X-Men – 09

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: 

Sasaki-sensei tells the X-Men that her assistants have been taking the medication Cyclops found, but it was supposed to suppress not only mutant effects, but secondary mutation as well. Emma is found to be missing, as is Jun, so the others leave to investigate while Beast remains with Sasaki-sensei. Beast attempts to report this to Xavier, who’s trapped in an illusion and battling another telepath. As such, Beast fails to make contact and wonders were Emma got off to. Elsewhere, Emma has followed Jun to a restricted part of the facility where he stands in front of gigantic, sealed doors. Emma confronts him, knowing this is Mastermind, which he confirms, saying he should have killed her when she left the Inner Circle. However, he says that he will tell her what he is planning.

Meanwhile, Wolverine sniffs out where Emma has gone and they enter the hidden elevator while Mastermind, as Jun, begins telling Emma what he knows. After his battle with X-Men a year ago, he’d sensed a great power in the Tohoku region and tracked it to Sasaki-sensei’s facility. By disguising himself as the researcher Jun, he was able to gain access to the entire facility and discover the secret of this power. Emma asks him if he was responsible for putting her image in Scott’s mind, which he confirms, hoping Cyclops and the X-Men would finish her off. Emma turns to diamond form to prevent Mastermind’s power from working on her and attacks, only to be snared by a substance from a slotted wall until Cyclops enters and blasts it away.

Emma tells the X-Men to attack Jun, who proclaims his innocence. Wolverine isn’t buying it, so Mastermind puts an illusion on him, making him see Jean and fight the X-Men in berzerker mode. Cyclops keeps Wolverine at bay while Storm reports this to Beast.  The fight with Wolverine takes Storm and Cyclops away from Emma and Hisako, where the mutant Mash, who’d previously grabbed Emma, gets both both of them. Beast arrives just in time to free them as Cyclops knocks out Wolverine. Emma forces Mastermind’s disguise to drop as Mash and the other mutant from earlier arrive to defend him. Cyclops is enraged and about to open up full throttle despite his comrades pleas when Wolverine returns, having regained his sanity.

So, as expected, Xavier is in a trap by a mutant and I suspect this will end up being his son although I had thought it might be the work of Mastermind.  Also, I expect that his and Sasaki-sensei’s son will be behind that massive, steel door. If correct, then the combination of Xavier’s attempts to break free of the illusion combined with whatever the X-Men do should free Xavier from the trap.

I like how the writers are playing Mastermind. When I read comic books, the actions Jason took were exactly like the ones he’s taking in the anime.  First, disguise yourself as someone else with the power of illusion. Then if needed, create an illusion to allow your opponents to fight one of their own, as happened when Mastermind made the X-Men think that Dark Phoenix had returned and then had them battle Cyclops, who’d fled to the Danger Room, thinking he was Dark Phoenix. Mastermind was always weak on his own, so his eluding Emma’s martial arts is new to me.  Also new is having bodyguards of sorts with those other two weird mutants.

I also liked the little humor scene when Wolverine found the hidden elevator and was planning to use his claws to make an opening but was stopped by Cyclops, who found the hidden button to cause the doors to open. Although the scene appeared drawn by a different studio, it was still amusing.

So, if Sasaki-sensei isn’t lying, then what is that medication that her assistants were taking and why isn’t it working?

Thus, we have an entertaining episode with some action and some plot progression but no answers. We’ll see what else is in store.