The Frightfully Fantastic Wizardry Of Mind Control

Today's entry hails from the latter days of Chris Claremont's run on Fantastic Four. By this time, in the aftermath of an interdimensional conflict that involved Doctor Doom, his Counter Earth armies and all the Celestials you could want, Mr. Fantastic was locked inside Doom's armor.

This fact wasn't made public, for fear of Doom's generals who might rebel and take over both Earths. To help sell his unexpected alliance with his most hated of foes, 'Doom' married the Invisible Woman who was believed to be widowed. This also meant Doom joined the Fantastic Four.

Having a feared and hated supervillain head a beloved team of heroes? Fun and games... 

For their first mission, this 'new' Fantastic Four went up against an equally new Frightful Four. The Wizard and his team had invaded the reservation of the Keewazi indians, looking for buried treasure. Fortunately for the Keewazi, their leader Wyatt Wingfoot used to be part of the FF. He managed to send out an SOS which brought the FF to Silver Rock Springs. 

So, just who is part of this new Frightful Four? Well, apart from mainstays Wizard and Trapster there's also Sharon Ventura, the former FF-member known as Ms. Marvel whose mental state was questionable after getting mutated by Dr. Doom during the DeFalco era... and the Punisher.

Now what would move Frank Castle to join up with bad guys, I mean, he...

"Ain't this that pipsqueak Punisher robot... what use ta work fer Galactus?!"

Ah, no worries Ben, if your hide's half as thick as that New York accent, you won't feel a thing. But as both the Torch and the Thing started in on their old foe, the Wizard played his ace.

"Behold fools, the final defeat of the Fantastic Four!"

Hmm, what could a villain do whose sole claim to fame is being the wingless Wizard (aren't we all?)

Ol' purple top will show ánd tell...

"That's what happens, dear boy, when the biological mechanisms that protect you from your own powers are... eliminated."

Is that clever or what? Turn the Torch vulnerable to flame, remove the Thing's mobility and making sure Sue would either get blinded when she turned invisible or suffocate when she tried to use her force fields. So, three down, one to go...

"Speaking of Reed Richards, where is he?"

So glad you asked...

"Susan Storm Richards has been proclaimed the Baroness von Doom!"

While the Wizard was momentarily startled by the arrival of 'Doctor Doom', his presence worked like a red rag on a bull... A bull called Sharon Ventura. She immediately jumped on the man who had ruined her life. The Wizard wasn't pleased with that...

"Are you demented, woman? You've ruined any chance of a peaceful resolution to this imbroglio. Now the Frightful Four have to battle Doctor Doom!"

And battle they did. Trapster tried to hit Doom with his pasteguns, but the Doctor redirected the sticky streams to the charging Sharon Ventura who found herself stuck. Doom was then jumped by the Punisher robot who actually seemed capable of doing some damage. Wizard, ever the valiant assailant, decided to attack Doom from the back with some of his electrified anti-grav discs.

Unfortunately for the Frightful Four, Doom was just stalling for time...

"Trust me, Johnny, our lives... and the Keewazi... depend on it!"

Doom managed to convince the Human Torch to conquer his fear of burning himself alive and flamed on. But, didn't the Wizard turn off his natural immunity to flame? Well, not exactly...

"As I suspected, the effect the Wizard created was illusory, not factual. He did not materially alter your abilities, but merely made you believe such was the case."

Ah, mind control through hypnosis and trickery. Claremont's decision to give the Wizard this ability makes a decent amount of sense. After all, before the advent of superheroes, Bentley Whitman used his near-superhuman genius levels to become a celebrity. It isn't unthinkable he relied on a bit of stage magic to help sell his performances.

But, speaking of mind control... Let's see how the threat of the Frightful Four was dealt with in the end... That is, after the Invisible Woman stuffed the Punisher's insides with Trapster's glue and Sharon Ventura had a change of heart...

"I am many things...
But I am not fool enough to want Doom as my enemy. 

I yield."

And with that, 'Doom' beat one of his oldest enemies without even lifting a finger. Talk about the power of intimidation...  

Spotlight On That Soul Sucking Mind Controller... And Satana too!

The year is 1975, right when Chris Claremont was gearing up to start his 16 year run on (Uncanny) X-men. But before all that, there were stories like the one he told in Marvel Spotlight, featuring Daimon 'Son of Satan' Hellstrom and his sister, the succubus Satana.

He's the demonologist who exorcises Satan's lot, she is the wanton devilchild who consumes tsouls of the innocent... And Claremont makes three... Let's dig in!

