Mind control a la Asgard part IV: Do Mind Controlling Asgardians Bearing Gifts

The previous three posts covered the second part of the so called Asgardian Wars. This entry is a prequel of sorts, covering the events that led up to Loki's grudge match between the X-men.

... Doing a prequel after the actual three part saga? Hey, if George Lucas can get away with it...

It all started, as so many things in the Marvel universe tend to do, because of Loki, Asgardian god of mischief. 

In order to increase his own power and influence, Loki had to do one good deed for the people of Midgard, better known as Earth. Never one for modesty, Loki decided his small act of kindness would be to bring peace to the Earth. Let the meddling begin!

Cyclops and his new wife Madelyne Prior were piloting a plane carrying a group of government dignitaries, when all of a sudden they were attacked over Canada by what seemed to Shaman from Canada's premiere superhero team Alpha Flight. 

The plane went down, but fortunately their plight didn't go unnoticed, thanks to Rachel Summers... Cyclops' telepathic daughter from an alternate future. Despite the distance, Rachel felt her father's predicament and freaked out, forcing professor Xavier to mentally take over and calm her down. 

He even used her mind to power the holographic display screens in the Danger Room, so the entire team could see what was upsetting Rachel. Leaving aside the sheer improbability of such a move, wouldn't it have been a whole lot easier for the world's most powerful telepath to simply share the required memores with all the X-men?  

By now, the team was convinced Alpha Flight was behind the disappearance of Cyclops... so, they quickly made their way up north to confront Shaman. Fortunately for him, many of his Alpha Flight teammmates were on hand to help him defend himself.

Not that they were much good against a pissed off Rachel Summers, who barged into Shaman's practice sporting her red leg warmers of doom...

Using her telepathy, Rachel played with Aurora's multiple personality disorder... causing the flirty superheroine to lose control of her body to Jeanne-Marie, her pathologically religious, prim and proper other half. A pretty neat, if not cruel trick. Lets see how Xavier feels about it.

Yes, I guess its safe to say Charles wasn't pleased... but he ironically uses his powers to violate Rachel in the same way as she had with Aurora: by forcibly controlling her mind. Talk about being your typical holier than thou do as I say, not as I do kind of teacher...

"I will not tolerate such behavior, young lady. Ever again."

After having been properly chastised, Rachel helps Xavier undo most of the damage she caused. The two teams figure out Shaman wasn't actually involved in the attack on Cyclops. But who was, and better yet: where is Cyclops?

... Ah, thank you Snowbird...To Ungawa Bay it is then...

Once there, the X-men discover Cyclops is fine...better than fine even. They didn't really crash, but were brought down by the sudden eruption of the fire fountain... a source of magical energy that turned all the human passengers into super powered beings.

Madelyne Pryor gained a strong healing power and started calling herself Anodyne, an ancient Greek word for analgesic. But she could do far more than just dull pain. She fixed the brain damage Scott suffered as a child, that prevented him from controlling his optic blasts...  And she was ready to help the X-men and Alpha Flight too.

Sasquatch wanted Anodyne's help to control the inexplicable bouts of mindless rage he'd been suffering from back in his own book. That rage eventually turned out to be the resurfacing personality of the Great Beast Tanaraq, whose form Walter Langkowski unknowingly inhabited whenever he turned into Sasquatch. But never mind all that, Anodyne simply used her healing flame to restore Langkowski's sanity. 

And he wasn't the only one... Overjoyed, Sasquatch grabbed his girlfriend Aurora while still covered in Anodyne's flames which caused their healing effects to spill over to her. The Aurora and Jeanne-Marie parts of her personality were merged, essentially curing her multiple personality disorder. Thanks to Anodyne, Aurora could finally control her own mind.

Yes, its safe to say the Fire Fountain could potentially solve all of mankind's problems, eliminate war, disease and famine... Basicallycreate peace on Earth. But, at what price? The Fire Fountain was deadly to all creatures of magic, causing violent illness in Snowbird.

She ran off, with Wolverine and two of the recently mutated humans in pursuit. Unfortunately, they couldn't find her... and Wolverine came back empty handed, tired and ready for a nap. And then... this happened:

"You sayin', girl, I can't hack it as a man... only as a psycho?"

