The Maliciously Mind Controlled Mam'Selle Goes A'Maraudin'

Continuing our mind control heavy adventures in the alternate realm of X-men Forever, today's entry focuses on that time when Chris Claremont had the Marauders fight the Starjammers in Alaska.

Yeah. That actually happened. And guess what? It was a truly fun, original romp.

As part of an ongoing storyline we'll touch on at a later time, Mr. Sinister was after Cyclop's son Nate who in this reality never got infected by the techno virus, let alone got sent into the future to become Cable...

Nope, young Nathan was just a happy go lucky kid, living with his great grandparents in Alaska. As luck would have it, Nate's grandfather Corsair was also visiting his parents, along with his fellow Starjammers... So before long, it was cloned villain versus interstellar space pirate galore.

And whenever you face the Marauders, you're bound to run into their discorporeal, body jumpin' and mind controllin' leader Malice... But who's gonna tell Mam'Selle Hepzibah? Sure as heck not the cloned copy of Sabretooth who placed Malice's choker around Hepzibah's throat.

 "This is such a delicious body (...) Now let's both of us go play."

Malice proved her worth as the perfect mole, no one noticed the odd skull adorned collar around her neck, not even the X-men when they arrived to help out. Cyclops himself actually handed her a job that put Malice within arm's reach of the Marauders' goal...

"To Lockheed, something about this moment doesn't seem quite... right."

How very perceptive... Which explains this next scene.

"Lockheed was protecting me... from Hepzibah."

Unfortunately, the word of an 11 year old little girl and her mute pet dragon doesn't carry mucht weight, this isn't Game Of Thrones after all. No, it's sad to say Havok doesn't hold much stock at all in what 'Ro is yelling.

"Not anymore, pet. Time for you to die."

Fortunately, Havok's girlfriend Polaris has a far better view of the situation, not in the least because she herself was once mind controlled by Malice for an extended period of time. 

Remembering the atrocities she was forced to commit while under Malice's control, Lorna showed no mercy.

"Don't touch it, or she could grab control of you."

And that seemed to spell the end for Malice, if not for this rather unexpected move by Mystique, who had actually joined the X-men in those days so she could be closer to her children Nightcrawler and Rogue. But that didn't mean she'd become an actual good guy...

"This should be delightful fun to play with."

I bet it would, Mystie... But we'll probably never know what happened, because this thread shared the same fate as most of Claremont's X-men Forever storylines: the book was cancelled well before any of them could reach a satisfying conclusion. So, as far as the Malice medallion stuck in Mystique's boot is concerned... she's still down there.

Let's just hope Malice has no sense of smell.