Synopsis / Summary / Plot
At the end of last issue Rick Sheridan's date Janine turned hostile and sided with a Chinese street gang that surrounded them.
Rick tries to fight them but is overwhelmed and taken to the basement HQ of the Green Dragons. There Janine's voice tells him she is possessed by a group of telepaths who are also controlling the Dragons. They let go of the gang who fall into a trance. They tell Rick that they are preventing *him* from lapsing into a similar state, but now they abandon him too to release the Sleepwalker.
Sleepwalker is angry and suspicious. The telepaths reveal themselves as Prof X, Jean Grey, Moondragon and Psylocke, and that this whole scenario was arranged so they could talk to him. They explain about Magus seeking to conquer the universe (in the Infinity War mini-series). As part of this he has sent evil Doppelgangers of Earth's heroes to Earth, and has also plunged its populace into a trance. Unless they can be brought out of the trance they will serve Magus forever. They seek Sleepy's help as a creature of the mental plane. They want him to channel their mental energies to help the people resist the Magus.
But SW doesn't believe them. He has met other humans who have tried to use him for evil purposes (I can only think of Lullaby in #9) so he sets out to find out for himself what's happening. He finds that people *are* in a trance, but also that there are 2 Moons seemingly merging. (He doesn't realise that there are 2 merging Earths as well.)
We see Dops of Beast, Daredevil and Firestar on the lookout for people resisting the trance. They sense someone in Chinatown and head there, but are diverted by the smell of the food in a Chinese restaurant where they also attack the waiters and diners. Firestar-Dop causes a fire which Sleepwalker detects and rushes to investigate. He battles the Dops then pretends that they have killed him to stop innocent people being harmed. The Dops leave to seek the resister. SW puts out the fire then disguises himself as a Dop version of himself.
The 4 telepaths are arguing in Janine's head. Moondragon typically wants to force Sleepy to cooperate. Prof X says the alien must be allowed to see that they are right. Psylocke believes that their presence in Janine's mind will make her a target for Dops. They have been shielding her from their notice but Jean Grey doesn't think they can keep it up. Now Xavier tells them to drop the shields ...
... and the 3 Dops immediately pinpoint their target. But SW has noticed that the Dops spend as much time clashing with each other as they do anything else. So the new 'Dop' generates a wall in front of them and then brazenly confronts them. And they accept him as 1 of their own, and the 4 break into the Dragon's basement. Sleepy thinks his suspicions were correct when the Dops 'rescue' Janine, but then sees that they mean to kill the still-possessed girl. He realises that the telepaths were telling the truth.
The telepaths leave the girl and she collapses into the trance-state. The Dops still intend to kill her so Sleepwalker fights them again, not holding back because he understands they aren't real living beings. But his energy is running out so he invites the telepaths into his mind. He abandons the fight and the merged 5 send mental waves across the globe giving the entranced people hope and stirring the spirit of resistance within them.
The Dops feel pain and a loss of the force that empowered them. SW devolves them back to their original protoplasmic nature. He takes Janine back to Rick but is dismayed to see that they're still in trance-state. The telepaths tell him that the resistance has halted Magus' takeover of Earth, which is all they can do here.