Well, no, you still have your claws so techninally speaking you can hack it any time you want, really...

Its interesting how Claremont writes the following scenes. Madelyne Pryor cured Wolverine's berserker rage... But, 'curing' someone, essentially by lobotomising them, without their prior permission isn't just unethical, its as close as one gets to being (mentally) violated. Yet, Wolverine isn't mad at her at all...

Might be an after effect of Anodyne's powers, might be cos he was more worried about his sudden case of mismatched sideburns.

The whole reason for Kitty walking in on Wolverine was to share what she had discovered some disturbing facts about the Fire Fountain. For one thing: the fountain burned away the human capacity for creativity and fantasy. 

Even worse: the fountain is expanding and will soon affect the entire planet... And ow yeah, Kitty went exploring underneath the base of the fountain and discovered the ancient ruins of a Norse village whose inhabitants worshipped... wait for it... Loki. 

Watching his little experiment in generosity go awry, Loki decides to take matters into his own hands. He shows up in person, along with some giants for good measure, to knock some sense into the X-men and Alphans... in hopes they will see just how kind and giving he really is. It doesn't go over well... 

His attempt at humility a distinct failure, Loki gleefully takes back all his gifts... the humans lose their powers and all of Anodyne's patients are once again suffering from their old ailments. Loki departs, but the scene has been set for the actual Asgardian Wars to commence here, here and here.

Forsooth and yea verily...

Mind control a la Asgard part III: Coo Coo Cachoo Who Controls Who?

When we last saw the New Mutants, they had just defeated the Enchantress and taken over her keep. They would have returned home, if not for the fact Storm was still being held by Loki. In an attempt to find her, Warlock was scouting Asgard's capital city as a bird... totally oblivious to the fact the falcon he'd been playing tag with up there was actually a transformed and mind controlled Storm!

Shooting a techno-organic creature like Warlock with a magic arrow apparently causes full systems failure. Warlock crashed to the ground, shocking his fellow New Mutants. Well, except for one.

Illyana's not too pleasant to be around, even on a good day. But once she started studying the Enchantress' library of grimoires and spellbooks, she more and more seemed to turn into a copy of the her... even to the point of dressing like Amora.

But Magik wasn't the only one who felt the changing touch of the golden realm. Dani Moonstar started to settle into her new role as a valkyrie, one of all father Odin's shield maidens. The valkyries are tasked with bringing those who are about to die to Valhalla, the Norse equivalent of heaven. Seeing Doug approach with Dani, the mortally wounded Warlock panicked when he sensed the valkyrie in her and attacked Dani before running away.

Catching up with 'Lock, Doug willingly offers himself to his techno organic friend... sharing his life force to make sure Warlock will have sufficient life energy to repair the damage. Talk about a noble act of self sacrifice... Incidentally, you gotta love the fact that possibly days after being freed from his job as a serve in an Asgardian cantina, Dough still wears that slave collar with the little bell. Lets call it a fashion statement...

And then... The X-men show up.

Well, that was quick...

Loki, blatanty defying his promise not to mess with the X-men, takes out the entire team, the remaining New Mutants and Rahne's boyfriend the wolfprince. He also decides to give them a new... outlook on life.

"It should not be long before such pure and fundamental evil begins to have an effect. Corrupting you, recasting you irrevocably in her... and, of course, MY... image."

As far as mind control goes, this might be one of the most insidious ways Claremont's ever employed. Just let them soak up all the evil radiating from Illyana's soul as if they're at a tanning salon. But it makes sense Loki chose to do it this way...

He couldn't possibly find time to do it himself, even if he was allowed to by Those Who Sit Above In Shadow. He was after all a little too busy getting ready for his own coronation. With Storm by his side as the new thundergod, Loki'd be ruler of Asgard before the day was out.

Leaving them to slowly marinate in maliciousness, Loki forgot about Karma. 

"I must either break Loki's hold on Illyana and possess her now... or never!"

