The Land That Mind Control Never Forgot Part III: Savage Send Offs

The X-treme X-men are still in the Savage Land, which would explain why this particular four part mini series is called X-treme X-men: Savage Land.
Issue # 4 opens with the Black Bird landing in the village square, piloted by Bishop and Sage, and filled with the Saurid children believed lost when the plane crashed. Fortunately, Sage had been able to restore the plane's flight capabilities and now the X-men and Saurids were reunited once again. All seemed right in the world until the Savage Land Mutates attacked the village... led by Storm.

Luckily, there was still some additional mind control to be had...

Losing the spikes around her slave collar for some reason, Leash mind controlled Thunderbird, forcing him to kill Bishop... and while the future X-man did indeed seem to perish, trying to wound an energy absorbing mutant with plasma isn't exactly lethal.

In the end, Rogue took the fight to Brain Child himself who was more than ready for her...

Unfortunately, Brain Child was aware of Rogue's inner turmoil and used his powers to cause a shooting war inside her head between herself and everyone she ever took over. By the by, Rogue never imprinted comedienne Roseanne Barr but sheesh... the visual similarities between Roseanne and Rogue in this mini are striking...

Instead, Rogue literally had to fight everyone she ever touched, which made for an interesting splash panel to say the least...

While Rogue is busy struggling against her inner demons, Beast finally managed to break free from Lupa's mind control... right in time to save the helpless Rogue from the still feral and blood thirsty Storm who now acted as Brain Child's bodyguard. Rogue only managed to free herself when Storm throws Beast on top of her and she took over his form and abilities...

Speaking of people taking over other people... Let's see what the supervillain Leash is up to...

Leash had the misfortune of running into the X-men's mentat Sage... A cold and calculating woman who knew exactly what the mind controlling mutate was planning: win the day by forcing the captives in Brain Child's slave pens to help out. Still, Leash merely considered Sage a temporary inconvenience.

"Before Leash is even aware of what's happening her attack is reflected back on her. Instead of being the mistress... she finds herself the slave."

Leash was now under someone else's control and the sly Sage cleverly used her new slave to take over Brain Child, thus ending all the hostilities... However, the aftermath proved rather intense for Storm who remained in her feral form for quite some time afterwards. Luckily the Beast had some choice advice.

"And I have no answers. I wish to hell I did. I'm sorry."

That is some status quo shake up. Not only did Brain Child revert her to a murderous, savage state... he also  made it stick. Even when she regained control of her faculties, Storm still longed for the urges provided by the inner demon she had willingly embraced under Brain Child's thrall.

Yet, the final panels provided a hopeful message.

"But you're not alone in this, Ororo. We are FAMILY.
And with that on your side... EVERYTHING... becomes possible!"

Everything becomes possible indeed... such as Storm abruptly forgetting this mind and life altering event altogether when the X-treme X-men series continued. Hey, Henry *DID* say that éverything was possible.

Speaking of impossible dreams, this concludes the 150th Chris Claremont: Mind Control Central post. It's been a bumpy ride, but let's continue on to # 200 and see where it ends up... Should be fun!

The Land That Mind Control Never Forgot Part II: Savage Is The Controlled Mind

When we last left the X-treme X-men, they had travelled to the Savage Land along with a band of  American born reptile people who wanted to start a new life there. Unfortunately, the team ran into some old enemies as Brain Child and his Savage Land Mutates caused a cave in that crashed the X-men's Black Bird jet.

Brain Child decided to stir up conflict between the human settlers of the Savage Land and their Saurid neighbors, hoping to benefit from the ensuing war and grab control. But he wasn't above personal vendettas considering he kidnapped Storm to settle some old bets and use a little mind control to boot.

Storm was valiant and defiant as always, but Brain Child's promise to have her betray everything she ever cherished in favor of loving the passion and cruelty of murder wasn't exactly an empty one... Just look what being subjected to the primeval genius' experiments can do to you...

"There will be MURDER. There will be WAR! Thanks to my emissary... Storm!"

Yup, in a move reminiscent of his first run in with the X-men back in 1982's Marvel Fanfare, Brain Child had used his machinery to devolve the X-men's leader to a more primal, bloodthirsty warrior version of herself. Dressed in war paint, with claws and featers for hair... the pierced Storm was now evil and that means dressing up in black leather and wearing a slave collar... 

But, bless her for trying, she still tried to resist her reprogramming...

"That's my girl!"

Some of the other X-men had been captured by Brain Child as well. But they had to deal with his female operatives, both capable of controlling minds and binding people to their wills. Here's why Leash is called Leash...  

