X-Men '97 (TV Series)

Mutant Liberation Begins (2024)

Catherine Disher: Val Cooper

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.

• [the X-Men rush outside the mansion as UN helicopters arrive] 

  Magneto : Ready yourselves, my X-Men.

  Cyclops : We don't lose our cool when the good guys show up.

  [UN soldiers exit the helicopters and point their energy rifles at the X-Men] 

  Magneto : You were saying?

  [Val Cooper walks in front of the soldiers] 

  Val Cooper : We're here for Magneto. Think twice. Our rifles are resistant to your electromagnetic powers.

  [Magneto turns on the helicopters and has them surround Cooper and the soldiers with their blades] 

  Magneto : I should have thought twice?

  [Cooper signals for the soldiers to stand down] 

  Val Cooper : Magneto, by order of the UN Commission of Superhuman Activities, I hereby place you under arrest for crimes against humanity. You will stand trial at the UN Headquarters.

  Magneto : Should I successfully vindicate myself in what I will generously assume is a fair trial, will I earn your trust?

  Val Cooper : That is how due process works.

  Magneto : Then...

  [Magneto safely lands the helicopters] 

  Magneto : I yield.

  [Magneto approaches Cooper, offering his hands to be cuffed while an inhibitor is placed around his neck]