Empathically Emphasizing Mind Control

Meet Empath, he's one hell of a Hellion...

Chris Claremont introduced Emma Frosts' own team of young mutants in New Mutants # 16, as an analog to Xavier's brood. This meant most of them had powers that mirrored those of the New Mutants. There was Catseye, a deadringer for Wolfsbane, the rocketeering Jetstream was Cannonball by any other name... and then there's Empath, a mutant capable of controlling emotions, causing people to follow his every whim. Sort of like the New Mutant Karma, only creepier.

Claremont quickly established Manuel Alfonso Rodrigo De la Rocha (but call him Manny, he knows you want to) to be a sleazy, baseless and arrogant pervert who enjoyed bending people to his will. Even his teammates.

Leave it to Empath to make everybody a certified team player.

Empath's ambitions were made very clear from the start. He wasn't planning on merely serving as a Hellion, he was out to claim position of power as one of the Hellfire Club, who also happened to be sponsoring Emma's Massachusett's Academy.

To prove his mettle, the cocky mutant decided early on to take on the X-men with some of his fellow Hellions ánd the young mutant Firestar who he properly molded a little.

Firestar's presence here opens up a whole different can of worms with continuity enthusiasts, who don't believe there's any room for Angelica Jones to appear in this story in the four issue Firestar limited series that had her as a student at the Massachusetts Academy.

Still, look at Empath go. He not only controls one of Spider-Man's Amazing Friends, he's also able to go toe to toe with ubertelepath professor Xavier himself in Uncanny X-men # 193.

As impressive as this looks, do keep in mind that during their confrontation, Xavier was recovering from near fatal wounds he suffered from a mugging, it is still a testament to Empath's abilities that he was able to hold his own. But his teacher wasn't too impressed,  let alone pleased by his prowess...

"Your self-indulgent manipulation of Firestar's emotions has quite possibly deprived the
Hellfire Club of an invaluable asset!"

Harsh and stern words, most of the other Hellions would fall in line after getting chewed out by their headmistress. Empath, however, wasn't too impressed with Emma's temper tantrum. In fact, he knew just how to handle the little lady...

 "Nobody addresses a De La Rocha in such a manner.
We do not obey... we are not lackies... we command!"

Looks like Emma is in a bit of a pickle. Apparently overcome by Empath's emotional manipulation, she seems rather hopelessly in love with her rebellious student... ever ready to obey his every command.

I can make you do anything, my dear, darling Emma...
Nothing in your life, including your life, is as important as making me happy."

Unfortunately for Empath, the White Queen was only playing along to see just how deep a grave he'd dig for himself. She violently lashed out, using her telepathy to temporarily deny him access to his powers to teach him a valuable lesson in humility. That didn't last long, because Emma was forced to restore Empath's abilities when she wanted to gain control of the New Mutants once again. 

Long story short: during the events of Secret Wars II, the Beyonder killed and eventually resurrected the New Mutants, wiping their memories of the event itself. This caused the young mutants to slump into an inexplicable depression, along with nightmares and zombie like social behaviour. Magneto, serving as their headmaster, was at a loss when the White Queen showed up with the offer to take them under her wing.

Normally, Magnus would have dismissed her proposal outright, but Empath was monitoring their meeting from a hill on the school grounds, using a pair of binoculars to zoom in on Magneto and influence him so he would be more... open... to suggestion. Still, it was a close call because Empath was caught by Xavier staff members Tom Corsi and Sharon Friedlander who got a taste of Manuel's sadistic streak. 

Tom and Sharon resurfaced in New Mutants # 39, weeks after the previous issue, dressed in costumes that locked them together like slaves, collapsing at Magneto's feet (who was just taking a shower). As it turned out, Empath's mental whammy had done a real number on them.

Pissing off Magneto is never a good thing. Magnus travelled to Massachusetts to free his pupils only to be ambushed by the Avengers who were clued in the (former) mutant terrorist was on the move. During these frantic events, Magneto succeeded in reclaiming control of the New Mutants, but he forgot all about punishing Empath in the process...

Still, when the New Mutants finally learned of the torture Empath had put Tom and Sharon through, they inadvertently did Magneto's job for him when they decided enough was enough and planned to take their revenge on the hellacious Hellion.

Without informing Magneto about it, of course. He may be the master of magnetism ánd  carrying grudges... But he's still an adult so he's bound to be about as wet a blanket Stevie Hunter's ever so gratuitously toweling herself off with.