Meet Gloria Hefford, a minor satanist with delusions of mystical grandeur. She wants to make a name for herself as a witch, by conjuring up a real demon from hell. Unfortunately, she may have bitten off a tad more than she could ever hope to proverbially chew.

"The spell's gone wrong! The demon's hurting me! But it's not supposed to hurt!"

Ow, don't worry Gloria, the pain won't last long. You see, even inside your pretty pentagram, with its protective little wards, you are not safe from a proper hell demon's power. 

"Do you hear, lord Satan... do you hear!?! Kthara, the mother of demons is free!"

Yup, poor ol' Gloria got herself mind controlled and bodyjacked by the very demon she tried to control. Now Kthara is running the show, using Gloria as her vessel. And what does a hell demon do best? Gather souls for the inferno below, of course...

"And as I took her soul, o man... So do I take yours."

Yeah, looks like Gloria's became a bit of a bother. That's why, two weeks later, Daimon Hellstrom, acclaimed demonologist and close Hefford family friend, boarded a plane bound for LA. He had received a letter from Gloria's father Lewis, who was worried about his daughter's well being. During the flight from St. Louis to Los Angeles, Daimon fell asleep and had a terrifying vision featuring his sister Satana.

So what is it a succubus does, except for the obvious observation the job sounds a lot like 'suck' and 'you'? Well, she pleases men right before reaping their very souls. In his dream, Daimon is witness to Satana claiming her latest victim...

"Doing? I am kissing you, o man... Satana is taking your soul!"

But Daimon's nightmare didn't end there... Satana focussed her attentions on him, changing Daimon into his Son of Satan attire before doing something which was pretty much unheard of close to 40 years ago, let alone in a Comics Code Authority approved book...

"All I want to do... is kiss you. Do not resist me, brother... you cannot..."

Ahhh. Siblings kissing. 

Not even Ultimates vol. 3 was quite this graphic about the physical relationship between Quicksilver and his sister Wanda... And that was written by Jeph Loeb! Still, Daimon was more concerned with the aftermath of the kiss: the loss of his soul. Satana claimed she'd already taken it, as she mockingly clasped the ethereal butterfly meant to represent a person's lifeforce. Luckily for Hellstrom, this was just a dream. 

Arriving in Los Angeles, Daimon was a little surprised to see who had come to pick him up: Gloria Hefford. But isn't she supposed to be...? Nah, no worries, she had a perfectly good explanation for her father's frantic writings... It's all Satana's fault!

"She has this weird power over men, like they were her slaves or something"

This is enough to convince Daimon his sister is the one behind Gloria's corruption, not to mention the murder spree that has plagued the city over the last fortnight. Tracking her to a local cemetary, the Son of Satan went forth to confront the succubus. Who denied all of Gloria's claims...

"You killed the man and you took his soul... And now you're going to pay!"

Usually, the brother and sister inheritors of hell were too evenly matched for one to overwhelm the other. But this night, much to his own amazement, Daimon was smarter, faster and stronger. He managed to overcome Satana's power before doing the unthinkable...

"I didn't want to kill her... but... I had... no choice.
It was as if someone... something... made me do it."

And that someone, or rather: thing, was Gloria Hefford.  As Hellstrom discovered after he was knocked out by her powers and he came to, bound to a sacrificial altar, ready to be slain as Gloria's twelfth victim.

Or, to be fair, it wasn't really Gloria anymore. Kthara was the one responsible for the letter that summoned Daimon and she used her powers to influence his dreams on the plane, adding more lies to the mix when she picked him up from the airport.

But let's have Kthara explain all that ánd the big plan behind this entire ruse herself...

"Twelve men have I slain, Lord Daimon... You are the last... With your death, the spell is complete... and no power on Earth can shatter it!"

Boy, 70s writers sure loved to emphasize their scripts with bold font, didn't they? Anyhoo, before Kthara could K'kill Daimon, the ritual was disrupted by Satanna who had mysteriously survived her brother's supposedly lethal hellfire onslaught. Kthara, proving her title as the mother of all demons, summoned a bunch to keep Satanna and Daimon occupied but the siblings of sin proved too strong and soon made their way to her anyway.

Daimon, in an attempt to earn his keep as an exorcist, tried to banish Kthara outright with a variation on the good ol' "The power of Christ compels you"-bit... But she wasn't having any of that...

"I can stop you, Kthara. I can... and I will. Basilisk, I summon thee..."

