Last time on X-Men: The Animated
Series, Logan caught up with an old ex. Yuriko Oyama, the girlfriend Logan
had had right before being taken and turned into Weapon X, is now a cyborg
called Lady Deathstrike. She and her mercenary henchmen, the Reavers, were
robbed by Leech of the Morlocks. Leech stole a weapon from them on orders of
Callisto, who wanted to use it to get ‘treasure.’ The Reavers tracked them down,
captured them and learned their treasure was an alien spaceship. Deathstrike
couldn’t approach the ship as it reacted to her cyborg components, but she
decided adamantium bonded to an organic system might work. She has Leech lure
Logan into the Morlock tunnels to face her, and Jubilee forced Gambit to come
with her in stalking Wolverine. Logan faces off against Deathstrike, learning
that her father was a scientist that worked on the Weapon X program. Dr. Oyama
had figured out the bonding process with adamantium and died in his frenzied
escape. A brawl breaks out, Logan ultimately slashing the barrier around the ship
to save Yuriko. Right as Xavier, who was instigating the ship on his own after
getting hit with a psychic pulse from it when Yuriko touched it earlier,
shouted for him to not do that. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.
We open with the ship opening. The Reavers
open up on the hole in the ship, but that doesn’t seem to affect the creature
inside. A giant green monster made of energy comes out of the hole. Everyone
shoots at it, but it doesn’t notice. The creature grabs the Reavers and seems to
put them in a coma, their eyes glowing green but are otherwise unresponsive. Logan
tries to get everyone to leave despite Deathstrike’s protests. Gambit tries to
stay behind to hold it off, but Jubilee jumps in the way and gets knocked out
instead. Wolverine screams bloody murder, and we cut to Charles in Cerebro also
screaming before asking himself what they unleashed. Wolverine jumps at the
creature and slashes it, his claws unaffected but he seems to actually hurt it.
They grab Jubilee and run. They make it out of the tunnel, stopping just briefly
to check on Jubilee. She’s still out cold. Wolverine tries to throw this at
Yuriko, but she insists that because he murdered her dad this is on him. Gambit
tells them to shut up and run, so they do.
We cut to Beast at an art museum
talking with a woman that’s clearly uncomfortable to be around him. He’s
interrupted by the professor’s mental call and quickly runs to answer it.
The creature comes across the
Morlocks and touches them with its tentacles, putting them in the trance. Some
ways away, Deathstrike says she’s sure they’ve lost the creature, but Logan can
still smell it. Gambit asks if she even cares about her men, which she doesn’t because
they’re mercenaries. And she cares even less about the Morlocks. Gambit tries
to figure out what happened to Jubilee. Deathstrike tries to leave, but
Wolverine grabs her and tells her they aren’t leaving while that creature is
walking around. He knows if it gets out of the sewer, it’ll have 8 million
victims to snack on. Deathstrike mocks him for helping people that despise him.
The creature bursts through the wall and attacks them. It shows them Jubilee’s
face in it’s form, crying out for help. Gambit throws a card at it, holding the
creature off long enough for them to run.
Topside, Cyclops and Jean are
enjoying a night out right as Xavier calls out to them. They have their dinner turned
into a to go order.
Wolverine and co keep running, the
beast chasing and now using Deathstrike’s henchmen to call out to her. This actually
enrages her and she charges it. Gambit follows her and knocks her out of the way
of its tentacles. He throws some cards at it and causes a cave in to block it.
Deathstrike asks him what go that does, and Gambit points out it buys them time
to figure out a plan. Wolverine gives him Jubilee, telling him to get her safe
while Deathstrike and him fight it. They seen adamantium hurts it, so they’re
the best chance to stop it. Gambit doesn’t want to leave him, but Wolverine tells
him he can play cavalry once Jubilee is safe. Gambit runs as the creature starts
to glow brightly. It’s glow suddenly vanishes. They cut through the rock and
find a big hole in the ground, right before the creature circles around and cuts
through a wall to attack them. They use their claws to slice it’s tentacles,
but Deathstrike gets caught by the ankle and pulled into it. It uses Yuriko’s
voice to call out to Logan. He prepares to go down fighting when one of Cyclops’
optic beams causes the creature to dissipate. Gambit says he found them on the
way up, them being Beast, Cyclops, Jean and Charles. Wolverine asks why they
brought Jubilee back, the Professor saying that she’s as safe with them as
anyone. He places Yuriko next to Jubilee on Charles’ chair, explaining that she’s
an old friend that wants him dead. Cyclops isn’t shocked by this info. The
creature reforms and attacks. Jean tries to read it’s mind but get’s a nasty psychic
shock that blasts her back. She claims that the creature’s mind was so
repellant it almost overwhelmed it. Cyclops goes to blast it, but Wolverine
pushes him down, letting it escape. Cyclops demands to know why, Wolverine
explaining that a lot of people’s minds are mixed up in it so they need to be
careful. Beast, Charles and the victims head down to investigate the ship while
Wolverine, Gambit, Jean and Cyclops go after the monster.
