Mind Controlling Magik part III: Meanwhile In Between Time.

When we last left Illyana in 1982's Uncanny X-men # 160, she was about to fall prey to Belasco in spite of the X-men's best efforts. She only disappeared for a second or two before Kitty Pryde managed to pull her free from the demon lord Belasco's grasp. However,those scant seconds in Limbo added at least 5 years to little eight year old Illyana's life...

Yeah, Limbo will do that to ya...  An hour of our time could seem like a decade, century or even an instant there. So it would make sense Illyana could have gained all those extra years within the space of a few of our heartbeats. But, what had happened to her in Limbo during that time?

That particular question would be answered in December of 1983 with the release of Magik: Storm and Illyana # 1, a four part limited series by Chris Claremont and John Buscema that set out to tell Illyana's lost years in Limbo. 

In Uncanny X-men # 160, this particular scene ended with Illyana in Kitty's hands... However, Illyana didn't simply hang there for five years before getting pulled out. Belasco actually pulled her in and closed the portal, but the time that took in Limbo was less than a second on Earth. So, this entire series takes place during that brief moment...

Mindboggling, to say the least. Or in the case of Illyana: mind controlling. Belasco had something very special planned for the lil' one.

Ah, yeah, quick reminder, Belasco might seem like a pretty potent baddie all by himself, he was actually a high priest of even badder people known as the Elder Gods. These ancient terrors were ready to invade Earth and Belasco figured Illyana would serve as the ideal gateway.

The best conduit for evil is sacrificing innocents. That's why Belasco actively used his magic to corrupt the soul of poor, innocent Illyana. Lobbing off a piece of her purity, Belasco magically converted it into a ball of, as he claims, gorgeous energy. Let's see how he uses it.

"She is bound to me... body and soul... and through me, to my dread lords. Forever."

Yes, it *is* 1983, which means Chris Claremont favorite mind control related staple is over three decades old. It's withstood the test of time, but then again master Chris wás talking about *forever*, right?

So, where was the elderly Storm while all this went down? Having a lie down, actually... sending the X-men home while holding of Belasco and his forces proved too much for her. She was forced  to look on as the demon lord defiled Illyana's innocence in creating the first bloodstone.

Summoning up her last reserves of strength, she grabbed Illyana and teleported them back to her sanctum, a Belasco-free pocket of Limbo that Storm had turned into a lush, gardenlike glade.

There, Storm tried to teach Illyana the power of white magic in an attempt to train the young girl in fighting the dark side Belasco had awakened within her after consuming part of her soul. Alas, Storm was too old and feeble to undo Belasco's mark on Illyana. Luckily, she had an ally in Cat, better known as 'our' Kitty Pryde. However, decades spent in Belasco's realm had changed her considerably.  

Belasco had subtly used his control over Limbo to influence and change the X-men that had been trapped there trying to get Illyana home. They all had pretty much fallen prey to Belasco's domineering presence. Wolverine and Colossus died fighting, while Storm and Cat managed to break free... And as for Nightcrawler? Well, we'll get to that...

Cat had her own ideas about how to deal with Illyana...

Offering a way home, Cat took the young Illyana on a journey of discovery, unaware this was all part of Belasco's bigger plan, Cat dropped them off in a desert like part of Limbo. There, she decided to teach the young girl some crucial survival skills, often getting quite a kick out of watching how her young ward humiliated herself by failing over and over again.

Over the course of her training, Limbo's warped temporal laws cause Illyana to age... Now at least 14 years old, she reaches Belasco's citadel headquarters in the heart of Limbo, just in time for Cat to explain her plan to return home.

Y'see, Belasco built his keep on the exact spot the dimensional barriers between Earth and Limbo are the weakest. Cat figures that she can reach Earth by using her phasing powers, because, well, just cos, sheesh...

Before she was able to execute her plan, Cat had to deal with her former teammate Nightcrawler. After getting stranded in Limbo, Kurt Wagner ultimately succumbed to his dark side and became Belasco's merciless, depraved servant. However, Cat knew how to take care of him...

Seconds after Kurt's killing, Belascos shows up to take matters in his own, erm, hand... That is, not before he allows Cat to try her phase & escape plan which fails horribly... Just like he'd planned. Belasco had planted the illusion of hope in Kitty's mind, only to yank her proverbial chain back to him so he could exact vengeance on the Cat who cost him a pet.

Changing Kitty into an actual, unthinking cat thing, Belasco focussed his attentions on Illyana. It was time for a new bloodstone ritual, after all... But why not have a little more soul corruption while we're at it?

Just read those lines... Belasco revels in debasing Kitty Pryde to her most primal urges, while the young Illyana looks on. A little scared, yes, but also quite excited about the prospect lord Belasco is offering... Hopes and dreams that become even more alluring after Belasco corrupted another part of her soul while creating the second bloodstone.

Luckily, the already cursed child still had an ally in Limbo...

