X-Men '97 (TV Series)

Mutant Liberation Begins (2024)

Jeff Bennett: American Judge, Burly Goon

Quotes 

• [after Storm is shot by X-Cutioner while protecting Magneto, she realizes that she cannot summon her weather powers while Magneto restrains X-Cutioner] 

  Storm : The breeze is gone. I cannot feel it, nor the moisture, nor the air. What has he done to me?

  [Magneto approaches Cooper and the Tribunal] 

  Val Cooper : Magneto, this was not what we wanted.

  Magneto : Lies. This is your dream. My kind splayed before you, powerless and afraid. All the X-Men have done is use their awesome power to protect a world that hates and fears them. Behold, their reward.

  [Magneto points at a weakened Storm] 

  Magneto : What must we do to be good enough? Is this the high road's destination? If so, I say, as I have too many times before, never again.

  [Magneto raises the stage] 

  American Judge : Let us go! No!

  [Magneto brings X-Cutioner, Cooper, and the Tribunal towards the sky until they have an aerial view of the East Coast. He then hovers over X-Cutioner's helpless body] 

  Magneto : Bigot, ingrate, sycophant, worm. So small, I could smite you with a step. There was a time I would smite you all for what was done to Storm.

  [Magneto hovers away from X-Cutioner] 

  Magneto : But today, I have saved you from your own, for an old friend has challenged me to remember this view of Earth. How vast it is versus how small we make it. Charles Xavier entrusted me with his dream, and it does not ask you to love or embrace my kind as your own, but merely to accept that this is a shared world with a common future, and that my kind, like yours, have the right to live in it. I am trying to be better.

  [Magneto places X-Cutioner facing downward] 

  Carl Denti : Please...

  Magneto : Do not make me let you down.

• [Magneto is put on trial at the UN Headquarters] 

  Magneto : As a boy, my people's homes were burned to ash because we dared to call God by another name. Then, my people hunted me with those who had once hunted them. I was a freak, born a mutant. An abomination to their misnamed gods. In history's sad song, there is a refrain. Believe differently, love differently, be of different sex or skin, and be punished. We sing this song to one another. The oppressed become oppressors. Xavier knew this and dreamed we could change, find harmony. A future where human and mutant could relinquish the past and finally...

  [Magneto sighs] 

  Magneto : You claim justice is overdue. Indeed. But so is healing.

  American Judge : Your words, while kind, do nothing to heal those hurt by your crimes.

  Magneto : And your sound-bite indignation will not heal mutant wounds. You build robots to hunt us, collars to chain our power.

  Male Judge : Humanity must protect itself.

  Magneto : Protection? That is extermination. I have only acted to avenge crimes against my people, as you act to avenge those against yours today.

  Chinese Judge : If that were the case, are we truly to believe, then, that in the face of what you consider to be extermination, you would walk Charles Xavier's path?

  Gambit : Not the worst thing that don't go Magneto's way, don't you think?

• Cyclops : Storm, Jean's in labor. Morph's here, but they're losing the line!

  Storm : Rogue, fly Cyclops to Jean immediately. Magneto and I will protect the judges.

  Cyclops : Be careful, Storm. It's still Magneto.

  Storm : Circumstances do not offer us a choice. I need your men stationed at every door. I want those in the lobby to assist the other X-Men. You, uncollar Magneto. You...

  American Judge : Well, now, who does she think she...

  Storm : Do not think. Be silent. Heed my commands, and you shall survive.