Brand New Brood Control part III: It's Not Just The Power Of Christ That Can Compel You...

The Brood saga ended in Uncanny X-men # 234, a comic with a cover so shockingly disturbing to kids, yours truly couldn't bear to look at it without getting nightmares... Well done, Marc Silvestri.

The X-men had been fighting medic Harry Palmer, who had accidentally been infected by the Brood. By the time the team tracked him down, Harry had implanted several mutants with Brood eggs as well, which made dealing with this particular Brood incursion a bit more of a challenge.

After their initial encounter, the X-men had lost both Psylocke and Rogue to the Brood, while Wolverine had been implanted with a Brood embryo. So things weren't looking too hot for the team when the fight moved to the scene of a giant outdoor church event led by reverend William Conover. For once, a religious figure who isn't against mutants.

In fact, he's more concerned with his wife Hannah's chronic rheumatic arthritis.

"If you'll let me... I've something that can fix that"

By the way, that paramedic offering to help Hannah Conover is Josey, colleague and partner to Harry 'Brood Embryos For Everyone!' Palmer... What a coincidence! Guess it *is* a small world after all, right? Speaking of the Brood, let's check in on Temptress, a pheromone fuelled mind controller who managed to snatch both Rogue and Wolverine.

"With each breath, my pheromones bind your will more tightly to the Brood. And soon, after Harry's implanted an egg in you...same as he did with Wolverine... you'll be one of us in flesh, as well as spirit."

After a sales pitch like that, all Rogue can say is: "Ohboyoboy! Ah can hardly wait". Unfortunately for her, Wolverine's metamorphosis was being hindered by his healing factor, just like it had during the previous Brood arc.

Incensed after watching him kill Temptress, a still clouded Rogue threw Wolverine to the ground and raced back to Harry Palmer and the others, who were trying to get away from the other X-men by car. But Storm, Colossus and the others put a stop to that. finally caught up with them.

"Brood got plans for you, Storm... You're gonna host the Queen's egg! An' it's my duty... my pleasure, sweetheart... to see those plans fulfilled!"

Luckily for Storm, she was saved by a well timed laserblast, courtesy of Dazzler. The Brood escaped by foot, heading towards the religious convention led by reverend Conover... Who was already entertaining a most unexpected guest...

"Poor fella must mean drugs."

Yeah, that's a nasty dose of MGH, to be sure. Usually, Logan's healing factor would have gotten rid of the egg with some effort. But Wolverine suffered additional severe injuries from his involuntary sky diving without a parachute incident. This meant his powers had trouble keeping up, allowing the rapidly maturing Brood embryo to gain the upperhand. But the reverend kept on praying...

 His voice and manner... as different, as changed as his body! The "demon"... it's real!"

At the last possible moment, Wolverine's healing powers come through and destroy the embryo. But it's not like Logan can rest easy. Contrary to what the reverend promises... the danger's far from past. Harry and the Brood arrive, almost strangling Conover before the X-men manage to kill most of them.

Yes... Kill. For once, the team has adopted a zero tolerance policy. Not a single Brood may survive, or Earth is doomed. That's why sweet, innocent souls like Colossus and Havok slay Brood left and right, until only Harry remains. And he's got a hostage: Hannah Conover.

Luckily, Wolverine's just about done with all of Harry's nonsense... He crawls underneath the podium the Brood is standing on and pulls a surprise move, before pulling a not too surprising move...

"You don't understand, bub... Harry Palmer died a long time ago.
Now, at last, he'll have a chance to rest in peace...."

 *SNIKT*

With Harry Palmer's death, the last of the Earth born Brood have been dealt with. For once, the X-men can enjoy a nice, clean victory that in no way will come back to haunt them somewhere down the road. Heck, even reverend Conover and his wife have extra reason to celebrate...

"Your hands!?! They can move again, are they healed?!!"

...

A woman finding herself spontaneously cured of debilitating, chronic arthritis? Surely, this miracle must be an act of divine intervention... Or, well...erm, wait, remember how Brood embryos are able to boost their host's immune system so they're in perfect health by the time they take over?

And wasn't nurse Josey riding around with Brood host Harry for lord knows how many weeks?

... Crap on a cracker. 

Brand New Brood Control part II: Temptress *IS* A Harsh Mistress...

The Brood are back, baby... And we all know what that means...

A few months ago a lone Brood Queen crashlanded her space shark on Earth, snacked on some unlucky campers and infected medic Harry Palmer with a royal embryo. The Queen herself conveniently enough vanished into thin air, but Harry set out to recruit new soldiers for the cause... And what better hosts than mutants? By the time the X-men caught up with Harry, he had gathered quite the, erm, brood.

"Breathe deep, Storm! Flood your system with my pheromones."