'Basilisk'? Surely, you don't mean...?

No, not Basil Elks but Basilik...

In fact, Basilisk is the name of a powerful demon that hell lord Mephisto grafted on to Satana's soul right after turning her into a succubus. Basilisk can be summoned to do whatever Satana needs him to do. But the use of the demon's services slowly corrupts her.

Considering it makes for a pretty lightshow, not the worst of trade-offs...

"The Basilisk is free, ravening out from Satana's soul to strike at Kthara and smash her down... to rend her body and ravage her soul... and drag her, screaming, back to hell."

So, the threat of Kthara ends to the apparent anything-but-deus ex machina that is the Basilisk. But as Daimon Hellstrom approaches his sister to congratulate her, she is in no mood.

"Cross my path again, brother, and I'll look on you and see a cringing, shivering, pitiful little mortal man... I'll look on you... and I will take... your... SOUL!!!"

Sheesh...

Still more civil than most of my family reunions, though...

Maybe Mind Control Might Magikally Be But A Dream...

Today's entry is an interesting one...

Chris Claremont left New Mutants after issue # 54. However, he was credited with the plot to issue # 63, by which time former editor Louise Simonson had been writing the teenage mutants for close a little under a year already.

The tale touches on several then current storylines, like the apparent death of the X-men at the hands of Forge, and the changes within the New Mutants themselves. However, this still mainly feels like an inventory issue, a stock story that got dragged off the shelves to fill a hole in the schedule it really had no place filling.

Way back in New Mutants # 21, the team had a slumber party that was rudely interrupted by the arrival of Warlock. In time, the techno organic alien would be a valiant teammate, but in his first appearance, he was perceived as a villain. Illyana Rasputin engaged the creature, but when she got infected with the technovirus, she retreated to Limbo, grabbing Kitty's petdragon Lockheed for safekeeping.

Near the end of that issue, she returned...

"Professor Xavier! Boy, am I glad you're here.. Have I got a story to tell!"

However, Illyana and Chris never got around to telling that story... until New Mutants # 63 in which Kitty Pryde spotted the alien armor inside Illyana's closet and prodded her roomie to tell the story behind how she got it. Kitty's persuading turned into a little soft lesbian college dorm tickling fun, with some unexpected consequences...

After accidentally dropping into her brother's room while he was butt naked, Illyana started to wonder what was going on. After all, Kitty was still on Muir Island at the time, recovering from the injuries she received during her fight against the Marauders... and for all she knew, Peter had died with the other X-men. 

Still, in an attempt to make sense of the odd situation Illyana decided to tell Kitty all about the where and how she got that strange alien armor. After briefly bringing up the aforementioned slumber party, Illyana revealed how she desperately tried to get rid of the technovirus infecting her form once she was in Limbo. Her struggle didn't go unnoticed by the many vicious and power hungry creatures there...

"Miststress... what you do to poor loyal Skunge...?"

Inadvertent mind control, that's gotta be a new one.

Still, after catching her breath in timeless Limbo, Illyana decided to deal with the techno organic infection head on. She summoned the full power of her Belasco taught magics and performed what can best be described as an exorcism on herself. Exhausted, she teleported home via one of her light circles. And when she came to in her bedroom at Xavier's, everything seemed all right. Until she opened a random drawer and things went from bad to worse...

"I'm Illyana Rasputin, Peter's little sister! Don't you know me?"

As it turned out, the X-men really didn't know her... Even Kitty and Peter are totally unaware of her. Shocked, Illyana realises her unreliable teleportation powers might have stranded her in yet another alternate reality... It's not like it never happened before.

They also never heard of Lockheed, thinking Illyana meant the X-men's plane when she asked where he was. Even worse: she couldn't simply teleport away, something was blocking her abilities... and to add insult to injury, these X-men decided to lock her in her room until Professor Xavier could figure out what to make of her...Illyana wasn't planning on waiting that long...

The X-men overheard Lockheed's arrival, but the tiny dragon viciously attacked Colossus and Cyclops, before carrying off Illyana to safety. They both ran into the woods of the Xavier estate, while the X-men chased them. Illyana noticed how odd the team was behaving. Cyclops was clumsy at best with his optic blasts and why was Wolverine attacking her with a knife?

"Lockheed, did you see that? OUR Wolverine wouldn't have been fazed by a steel I-beam! And why the knife? Why not use his claws? Hey... he doesn't have claws!"

