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.