Unfortunately, Rogue's powers made it impossible for Leash to control her. A shame... But for those of you rereading the arc, it's never explained how Rogue became a prisoner of Brain Child by issue 3 of the mini, let alone how she esacped captivity. A couple of pages after Leash's failed attempt at mind controlling her, she just shows up at the village the other X-men have been staying at without mentioning what just happened to her. Weird.

Still, doesn't it look like she borrowed some of her clothes to Brain Child when he he needed a new outfit for the devolved Storm? Speaking of primal girls in skimpy clothes, the second sexy slaver is the lupine woman called Lupa, who revealed herself to be working for the evil mastermind as well....

 "If these X-men are so great a threat why not kill them? There are four of them within our walls."

Say what? There's Storm and for some reason Rogue, but who are the other two? Bishop and Sage remain with the Saurid kids inside the crashed Blackbird, trying to get the plane operational... While Thunderbird and Beast are in the village, so that's everyone accounted for, right?

And just how Lupa manages to leave and return to the village undetected... not to mention in time to join the X-men and the human warriors in a final battle against the Saurids isn't revealed. She's just there... Shoddy writing at its worst.

Speaking of shoddy, the eventual confrontation between human and saurid warriors is tepid at best. There's a few nice panels with velociraptors tearing into whatever moves, but in the end Rogue forces both parties to settle their differences and make peace. She even has them shake on it. 

That concludes issue # 3, so with one more 22 page fun filled fest to go, let's see how all of this is wrapped up in the third and final part of The Land That Mind Control Never Forgot: Savage Send Offs
 

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

God Loves, But Mind Control Still Kills part III: Mind Control Is The Opiate Of The People

In the third and final part of God Loves, But Mind Control Still Kills, the mysteries surrounding Mount Haven are finally answered. Just why is the mutant hating reverend William Stryker after the inhabitants of this mountain town? How come Bishop and Shadowcat are the only two X-men who seem impervious to whatever is mind controlling everyone else and just what is the deal with minister Paul? Let's dive in...

                              

Issue # 29 opens with Lady Deathstrike standing triumphant over the unconscious body of her archenemy Wolverine. However, because her body is being controlled, lady Yuriko Oyama is unable to fully appreciate this victory...

Not that she would have had too much time to enjoy his death, because Logan's fellow X-man Cannonball races to the rescue... the sounds of which can be heard in Mount Haven, serving as a bit of a wake up call for the mind controlled Storm... However, the equally addled Sage tries to win her back...

Ah yes, when all else fails and the violent weather mirrors Storm's subconscious fighting back... Dial 'S' for either Sage or Sappho....the mind controlled mentat needed the X-treme X-men's team leader back in the game. After all, Bishop was still on the loose... So Sage resorted to this here.

Storm's near lesbian encounter had no effect on that cheerful, mindless grin on her face. In fact, it seemed prevalent in Mount Haven... all courtesy of minister Paul, as Kitty Pryde finds out in the labyrinth like catacombs of the city. 

Kitty finally realises Mount Haven's dirty secret. The place didn't exactly start out as a haven for mutants... quite the opposite in fact. The town was home to one of the largest mutant detention and research facilities in the country...Aaron Pankow, the convicted mass murderer William Ryker went to see in the opening issue of this arc, worked there and told the reverend about the atrocities in Mount Haven, causing Stryker to start up his crusade once again.

Long story short... Stryker has figured out just who minister Paul really is. Mount Haven did indeed house a government sponsored mutant R&D facility, outfitted with a top notch sentient computer system capable of sentient reasoning. During the many hours of supervising and facilitating horrific experiments on captured mutants, the 'innocent' A.I. started to see right from wrong and decided to take action. 

Taking over the form of one of the tortured mutants, Haven's A.I. used his body to reinvented itself as minister Paul. Soon, it figured out a way to protect everyone who wasn't a mutant, by unleashing swarms of nigh undetectable nannites into the air that infected everyone in town. Paul slowly killed every human within the city limits. This meant death came as an unexpected surprise to the general population and it also explained just why there were no adults, only mutant offspring running around carefree (and mind controlled). 

An apalled Stryker finally carried out his mission when he pushed Shadowcat into minister Paul. Her innate phasing abilities immediately short circuit whatever electronics they encounter... Not only did this ability make her impervious to the nannites, it also explained why the healer Cybil died after Kitty accidentally phased through here...

In this case, Kitty's phasing caused the computer controlling Paul to suffer the equivalent of a grand mal seizure, shutting down all the nannites in Mount Haven at once... Often with lethal results as Bishop discovered...

Yes, the entire town had been infected with the nannites that slowly turned their bodies into cybernetic organisms designed to be controlled by the not quite human cybernetic intelligence housing in minister Paul. When he short circuited, his followers paid the price... Only the most recent of arrivals lived to tell the tale.

