Sauron is back and he's HUNGRY.
Last time on X-Men: The Animated
Series, we caught up with two ex-X-Men. Founding X-Man Robert “Bobby” Drake
was attempting to break into an ‘abandoned’ military base absolutely bursting
with weapons and tech. The X-Men get the alert via Cerebro and head in to stop
him. Scott is angry that his former teammate is being difficult yet again, Hank
is excited to see him and scolds Scott for being too critical of him, and
Charles is worried he may have failed his wayward student. And Logan is there, enjoying
the drama. They stop Bobby and bring him in. When he refuses to cooperate,
Charles puts him in ‘detention’ an anti-gravity cell. Hank coaxes Bobby a
little and learns he’s looking for Lorna Dane, his girlfriend that disappeared
under mysterious circumstances. He still refuses to trust Charles, though, to
Hank’s disappointment. Jubilee frees him and they try to raid the base again. They’re
immediately captured by at team of Mutants and the X-Men fly in to save them. An
all out brawl breaks out between the X-Men and X-Factor. Wolverine, Cyclops,
Beast, Iceman and Jubilee ultimately defeat Havok, Wolfsbane, Strong Guy, Quicksilver
and Multiple Man before Forge, team leader, comes out and explains the situation.
He basically wanted to see how his team would fare against the X-Men so kept
Charles out of the loop. We learn that Lorna had actually joined X-Factor and
her apparent kidnapping was a very scummy way to try to breakup with Bobby without
breaking up with him. She’s also seeing Havok now, which is a bitch move. The
teams separate as somewhat friendly rivals. Bobby elects to leave as he likes
his non-hero accounting life and believes he'll piss everyone off if he stays
too long. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it.
Our story begins in the Savage Land.
Since we last saw this land out of time, the Pterodactyl man Sauron has taken
over, ruling the land from Sinister/Magneto’s old fortress with loyalists
riding Pterosaurs. Ka-Zar and his people are in open revolt and are attacking
the Citadel. While Sauron has kept them at bay up to this point, he’s rapidly
weakening and his soldiers are quickly captured. Ka-Zar and his men corner Sauron
in his throne room as he slowly loses his Pterosaur features. He’s saved at the
last minute by a mysterious woman that opens a secret passage under the floor.
She introduces herself as Zaladane, high priestess of the sun god Garokk. She
reveals that through Garokk she knows that Sauron needs to drain the life-essence
from Mutants in order to fuel his powers. Which is a bummer since all the
Mutants left a while back. She reveals an escape ship that Magneto left hidden
at the base of his citadel and tells him that he must flee. Sauron fully reverts
to his human form of Karl Lykos, and points out that without Mutants to feed on
in the Savage Land, he’ll never return to his Sauron form. Maybe that means Ka-Zar
and his people will leave him be. She insists that Ka-Zar won’t risk him ever
regaining his Sauron powers and will punish him for his tyranny. She gives him
an amulet of Garokk to watch over him and sends him off. As he flies away, Zaladane
says that ‘it is as you commanded’ and a giant Rapa Nui style statue’s eyes
start glowing.
We cut to New York where Rogue is
riding a horse through central park with Storm. She announces she’ll take
riding over flying any day. Ororo says that she respects and likes Rogue’s
spirit but admits that she needs to keep herself under control lest her powers
go wonky. Rogue says maybe a little chaos will do her some good and the two
ride off.
We find Karl hiding in a subway,
grabbing people to drain their essence. A refresher for anyone that never read my
Sauro villain profile from a while back, Karl’s power is technically the need
to absorb life from humans. He touches them and sucks up their ‘essence’ to
keep his own life going. When he touches a Mutant, it triggers a retrovirus in
his system that turns him into Sauron. He is disgusted by his need to feed on people
like a vampire and wanders off. He ends up at a museum where Jubilee, Hank and
Logan are hanging out. Karl sees the three as Logan and Jubilee are getting Chili
dogs and Hank fumbles with the map. He senses power in them, the flashing eyes on
his necklace and the confused look on his face suggests that this is new for
him, and he rationalizes he needs just a little power from them to survive. He begs
Logan for some help, and when the Canadian goes for his wallet to give him a
few bucks, grabs him and starts draining. He’s horrified to learn Logan is a
Mutant and that the power is fueling Sauron. Hank runs over and throws him
aside, but not soon enough to stop his Sauron morph. He announces that Sauron
is reborn before flying off. Beast radios Storm and Rogue about Sauron and Storm
does her magic costume change before flying off after him. Sauron senses her
great power. She tries to knock him down with ice, but Rogue joins them and he
hypnotizes her to help him. Storm summons a gust to knock them aside. Sauron
hypnotizes Storm and puts her to sleep. He grabs her and flies off. Beast tells
Wolverine and Jubilee to chase after him while he handles Rogue. He hops on her
back and uses his coat to blind her, causing her to hit the water to wake her
up. Logan and Jubilee chase Sauron, but he gets into his jet and flies off. Logan
angrily says that he’ll give Jubilee one guess as to where they’re headed.
