Post 175: True Love, True Mind Control

It's post 175!

We're still hip deep in the continuity backwaters of that alternate reality series X-men Forever, so celebrating this milestone might not feel too legitimate. But today's entry covers X-men Forever Annual # 1, a comic in which Chris Claremont featured both mind control and a fan favorite forbidden couple: Jean Grey and Wolverine.

It all started with Nick Fury sending Logan and Jean on a covert mission to discover strange goings on at a tropical island SHIELD suspects is a hotbed for superhuman terrorism...

"We should be so lucky."

Ow boy, Jean... You weren't kidding, not even two pages into your tropical vacation... we get this.

"It's a mix of science and magic... One to subject our minds... the other, our souls!"

Yes, Wolverine and Phoenix got themselves captured by those ne'er-do-wells, the mystical ninjas of the Hand. So much for enjoying their unexpected but by no means unwanted romantic holiday. There had always been more than a little spark of affection between the two of them, but by the time Wolverine came around Jean was already faithful to Cyclops. Luckily for Logan, this being an alternate universe Chris Claremont was free to experiment and paired him off with Jeanie...

Unfortunately, they weren't quite themselves...

"As we succumb to the enchantment... there'll be some kind of physical metamorphosis... as the demon they unleash makes itself flesh."

Jean tried her very best to stave off this unfortunate transformation, but while her mutant powers protected her from the worst of the Hand's two pronged metaphysical, magical mind control act... 

...Wolverine wasn't quite so lucky. That means the minute an impromptu team of X-men burst in to save the couple, Logan wasn't exactly himself anymore...

If only someone told that to Shadowcat...

"Raaaaaah!"

Well, Jean did... but who'd listen to her pleas not to free her, heck... someone might be controlling her mind, right? With Wolverine properly conditioned by the Hand to serve as their assassin, the X-men were in for one heck of a fight... Even though Psylocke tried her best to deal with the situation, 'Wolverine' still had quite a bit to say to her...

"Your vaunted power is nothing! I am the master assassin of the Hand...
And with these blades, I will claim your heart and soul!"

Yes, for some reason the Hand has been able to magically alter Wolverine's adamantium claws into  heart and soul sucking devices... Which sounds great, until you realise adamantium is a type of iron... And iron is historically known to break and destroy magical spells.

Ah well, continuity...

Lucky for all of us... Love burns through all bonds, especially if the lady formerly known as the Phoenix is the one doing the burning...

'

"When my blades cut you, you'll bleed... And then you'll scream!"

Not so much, Wolvie... Love cures all. Jean is able to restore Logan to normal and with the Hand defeated, the X-men enjoy a little R&R on a sunny holiday island. But Jean and Logan can do without those not quite welcomed guests...

"We'll make our own way, thanks. Tell the others not to worry."

And yes, there's no reason to worry indeed...

"THIS is my choice."

Like I said, no reason to worry at all.

...Well, unless your name is either Cyclops or Mariko Yashida, that is...

What If... You Used Some Mind Control?

It's no big secret Chris Claremont had originally planned to spare Jean Grey's life at the end of the classic Dark Phoenix Saga. After losing their fight with the Shi'ar Imperial Guard on the Moon, Jean was to undergo a psychic lobotomy, a "procedure that destroyed the parts of her brain related to her powers" after which she would be sent on her merry way.

At the 11th hour, Marvel editor in chief Jim Shooter balked at this notion, claiming that Jean would have to pay for the crimes of Dark Phoenix (destroying a star, blowing up a planet, y'know, little misdemeanors like that). So Jean had to die, by her own hand, forcing Claremont and Byrne to rethink the long term planning for the book on the fly.

Luckily, the What If?-series allowed Claremont to answer that one question fans had: what if Phoenix had lived? The story shown in What If? # 32 largely followed Claremont's original plans. Chris had always wanted Scott and Jean to leave the team after the affair with the Phoenix. Settling down and enjoying a normal life for a few months, their relative peace and quiet ended with the late night arrival of their oldest foe.

In Claremont's original plans, Magneto would also show up around Uncanny X-men # 150 to make Jean a very similar proposal...

Magneto offered to restore Jean's powers and she was tempted to say the least. The loss of her telepathy had severely handicapped her. She even likened it to missing a sense or a limb. She felt locked inside her head, like her own mind was a prison cell. So, why wouldn't she accept it? Let's see what she did. 