Her musings were interruped by Lockheed, who spit a huge ball of flame that revealed a rather disturbing truth. Illyana hadn't teleported into an alternate reality, she was on board a giant spaceship that had an area set up as Xavier's school for gifted youngster. And judging from the size of the vessel, it has plenty of room for that sort of thing...

"I crept closer to the observation window... spun a chair aside when it blocked my view...
And came face to face with one of the original inhabitants!"

One thing, though... that original inhabitant was dead. Courtesy of that other presence on the observation deck...

"At first, I thought Magneto was the villain. Then I recognized it... a Sleazoid!
The X-men had fought their kind before!"

Half paralyzed by the Brood's unexplained gunk spray, Illyana scrambled for safety while the Brood took on Lockheed... and found time to deliver some exposition...

"And now, my dear, since you are Colossus' sister,
you, too, will make an excellent host subject!"

Instinctly using her powers to escape the Brood, Magik teleported herself away to the relative safety of a snowy glen. Here, she mastered the use of the energy weapon she'd taken from the deceased alien on the observation deck. Once confident in its use, Magik 'ported back to the ship, ready for action. When she realised the Brood had already left, she donned the dead alien woman's armor, just to be safe.

The second Illyana got suited up, the X-men charged in, ready to take her into custody. She managed to evade them long enough to run into the Brood again, who was about to do what all Brood do best...

"As the egg hatches within him, it will absorb all his knowledge, memories, abilities... and he himself will be... transformed... or perhaps I should say... subsumed into one of us!"
It's a fascinating process. Perhaps you'd care to watch?"

Turns out, Illyana wasn't... Fortunately, the Brood had plenty of other things to discuss and reveal...

"I found this ship, slaughtered its crew, cloned adult X-men, altered their memories and injected them with the eggs! You see, they are under my influence! They think *I* am their adored mentor..."

So, that's the Brood's big plan. The actual X-men might have defeated the embryos implanted in them by the Brood queen, it's always a possibility to clone the team and infect them. A host body's a host body, after all... right?

Unfortunately for the Brood, the cloned X-men overhead his ranting as they came in chasing after Illyana... With the enchantment broken, they were in no mood to aid their 'professor Xavier'. After an entertaining struggle, Lockheed kills the 'Xavier Brood' with a fire blast, but the survivors were still feeling pretty guilty...

"We were hypnotized... he made us believe he was our teacher... our friend!"

Even worse, Cy-clone-ops... he also implanted an embryo deep inside all of you. So do try and say hello to that tiny Brood baby just waiting to hatch and take over. Wolverine is ready to die to keep the rest of humanity safe, begging Magik to finish him and the others, but the mistress of Limbo has a better idea...

"I swung it with all my might... and the darkness faded and there was only the light."

So, Illyana's soulsword, specifically designed to be ineffective against material objects, is able to perform an instantaneous multiple abortion of sorts? And what about Wolverine's healing factor? Shouldn't that have taken care of the embryo?

After exorcising the Brood embryos, Magik soon found herself back in her own proper time and place... presumably popping up during the aforementioned scene in New Mutants # 21. But after hearing this story, Kitty really wanted to try Illyana's alien armor on...

So that's it... Illyana used her magics to engage in a little mind control of her own, changing the thoughts and memories of the cloned X-men so they'd eventually develop their own seperate identities, no longer restricted by their genetic mold like most other clones.

Keeping the armor as a memento of a rather special adventure, Illyana returned with Lockheed in time to grace the closing pages of New Mutants # 21. After that, Claremont spends the closing pages of the issue with Illyana and Kitty discussing Magik's caper, while Kitty wore hér armor...

And then, Illyana woke up.

Yup... the space adventure against the Brood had been nothing but a dream inside Illyana's bigger dream of being with her absent best friend, deceased brother and the other X-men. A very understandable desire, but this story simply doesn't seem like the right vehicle to tell this.

New Mutants # 63 was cover dated May 1988, but for it to have real impact it should have been published at least 3.5 years earlier. That way, this rather interesting tale about a band of cloned X-men running a planet size starship would be in continuity... and not a dream. It also doesn't make sense, because # 21, in which the armor first debuted, ís still in continuity which means there's quite the mystery left to explain...

And no, Marvel editors, don't be too smart for your own good. While this might be the 80s and the X-men *did* die in Dallas... It'll be a cold day in hell before anyone buys someone coming out of the shower to tell Illyana it was all a bad dream...

... No, not even Bobby 'Iceman' Drake.