More on the corruption of the innocent and the imminent vengeance of the elderly in part IV of Mind Controlling Magik: Salvation Is But A Stepping Disc Away

Pretty's Perfunctory Persuasions

Meet Pretty Boy... a likeable, if not handsome guy. Why is that lady running away from him? Well, here goes... a post on Pretty Boy, maybe the ultimate of mind control goons, a cyborg capable of controlling minds, making his victims love what he does to them and looking positively hot while raping them. He'll make you like it, cos he's just that good.

Pretty Boy was introduced in Uncanny X-men # 228, as a member of the Reavers, a band of marauding cyborg thugs who used the mutant known only as Gateway to teleport them from their base in the Australian desert to wherever they had planned their next heist. And they weren't exactly subtle about it either...

But while most of his fellow Reavers were little more than cybernetically augmented humans with big guns, Pretty Boy possessed a few additional powers.

His foremost ability was to rewrite people's brains using filaments that shot forth from his eyes. He first used this power when he kidnapped banker Jessan Hoan, a gifted financial expert. The Reavers needed someone like her to make sure all the loot they recovered from their raids was put to good use. Jessan wasn't too eager to assist them, but that didn't stop Pretty Boy.

"No muss, no fuss, presto changeo... a whole new you! Isn't that nice?"

Marc Silvestri's art answers that question, Jessan is enjoying the sensation of being violated and reshaped into the person her assailant wants her to be. And Pretty Boy would have gotten away with it too, if not for the X-men who happened to pick this moment to attack the Reavers in their desert town.

Longshot's throwing knives cut off Pretty Boy's mind control tendrils (or, his eyes) causing him to be pretty miffed at the two X-men. He even tried to recruit Dazzler into the Reavers using the same trick, but her eyes proved to be just as dangerous...

"And once these fiber-optic filaments... burrow into your brain... you won't want to fight me anymore. You'll be a Reaver, body and soul!"

Ahhhh, yeah, that's the good stuff right there... Already claiming people body and soul in his first appearance... Lemme tell you, that Pretty Boy is going places!

As it turns out, the place he was going first was Gateway's teleporation gate. The X-men defeated the Reavers and took over their desert base, but Pretty Boy, Skullbuster and Bonebreaker managed to escape. They hooked up with Donald Pierce, former Hellfire Club member and cyborg in his own right to form a new incarnation of the Reavers.

They were later joined by Lady Deathstrike and Cole, Reese and Macon, three former Hellfire Club soldiers who were cybernetically enhanced as well. These Reavers managed to drive the X-men out, relishing in their victory and destroying the team's personal belongings out of pure spite. Here's Pretty Boy hacking away at stuff in Wolverine's quarters...

In a nice bit of characterisation, Claremont has Lady Deathstrike step in to prevent Pretty Boy from further defiling the blade of the Yashida family. Sure, she may be criminally insane and obsessed with killing Wolverine, but Yuriko still knows more about honouring and respecting a great house like the Yashida's than a hick like Pretty Boy ever could. Not that it stopped him from trying to get what he wanted, the only way he knew how...

Pretty Boy's fortright, even arrogant demeanor cost him dearly. Pierce got fed up with his constant lip and after Pretty was damaged during a confrontation with Wolverine and Jubilee, the Donald decided to play a cruel trick when he rebuilt his frame.

Still, his mostly robotic body didn't make him any less of a threat, quite the opposite. A fact Polaris discovered when the Reavers attacked Muir Island in Uncanny X-men # 255.

This time, it was the Banshee's wail that cut Pretty Boy's fiber optic mind control filaments. Pretty Boy didn't get to control any more people during Claremont's initial run on the X-books. And soon after Chris left, he was presumed to have died along with most of the Reavers during a Sentinel attack by future villain Trevor Fitzroy.

Luckily, you can't keep a good cyborg down... So by the time X-treme X-men Annual 2001 came along, Chris Claremont was back and so was Pretty Boy. As usual, both were up to no good...

Ahh, just look at those sensual, seductive and even downright pornorific poses Pretty Boy and his victim Sage are in. He is all ready to use his powers to scramble her computerlike brain and turn the X-men's mentat against them. And with no one to interrupt the process, how'd it turn out?

"I take it then, Pretty Boy's new program didn't take?"

Sage's computer mind proved to be the stronger mental CPU, easily overriding Pretty Boy's cybernetic commands and even using them to take control of him to boot. Considering that annual is the last time Chris Claremont ever wrote the character, one can only applaud the irony of Pretty Boy's story arc.

For close to 15 years, every single attempt to mind control people gets thwarted... And the minute he does succeed and has his (s)way, it backfires... Because he's actually the weaker party in the mind control.

Such delicious irony. One might even say pretty... boy.

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?

Classic X-men mind control

Hard to imagine as it is... the X-men weren't what anyone might consider popular...