Teleporting themselves to Emma's academy, the New Mutants discover Empath is up to his usual ne'er do well-ery...

They set a trap for poor ol' Manny at night. When he's about to doze off, Magik teleports him to Limbo where the team subjects him to a nightmarish horrorscape, with a little help from S'ym and the other Limbo demons. But after a while, Empath finds the spine to fight back. 

Ah yes... more slavery bits! Even when the good guys do it on purpose it feels mildly uncomfortable to say the least. Still, lets not forget this is all for a good cause...

After having properly humbled and humiliated Empath, the New Mutants return him to his room where Empath's fellow Hellions are awaiting them. After Manuel went missing, the team did their best to find him because while he might be a sleaze, he's still one of them.

Yet, that didn't mean Empath could get away with everything as shown in these panels after the New Mutants left.

And here's where Claremont's involvement with Empath ends. A character so rife and burdened with mind control issues finally being forced to pay the piper for his many crimes. You'd think future writers would pick up on Manuel having learned his lesson, but, sadly, this was not to be.

Louise Simonson used Empath in a Magma/Nova Roma arc she wrote in New Mutants after Claremont left... And except for surviving the Hellions massacre at the hands of Trevor Fitzroy, Empath wasn't mentioned or seen until 2006's The 198 storyline that showed him with his powers intact, despite the Scarlet Witch's best efforts to the contrary.

When Empath properly popped back into continuity in 2008, Uncanny X-men # 502 revealed him as a slave of the sadistic Red Queen who flogged him to his utter delight for information on the X-men.

Yours truly might say these sadistic scenes are wrong, but for a character created by Chris Claremont it feels ever so right. 

The Massachusetts Mind Control Movement Part II: Free Will? Free Will Who?

When we last left our heroes, the New Mutants tried and failed to rescue Kitty Pryde from the clutches of Emma Frost and her Hellions. Only Magik and Mirage managed to escape thanks to Illyana's teleportation power. After resting up in Limbo, the two returned to Earth, ready to free their fellow New Mutants.

Unfortunately, Magik doesn't simply teleport through space, she inadvertently warps through time as well. So, instead of arriving a few hours after their initial confrontation with the Hellions, Dani and Illyana popped back in a full year after those events. By that time, the New Mutants had been effortlessly integrated into the Massachusetts Academy, no doubt with some mental nudging.

The two girls quickly turned back to Limbo to tryagain. But, lets focus a little on how freely Emma Frost and the student body employ mind control.

That's classy, trying to mind control your own teammate to have him BEG your forgiveness. The Hellion Empath was bound to be trouble, as future posts will show. Still, I suppose he only learned from the best.

Here's Emma playing a little psychological warfare with Kitty and the captured New Mutants. Emma's trying to break them up as a team by claiming she's already controlling Kitty's mind. Not only does this make the New Mutants doubt everything Kitty says or does, she's also starting to doubt her own actions. Its a subtle way of torturing your enemies until they eventually give in.

Claremont makes it abundantly clear how Emma's methods differ from Xavier's. While Charles is usually extremely hesitant when it comes to using his telepathy, Emma seems most eager to consider controlling, wiping or otherwise rearranging minds as she sees fit. But she's not doing it impulsively...

Its scenes like these that started Emma's slow evolution from a cardboard cut out bad guy to an actual person who cared about the people under her tutelage.

Still, that didn't mean Emma couldn't revert to type whenever the situation called for it... For instance, when she discovered Mirage and Magik were trying to free their former teammates.

Right before the White Queen could snatch them, Dani and Illyana teleported away. Locating their friends, they managed to reunite just as the Hellions arrived to bring them in. In a bizarre twist that would have made perfect sense in the Silver Age... The Hellions agreed to let the New Mutants go free. If, that is, they were able to defeat them.

Needless to say, before long a fierce fight erupts in the Academy's equivalent of the Danger Room. Realising how foolish and pointless this is, Kitty intervenes by phasing herself through the room's circuitry, causing the ersatz Danger Room to go haywire. Capitalising on the confusion, Illyana 'ports the team back home.

And thus endeth the New Mutants' first encounter with the White Queen. But two dozen issues or so later, Emma was actually essential in getting them back on their feet. After being utterly destroyed and brought back to life by the Beyonder during Secret Wars II, the New Mutants were demoralised and depressed. But because Beyonder had wiped their memories of the events, no one knew what was wrong. 

