The Land That Mind Control Never Forgot Part I: Welcome Back To The Jungle

Back in 2002, Chris Claremont wrote a four part X-treme X-men miniseries in which the team travelled to the Savage Land to check out just why Rogue was having horrible nightmares about the team turning into ferocious dinosaurs. Believing it to be a vision and a psychic request from some unknown source, Rogue managed to persuade team leader Storm to get to the bottom of this.

However, Rogue's teammate Bishop didn't buy into this theory of psychic requests...

A valid point, Rogue *had* been a bit of a mess in those days. With her absorption powers gone haywire, she manifested the powersets of everyone she had ever touched. What if the personality of the bad guys she had taken over would suddenly reemerge and take control of her mind? Luckily, Rogue's visions were genuine as the X-men find the source of the psychic messages...

Actually, this band of intelligent dinosaurs doesn't come out of left field (well, not entirely). Delving into late 70s (!) continuity, Claremont reintroduces the Saurids... A tribe of sentient, super powered reptiles who used to live a sheltered, underground life in the American south west before Ms. Marvel ran across them in her Claremont penned solo series.

Ms. Marvel was only allowed to leave their nest alive after promising to keep the Saurids' existence a secret. It makes sense that Rogue, who still had all of Ms. Marvel's memories and powers at the time, was susceptible to the Saurid's psychic summons.

Turns out they need help: their old nest is no longer safe and the tribe wants to relocate to the Savage Land where they expect to be free from both prosecution and prying eyes. The X-men agree to take them there...However, their entrance into the Savage Land is hindered when Brain Child of the Savage Land Mutates triggers a rock slide that crashes the X-men's Blackbird jet. He gleefully picks up the prize for his handiwork...

While Storm is taken prisoner, the other X-men eventually wake up to find themselves in one of the human settlements that dot the Savage Land. Neophyte member Thunderbird (Neil Shaara) tries to reach out to founding member Henry McCoy for guidance, but the Beast appears to be... occupied...

The lupine woman calling herself Lupa shares an instant attraction with Hank... but as it turns out, that's just the way she'd planned it...

"Drink deeply as the intoxicating scent of the blood lotus combines with my own pheromones... to bind...you to my will FOREVER!"

Now surely, that might just as well be more of that typical hyperbole villains tend to spout. This leather cladvixen is undoubtedly little more than all talk, right?

Or maybe not...

So, how is Storm holding up through all this?

Kudos to Claremont for picking up on the storyline he set up two decades earlier when Brainchild captured Storm for the first time and made similar... promises....

With at least two of their own not in their right minds, the X-treme team seemed to be in way in over their heads, mind controlled or otherwise. The resolution to this four part miniseries will reveal all, so check back for The Land That Mind Control Never Forgot Part II: Savage Is The Controlled Mind