Beast and Charles enter the ship.
They find a large glass containment sphere that most likely held the creature.
They find writing on the sphere, but can’t read it Charles touches it, gets zapped,
and suddenly he can understand the writing. The sign on the cage read “danger.”
Charles tells Beast to go help the others while Charle’s uses his new insight
to research the creature.
Charles reaches out to Jean a short
time later, telepathically explaining that the monster is called a “Spirit Drinker”
and was captured in the ship to send it out into deep space forever. They have
no idea how it got to Earth. They hear screams and know the Spirit Drinker found
it’s way topside. It attacks a subway and drains it. They catch up to the
creature but don’t know what to do to stop it. And Jean adds that the minds inside
are getting weaker so they’re on a time limit. Logan decides to charge it with his
claws at that is the only thing they’ve got to hurt it. He tells the others to
give him cover while he slashes it. He hurts the creature but can’t stop it. It
slaps him back with it’s tentacles. Beast joins them and grabs Logan. Logan
notes that a bit of tentacle fell on the electrified third rail and was
destroyed. Of all the times for Storm to be on vacation, I swear. Thankfully
them have another way to expose it to electricity. Gambit extends his staff and
spears it with it, stabbing the third rail.
The creature is shocked into oblivion and barfs up the spirits it ate. Everyone
recovers, and Jubilee, Charles and Deathstrike join them. Beast notes the
Spirit Drinker seems to be gone and Logan says it’s dead. Logan asks where he
stands with Deathstrike. She says she’ll leave for now, but this changes
nothing between them. When she’s strong enough, she’ll be back to kill him. She
bows and leaves, Logan is clearly choked up by this farewell.
The X-Men check on the Morlocks and
the ship. The Reavers are gone, but Cyclops is sure it’ll take them time to
repair their cybernetics and be a problem again. Charles tells his team that he’s
glad they’re all safe. Jubilee asks if this is all over, but Charles has bad
news on that front. When he touched the sign, he got zapped with information his
mind his having trouble processing. He saw visions of a space empire with
warships and power beyond their understanding. He fears this is only the beginning.
The episode ends with a view of earth, flames erupting around it and text that
promises that the Phoenix saga is coming soon.
This was a fine introduction to the
X-Men mythos beyond Earth. If you’ve seen this or later seasons, you know that the
X-Men are very closely tied to an Alien race known as the Shi’ar. The design of
the ship was already a hint but Charles’ vision was of the Shi’ar empire and
their galaxy conquering exploits. If you’re new to this corner of the Marvel
universe, the Shi’ar are up there with the Skrull and Kree empires, it’s not in
direct conflict with either but like… empires conflict with other empires
almost by definition. So yeah, finding one of their prison ships is most
definitely not good. The Spirit Drinker itself was an interesting monster.
Eating life essence, or minds, or whatever word you want to use other than Soul
is pretty standard but it’s green energy form was neat. Using its victims
images to enrage or lure other victims to it was a nice touch. I thought it was
a fun weakness to make it adamantium, but as I listed above this was a hell of
an episode for Storm to be busy for. Like, I know she’s not there so the plot
can happen, but imagine how the team felt when they realizes this thing was
weak to electricity and that their member who throws lightning as one of her
basic attack is MIA. I don’t have much to say on Deathstrike, beyond that her
Beef with Logan is a nice shift from Sabretooth. O’ Creed kind of, sort of just
hates Logan, while Yuriko used to love him, so her anger and hate is just that
much more potent. She’ll obviously be a sore spot for him when she returns. So
yeah, fine episode. Next time, The Phoenix RISES!
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