Ow, we all know how this ends, right? Karma succeeds and both X-men and New Mutants team up to stop the coronation and free Storm. Isn't that right, Colossus? Erm, Peter? What are you doing?

"... Because he's Illyana's brother, Peter proved more susceptible to the spell Loki made her cast..." 

Sheesh, talk about gratuitous mind tampering for the sake of filling a panel or two. Still, the fight against Loki continues, but it doesn't help matters much that Storm is still firmly under his control and only sees what he wants her to see...

And if you think that was trouble, wait till she gets her hand on that new hammer Loki had made especially for her so she could control the elements again as the new thunder goddess...

What's worse than Storm powered by Asgardian magic? Why, obviously, an Asgardian powered Storm mind controlled by the same Norse magic.

Only after she almost killed an already mortally wounded Wolverine, Storm was finally able to snap out of it. Kitty Pryde then put an end to Loki's game by threatening to reveal his scheme to all of Asgard, causing the god of mischief to do what all deities do when caught with their pants down: get rid of the evidence.

And that, as they doth sayeth in fair Asgard, art that...

Mind control a la Asgard part 2: Double Trouble

As detailed in the first part, Loki had the Enchantress bring Storm and the New Mutants to Asgard. Storm was to be Loki's queen and Asgard's new thundergod. And the New Mutants? Well, they were expendable and would have died, if not for Illyana Rasputin's failed escape plan that separated and stranded the team across all the nine worlds.

Illyana was the only one left behind and remained in the Enchantress' clutches. Yet, despite the fact  Amora ordered her troops to go out and find the other New Mutants... they came up empty handed. That's when the Enchantress decided to get... creative.

Did I say 'creative'? Well, that and a good dollop of sadomasochistic lesbian dominatrix superhero cosplay thrown in for good measure. C'mon Amora, playtime's over... Hop to it.

Now we're getting somewhere...

Enchantress magically yanked out Magik's evil counterpart... The Darkchilde, a manifestation of all the corruption Illyana's soul suffered during her time in Belasco's Limbo. Dressing her up in Asgardian garb, Enchantress set 'Dark Illyana' out to find her friends... with the little sadistic twist of having the real Illyana feel all the pain her friends might inflict on her evil counterpart.

'Dark Illyana' had little trouble finding most of the New Mutants and she was equally swift in getting them to see her side of things...

"Encased in this suit of eldritch armor, thou art now as much the Enchantress' eager, dutiful slave... as I. Isn't that nice?"

Sunspot not only gets defeated, he's also mind controlled and pressed into service. The same thing happens to Wolfsbane by the way, who was already more than mesmerised by the passion she felt for her wolf prince. Doesn't matter, Illyana can add a double mind control whammy...

"That precious love... is now forever gone from thy life. Thy heart is forever found... to evil!"

"Rahne!" indeed.

She tried to get Cypher next, but Doug was able to escape because Warlock happened to show up at the exact same time. Together, they fled the scene and started looking for the others. The trail led them to the desert, where Karma had lost about all her excess pounds. As luck would have it, both Mirage, Cannonball and Magma showed up in the desert as well... Right on time for Dark Magik to pop in and try and complete her set...

On a non-mindcontrol related topic: just look at how clever Art Adams got while drawing Warlock. His finger actually yells 'scream', while an exclamation mark pops up in his mouth. Nice visual... But, lets get back to the fighting bits...It didn't exactly go well for the New Mutants...

Needless to say, 'Dark Illyana' seemingly manages to snatch them all away and returns them to the Enchantress' lair, much to Amora's delight. But her joy is shortlived...

"Surprise, fiend!"

Karma actually remembered she had the ability to control more than the desert lizards she had for lunch and possessed the fake Illyana and her henchmen. Reading 'Illyana's' memories, Karma learned all she had to know and took the team back to the Enchantress. While the others kept Amora busy, Karma tried to free the real Illyana.

After reuniting Illyana with her 'evil' part, the full New Mutants roster stood united against the Enchantress... and Karma made her move once more.

Illyana took care of Amora by teleporting her to Limbo and placing the Enchantress in the care of her pet demon S'ym. A major victory to be sure, but they were still stuck in Asgard with Storm firmly in Loki's clutches...

