EntertainmentTVAction ShowsMarvel TV ShowsX-Men ‘97Who is Bastion? The comic history of the secret villain who has been hiding in X-Men ‘97 all alongWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
EntertainmentTVAction ShowsMarvel TV ShowsX-Men ‘97Who is Bastion? The comic history of the secret villain who has been hiding in X-Men ‘97 all alongWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Marvel Comics)
AfterX-Men ‘97 episode 7’s big reveal of Bastion as the main villain of the revived animated streaming series, we’re left with more questions than answers about exactly how the mysterious master of Operation: Zero Tolerance (OZT) and his Prime Sentinels will attack the X-Men in the final few episodes of the season.
In other words, we know exactly where (and when) to look in the comic history of Marvel’s merry mutants to get some clues about Bastion’s true nature, and what may be in store for the team as X-Men ‘97 moves towards its big season finale.
Be aware, we’ll be getting intospoilersfor some ’90s X-Men comics that could potentially play into future episodes of X-Men ‘97, though which, if any, further connections will be made between the history of the comics and the show is just speculation at this point.
Who - and what - is Bastion?
(Image credit: Marvel Comics)
First off, what exactlyisBastion? As viewers may have already surmised, he’s not actually human - though he sure looks that way. In comics, he even has a full name: Sebastion Gilberti. And his followers and fellow anti-mutant villains in the Operation: Zero Tolerance program are mostly human.
But that’s all part of Bastion’s programming as one of the most advanced Sentinels ever created, designed to look, act, and pass as fully human. What’s more, Bastion is not just a new design of Sentinel.
He’s actually a merged fusion of a Master Mold, the massive Sentinel progenitors that create other Sentinels, and Nimrod, a super-powerful Sentinel from the future, both of whom appeared multiple times in the original X-Men: The Animated Series.
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Incidentally, both Master Mold and Nimrod have been appearing in the credits of recent episodes of X-Men ‘97, making that one of the show’s various BastionEaster eggsthat have beenhidden in many of the episodes.
The thing is, when Bastion first started appearing in X-Men comics, not only did readers and other characters believe Bastion was human, but so did he himself. However, the truth of the matter is that Bastion originally began as a version of Nimrod, who was in disguise as a human when he made contact with a Master Mold unit.
After a brief fight with the X-Men, the combined Master Mold/Nimrod was sent through a magical portal known as the Siege Perilous which somehow transformed him into an artificial human loaded with all the programming of the Sentinels in his own body, complete with false human memories.
With his anti-mutant programming taking hold, Bastion launched a program named Operation: Zero Tolerance designed to rebuild - and improve - the Sentinel program.
What are Prime Sentinels?
(Image credit: Marvel Comics)
Bastion’s mission centers around the creation of other Sentinels masquerading as humans, known in this case as Prime Sentinels (viewers likely noticed that Bolivar Trask’s Sentinel form in episode 7 is referred to as “Prime Trask,” for example).
Bastion’s nanites then transform their bodies into living weapons that can be activated to take on any unsuspecting mutants in the vicinity with an entire arsenal of anti-mutant tricks.
This of course also has the side-effect of pretty much killing the Prime Sentinel’s human host, but these are villains who wish to kill all mutants, so they’re more than willing to sacrifice a few humans to do it.
There are also Omega Prime Sentinels which have further advanced abilities, including the power to generate weaponry from nanites housed in their bodies. One Omega Prime Sentinel, Karima Shapandar, has been active alongside a version of Nimrod in recent X-Men comics as members of Orchis.
Orchis is an anti-mutant organization that is currently hunting down mutants across the Marvel Universe with - what else? - a new breed of even more powerful Sentinels built from stolen Stark technology (as in Tony Stark/Iron Man).
What is Operation: Zero Tolerance?
(Image credit: Marvel Comics)
In addition to being the name of Bastion’s revived Sentinel program, Operation: Zero Tolerance is also the name of the main story in which Bastion clashed with the X-Men. Told as the big summer crossover of 1997, Operation: Zero Tolerance ran across multiple X-Men titles, taking up most of the line.
At the time, one of the big antagonists of X-Men comics was Graydon Creed, a presidential candidate running on a platform of open anti-mutant bigotry. Much like his depiction in X-Men: The Animated Series, he’s also the non-mutant son of Sabretooth and Mystique, and the leader of the Friends of Humanity, who have been seen in both the original animated series and X-Men ‘97.
New episodes of X-Men ‘97 stream every Wednesday onDisneyPlus.
Check out thebest X-Men storiesof of all time.
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