The X-Men head back to the mansion to
get their gear and the Blackbird. Beast tells Wolverine that he’s been unable
to contact the others on Muir Island, which is how we learn that Jean is there,
and she is being studied post Phoenix. They head out.
Sauron returns to Zaladane and
gives her Storm. She says that he’s done well and that through her they’ll be
able to unlock great power. She promises that if they’re able to unleash her
self control, they’ll unleash her full power and give him access to untold Mutant
Life energy to fuel his power. He says to watch him. He uses his hypnotic
powers to force Storm to let go, unleashing her full power and turning her into
an insane storm god. Sauron rushes her and drains her for just a moment. That drops
Storm and fuels Sauron with more power than he’s ever felt before.
The X-Men fly in. On the way in,
Jubilee sees a Garokk statute and asks about him. Beast and Wolverine fill her
in based on info Ka-Zar told them off screen last time they were in the area.
He’s a local sun god that is said to be infused with the very ground of the
Savage Land. They land and start tracking Storm. Beast uses a tracking device, Rogue
flies off and Wolverine tries to track her via scent. They’re interrupted by a
T-Rex attack. Rogue flies back in to save Beast from getting chomped. The dino chases
them, but Ka-Zar jumps on it and they drive to a tiger trap. He says hey, what’s
up?
They head to Ka-Zar’s village and
fill him in on what’s happened. He reveals to them how his people have started
to Worship Garokk recently. He explained that after they left, Sauron started
kidnapping villagers to help him rebuild the citadel. Ka-Zar tried to rally his
people but they were outmatched. Distraught, they almost gave up hope when a
Garokk statue appeared in their village overnight. This seemed to rally the
people and they were able to defeat Sauron shortly thereafter. Beast asks if he
believes, Ka-Zar says he’s not sure. Jubilee joins them in some local garb,
right before being attacked by Sauron’s soldiers. Their Pterosaurs grab Jubilee
and Rogue, Wolverine is fastball specialed into the sky by Beast to save
Jubilee and Rogue breaks herself free. She and Sauron face off, Rogue tricking
him into flying skyward until they hit a point too cold for him to operate. He
tries to hypnotize her but she resists. He tosses her to the ground. His power
starts to run out and he tries to flee, the other’s slow him down and then
Jubilee blasts him to the ground as he starts to revert to his human form. She
buries him under some rubble.
Zaladane worships at a statue of
Garokk and is told it’s time to act. She frees Storm and tells her to wreck
stuff.
The X-Men find Sauron just as he
reverts into Karl Lykos. Ka-Zar recognizes him and stops Wolverine from killing
him. He reveals Karl used to be a Savage Lander. Karl explains that he was
kidnaped by Mr. Sinister and experimented on. This gave him the power to turn
into Sauron and the need to drain life to survive. He says that he is separate from
Sauron but does need to be punished for Sauron’s crimes. Before they can
discuss the ethics of punishing Jekyll for Hyde’s crimes, Storm arrives and is
in full crazy mode. Oh no.
This was a fun reintroduction to
Sauron. While we saw a fair amount of him last time, this is the first episode
to expand upon him being more than just one of the most powerful mutates in the
Savage Land. I like that they include that Karl Lykos and Sauron are two
distinct personas. And that they gave him two distinct voices, with Sauron
being so high that its shrill and Karl’s voice being so low it was gravely. Though,
off topic but a fun fact, in the actual novella Mysterious Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there was no alternat persona. Nope, in the story that
seems to be the root of all good side/evil side plots, there was no switching
personas. Hyde was just Jekyll acting without a filter and being a dick about
it. There’s some classic literature info for ya. The plot to use him to bring Storm
to the Savage Land and release her power was fairly well thought out. He’s
basically the only Mutate that could disable without hurting her and forcing
her to let loose. This, plus Sauron being particularly desperate to keep
getting enough energy to stay active made manipulating him easy. The biggest
weak point of the plan was that Zaladane had to rely on Karl to touch a Mutant
with enough juice to transform him. I got the implication that the Gerokk tiki
head around his neck may have been manipulating him, making him feel Wolverine’s
life force and make it too tempting for him to pass up trying to drain him. But
they never said it out loud so who knows. So, Sauron has been repressed again,
which is good, but now a crazed Storm is on the loose and a sun god might be
doing something evil. A very mixed bag sort of day in my opinion. Next time, we’ll
see how this ends.
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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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