Jean's refusal was a part of Claremont's outline as well. Her choice influenced Magneto to rethink his evil ways somewhat, a move not too dissimilar from what happened in the 'real' Uncanny X-men # 150. In that issue, the X-men also faced Magneto who threatened the entire world in his classic silver age mad villain sort of way... But revealing a sudden humanity when he was shocked to learn his 'evil' actions caused the X-men's youngest member Kitty Pryde considerable harm.

Getting back to the alternate reality at hand... After their adventure against Magneto, Jean felt more at peace and ready to move on with her life. Returning to college and graduating with a degree in education, she joined Professor Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters as a teacher to the New Mutants...

And speaking of new mutants, not too long after that she gave birth to a baby girl named Rachel. Everything seemed to be going Jean's way... that is, until several months later tragedy struck again.

Much to her surprise Scott actually shows up. Sort of. Turns out, she's being mind controlled by a very familiar old foe... Mastermind.

Mastermind's illusions are intense and powerful... even slightly disturbing... Watch for the melting infant with the spike sticking out of her eye...

But in the meantime... you are mine, body and soul!"

Apparently, Jean didn't think that was too nice and she heroically fought back against Mastermind's illusion, even knocking him out. However, all that did was reveal the true villain...

Ahhh, yeah... It's the granddaddy of all things mind control... The Shadow King. He had been watching Jean from the shadows, slowly taking over Mastermind's mind, biding his time until the right moment presented itself... And with the X-men and New Mutants off to fight in the first Secret Wars, he finally made his move.

Jean thought the Shadow King was after her.

She was wrong.

The Shadow King controlled Mastermind took off with baby Rachel, leaving Jean dead on the floor of the nursery. However, this is where we find out 'Jean' isn't really Jean after all. As established in 616-continuity, the real Jean Grey never became Phoenix.

Marvel Girl turned into Phoenix in X-men # 100, however years later it was revealed that rather than empowering Jean, the force actually assumed Jean's physical form and took over her life, leaving the young girl in a cocoon at the bottom of Jamaica Bay.

The same thing happened here, but the Phoenix had used her own powers to make herself forget she wasn't the real thing (... mind controlling your own mind? That's gotta be a first!). However, dying restored both the Phoenix's memories and powers, leaving her with a horrifying realisation.

The right thing would be to restore the real Jean to life, allowing her to take over... But that would giving up the life Phoenix had with Scott, not to mention baby Rachel... Could she truly be that noble and heroic? 

Phoenix essentially murdered Jean... taking over her life forever. And who would ever know, right? The issue ends with a cliffhanger, after all the threat of the Shadow King still had to be dealt with.

However, that next issue wasn't written by Claremont so let's not go into it that much. Suffice it to say, the Shadow King's powers were no match for the Phoenix' fires... nor were the Sentinels and lord knows what other X-men baddie showed up. Yet, in the end Phoenix realised she was just too powerful and dangerous to remain on Earth... So she choose to leave her life behind in order to save the entire planet.

Talk about repentance...

Don't mind (control) me, I'm crazy!

The fourth issue of Excalibur starts out in the offices of influental London banker Courtney Ross. She is quietly lamenting her relationship with Captain Britain that went sour after Brian Braddock mysteriously disappeared. Thinking him dead, she moved on with her life, but when Brian returned to the superhero scene, she found herself to be a target yet again...

Meet the Crazy Gang, an Alice in Wonderland inspired band of villains that are as inept as they are colorful. It didn't take Courteney much effort at all to escape from their clutches. Fleeing from the bank, she thinks she's safe when a police car happens to pass by. 

Alas, the car is driven by the real villain of the piece, Arcade. Using Arcade for this story actually makes sense, not only is he a well established X-men villain but he's also part of Captain Britain's rogues' gallery. By kidnapping Courteney, Arcade hoped to lure Captain Britain to his Murderworld for a rematch. Unfortunately, his way of luring the good Captain makes little to no sense.

Rachel and Kitty were enjoying a day off, living out the tired cliche of what all young women love to do: go shopping. But, at the cash register they noticed their paper pounds didn't have the actual queen on 'em but the Crazy Gang's Red Queen.

