the Hellfire Club, or Apocalypse, but he looks to be the deadliest foe the team has faced yet. Here is everything to know about Bastion, X-Men ’97‘s big bad.

X-Men ’97

4.5/5

Release Date

March 20, 2024

Cast

Jennifer Hale , Chris Potter , Ray Chase , George Buza , Catherine Disher , JP Karliak

Seasons

1

Studio

Marvel Studios

Franchise

Marvel

Who Is Bastion in Marvel Comics and X-Men ’97

Bastion was created by Scott Lobdell and Pascual Ferry and first made a cameo appearance in X-Men #52 in May 1996. He then made his first full appearance the following month in June 1996’s The Uncanny X-Men #333. Bastion is a deadly mixture of two different versions of Sentinels. He is part of Master Mold, a giant living factory that creates Sentinels mixed with Nimrod, the most advanced form of Sentinels that hails from the Days of Future Past timeline and is nearly indestructible. Bastion poses as a human within the United States government and begins enacting a long-term plan to wipe out and destroy the mutants, fanning the flames of human hatred for mutants.

X-Men ’97 has been teasing Bastion for a few episodes. The first was in Episode 4, “Lifedeath – Part 1,” in a photo with Forge and Dr. Adler, a character who appeared in X-Men: The Animated Series who was secretly Mystique making a fake mutant cure under the direction of Apocalypse. Bastion’s face was notably covered in the photo but was identifiable based on his signature outfit. He then appeared in the next episode, “Remember It,” at the mutant ball on Genosha just before the Wild Sentinel attacked, which now was under his control.

Bastion Might Be Nimrod From X-Men: The Animated Series

In the final moments of “Bright Eyes,” Bastion quips to Mister Sinister that the former villains have failed to defeat the X-Men since 1992, referencing the premiere date of X-Men: The Animated Series. Sinister is quick to point out that Bastion is also one of those former villains, to which Bastion replies he is “evolved.” Which villain could it be?

Earlier in the episode, when Rogue drains the information out of Henry Gyrch, a quick glimpse of the Sentinel Nimrod can be seen. This seems to imply that Bastion is, in fact, Nimrod in some shape or form. Nimrod previously appeared in X-Men: The Animated Series, first in “Days of Future Past Part One” and then in the two-part episode “One Man’s Worth.” Both times, he travels back to the future to alter the timeline.

Nimrod was created by writer Chris Claremont and artist John Romita Jr. and first appeared in X-Men #191 in March 1985. Nimrod was a new spin on the Sentinels, one that was reflective of a post-Terminator world which was released in October 1984, just five months before Nimrod’s debut. How and when Nimrod returned has yet to be confirmed, but hints of his presence and Bastion overall were teased in the opening credits of X-Men ’97, which shows Nimrod stepping out of a Master Mold.

X-Men: The Animated Series Season 4 finale was a four-episode event titled “Beyond Good and Evil” and featured many of the X-Men villains, including Magneto, Mister Sinister, Mystique, and Deathbird of the Shi’ar, all working for Apocalypse. Notably, Nimrod was not among the group, and now it appears his exclusion is about to pay off.

In the comics, all future timelines lead to the creation of Nimrod. He is an inevitability for the X-Men and one they are now coming face to face with in X-Men ’97. Now in the form of Bastion, X-Men ’97 looks to be adapting a specific storyline from the comics, “Operation: Zero Tolerance,” which will have significant repercussions on the X-Men.

What Is Operation: Zero Tolerance?

Throughout the episode, teases of a new organization are seeded during Rogue’s investigation to find Henry Gyrch and Bolivar Trask. The name is OZT, and they handled security for Gyrch’s private prison compound and worked in Bolivar Trask’s secret lab in Madripor. The organization is new as Wolverine has never heard of them from his spy operation days, while Trask reveals they emerged in the wake of his Sentinel program failing in X-Men: The Animated Series Season 1, where a Master Mold turned on both him and then mutant-hating Senator Robert Kelly.

OZT is short for Operation: Zero Tolerance. “Operation: Zero Tolerance” was a crossover event from 1997 that focused on Bastion and others in the United States government, like Henry Gyrch, to launch an assault on all mutants, including capturing and torturing X-Men members like Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Jean Grey, and Jubilee. Bastion was defeated, but the biggest lasting legacy was Operation: Zero Tolerance, a new deadly form of Sentinels that has plagued mutant kind up to the recent run of X-Men comics.

