Tom McCamus : Ground Control : Eckhart

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Mason Eckhart 8施

Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)

Your indispensable guide to the only character Tom's played on TV or film twice. In fact, he's played him 26 times to date. The information contained here is correct for Season One of Mutant X, and will contain spoilers.

The Man

The Madness

The Mission

Eckhart's background details can be found here, on the GenomeX site, but much of this has never been mentioned in the series. The comicbook Mutant X: Origin also contains information on Eckhart's life before the series began, but is obviously inaccurate in some areas - it calls him Marcus rather than Mason, and appears to indicate that his white hair is natural rather than, as the GenomeX report on his physical condition would indicate, a wig. Origin covers Eckhart's first meeting with Adam; the horrific "Incident X" which destroyed his immune system; and his eventual takeover of GenomeX - the bare facts of which seem consistent with those given in the series.

In "The Shock Of The New", Paul Breedlove states that Eckhart blames Adam for the loss of his immune system. Eckhart later says that he "should have killed Adam when [he] had the chance", an incident which appears in Origin. However, further facts about Eckhart's past have been few and far between. The episode "Whiter Shade Of Pale" indicated that Eckhart had at least been friends, and had possibly had a romantic relationship, with the New Mutant Danielle Hartman. However, Adam put Eckhart's action of telling Danielle to leave GenomeX down to jealousy. A question remains over whether Eckhart may be the father of Danielle's teenage daughter Catherine.

Adam reveals in "Ex Marks The Spot" that Eckhart's favourite composer is Henry Purcell, and Eckhart makes a reference in "Dark Star Rising" to the writings of Nietzsche. However, he couldn't care less about Faberge eggs.

Is Eckhart insane? In "I Scream The Body Electric", Adam refers to him as a sociopath, and certainly Eckhart has never shown much concern for anyone else's life beyond their immediate usefulness to him. He is a killer, as shown in "A Whiter Shade Of Pale", where he watches Aldous Berkeley die of a very extreme form of food poisoning, but, at least in the series, has never killed anyone with his own hands. To all intents and purposes he is a rational figure, only very rarely showing extreme anger, and his idiosyncracies - including his nightmares in "Nothing To Fear" - can be attributed to his physical condition.

It could be theorised that Eckhart's driving force is an all-consuming hatred for Adam. Paul Breedlove states in "The Shock Of The New" that Eckhart blames Adam for the loss of his immune system, and Eckhart himself says that he "should have killed Adam when I had the chance", but these are not necessarily emotional reactions. "Mutant X: Origin" shows that Incident X was, if not entirely Adam's fault, at least a product of his experiments, whilst Adam's position as the major threat to the GSA validates Eckhart's need to get rid of him. Indeed, all of the conversations between Eckhart and Adam during the series have been largely civil, at least on Eckhart's side, with their meeting in "Dancing On The Razor" resulting in the conclusion that both sides should have worked together. When Adam lost his memory in "Presumed Guilty", Eckhart could easily have killed him, but instead chose to try and convince Adam to work for him. While it would appear that Eckhart will always put his mission above personal vendettas, a brainwashed Adam could merely appear to be a sweeter victory.

In any event, Eckhart is obviously viewed as sane by the government, and his psych. report can be found here, with additional information here.

The original mandate of the Genetic Security Agency was to combat genetic terrorism, specifically the actions of renegade New Mutants and the organisation Mutant X. Eckhart appears to have interpreted this to encapsulate all New Mutants, whether they act illegally or not, but given the huge potential of these New Mutants to cause chaos, he perhaps has a reason to think this way - particularly as Adam is also actively recruiting. It is unlikely that the capture of New Mutants is Eckhart's ultimate goal; rather they are a means to an end, that end being a rational world under his control. This would explain his systematic taking over of GenomeX from the control of Paul Breedlove, and his forcing of Adam to leave, and also his policy of experimentation to create New Mutants, while putting existing subjects in stasis.