Brief Summary: We learn Low-Light’s secret fear – again.

Summary: Sky-Dive is out flying around, chasing down some Cobras. He easily wipes out the entire group with Low-Light’s help. The Joes, we learn, are looking for a secret Cobra base. Helpfully, the Cobras reveal that their base is underwater. The Joes inflict some damage on the base and Cobra, as per usual, retreats to their jungle base.

Naturally, everybody with a code name escapes unscathed. The nameless Night Creepers, on the other hand, get rounded up like cattle for market. They’re told that they’re going to be taken to the military prison in Bangkok.

After this, Low-Light and Scoop are getting footage of a group of Cobra troopers who are stationed around a Thai temple. Scoop notices that Low-Light is shaking hard enough to make his shot wobble. He asks Low-Light if he’s afraid of the dark.

Low-Light says that thanks to his infra-red goggles there is no such thing as the dark for him. He mentions that his father once told him that he had to face his fears, which is why he became a night-fighting specialist. But he’s not actually afraid of the dark. Instead, he’s afraid of ghosts.

In the temple, Night Creeper Leader (who has a code name by default), wants to rescue the rest of his Night Creepers (because he really can’t be Night Creeper Leader without some Night Creepers to lead). Cobra Commander says that according to Cobra’s legal department, the Night Creepers’ failure earlier in the episode renders their contract with Cobra null and void.

Instead, the Night Creepers are going to be replaced by the mummies of ancient warriors (which is why Cobra has come to this temple, since they’ve got mummies laying around on slabs just waiting to be reanimated and brought into Cobra’s service). All Cobra’s going to have to do is slap on the Life Force Regenerators that Destro’s invented and hey, presto: insta-troopers!

And as an added benefit, the mummies will be completely loyal to Cobra and have the strength of ten.

Side note: Y’ever notice that the undead always have phenomenal strength? No matter how strong they were in life? I mean, Dr. Ruth could become a zombie and she’d be an ass-kicking machine! I think the best theory I’ve ever seen on this shows up in Laurel K. Hamilton’s “Anita Blake” novels. The idea is that creatures like zombies (and by extention mummies) are able to use all of their muscle strength without having to worry about such distractions as your body telling you “GOOD GOD THAT HURTS! STOPITSTOPITSTOPIT!”

Night Creeper Leader is angry (and probably more than a little frightened) by this prospect. Not only because it means he’s going to be out of a job, but also because these mummies are the ancestors of the Night Creepers. They represent the finest warriors of their time. In life, they were the Phantom Warriors of Num-Hat, personal guard of the Dragon Emperor himself! Raising the mummies will anger him.

Scoop and Low-Light enter the temple and get jumped by a Range-Viper. They easily whup him like a school-girl and leave him tied up behind.

Night Creeper Leader goes looking for the Dragon Emperor to explain things to him. The Dragon Emporer, as it turns out, was the first Night Creeper and one has to imagine that he’d be royally pissed at what’s happened to his boys.

NCL finds the Dragon Emperor and tells him what’s going on. He apologizes profusely and picks up on some sort of ninja-vibe from the Emperor who gives Night Creeper Leader some orders that we, the audience, don’t get to hear.

Meanwhile, the mummies have been dressed in Night Creeper style armor. Scoop transmits this data back to Sky Dive and the Joes.

Cobra Commander raves about his new troops. All you have to do is point them in the direction of the target you want them to take out and Bam off they go.

Inside the temple, Scoop and Low-Light find one of the packs Destro uses to animate the mummies. They send the information back to Captain Krimov (Red Star). Krimov puts the Joe computers to work on trying to figure out a way to destroy the mummies.

A little girl shows up and tells Low-Light and Scoop that they need to find the ruby Heart of Darkness in order to stop the mummies.

Meanwhile, the main Joe force goes out to face down the mummies who are advancing on them. Oh yeah, and the weather starts going nuts. A huge thunderstorm/monsoon blows up out of nowhere…which as we all know is the International Symbol for Evil Mystical Hoo-Doo A’brewing.

The face of the Dragon Emperor appears in the clouds. He is not happy. Destro notices the face, but Cobra Commander misses it and ascribes no significance to the event.