Now, from this they derived it was Arcade who was up to no good. A bit of a stretch, considering both Rachel and Kitty had never fought the Crazy Gang, nor did they have any knowledge about the Crazy Gang's recent alliance with Arcade. But hey, whatever gets you the furthest in those 22 pages a month, eh?

Meanwhile in a subplot that has nothing to do with mind control, but is still an interesting side note... Doctor Moira MacTaggert is travelling with her bodyguard Callisto to meet with Excalibur. Moira's found some anomalies in one of the team members' DNA which she wants to sort out. Nothing ever came of this, and not just because Moira, Callisto and the entire train were teleported off the face of the Earth.


If Claremont had gotten his way, it would have been revealed that the anomalous DNA readings meant Rachel didn't have a biological father. She would have been a Christ like figure, her mother Jean impregnated by the Phoenix Force acting like the biblical Holy Spirit. Sounds interesting, but still uncomfortably close to religious blasphemy for the PC 80s.


Getting back to the story at hand, it didn't take Excalibur very long to trace Arcade, the Crazy Gang and Courtney to an old, abandoned amusement park. But the fight didn't go exactly as planned, mostly because Captain Britain hadn't really figured out how to be a team player at that point.

Using an advanced piece of technology of his own design, the idiot savant Crazy Gang member Tweedledope switched his mind with Captain Britain's, causing some confusion. Which only got worse when he used a similar device on most of the other Excalibur members.

After Nightcrawler and Meggan got themselves swapped with the Crazy Gang's Jester and Knave, only Phoenix and Shadowcat were left in their proper minds and Captain "Tweedledope" Britain was hard at work to remedy that.

Admittely, as impressive as this looks, Phoenix is actually more affected by the psychic summons she receives from her baby brother Nathan Summers, covered in THIS entry. But that didn't mean Tweedledope's switcheroo tech didn't do the trick.

Never one to miss out on a brutal slaughter with zero odds of surviving, Arcade had Courtney Ross dressed up as the actual Alice in Wonderland, and the mind controlled Rachel was ever ready to obey the Red Queen's command to decapitate her. 

Yup... that's Tweedledope in the body of Captain Britain, biting the hiney of the actual Captain. Sure, why not. But, enough levity... Take us home, Shadowcat!   

"Was afraid of this. She didn't body-switch with the Executioner, she was possessed by him! To exorcise his influence... I'll have to slip completely inside her body... and open my mind totally to Ray's telepathic power... Gambling that the image of herself she sees through my thoughts...Will be enough to break her free..."

...Geez, and they still wonder why narrative thought bubbles are dead and gone. 

Still, Kitty saved Excalibur and Courtney and so far 4 of the published 5 issues of Excalibur relied heavily one one form of mind control or another. Wonder what issues 6 and 7 bring...

Oh. Right. 

Well, stick to what you know, I guess.

Excalinferno Part II: Go Go Goblin Princess!

It took the rest of Excalibur the better part of a day to reach New York, but it only took a few minutes for Meggan to lose control of her mind. Y'see, Meggan's a magical faerie creature capable of transforming herself to please whatever prevalent mood or mindset she finds herself in. She has no real control over this power, so guess what happens to her when she's hovering over a demon infested city of millions that reeks of evil? 

Yeah... You guessed it.

Quickly forgetting she ever was a good guy to start with, Meggan dumped Nightcrawler and sought out the leader of the demon horde N'astirh... who was ever so pleased with his new follower.

Just take a minute to really read the dialogue. It just oozes pure S&M roleplay. "This will hurt", the master warns his slave... "I don't mind", she answers to her master's pleasure. "Even better." Remember how Marvel used to market this as an all ages fun and games book? ... Sigh.

Thus was born... the Goblin Princess. Not quite as evil as the Jean Grey clone turned sour Madelyne Pryor, but still pretty nasty as she soon proved while tormenting her teammates.

Now, precious... I have you forever!"

The Goblin Princess is basically still Meggan, with all her insecurities about herself and her relationship with Captain Britain intact. So it makes sense she would focus her newfound might on him first, by mind controlling him.Shadowcat phases inside the movie theatre and quickly realises she might be in wayyy over her head.

Yup, that's Captain Britain as the Goblin Princess' champion, a warped amalgam of 80s movie icons  like Rambo (the guns & headband), Freddie Krueger (the fingerclaws) and an axe from any generic horror slasher, but lets say The Shining.

