The Mysterious Mesmero mindbends Mutants to malicious misdemeanors. I know that theft of this magnitude is probably a felony, but I needed to alliterate.
Last time on X-Men: Evolution, an
Angel took flight. Reclusive trust fund kid Warren Worthington III decided to
use his gifts, a pair of angelic wings, to fly around NYC saving people. This drew
the attention of both Xavier and Magneto. Wanting to recruit Warren, Charles
sent Rogue and Scott to look for him, as they were his only two students not
away for Christmas, and Magneto handled this one himself. Magneto sets Warren up
and forces him to knock a child into the frozen water. He saves the girl, but
New Yorkers quickly soured on the “freak” after that. Rogue and Scott track
Warren to a cathedral where the girl’s parents were praying, and where Magneto attempted
to force the fledgling Mutant to come with him. The three force Magneto to
retreat. They are all relieved to see the girl recover from her dip in the
frozen river, and we closed on how everyone was doing over the holiday. It was
a very nice episode. Let’s get to it, shall we?
We open on Jean walking through a carnival
in her nightshirt. She’s almost immediately set upon by demons from the foulest
pit of hell, Clowns. What? Read or watch It, clowns are Monsters! Anyway, she’s
surrounded by bigger and bigger clowns until one of them collapses and crushes
her. She wakes up, floating a good foot or more off her bed. After landing, she
noticed a Jack-in-the-box by her bed winding down. She grabs it for some
reason, and when it pops open, the creepy smiling grimace of a tattooed man
makes her scream.
... I can't imagine this sells well.
The next day, the entire mansion is
frantically searching for Jean. Apparently, she vanished in the night. They
found the Jack-in-the-box, but Scott just says it’s something she one at the
Carnival in town last week, not realizing that thing is a smoking Chekhov’s
freaking gun. Hank informs Scott and Charles that Jean is for sure not on the
grounds. Hank then goes down to their super computer and goes through news
articles looking to see if she’s made headlines yet. When asked Charles why
they aren’t using Cerebro, Charles reminds everyone that Cerebro won’t detect
Jean until she uses her powers. Meanwhile, the others are searching for Jean
around town, Scott calling their normal friends as he drives, Rogue, Evan and
Kurt trying her favorite spots in town, and Kitty checking to see if the Brotherhood
knows anything. There’s a pretty funny gag where the area shakes, Kitty comes
out in a huff telling Lance to cool it and that she wasn’t accusing them but remarks
“as if one of you hadn’t tried it before,” as she walks off.
Meanwhile, the New Mutants, Bobby,
Berserker (yes that’s his name), Sam, and Jubilee sneak down into the Danger
Room to have an unsupervised training session. Jamie runs in to do the training
session too, but the others ditch the younger New Mutant saying that Multiple
isn’t fit for the Danger Room just yet.
Logan is the one to finally get a
clue, a bus station attendant remembers seeing her, got a ticket to Boston at
about 4 in the morning. He calls it in, and Charles confirms using Cerebro. Oh
no.
It's best to not mess with Ms. Jean Gray.
In Boston, Jean in her full
costume, breaks into a museum and steals a gawdy looking gold ring with a large
ruby. As she flies out, some patrol cars pull up to stop her, but she casually
flings them aside as she floats away.
Scott has the X-Jet prepped, but Charles
tells him they’ll have to wait, as Jean’s last use of power was at a set of train
tracks, so she’s likely long gone.
The New Mutants, meanwhile are
caught in a tentacle trap in the Danger Room. They’re able to free themselves combining
their powers. The guys are all stoked to keep practicing, but Jubilee has had
enough and tries to leave. Unfortunately, Jamie is in the control booth and
decided to give his classmates some extra credit. They come out some time later
with frazzled hair and torn uniforms. Jamie comes over to gloat, and the others
threaten to get him, but are too sore to do it immediately.
That night, Jean returns to the
Mansion. Scott, who’d been tossing and turning with worry, sees her and tries
to talk to her. Unfortunately, she just mentally blasts him to knock him unconscious
and puts him to bed. She goes to Kurt’s room, the occupant snapping one is eyes
and moving silently like Jean has all episode.
Scott wakes up and tells the
professor what happened. They’re able to track them via Airport surveillance
and found them heading towards New York City… wait, aren’t they really close to
there? Whatever. Scott and Logan head out in the X-Jet.
Okay, this is a very clever combination of powers.
Kurt and Jean break into a bank,
Jean using her powers to keep them above security and Kurt using his to bamf them
into places. They pull open a safety deposit box and take another gawdy ring
with a large gemstone from it. Logan and Scott land and bust into the bank in
quick order. Jean throws them both back out into the street, and then she and
Kurt teleport out and up to the X-Jet, stealing it. Logan grumbles that “this
is seriously starting to get me upset.”