Enter... The X-men. The Norn queen Karnilla, an old rival of Loki's, had gotten wind of his plans to use Storm to ascend the Asgardian throne. So, she subtly informed the X-men of the New Mutants' plight in Asgard and also helped them reach the golden realm.

The wolf they saved turns out to the wolf prince that had been courting Rahne. He is desperate to find her, and his enhanced senses along with Wolverine's allow the X-men to look for their lost pupils.

Next time... Mind control a la Asgard part III: Coo-coo-cachoo, who controls who?

Seducing Storm part II: Oh oh Ororo

It must be hard being Ororo Munroe... Being a natural beauty is bound to guarantee you plenty of unwanted attention... Even when Storm went hardcore punk in the early 80s, she was still besieged by enamored baddies.

Still, the first one to fall for Storm in her new guise wasn't a real bad guy at all, even though he accidentally hurt her more than most villains ever could.

Forge was first introduced as a mutant working for the US government, using his genetic gift for inventing to combat the Dire Wraith threat... Yet, he was also asked to develop a weapon that would cancel out mutant powers. Originally, it was intended to neutralise Rogue, but Storm was the one who accidentally got shot.

Feeling guilty, Forge took the now depowered Storm in, but guilt soon turned to lust...

Unaware of the fact Forge was the one responsible for her power loss, Storm slowly allowed herself to develop feelings for that kind, sweet man.

Yet, when I first read these issues as a kid, I couldn't shake the feeling there was something a bit off about the Storm/Forge. Especially when Barry Windsor-Smith drew Forge, it just felt wrong to have him in scenes like these...

Forge looked oddly familiar, yet at the time I couldn't quite put my finger on it... Ow, wait. Yeah... 

"Momma... Gyrich just shot Storm... Pulled my gun against her friend, pushed the trigger now her powers are dead... Momma.... Oeeeh-hooo-hooo..."

The affair between Storm and Forge didn't end well, but not because Forge discovered he was gayer than the actual Freddy Mercury. Which is quite the feat, considering 80s coloring made Forge look positively pink. 

And then there was this scene from Uncanny X-men annual # 11, which saw baddie Horde promise this to Storm, after beating her up for a bit.

Raping and groping is okay, just as long as you promise you're gonna be making an honest woman out of your victim...

Moving on to yet another annual and a deity with the hots for the former windrider...Enter Loki, Asgardian god of mischief who had studied her from afar and was so taken with her, he had her kidnapped to Asgard so he could properly... court her.

Now, I know what you're saying: "Jeez, how could Chris ever criticise the treatment of Ms. Marvel back in Avengers # 200, when he has Loki do the exact same thing to Storm?!"

Ow, no one was saying that? Well... Moving on then. Loki sensed just how much Storm missed her mutant abilities, so he did what all scheming, seducing god types tend to do... He offered Ororo her heart's desire... at a price. She accepted his proposal and he had an enchanted, weather controlling mallet made for her, not unlike the one his foster brother Thor carries.

All of this was part of Loki's grand plan to use Storm as his mind controlled goddess of thunder...

Fair's fair, she does look good wielding all that godlike power. But, despite his mind control, she willingly gave up her claim to (false) godhood when Loki almost had her kill Wolverine.

Not long after she returned from Asgard, Storm became the plaything of the next mind controlling villain. The X-men received word on their associate Allison Blaire, better known as Dazzler. Apparently, she'd been taken over by the mind controlling Marauder Malice, who was capable of jumping from person to person, until she finally hit home...

Unfortunately for poor old Malice, Storm wasn't caught quite so easily...

Unfortunately for poor old Malice, Storm wasn't quite so easily ensnarled... She escaped from Malice's clutches, realising she needed her weather control powers back in order to do some actual good. This prompted her to go search out Forge, which caused her to catch the Adversary's attention. The who now? In a nutshell; another supervillain who turned out to be super into her, as chronicled here...

The Adversary, disguised as Forge's mentor Nazé, quite openly lusted after her. He didn't even try to hide or downplay his interest...

