| Crystal Skull | |
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Appearance: |
Eyes of the Skull (Episode 40) |
The Crystal Skull was discovered during an archaeological dig in Central America. It was possibly an artifact of ancient Mayan indians. Some legends claimed that anyone who looked through the eyes of the skull could see through solid objects. According to the M.A.S.K. Computer, light waves that passed through the skull were altered in unexplaned ways. The nature of the crystal itself was not understood.
Around 1985, it was part of a special auction held in San Francisco that was sponsored by millionaire philanthropist Matt Trakker.
After a one of a kind, more than two thousand year old tribal mask was sold to the Barana Afrikan Museum for thirty age thousand dollars, the Auctioneer presented the Crystal Skull. He explained the skull was quite ancient, but nobody know how it was made or how. Only an advanced civilization could have achieved such precision. Bidding was to start at fifty thousand dollars.
The first bid was from Bruce Sato, who was actually representing Matt Trakker himself. When the robot T-Bob began waving his arms around out of sheer boredom, the auctioneer interpreted the gesture as a second bid, of sixty thousand dollars. Crowley of the Archaeological Insitute then bid seventy thousand, Bruce went up to eighty and T-Bob inadvertedly upped the price with three bids in a row to one hundred and ten thousand thousand.
At that moment the crystal skull suddenly began to glow and the lights in the gallery dimmed. When a blinding light shot forth from the skull, all the people in attendance were temporarily blinded. As the lights returned to normal, it became clear that that the skull had disappeared. Trakker, his son Scott, T-Bob and Sato all ran up to the stage to examin the place where the skull was last seen.
T-Bob discovered a trap door beneath the pedestal, which led to a hole in the ground in which the robot soon fell. Down there he found a mini-laser aimed to shine up through the pedestal. The skull had been dropped trough the tunnel and stolen. Sato and the auctioneer agreed that it was strange that the skull had been stolen instead of some of the other art objects up for auction which were worth more. Mr. Crowley also entered into the discussion. He surmised that the thief must have been aware of the skull's true powers. He concluded that the crystal skull in criminal hands was a very serious matter.
The skull had been taken by agents of V.E.N.O.M.. Aware of the legends, V.E.N.O.M. leader Miles Mayhem tested the powers of the skull by looking through the walls of a bank, thereby learning both the combination to enter the building as well as that of the safe. He and his accomplices could enter easilly as the bank was closed on a Sunday afternoon. However, their vehicles, a Bronco and a motorcycle with sidecar were recognized by Bruce Sato as he and the Trakkers drove by. Trakker and Sato quickly changed into their M.A.S.K. uniforms to engage their enemies.
Sly Rax warned Mayhem that M.A.S.K. had arrived, but Mayhem recognized the opportunity to find out the true identities of his long time enemies by looking through their Masked disguises using the skull. Although he didn't recognize Sato, he immediatlely identified Matt Trakker as the leader of M.A.S.K. The villains fled from the scene shortly after that and made plans to kidnap Scott Trakker so they could blackmail his father into giving up all of M.A.S.K.'s secrets and technology.
Trakker and Sato visited Crowley to learn more about the legends of the Crystal Skull. He explained to them that if he had succeeded in winning the auction, he would have returned the skull to the ground. According to him, it had come into human hands at the wrong time. The world was not yet ready for the powers of the crystal skull. He elaborated on how the skull could be destroyed: it can see through all things but itself. It cannot survive seeing it's own image/reflection. At the moment of destruction, all knowledge gained with it would be erased from the mind of anyone who has looked through it. "Such a waste" was his conclusion.
Armed with this information, Trakker went to meet Mayhem on the Golden Gate bridge at dawn, taking all of M.A.S.K.'s secrets and special masks with him. He also took along T-Bob, who had been specially modified for the occasion by Sato to be able to extend a large mirror from his dome. During the confrontation, T-Bob's extending arms grabbed both the skull and young Scott from the clutches of his captors and used the mirror to reflect the Crytal Skull and self destruct. As Crowley had predicted, all three of the V.E.N.O.M. agents promptly forgot all that they has learned by gazing through the eyes of the skull, and the secrets of M.A.S.K. were secured once more.