Usually, Charles Xavier would have examined the problem, but by then he was in space with Lilandra and the Starjammers. That's why acting headmaster Magneto was forced to seek out Emma's aid.

Judging from her inner monologue, the White Queen had grown as a person by then and truly had the New Mutants' best interest at heart. From this moment on, Emma was put on the path of redemption that led her from losing her Hellions to shepherding Generation X and finally as Cyclops' right hand aid in the difficult years after the decimation.

And ow yeah, she gave up smoking too. Cos she's good and all.

The Massachusetts Mind Control Movement Part I: Emma Versus Everyone

Emma Frost has been on the side of the angels for close to two decades now. But lets not forget she started out as the White Queen of the Hellfire Club. Heck, in her first appearance she tried to snag Kitty Pryde and exterminate all the X-men.

Still, even in her first appearance Chris Claremont clearly established what Emma's deal was. Sure, she might enjoy dressing up in white leather and act like a deranged dominatrix... heck, everyone needs a hobby. But, her true concern was the children.

Y'see, Emma and Charles Xavier had similar interests. Like the professor, Emma had also created a school for young mutants. Sadly, Emma's goals weren't quite so noble. She mostly saw the mutants she helped to control their powers as potential assets for the Hellfire Club.

Long story short: Emma Frost finally managed to kidnap Kitty Pryde when her friend Doug Ramsey, a latent mutant himself, got a scholarship to Emma Frost's Massachussets Academy. Kitty accompanied him to check the place out. Needless to say, she was kidnapped quite easily.

Now, the reason professor Xavier and the X-men didn't come rushing to Kitty's aid was simple: they were off planet, fighting in the Beyonder's first Secret Wars. Still, Kitty hoped eventually Doug might discover she was missing, but Emma took care of that as well with a little mind control. 

Speaking of mind control... Why didn't Emma just use her telepathy to bring Kitty to her side? A fair question, especially since its a feat she could very easily achieve. But Emma refrained, for a specific if not creepy reason.

Yup... Kitty would fall under the White Queen's control no matter what she did. But forcing her to sit there, paralysed yet with a mind full of simmering fear, hope, loathing and panic must have been a delicious treat to so depraved a telepath as Emma. Kitty was especially despondent when she learned the X-men weren't coming and that the New Mutants had undertaken a failed rescue attempt.

Just how failed, you ask? Well... When the team learned of Kitty's ordeal through Illyana's snooping, they decided to take action. But, how does a group of underage superheroes get from New York to Snow Valley, Massachusetts? Simple... they take a bus. After a very long trip, the team arrived and very quickly encountered resistance.

Its a good thing Manuel took the codename Empath, his full name really fills up those panels. Still, meet Empath, one of Emma's mutant students and a member of the Hellions. Empath's powers are obvious, he can play his victims emotional state like a fiddle, making them extremely suggestible to his wishes.

Doug's distraction didn't have that much effect. Cannonball broke free, but Magma was firmly entranced by Empath's power. So, it was time for some good old hero versus hero fight scenes.

Its interesting to note that the White Queen's Hellions were very similar to the New Mutants. Their power sets seemed oddly compatible. The New Mutant Wolfsbane ran across the Hellion Catseye who was also able to transform into a feral creature. Empath's mind control powers aren't that far removed from Karma's mutation and the gentleman hurtling towards Cannonball in the previous panel is the Hellion Jetstream who can also fly real fast.

But after a few panels of senseless fighting, the White Queen decides to step in and take control of the situation. Who needs words when you can just mind control your entire student body?

I suppose the least dangerous man is the man who doesn't know he's been tampered with. 

This has very little to do with teaching... its mind control, pure and simple. But, lets get back to the New Mutants still in the fight. Another example of matching powersets is the confrontation between Mirage and the Hellion Tarot. While Mirage is able to manifest a person's deepest longing or fear, Tarot can bring forth the images on her set of tarot cards. It goes without saying there's a little mind control involved there too.

Dani managed to escape her new life as a tarot demon's pet when Illyana teleported them both to Limbo, where the actual demons roam. Using the dimension of neither here nor there as a staging ground, the girls planned out a rescue attempt which we'll cover in part two of The Massachusetts Mind Control Movement.