Kulan Gath's total mind control part II: Ye Olde Mind Control

When we last left Manhattan, the recently revived ancient devil priest Kulan Gath had used a master spell to turn the entire island into a Hyborean citystate. Quickly conquering his many super powered enemies, Gath seemed utterly unbeatable. 

Even the Hellfire Club's Selene, as ancient and malevolent as Gath himself, was the N'garai worshipping sorceror's help (and mouth)less prisoner. But Kulan Gath wasn't satisified with merely mentally controlling the Morlocks, a fair share of the New Mutants and most of the Avengers. No, he wanted more mindless pawns to control...

He got his wish when the Avengers Starfox and Wasp were presented to him after one of the various fights that make up this two parter. By showing them their greatest fears, Gath was able to sufficiently weaken their will so he could bend them to his control. For Starfox, its the understandable fear to turn out like his brother Thanos, the genocidal despot... Understandable, because they share the same genes and upbringing...

But Wasp's secret anxiety is losing her humanity and shifting into a more wasplike form. Sounds horrible, lets hope its just an illusion. I mean, what are the odds of something crazy like that actually happening, right?

Ah well, at least it was still a buck fifty.

But the Wasp in Gath's reality was actually a control leeching vampire that drained her victims of the will to live, while Starfox used his great beauty to control anyone invulnerable to her teammate's pretty boy charms. Like Colossus. 

Still, it wasn't just the bad guys who use mind control. In the approach to the final assault on Gath, Captain America had Rachel Summers resort to some mental nudging to enter Kulan's keep.

"These are not the black leather clad SM slavegirls you are looking for"

Barely covered Star Wars pastiches aside, this was hardly the final time Claremont relied on mind control to help the story get across. After Captain America managed to bring in Rachel and the New Mutant Magma as prisoners, the endgame against Gath quickly unfolded.

The wizard was rendered powerless by Storm who managed to snatch away the source of his power: the magic necklace he carried round his neck. But the battle wasn't quite over yet. Remember how easily Gath managed to overpowered Selene? Almost like she wasn't quite herself, right?

Either Amara suddenly developed telekinesis or something is very, very wrong... 

Proving once again that appearances CAN be deceiving, it turns out that Selene had secretly taken Magma's place, giving the girl her appearance so she would be taken as Gath's slave. Now in possession of Kulan's necklace, Selene was ready to take over the world...

That is, if only Storm hadn't reached out to the dying techno organic New Mutant Warlock who offered a solution...

"There are worse fates"

Say, you don't think Storm could have meant being written by Brian Michael Bendis, do you?

Anyhoo... After changing into a semi-techno organic creature, she attacked Selene... infecting her with the techmode virus that turned her into a techno organic creature herself.

Some beautiful Claremont commentary accompany this rather... interesting... piece of art by John Romita junior. But there are some nits to be picked.

First, there's Warlock/Storm draining Selene's lifeforce, basically killing her. Whatever happened to Storm's sacred vow to never take a life? Second... How can Warlock even exist within the limited reality of Kulan Gath's Hyborean revertion master spell? Its already odd the Avengers member Vision is still a robot, how does an alien techno organic mutant shapeshifter fit into ancient times?

Still, ignoring all logic and established continuity for a second... lets see what happens next...  

With Strange freed from his previous existence as a statue in Kulan Gath's throne room, the master of the mystic arts quickly came up with a way to deal with this whole mess. A bit of a shame Strange's way of dealing with it had about as much emotional maturity to it as a toddler closing its eyes and wishing real hard all the bad things never happened.

"What you just experienced was a temporalspacial claudication..."

An awfully fancy term for: we prevented Kulan's ascension from ever happening.

Sounds fancy and plausible enough, that is if you ignore the simple fact they were only able to achieve this by adapting Kulan's masterspell... A spell Gath  invoked áfter his initial ascension... So if Gath never arose, how could the spell have been there to stop him?

And... erm... My head hurts.

Skipping all that pesky temporal logic just like Claremont did, Strange caused the timeline to skip a beat so the original closing scene from Uncanny X-men # 189 had a rather different outcome...

Doctor Strange managed to prevent Gath's return by making his necklace disappear.

Not by invoking the flames of the Faltine and burning Kulan's presence from the amulet... Not even calling in the ruby ringed might of Raggador to pound it to dust. Alas, not even a single 'the power of Vishanti compells thee!' with complimentary pea soup spitting.

Nope, Strange does this.

Saving all mankind by yanking a mutant massacring Nimrod sentinel to the present, all the way from that far flung future of... 2014.

Yeah. Guess that's why they call the doctor... Strange.

Kulan Gath's total mind control part I: Looking For Collared Wenches (No Fatties)

The events of Uncanny X-men 190 & 191 have been referenced numerous times on this blog. But apart from peripheral mentions, the utter mind control craziness and borderline fetish goings on haven't been covered yet. So lets dig in.

First things first: the ancient wizard Kulan Gath has been able to revive himself thanks to events covered HERE and HERE. He used the blood of innocents to power a potent master spell that converted all of Manhattan into his personal playpen. Buildings, items and people were all transformed into a suitable ancient Hyborean counterpart, with no knowledge of their previous lives.

Storm was living the life of a pirate, who was chased by Callisto and her band of Morlocks who acted as Gath's mind controlled toadies. This scene on page 4 of # 190 shows the tendency of this twoparter to indulge in all the mind control, bondage and SM fetishes this side of Cimmeria.

The masterspell only reached as far as Manhattan. Once you crossed the barrier, you'd revert to your old self again. This happened during Storm and Callisto's fight. The two managed to get to dry land where Storm was contacted telepathically by one of Gath's ancient enemies: Selene, the Hellfire Club's Black Queen.  

Quickly filling them in about the situation, Selene asked Storm and Callisto's help in defeating Kulan Gath. The two didn't really trust Selene, but it wasn't as if there was any other real choice. They moved back to the island where Gath had been busy mind controlling people left and right.

"By the maker!"

The techno organic alien Warlock looked on in horror as Gath twisted and reshaped his fellow New Mutants into new shapes that reflected all the evil they feel within. Luckily, not everyone was as easily swayed by Gath's magic.

After taking over Manhattan, the demon sorceror sought a means of tracking all super powered beings so he could bring them under his control. Wary of technology, he didn't use Xavier's Cerebro mutant detection system but combined Charles Xavier and the mutant detecting Morlock Caliban into one being. The docile Caliban went along with it, but Xavier wasn't so easily dominated.

Oh, never mind...

On a sidenote: the grotesque Xavier/Caliban creature is possibly how the real Caliban might have turned out back in the Chris Claremont / John Byrne days. The duo had the idea that this barely human looking mutant called Caliban was able to sense other mutants but was shunned due to his horrifying mutation. He'd join the X-men as an organic Cerebro, living in a seperate wing of the mansion.

Anyways, back to the story at hand. Kulan's guards finally managed to bring in Selene, which meant it was high time for some old fashioned 'torture the chained up scantily clad prisoner wearing the hot black leather bikini.'

"There, much better. Wenches are better seen, but not heard." 

No mouth and 6 penis like tentacles?

Chris, Chris... How this ever got past the Comics Code Authority back in the day is a wonder indeed.

Next time: Kulan Gath's total mind control part II: Ye Olde Mind Control