Abdicating All Control Of Your Mind Part II: "Heavy Is The Mind Controlled Head That Wears The Crown...

In the second and final part of this mind control heavy tribute to Dutch queen Beatrix abdicating the throne, we'll get to the actual mind control as Kitty 'Kate' Pryde receives a marriage proposal from the British crown prince William... No, this isn't an example of bad 2011 fan fiction, its Chris Claremont writing Excalibur, apparently with a crystal ball, in 1989...

In order to marry Kitty, William had to sorely disappoint the lady Kate, who had previously been promised to him. The fact Kate and Kitty are actually alternate counterparts is an interesting one. William fell for Kitty's adventurous spirit, which left Kate severly annoyed. But first, she had to deal with her soon to be inlaws... the queen (who doesn't look like the late Diana at allll...)

And more notably, queen mother of England...

Upon meeting Kitty, the Queen Mom soon realises that the young American girl is in no way suited for her future role as ruler of all Britons. Also... Megan and Rachel are causing quite the stir as well.

"Rest assured, Katherine Pryde... We shall endeavor to teach you better!"

Using her magics to teleport them away, the Queen Mom takes Kitty to a band of technomages who analyse her rather unique genetic structure. She's similar to princess Kate in virtually every conceivable way... And yet she's not.

Yup... here we have the Queen Mom and several top notch mages using magicks to warp Shadowcat's very essence, molding her soul, into their prefered shape. Magic words or not, it's still mind control. But Kitty proves she's defiant to the very last...

During those final moments as her own self, a desperate Kitty succeeded in contacting her teammate Rachel, who is able to track her location following the trail of the psychic transmission. However, by the time Excalibur arrives to rescue her, the damage to Kitty already seems to be done...

In an interesting turn of events, Rachel can't detect any signs of mind control or even the slightest mental tampering. Baffled, Excalibur is soon forced to make peace with the situation and is ready to bid Kitty adieu when she is attacked by the same kind of Shaitan-esque demons that kidnapped her back in part I. 

Yes, turns out Lady Katherine Pryde was content having prince William chase after her, especially since it was pretty much a given he'd propose to her eventually. But all bets were off  with the arrival of Excalibur and her alternate reality counterpart. And to add insult to injury: William proposed to the wrong Pryde to boot.

Katherine relied on her magic powers to control a small army of monsters to kill Kitty but she hadn't counted on the fact Kitty was pretty much invulnerable after her phased state had become her normal way of being. Phasing also interfered with the Queen Mom's transformation spell, so Shadowcat was back in the game and soon came up with an ideal way to resolve this particular predicament...

And with that, the prince of the realm still willi(am)ngly ends up with his Katherine, despite the Harry-ing conditions...So much for clever puns, time to follow Excalibur's lead and get out while we're ahead.

Until next time!

... This blog entry is respectfully dedicated to princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, always a queen in my book...

Abdicating All Control Of Your Mind Part I: And Then There Came A Day To Give It All Away

In all honesty, this post wasn't supposed to show up for at least a month or two. But since yours truly is undeniably Dutch and queen Beatrix of the Netherlands formally announced her abdication today, we might as well take on the time Chris Claremont wrote about royal succession in the pages of Excalibur. Not too surprising, it involved mind control.

To establish a little background: By the time issues # 12 and 13 rolled around, Excalibur had been a little lost thanks to the dimension hopping creature Widget. For the past several issues, they'd been trying to get home, reluctantly visiting alternate realities in an equally alternate train which hailed from a world where the Nazis won World War II.

The dimensional train's arrival startles a young child, who is taken aboard and cared for by the team.

What are the odds... Excalibur almost crushes prince William, the heir to the throne... But William doesn't seem to care about that at all. Instead, he seems to fall head over heels for Katherine... Erm, Kitty for short... Pryde. Its interesting to see how Claremont managed to have this character fall for a woman with the same name as 'our' prince William would eventually end up with.

But before 'Billy the Kid' can proceed to make more googly eyes as Shadowcat, the train is attacked...

The Shaitan kidnaps Shadowcat, forcing her teammates to follow as best they can. But why would an ancient demon have any interest in a girl from an alternate dimension who had only just arrived here? The answer is, as always, shocking...

A good decade and a half before the first Shrek movie, Chris Claremont takes advantage of the bad reputation ogres have by revealing this particular butch character as the master of the shaitan who kidnapped Kitty Pryde.

The ogre is a little strapped for cash so he kidnapped princess Kate in hopes of fetching a handsome ransom fee... When that didn't happen, allegedly because Kate's kingdom is equally poor, the ogre sent out the shaitan once again and it returned with Shadowcat.

Just how someone whose natural state is being intangible gets abducted against her will is beyond me... but hey. It turns out princess Kate is actually that reality's Kitty Pryde without mutant powers so it makes a decent amount of sense the shaitan zoomed in on Shadowcat. Needless to say, Excalibur and prince William soon traced shaitan to the ogre's base and defeated both of them. Then, William dropped a bit of a bombshell...

For more on that, check back for part II of Abdicating All Control Of Your Mind: "Heavy Is The Mind Controlled Head That Wears The Crown...

Oh, and for those of you waiting and wondering what's keeping the whole mind control motif... Check out these scenes taken from Excalibur's daring rescue... During the raid, Rachel 'Baby Phoenix' Grey touches the waters in the castle mote and hilarity ensues...