In the end, Bishop was instrumental in ensuring all the X-men, including Cannonball, recovered from their bout with cybernetic mind control. In case you were wondering why Bishop wasn't infected himself... the answer is painfully obvious: coming from a future where cybernetic infestation is as common as chicken pox, Bishop was inocculated against nannites as a kid. A rather simple and effective deus ex machina... Speaking of machines of god...

'Paul' was left in a state of existential crisis. The only reason the evolved computer system did what it did was a rather silly misunderstanding. It believed the only real human beings were the ones showing 'the spark', actually meaning the energy flare indicative of mutagenic potential. Baseline human being were considered to be little more than vermin to be eradicated... after all, anything to protect the 'real human beings'.

The reverend Stryker offered a stunningly selfless solution for this dilemma...

Yup, here we have the mutant hating man of God, wearing a slave collar, freely sacrificing his life to keep a newly formed cybernetic intelligence in check. It's really one for the history books, if only future writers would have left the reverend alone...

Despite heavily relying on mind control, God Loves Man Kills II is a remarkable story that mirrors the original graphic novel in having William Stryker starting out as a protector of humanity, but eventually merging with a mechanized man hunter to safeguard both man ánd mutantkind in the process... It's a rare case of perfect symmetry and a worthy send off for the character of the reverend William Stryker. His story arc had reached a natural climax... what else could be done?

... *sigh*... Yeah, instead of leaving a powerful and unique character alone, granting him the story arc his creator had intended, you could of course turn the reverend Stryker into a platitudes spouting hate filled bigot stereotype, literally armed with a piece of the futuristic Sentinel Nimrod. Y'know, for shits and giggles...

"Oh heavenly father, forgive us our sins as we forgive those indebted to us" ... indeed. Thankfully, the X-men weren't too bothered with all of that after their experiences in Mount Haven.

The Sage Saga part II: Compelling The Living Computer

Your name is Sage and you are a living computer. This means your formidable brain has a natural immunity to outside influences.

Furthermore, you're also blessed with telepathy, a gift honed by Charles Xavier, the world's premier telepathic intellect, making it virtually impossible for you to ever get influenced, hijacked or controlled. You'll always be you.

Unless, of course, your name is Sage and you appear in a comic written by Chris "don't mindcontrol if I do!" Claremont. Lets take a look at the mind control influenced shenanigans Claremont had his pet character hop through in recent years.

First things first, lets find out how Sage ended up with the X-men to begin with... She was doing fine, serving as advisor to the Hellfire Club until 2000. Then, Chris Claremont took over the X-books and there was a line-wide 'six months later' gap, which allowed all the established status quos to be shaken up. Teams had new members, some old familiar faces were missing, what happened?

Sage was one of those new faces among the X-men, serving along with Forge in an advisory capacity.  It wasn't until about 5 years later when we found out what caused her to join the team.

The answer to that riddle no one really cared about came in the pages of X-treme X-men # 44. Which provided the origin of Elias Bogan, one of the founding fathers of the Hellfire Club and also a long lived telepath near the level of the Shadow King.

Sebastian Shaw had wrested control of the Inner circle from Bogan years ago, thanks to Sage (then called Tessa) and Bogan was out for revenge. He took over her mind and tried to offer her to Shaw for ransom. He wasn't too interested, but luckily Storm was around to save Sage.

Free from Bogan's mind control, Sage aided the X-men in several missions and developed a close working relationship with fellow X-man Bishop. The detective from the future and the woman with the impenetrable computer mind made a pretty good team. And then stuff like this happens...

Remember when Xavier's was turned into a public school for mutants and all sorts of super powered preteens covered the grounds? Sure you do, it was before Wanda Maximoff decimated the entire mutant population with three simple words.

"No more mutants" is something Sage and Bishop undoubtedly would have agreed with in X-treme X-men # 22.  Considering the little trick these kids pulled on them. And wait til you see what they made Bishop do...

Turning an angry black man with guns into a tree snogging weirdo and his deadly lady friend into a rat? No wonder all those young mutants tended to end up dead before their sweet 16... 

After some more adventures with the X-treme X-men team, Sage became a part of the X-men proper, serving as their mentat. Unfortunately, not long after that, this happened in Uncanny X-men # 446...

The background to this story can be found HERE, but suffice it to say, the computer crack'd again.

"Something's happened to Sage" sort of became the official tagline for whatever team she happened to be on in the latter years of Claremont's dealings with the character. That'll be the focus of the  Sage Saga part III: Semi Sapphic Symbolism.