What Are Prime Sentinels in Marvel Comics?

“Operation: Zero Tolerance” introduced the concept of Prime Sentinels. Unlike traditional Sentinels, which are massive towering machines, Prime Sentinels were humans fitted with cybernetic nanotech implants that, when activated, transform humans into armored beings with powerful weapons systems. These altered humans were set up as sleeper agents, unaware of their natures until a signal from the Operation: Zero Tolerance base activated their programming. Audiences got a hint of how powerful Prime Sentinels can be in their fight with Bolivar Trask, who is the first Prime Sentinel in the series.

Prime Sentinel technology comes from the “Days of Future Past” timeline, which X-Men ’97 hints at. Beast notes that the robotics of the Sentinel lab they find are far beyond what is capable in their present. Cable’s involvement hints at what the future holds for the X-Men, suggesting the Prime Sentinels are created using technology from the future. Time travel has been a big part of X-Men: The Animated Series as well as X-Men ’97, with Bishop taking Cyclops and Madelyn Pryor’s son Nathan into the future, where he will grow up to become Cable.

One of the most famous Prime Sentinels is Karima Shapandar, codename Omega Sentinel. Originally a Prime Sentinel who was able to break away from her programming and join the X-Men as an ally, in recent comics, she has become one of their greatest enemies and working with Nimrod, who is communicating with her through the future. This unfolded in House of X/Powers of X, which kicked off the Dawn of X storyline, and the Krokan era of comics, which might inform where X-Men ’97 is heading.

How X-Men ’97 Is Adapting the Storyline and What It Tells Us About the Future

X-Men ’97 seems to be merging both 2001’s “E is for Extinction” and 1997’s “Operation: Zero Tolerance”, as evident in the fact that the three-part finale of X-Men ’97 merges the two titles together for “Tolerance Is Extinction”. The attack on Genosha using a wild Sentinel is pulled from “E is for Extinction,” but instead of Cassandra Nova (the main villain of the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine) being behind the attack, it is instead Bastion who is using it as the pretense to launch his attack as opposed to the comics where the “Onslaught” event was the kickoff event to “Operation: Zero Tolerance.”

Bastion/Nimrod’s involvement in the series is actually a clever commentary that can only be made with the hindsight of where audiences know the 1990s go. When X-Men: The Animated Series concluded in 1996, the World Wide Web and the idea of everyone having a computer in their homes started becoming a mainstream concept. The idea of personal computers, smartphones, and even artificial intelligence was years away, but the creators of X-Men ’97 can now comment on the future audiences know is coming. Even if killer robots are not real, the inevitability of a more technologically dominated world is. Tools like the internet and social media have led to greater connection but also more significant forms of misinformation and a rise in hate groups.

X-Men ’97 has used its episodes to have plenty of political and social commentary, from the attack on the United Nations in “Mutant Liberation Begins” being coded like the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection to the attack on Genosha in “Remember It” drawing heavily from Sept. 11 and mass shootings like those of the Pulse nightclub, X-Men ’97 is taking comic storylines and using them to hold up a mirror to the present world of the viewers, seen through the lens of how optimistic the 1990s were and how that would be short-lived as it would make way for a more divided future. Bastion/Nimrod might be from the X-Men’s comic past, but reality caught up to make them far more relevant than ever.

X-Men ’97 has largely downplayed mutant-on-mutant action shown in the original series or other forms of media aside from the Inferno storyline in Episode 3. Apart from the threat of otherworldly foes like Mojo and the Adversary, the X-Men have been fighting humans or human-made threats like Sentinels. Yet Bastion’s actions have already planted seeds for what might be an X-Men civil war brewing as characters like Cyclops, Beast, and Rogue appear to be shaken by what happened in Genosha.

The X-Men might stand united to defeat Bastion and the Prime Sentinels, but by the end of it all, the mutant community might be more fractured than ever, and the X-Men themselves might split up to form different teams. X-Men ’97 could lead to adaptions of X-Men: Schism, Avengers vs. X-Men, and even the Dawn of X storyline. Bastion is the big bad of X-Men ’97, and his actions will have far-reaching consequences for the X-Men in the future of this series. Yet, in the final three episodes of the season, we will truly see how much damage he does. X-Men ’97 is streaming now on Disney+.