The X-Jet lands at the mansion.
Within, Hank has done some research and figured out that the rings are from
ancient Tibet, and that they’re part of a set of three. They’re still looking
for the third ring when Charles senses Jean. He uses his telepathy to try to
delver her mind, but only sees an image of that tattooed man from earlier. When
he breaks the trance, Hank informs him that they’re locked in. Kitty and Spyke have
been taken over as well and the group of four escape.
Sometime later, Charles is able to reconstruct
the man from his vision on Cerebro as Rogue walks in. She recognizes him, and takes
Charles back up to the now cooled Chekhov’s gun… I mean Jack-in-the-box, saying
that it is of the Mindbending Mesmero, one of the acts of that Circus they visited
last week. And then Hank comes in and says that he found the last ring, at the
Washington Museum of Eastern Antiquities.
In Washington, the X-Jet lands on
the roof of the Washington Museum of Eastern Antiquities. Security meets them on
the roof. Huh, a half dozen rent-a-cops vs. four highly trained Mutants. Well,
it goes exactly how you’d think, and they slip into the building. They use
their combined powers to seal off the exhibit area and Kitty is the one to
phase the final ring out of its case. They return to the jet and take off. Well,
at least no one got hurt.
Beast, Rogue and Charles pick up
Logan and Scott in the Velocity. Logan complains that it’s about time as they’re
not dressed for socializing with normals, but Hank comments that they’re all
dressed for the Circus.
The X-Jet lands and the crew
disembark to bring Mesmero his prizes. The Velocity lands a moment later,
Charles telling his team that they just need to hold off the others long enough
for him to face off against Mesmero.
Beast and Nightcrawler start the fighting
off, the two blue Mutants grappling, with Nightcrawler teleporting around to
try and disorientate his teacher. Spyke faces off against Cyclops and Rogue,
almost skewering them but Cyclops is able to knock him off his feet. Jean takes
over and throws her oldest friend around like a rag doll. Wolverine then faces
off against Shadowcat… kinda. He says that he can’t hurt the twerp, and she
kicks him in the shin… I’m 100% that would hurt her foot more than it’d hurt
his shin. Because metal bones. But this apparently disables Logan? Weird.
You mess with the Xavier, you get the mind crush.
Jean goes for the tent, but Charles
tries to stop her. He pulls the whole “fight it,” thing, but Mesmero’s hold is
too strong. Rogue rushes Jean and tries to drain her. She’s able to drop Jean
but she’s strong enough to toss the bag to Mesmero, whom I guess was hiding
just inside the tent, watching like a creepy voyeur. Mesmero laughs evilly now
that he has his prize, but Charles doesn’t make it easy for him. The two have a
psychic duel where it seems like Charles will obliterate him, but then Mesmero
smirks and says “You have no idea who you’re messing with, Xavier,” before
mentally blasting Charles back. Mesmero ducks back into the tent.
 |
| He is coming. |
Everyone comes too, with no memory of the last few days or hours as the case may be. Rogue helps Charles up and then uses her borrowed Telekinesis to rip the tent apart. But Mesmero is gone. Charles is clearly shaken by this, claiming that Mesmero was merely another pawn in the game, that he was working with something far more powerful than anything he’d felt before.
We cut over to the mountains of
Tibet. Mesmero is creeping through the rocks into a hidden temple. He creeps
through the temple, grabbing a golden shaft from an altar. He fixes the rings
onto the shaft, turning it into a key. He uses the key on the lock, causing a
lot of light and lightning to spark as the door peels open. It reveals another
door, one with some kind of insect inlayed in it. He asks for more instructions,
which he receives via telepathy. He promises to find the other two keys and
that one day soon the world will once again tremble… at the presence… of… Apocalypse!
OH balls.
I thought that this was a great episode
introducing the Apocalypse arc. While only shown briefly, Mesmero is creepy and
mysterious enough to work as a servant of Apocalypse. The bit at the end where
he’s actually able to fight off the strongest Telepath alive, hinted at with
long distance help from ol’ Nur, was a bit of a shock. I also liked how they
showed the effects of his powers. Once enthralled, his victims were completely
silent, staring unblinkingly forward, and not even grunting as they’re battered
around. Though I do question why Mesmero didn’t grab everyone, or at least Kurt
as well as Jean when he grabbed Jean. Like, teleportation plus telekinesis,
that solves 90% of the issues you might face. I think my one complaint was that
bit where apparently Logan was stopped by Kitty, definitely, breaking her foot
kicking his shin. That was just such a bizarre choice. This is not the last we’ll
see of Mesmero, Apocalypse is coming, and the world will TREMBLE with his
coming.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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