Yes, yes, we're still reading Excalibur: the all ages fun book. Try and explain that to your children when they come crawling into bed with you, crying about nightmares after reading this issue.
Also: nice slice of strawberry cheesecake there, Kitty...


Meanwhile, Nightcrawler found himself under attack by the weirdness of Inferno, which caused inanimate objects to come to life and attack the living. In this case, all the mannequins in a department store who attacked the living in a zombie like frenzy. Nightcrawler coulda sworn he saw Rachel in a wedding dress in the store window, but look who is assaulting him...

Using his teleportation powers, Nightcrawler freed the Phoenix-like mannequin from the horde of dolls, ready to unite the doll with the real Rachel. But Kurt'd better hurry up, because the demonic priest who was ready to marry Rachel with the demon Crotus is about ready to join them together in whatever passes for holy matrimony...

Still, Kurt wasn't the only member of Excalibur who was having troubling cutting through the Inferno madness. Luckily, Kitty found herself with a sword. Thanks to her close friendship with Limbo's former ruler Illyana Rasputin, Kitty manifested the Magik armour ánd the enchantment ending soulsword. One swipe of that blade can end any and all magic spells. Alas, sometimes the sword is nowhere near as quick as the spoken word...

Ahh, talk about an almost perfect case of mind control... The Goblin Princess suffers from an ever so convenient spell of weakness while transforming Kitty into an actual Shadowcat, giving her enough time to use her soulsword fascimile...

One slice of the sword reverted the Captain back to his old self, and another hurl of her blade did the same for Meggan...

With Meggan reverting back to her old self, all that's left is getting Rachel back from her marriage to the demon Crotus. Take it home, Nightcrawler...

Having Kurt throw the evil book on the equally evil fire somehow caused Meggan to revert back to her old self. With all of Excalibur free from mind control, issue # 7 had a happy ending. But, wait... weren't they supposed to rescue baby Nathan? Wasn't that why they travelled all the way from Great Britain to New York? 


Nope, unfortunately, Excalibur played no part in the final episode of Inferno. That was all up to the X-men and X-Factor. Fortunately, Claremont wrote this little scene in issue # 8, as a coda of sorts...

Yep, and that's all the influence Excalibur had on the Inferno... The only member who didn't end up mind controlled was Nightcrawler, who was already a demon to begin with. Great start for the new team, people!

Excalinferno Part I: Mind control roasting on an open fire

When Excalibur started out in 1988, the general idea was to create an X-men title that was fun again, without getting bogged down by all the mutant angst that surrounded the other X-teams while they were fighting to protect a world that feared and hated them.

To his credit, Chris Claremont lasted a whole six issues.

But in issue 6, the Excalibur team was forced to participate in the 1989 company wide summer crossover Inferno. The story started an issue earlier when Rachel Grey felt her baby brother from a crossdimensional other mother was in danger.

Which he was, considering baby Nathan was about to be sacrificed in a demonic ritual by his mom Madelyne. Rachel burst out of the Excalibur lighthouse and crossed the ocean looking for Nathan, leaving her teammates rather perplexed.

Don't you just hate it when a panel tells you about the same as the two paragraphs that preceded it?

Excalibur decides to go after Rachel. But without the use of a jetplane like an Avengers quinjet or even the X-men's old Blackbird, they were forced to resort to a far more cumbersome way of travelling across the pond: Meggan and Captain Britain flew across the Atlantic under their own power, with Nightcrawler and Shadowcat strapped to their backs.

This gave Rachel a pretty big headstart, causing her to face off against the Goblin Queen all by herself. Lets see how that went...

Yeah, talk about a happy go lucky fun book... getting absorbed by the Empire State Building that's covered in people. And, what the heck, go for broke and throw in some mind control!

"Trust us, babe. You'll love it! WE DID!"

Creepy, creepy... but Rachel managed to break free in the end, yet she was already contaminated by the Inferno influence. She froze into a mannequin like state and ended up wearing a wedding dress in a bridal shop when the demon Crotus noticed her.

Realising who she was, Crotus figured he could harness the might of the Phoenix if he could bind Rachel to himself through a demonic wedding ceremony. And why the heck not? She was already dressed for the occasion after all...

Having demons vow in 'holy matrimony' always sounded a little odd in my book, but hey... whatever works.

Next time: Excalinferno part II: Go Go Goblin Princess!