Garokk lives!
Last time on X-Men: The Animated
Series, it was back to the Savage Land. Ka-Zar and his people were at war
with Sauron, who set himself up as despot of the Savage Land after Mister
Sinister split. Sauron’s power runs out and we learn he’s the psychotic alternate
persona of Karl Lykos, a Savage Lander that Sinister modified into the super Mutate.
He’s nearly captured but a priestess of Garokk named Zaladane saved Karl. She
gave him a Garokk pendant and sent him to New York for… reasons. In New York, Karl
runs into the X-Men and accidentally drain some of Wolverine’s life essence. …
well, he drained him purposely, but he didn’t know he was a Mutant when he did
it. Normal humans fuel Karl, Mutants turn him into Sauron. The psychotic Pterosaur
kidnapped Storm, as Zaladane promised him Storm would fuel his powers forever.
He brought her back to the Savage Land and Zaladane convinced him to use his
hypnotic powers to force Storm to unleash her full power. The X-Men followed
him and did battle with Sauron and his soldiers. They defeat the Savage Landers
rather easily. Sauron’s power starts running out again and he tries to flee,
but Jubilee of all people knocks him from the sky and buries him under some
rubble. He returns to his Karl Lycos form, and we learn he used to be buddies with
Ka-Zar before he was kidnapped. He insists on being punished for Sauron’s crimes,
but before they can get into that, Zaladane unleashes Storm on them, as it is
the will of the sun god Garokk. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it.
We return to the story with a psychotic
Storm unleashing a huge hurricane in the middle of the Savage Land. Karl lets
the others know about Sauron hypnotizing Storm and turning her into this. Rogue
wonders how they’ll be able to stop Storm (she’s easily #2 on their team
strength wise under Jean, arguably #1 before Jean got Phoenixed). Jubilee
thinks it’ll be a snap for her since she beat Sauron. And I’m like, honey,
those two feats are not comparable! She flies off on a Pterosaur. Storm’s storm
gets more vicious as Jubilee tries to take her, but she’s knocked aside, but
Rogue catches her.
We cut over to Zaladane and the
Garokk statue. She’s worshiping at it and Garokk says that he’s been waiting
centuries for this moment. Storm’s elemental power is surging through the Savage
Land, filling him with power and vigor. Storm throws a lightning blast at the
tiki head, destroying it but unleashing Garokk’s true body to infect the land
below. It spreads towards a volcano in the distance.
Wolverine grabs Karl and demands to
know what he did. He reiterates that it was Sauron and that his hypnotic powers
aren’t to be trifled with. Rogue returns with Jubilee, right before a dino
stampede come surging in. They duck away from the dinos in a cave and try to figure
out a plan. Rogue offers to drain Storm if the others distract her, but Wolverine
points out that Rogue has been overwhelmed by power like that before and she’ll
probably ruin weather patterns from here to Barbados if they try that. Karl
says that he’ll drain Storm if they fly him to her. Wolverine accuses him of
wanting to turn into Sauron again, but Karl vehemently denies that. He hates
Sauron and hates being him, Beast believes him and points out that if Karl
really wanted to change he could grab at any one of them already. Ka-Zar agrees
that it’s the best choice, as Sauron is easier to fight than the weather
itself.
Storm creates a blizzard and tries
to freeze the tropical paradise of the Savage Land. Wolverine, Ka-Zar and Beast
distract her with a trebuchet long enough for Rogue to fly Karl up to her. He
grabs Storm and starts draining. Once she’s out, Ka-Zar tells him to let go
before he turns into Sauron, but it’s too late and Sauron is in control. Rogue makes
him break the connection and grabs Storm. She demands he help break Storm’s
hypnosis or she’ll take him out. Sauron, pissed off and a little stupid, grabs
her. There’s a moment where we see their respective absorbing powers dueling
for supremacy, Rogue morphing into a pterosaur and back again and Sauron
growing huge and shrinking back. They break the connection and Sauron swears vengeance.
Rogue lands, tells the others what happened and how it was weird, and they fall
back to Ka-Zar’s village.
Garokk meanwhile is infesting the
land and turning it into a hard rocky form.
Beast grabs a medical kit from the Blackbird
and looks over Storm. He gives her a sedative to keep her under control until
they can get her back to normal. Beast asks Rogue if she got anything when she
touched Sauron and she says all she got was the name Zaladane. Ka-Zar says she’s
Garokk’s high priestess and we see some Savage Landers bowing to a Garokk tiki
head. Storm wakes up and says she’s sensing some great evil infesting the land.
