Synopsis / Summary / Plot
In the advanced Mutate base in the Savage Land, Brainchild explains his plot to his captives James Rhodes and Tracy Skylark. He's increased the size, strength and ferocity of an army of dinosaurs (who look like T-Rexes). He couldn't do anything about their brains, but he's given them cybernetic implants. And he's built a giant artificial brain which communicates with these implants and grants them a telekinetic ability. He originally intended to use them to conquer just the Savage Land. But now he plans to conquer the world, and take revenge on his long-time foes the X-Men.
Then Skylark nuts him.
Meanwhile rescue is on the way. As the dinos chow down on the remains of 2 other Sentinal Squads and 2 of our spotlighted Squad, our team has sent in a cloaked Stealth Sentinel. It's piloted by claustrophobic Nathaniel Briggs with the teams 2 mutants as passengers - Alex Lexington and Jeremiah (Meld) Muldoon.
Jake Slayton is coordinating things from his Recon Sentinel. And when the Stealth Unit attracts some unwanted attention he remote-pilots the other 3 working Sentinels to provide a distraction (leaving Rajani Dhama and Emil Winston behind - and Emil's Unit was damaged last issue).
Lex and Meld take the opportunity to exit the Stealth Sentinel and make a dash for the Mutate's hi-tech base. Lex's electric discharge disables a keypad and gets them inside before the 3 other Sentinels are taken apart by the dinosaurs.
The pair then run into a load of Mutates. Lex's energy discharge shocks them, allowing our heroes to run away. Meld then hides them by warping the metal corridor wall into a hiding space. And the Mutates run right past them.
Meld takes the opportunity to tell Lex his life story. He was abandoned as a baby on a miltary base, and raised by the government. Who didn't know what to do with him, so eventually stuck him in the Sentinel Squad. Lex promises to give Muldoon some choice in his future. If they survive.
Meld does some more melting to give them a direct line to the centre of the base, where they find Rhodes and Skylark, and Brainchild still unconscious on the floor. He then warps their metal shackles to free them. Jim takes his armour from where the villain had been examining it, and destroys the artificial brain. So the dinosaurs lose their telekinesis and are no longer under anyone's control.
The 4 exit via Meld's hole. Outside they find Sentinel bits but no dinosaurs. Jeremiah turns and melts the whole base down. Then they realise that Briggs and the Stealth Sentinel have gone. Slayton's Recon Sentinel can't detect him anywhere.
The 4 rendezvous with the 3 in the Sentinel graveyard. They set about using the broken parts to make a working Sentinel that is an improvement on the originals, thanks to Prof Winston's ideas. Meld fuses pieces together, and Lex acts as a power source for the result:- a Sentinel with 4 arms, 2 heads and a missile battery. The reduced super-dinosaurs are no match.
But Briggs has returned to base and reports to Gen'l Lazer. He's still angry about losing his command last issue, and is jealous of Lex for being better than him. He gives Lazer a biased account of last issue. That Lexington disobeyed Steele's orders and took their Squad out of the battle, leaving the other 2 Squads to die. And that Lex is a secret mutant.