... Still, everyone has his or her breaking point... even outer dimensional chaos demons. So, it isn't any wonder the Adversary soon opted for a more direct approach...

It goes without saying that the Adversary's love for Storm wasn't reciprocated. Bad choice, Ororo... You could have been a universal evil's main squeeze. Maybe you should have accepted, after all... its not like you're getting any younger. Case in point, the next time a major baddie decided to have Ororo for his queen, she wasn't even his first, let alone only choice...

As part of the 1989 annual crossover Atlantis Attacks, Chris Claremont offered up Storm as one of the seven brides of Set, mind controlled heroines who would serve as hosts for the elder god Set's children upon his return to Earth.

Set was dealth with pretty smoothly and with the 1990s fast approaching, Chris Claremont's initial run on the X-men was winding down. Sure, he had Storm attacked and mind controlled by Nanny and Orphan Maker before he had her changed into a kid and hounded by not only the Genoshan Magistrate, a Cyborg Cameron Hodge and the Shadow King himself... But none of them wanted to marry her outright...

Claremont left the X-universe alone from 1991 to early 2000. In that time, Storm didn't really change all that much. Sure, she got a few new costumes, a couple of interesting hair dos, but no baddie would even try and court her...

That all changed in 2001, when Claremont returned to the realm of X... After a relatively unsuccesful relaunch of the two top tier X-titles... Chris was offered X-treme X-men, a new X-book that allowed him to hand pick his favorite characters as they went on a global search for Irene Adler's destiny diaries.

Their adventures led the X-treme Team to Madripoor, where their adventures were rudely interrupted by the interdimensional alien ruler Khan... He had picked Madripoor as a beach head for his invasion force that was ready to conquer Earth by dropping his forces from giant space tethers.

During their initial confrontation, Storm caught Khan's eye. He took Storm captive and attempted to court her... She seemed perfect for his harem, nay, even better: she was to be his next queen.

But Storm wasn't really into his intergalactic sweet talk... Not even when her life depended on it...

Its been said that love hurts, but this is ridiculous... Storm's defiance resulted in a big plunge that caused a spinal cord injury, confining her to a wheelchair for a while.

After Khan and his invasion forces were chased from Earth, Storm and her team caught up with the other X-men. X-treme X-men # 19 featured a joyful reunion that dovetailed Claremont's soft spot for Storm's baddie betrothal...

"Doesn't EVERY bad guy worth the name?"

Good point there, Wolverine... especially considering the scene that followed this...

Wait, say wha?

 "Does this happen often? Actually, YES."

Truer words were never spoken, because not long after that, Storm once again fell prey to a fawning bad guy...

During the events of the X-treme X-men arc Storm: The Arena, Storm and Callisto found themselves captives of the former Morlock Masque, fighting for their very lives in a Fight Club inspired Arena in which mutants and meta humans fought each other for the amusement of the filthy rich. Masque ran one of these arenas, using his powers to transform himself from a disfigured bald man into a beautiful blonde babe.

Despite having everything he/she ever wanted, Masque was still obsessed with getting his revenge on Storm and Callisto...

Ow, yes... the theme of this blogpost was supervillains who wanted Storm. Well, Masque enjoyed getting Storm to beg for mercy thanks to the mind controlling villains Purge and Paradise. But at heart he/she remained a businessman. So, when a former foe of Storm's offered to buy her, Masque was all ready to talk turkey...

But before Voge got his hands on her, Masque had Storm and Callisto embark on a farewell tour. This allowed Storm to break free of course. But not before we come full circle and see this again...

Shortly after X-treme X-men ended, Chris Claremont returned to Uncanny X-men and his attention shifted from Storm to Sage and Rachel Grey.

Storm hasn't really complained, tho... She eventually married her childhood sweetheart T'Challa the Black Panther, courtesey of an origin story Chris Claremont wrote back in Classic X-men and its been smooth sailing for her ever since. Nowadays, Ororo's a queen, an X-man, an Avenger and even a former member of the Fantastic Four.

In other words, it takes a lot of wrong turns before you're on the path to Mr. Right... So, thanks for matchmaking, Mister Claremont!