She gets up, feeling Garokk’s influence on the land, and blasts the statue in
the village. She wants to destroy Garokk, it and everything else, but the
others stop her long enough for Beast to give her another sedative.
We cut to Zaladane praying to
Garokk’s statue when Sauron joins her, demanding that she rally his troops. She
refuses, saying that Garokk is done with Sauron. Sauron, pissed, tries to
hypnotize her into obeying, but Garokk infects some vines and tangles him up in
then. Sauron insists that Garokk isn’t real, but… like, he obviously is. We
learn from Garokk that he once was the sole ruler of the Savage Land. That was
until an enemy attacked him, defeated Garokk and sealed him in stone. He also
calmed the weather of the Savage Land which further weakened Garokk. Fun fact,
they don’t give this enemy a name but he’s obviously the High Evolutionary. He
was trapped for thousands of years but was awakened at the end of last season
when Storm unleashed her powers on the Savage Land. He basically only got
enough to wake up but couldn’t do much more. He reveals that he influenced
Sauron’s mind to seek Storm out and bring her here. His plan is to infuse himself
with the chain of volcanos that encircle the Savage Land, to fuel his power and
make it impossible for him to be imprisoned again.
Storm wakes up again, begging the others
to restrain her. Rogue laments telling Storm to let loose before. There’s an
earthquake as Garokk spreads his influence and turns one of the mountains into
his tiki head. He announces the return of the age of Garokk and he destroys the
Savage Lander’s village. Garokk uses his infected earth to form a hand to grab
at others. He encases house Storm is housed in stone and tries to crush her. Her
claustrophobia kicks up, though, and she blows it into oblivion. Storm encases
Garokk’s head in ice but that doesn’t seem to stop him. Beast notices Garrok’s
influence spreading towards the volcanos and Ka-Zar tells him how they heat the
land, and Beast deduces his plan. When ice doesn’t work, Storm tries to melt
him with a bright sunny day but that doesn’t work either. Beast figures out
that Storm’s attacks are just powering Garokk up. Rogue tries to stop her but Storm
throws her off. Her attack does free Sauron. He knocks out Zaladane and flies
off.
Garokk gets enough power to
manifest a giant stone body. Sauron isn’t cool with this and flies to the
volcano. Sauron touches the volcano and drains the energy from Garokk and the
volcano. He grows to Kaiju size and the two do battle. Storm tries to intervene.
Rogue grabs her and pulls her back. Sauron and Garokk seemingly destroy each
toher, the explosion being seen from space.
The team finds Rogue and Storm and
rush Storm to the Blackbird for medical help, and they fly off. Zaladane wakes
up beside Garokk’s broken statue, Garokk moaning that he was so close. We find
Karl passed out and drained, looking half dead. Ka-Zar and his wife Shanna find
him and he gives Karl some of his energy. When he wakes up, Ka-Zar says that he’s
welcome back to their village, as with the X-Men leaving the Savage Land, there
won’t be any Mutants to risk Karl transforming again. Karl thanks him, rips off
the Garokk necklace and smashes it. On the Blackbird, Storm asks if they others
can forgive her for flying off the handle like that. They obviously do and
Storm does admit that she liked letting go like that, if only just once.
That was a fine two-part story. The
background on Garokk was neat, as was seeing the cameo from the High Evolutionary.
He’ll show up again someday, but it was nice to see him early. Using Sauron as
both the cause and solution for this particular catastrophe was just some tight
storytelling. While Garokk obviously counted on his absorbing powers and
hypnotic eyes would be useful in getting Storm back, he just as obviously didn’t
consider that Sauron could turn that power against him. Imagine my shock when
we saw a volcano and it didn’t tie into Sauron’s own undoing. Tolkien must be
spinning in his grave. It was also nice to get the little bit of resolution
that Ka-Zar is able to separate the actions of Sauron from his friend Karl and
lets him back into their village. Nice nod that Ka-Zar is a just and fair ruler
and acknowledges Karl can’t really be held accountable for that evil buzzard.
And I liked that closing message that while Storm unleashed is dangerous, that
on some level she got to enjoy herself at least a little. If a little existentially
terrifying to realize that Storm is always holding back and is still one
of the X-Men’s heaviest hitters. I don’t feel I’m exaggerating saying she’s a
contender for the top spot, but Jean’s just got all that Phoenix power these
days it’s hard to compare them. Speaking of… next time, the Dark Phoenix saga
begins!
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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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