Warwolfing down some mind control

Remember how Rachel Grey got mind controlled by Spiral when she entered her interdimensional Body Shoppe?

As it turns out, Spiral was working for Mojo, who wanted Rachel as a pawn in his television imperium. A baby Phoenix equals great ratings, but holding on to so vast a prize as an elemental force of life and death turned out to be trickier than even the trickster could have predicted. Rachel managed to break free, which caused Mojo to send his Warwolves against her in the opening pages of the 1987 Excalibur special The Sword Is Drawn.

The Warwolves are expert trackers, capable of locating their prey even when it flees to other dimensions. Which is exactly what Rachel did after she unwittingly borrowed a page from the late great Jim Morrison and broke on through to the other side.

The Warwolves followed Rachel into London, where she found shelter with fellow X-men Shadowcat, Nightcrawler and Captain Britain and his ladylove Meggan. By the end, this ersatz X-men team decided to stay together and form Excalibur. But the Warwolves were still gunning for her, as the first two issues of the Excalibur ongoing proved.

What makes the Warwolves so good at their job, is their ability to take over people's bodies. They drain the mind and soul of their victims, leaving only an empty shell they inhabit as easily as one would change a shirt.

Calling this a form of mind control is a bit of a stretch, but then again... fitting these pleasantly plump killing machines inside a human skin also calls for a bit of stretching. Also, for some unknown reason, Rachel can feel the death of the Warwolves' victims, causing her incredible agony.

Knowing the Warwolves are still out there looking for Rachel, Kitty decides to take matters into her own hands. She tries to draw the Warwolves out of hiding by dressing up as Phoenix, even using a Cerebro module to copy Rachel's unique power signature.

Before long, she's assaulted by the Warwolves who are dumbstruck by 'Rachel's' phasing abilities. Still, she gets eaten by a Warwolf who starts acting a little strange not long after that.

Yes, Kitty was still alive inside the Warwolf... Its like a scene from Little Red Riding Hood, only slightly creepier...

Poor Warwolf, so confused, so frightened. Makes you wonder what else can go wrong.

... I had to ask!

The Fantastic Forces of mind control!

Since we've now officially run out of Uncanny X-men clips, its time to move our attention to Claremont's mindcontrol motif to some of the other comics he wrote for Marvel. To have a little break from X-men territory, lets focus on Claremont's Fantastic Four first. Chris wrote the third volume of the series from issue # 4 'til # 32 and spearheaded the relaunch of Marvel's First Family after the Heroes Reborn debacle.

Now, truth be told, his Fantastic Four wasn't all bad. A little dry, maybe a bit too much exposition but certainly not terrible. Still, one of the main points of criticism was Claremont's tendency to reintroduce some of his old X-men creations into the series. Characters who didn't necessarily need to be there... Take for instance Claremont's first actual arc as writer.

In issues 6, 7 and 8 the Omniversal Majestrix Opal Luna Saturnyne sends out the interdimensional bountyhunters known as the Technet to capture Franklin Richards. Saturnyne is worried about young Franklin's growing reality warping powers. This actually makes sense, *I* would be worried too if a kid capable of creating entire sub-dimensions was roaming around unchecked. Of course, the Fantastic Four don't take too kindly to Franklin's capture and fight to get him back. During the fight in issue 7, the first instance of mind control occurs... take a look...

For those of you who care, Sue's manifested heart's desire was being Namor the Sub-Mariner's royal consort, a proud and strong Atlantean warrior queen. Clad in fierce battle armour and kelp that looked a lot like leather... Sigh...

Next up: some more old X-men villains show up to cause trouble for the Four.