Once that changed, Marvel started reprinting the earlier, hard to find issues of Uncanny X-men in a series called Classic X-men. Printed on better paper, the best feature of the book were the Claremont penned back up stories... In these little 8 to 12 page vignettes, Claremont could indulge himself. This resulted in brief, yet surprisingly intense character studies that fleshed out the decisions and thinking behind whatever characters featured in that reprinted issue.

Those back up tales made for interesting reads, but even they weren't free from their fair share of mind control. Nothing proved that point better than Classic X-men # 17, a reprint of Uncanny X-men # 111, better known as... the one where Mesmero mind controls the whole team and forces them to work as circusfolk. For more on how that caper unfolded, look HERE.

Most of the back up stories offered valuable character moments that told you something new about the X-men, their foibles and weaknesses... Yet, reading Mesmero's dialogue in the panel above is all anyone would have needed to understand how the X-men had been captured.

Because, yes, all this tale tells you is how Mesmero captured each and every X-man. It all started simple enough...

"Jean Grey... Your will is mine!"

Interesting to note that Mesmero only fought the X-men once before (in issue # 49) and he never saw Jean unmasked or out of uniform... So having him recognise her is a bit of cheat, especially since his power is hypnosis, not telepathy. Still, what dire fate did Mesmero have in mind for his one time adversary?

Mesmero was using his powers the way any other red blooded, green skinned, man would in his place... make beautiful women fall in love with you, ever ready to service you in the most skimpy of lingerie. He was still looking for a fiery red head to complete his set of service ready sluts.
So, by all means Mesmero, hop to it... 

Turns out all the mind control in the world isn't powerful enough to beat the Phoenix Force... Or the Comics Code Authority for that matter. See, this wasn't actually the real Jean, only a manifestation of the universal power known as the Phoenix Force, that had taken Jean's place and... Ow, never mind all that, Mesmero can't touch her, that's all you need to know for now.   

"I can't touch my new toy... But I sure can use her!"
What happened wasn't half as dirty as that last remark implied. But that just gave the man an idea as he forced Jean to take him home with her. And this is still a Chris Claremont comic, so Mesmero had Jean dress in black leather. All set, he simply walked into the kitchen and started mind controlling X-men left and right.

With Kurt being the first to fall, there wasn't anyone left who could make a quick escape. Next up... the one mutant who could yell and alert everybody.

Two down, another three to go....

Effortlessly nailing all of her teammates, only Wolverine is able to take action... And he does. 

Actually, Wolverine was just playing along to get close to Mesmero in order to finish him off. Mesmero caught on early enough and had the team pound Logan into submission. 

After an afternoon or so of having the X-men fight each other, Mesmero got bored with the bickering and decided to look for new ways to torture them. At a loss for ideas, a picture of Nightcrawler during his circus days provided inspiration for this...

So that's how the X-men ended up as circus performers. Twelve pages to tell a backstory that was more than adequately established in a single panel of the decade old comic it preceded?

Forget Bendis. The hell of decompressed storytelling really started here.

Doctor Strange doesn't mind... control

As we established previously, Chris Claremont has a certain appreciation for Doctor Strange.

By the time Marvel Fanfare rolled along in 1982, he got his chance to write the master of the mystic arts once more. This time, Claremont was paired up with the massively talented Paul Smith who would later join him on a short but memorable Uncanny X-men run.

Chris'  Strange tale appeared in Marvel Fanfare # 5 and featured a plethora of mind tampering and control. It all started with a little girl showing up at the doctor's sanctum sanctorum.

Leaving aside the obvious question how a little girl knows about the elusive sorceror supreme, let alone his place of residence... having a child show up at your door at four in the morning and entering like this is cause for concern.

A quick examination of the girl shows she's been drained of her magic potential, leaving her soul vulnerable to mind control. 

Strange decides to search the astral plane for the girl's mysterious assailant, but his apprentice/lover Clea already has a pretty good idea who it is... The villain to beat is, well, he just told you who he is. 

Nicodemus is a technomage that uses both science and sorcery to increase his somewhat limited magical powers. And who better to drain then Earth's master magician?

He robbed the little girl of her soul, in essence mind controlling her to enter Strange's home like a trojan horse. Once safely inside, a post hypnotic suggestion kicks in that forces the entranced girl to give Nicodemus entrance to the sanctorum.

And this is where the masterplan really kicks in... This rather ingenious move allows Necrodemus to surprise Strange and drain about half of his mystic might. 

Wait... wha? Did Strange actually shoot the girl? Sheesh, isn't that a little rough?

Have no fear true believer, this was back in the early 80s, before Watchmen, Dark Knight or all that other grim 'n gritty stuff Frank Miller did.. So, it was before good guys blasted innocent children... Well, not without a very good reason at least.

Watch what happens when Clea finally gets home and finds herself in deep doodah... 

So, Strange forces himself upon an already traumatised young girl, taking over her body and playing it like a puppet just to deliver a message? 

Talk about taking ''the doctor is in...' too literally.