The Joes retreat from the mummies and, to add insult to injury, an avalanche threatens to bury a small hut. Luckily for the folks inside, Rampart manages to snag the top of the house with a hook and helicopters it to safety.

The Dragon Emperor appears again and tells the mummies that they must obey him. The Joes end up abandoning their base in the face of an overwhelming mummy invasion.

Krimov has almost cracked the secret and refuses to leave the base as the Dragon Emperor orders his warriors to destroy his enemies.

Cobra then loses control of the mummies. Uh-oh….

Krimov transmits the frequency necessary to control the mummies to Scoop and Low-Light, but tells them that they’re going to need a big crystal to focus the signal (ain’t that always th’ way?).

Low-Light finds the Ruby Heart of Darkness. It’s the centerpiece on the Dragon Emperor’s chestplate. Luckily, the Dragon Emperor is currently content to direct his troops astrally. He appears to be little more than a mummy himself.

Low-Light grabs the Heart of Darkness which causes the Emperor to wake up. Low-Light then freaks big time. As does Scoop. The Dragon Emperor advances on the Joes and almost gets scoop before Low-Light finally tackles him.

Scoop praises Low-Light for overcoming his fear of ghosts. Low-Light retorts that he didn’t overcome his fear, he simply didn’t let it stop him from doing what he had to do. Which, I gotta admit, is more realistic than the usual “Person with fear faces fear and fear disappears forever!” school of cartoon psychology.

Around here, we get the Scooby-Doo ending of the episode: the Dragon emperor turns out to be Night Creeper Leader wearing the Dragon Emperor’s outfit.

Scoop tells Low-Light that the ruby is exactly what they need to focus the frequency to stop the mummies. Low-Light tells Scoop to go do so, he’s going to stay with the Night Creeper Leader.

Outside, chaos reigns as the mummies attack both the Joes and the Cobras and the weather goes berserk.

Scoop arrives in time to shut down the mummies. He broadcast the frequency and the mummies shut down.

The real Dragon Emperor is now awake and moving around. He takes Destro, Cobra Commander and Low-Light prisoner. As the Dragon Emperpr approaches, Scoop runs into the little girl again.

The Dragon Emperor wants the Heart of Darkness back. Night Creeper Leader tells him he can take either Cobra Commander or Low-Light’s heart as a replacement. Cobra Commander immediately starts sniveling, telling the Dragon Emperor to take Low-Light’s heart since he’s braver than CC is.

Scoop shows up with the Heart of Darkness and shuts down the emperor and his mummies. Night Creeper Leader and the Cobras run off like the scared li’l girls they are.

The little girl, apparently a servant of the Dragon Emperor, tells her master to rest. Outside, the weather clears and finally it’s all over. The Joes return the mummies to their resting places and salute the valiant warriors.

On their way out of the temple, Low-Light and Scoop find a statue of a little dancing girl dressed in local costume who is clearly the little girl they’d been seeing. Low-Light muses that if all ghosts were as kind as she was, he wouldn’t have any reason to be afraid of them.

Commentary: A watchable episode that’s definitely worth checking out. Low-Light’s character design and voice have drastically changed from the Sunbow episodes and are even different than they are in Operation: Dragonfire. Low-Light’s gone from being a clean-shaven blond who could speak above a whisper to a raspy-voiced brunette with a neat beard/mustache combo. He’s also gone from being afraid of the dark to being afraid of ghosts.

This isn’t the first episode to focus on Low-Light and his fears. The Sunbow episode “Nightmare Assault” has Low-Light using his surmounting of his childhood fears (not to mention his abusive childhood) to help the Joes defeat a Cobra dream-machine. Not having seen “Nightmare Assault” (I own it, I just don’t know what tape it’s on), I can’t really compare that episode to this, but I suspect this episode falls somewhat short if only because Low-Light’s fear isn’t all that key to the episode. IT’s not used to build dramatic tension, but is more of an aside, a glimpse into the character’s psyche.

The supernatural aspects of the episode aren’t exactly played up either. The mummies are animated, as far as we know, by Destro’s reanimating boxes (if he can do that sort of work, why does Destro bother with Cobra? He could be making some serious cash in the real world). The Dragon Emperor shows up for a couple scenes then gets his fangs pulled pretty quickly.