Sunday, October 27, 2024

Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 28

Spirit Drinker on a rampage.

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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