But Harry had chosen his mutant brood wisely. Brickbat's strength rivalled that of Colossus, Tension could choke the life out of everyone from a safe distance and of course, there was Temptress, the mind controller...

"Don't you feel better now, dear? Don't you just adore me?
Won't you do simply anything I ask... to make me happy?"

Storm managed to get away before she was completely under Temptress' pheromone control. Unfortunately for her, one of the Brood spawned wings, announcing his name was Divebomber and went after the windrider. After all, Harry planned to have her carry a brood queen embryo.

Meanwhile, Temptress had to deal with Rogue... Who on second thought might not have been the best X-man to take her on.

"Can't help myself. Ah'm absorbin' Temptress's power.. an' psyche. Which seems to have overwhelmed your own, Rogue."

Ignoring the fact that even with Rogue out of commission, Carol Danvers was still inside her head at the time... Temptress effortlessly uses her powers in her new skunk haired body to mind control Psylocke. And together, they take on Wolverine...

 "The perfect one-two, my sweet. I telepathically seize your mind...
while my temptress pheromones make you worship me."

After a brief struggle, Wolverine finally gives in and is knocked out... which left him vulnerable to what we all knew was coming...

"And you know, X-man... what happens next!"

Before he could implant eggs in Rogue and Psylocke, the remaining X-men rallied their forces and Harry decided to play it safe, calling for a strategic retreat.

"Protect Temptress and Wolverine... with your lives!"

And so they did... Harry, Psylocke and the other Brood ran to the nearest getaway car, while Rogue picked up Temptress and Wolverine and flew off, straight into the third part of Brand New Brood Control: It's Not Just the Power Of Christ That Can Compel You...

Brand New Brood Control part I: Guess Who's Back?

 The BROOD is back!"

If you'll allow me to borrow a line from Stephen King: "Sometimes... they *do* come back."

'They' being the Brood, the massively popular alien race that almost turned the X-men into host bodies for their new queens back in 1982. Chris Claremont had refrained from bringing them back too quickly, finally giving in to popular demand with a three parter in 1987 that felt more like a modern day horror flick than the original Brood saga that felt very much like the 1979 cult movie Alien. 

But Claremont wouldn't be Claremont if he didn't subtly weave the return of the Brood into his ongoing storylines, months before the frightful aliens would actually appear in the book. Take for instance this scene from Uncanny X-men # 218, which features a frightening discovery by X-men reservists Havok and Polaris after getting run off the road by a frantic driver behind the wheel of a VW van.

"Lorna, if that one's a Broodqueen... if she lays her eggs, if they hatch... the human race is doomed."

No, that isn't a scene from Jaws VII, it just so happens Lorna and Alex encounter one of the Brood's space sharks, personal transports the aliens use in their stellar travels. It crashed near a New Mexico campsite, apparently killing everyone around. 

Claremont would pick up this thread a good fourteen months later in Uncanny X-men # 232, in which we discover the link between the crashed space shark and that VW-driver who ran Alex and Lorna off the road.

Meet Harry Palmer... a medic who was present when the space shark literally crashed his camping trip and everything went straight to hell...

"Harry... I fell... my ankle... broken... I can't WALK!"

Harry thought he'd been able to escape this gruesome scene unscathed, despite feeling horrible about leaving his friends behind to die. But he couldn't have been more wrong, as we see this issue when he visits a lawyer who suffered a heart attack when his mutant fire breathingpowers first manifested themselves in court. He has a rather... unique... way to heal his patient...

"Rest easy Bob. Your troubles are over. You're going to be fine. Just fine.
In fact, I can pretty much guarantee... that you'll live forever."

Oh snap, so Harry has been infected by the Brood as well! And by infecting the dying Bob with an egg, he quite rightly claimed the man would live forever. After all, as has been previously established, Brood embryos boost the human immune system to the extreme, making sure their host bodies recover from the most serious of injuries or ailments.  

After a hard day of saving people and/or turning them into Brood hosts, Harry returns home to find the X-men waiting for him. As Rogue thinks to herself during the ensuing fight, the team had been on Harry's trail ever since Havok (allegedly) clued them in on finding the crashed Brood vessel in New Mexico.

"Palmer was infected at the crash site in New Mexico...
I spotted that the moment I tagged his scent."

Harry however, still has no clue he's actually a Brood. Even though he effortlessly withstands and repels attacks from Colossus, Psylocke and several other X-men powerhouses. He runs for his life, even boarding a bus in order to cover his tracks. But he finds Rogue posing as one of the passengers, ready to take him down. Unfortunately, due to lack of experience with human/brood hybrids, Harry manages to gain the upperhand and this anything but phallic scene is a fact...

"This is a moment long overdue, little X-girl..."

Sigh, threatening to stab Rogue with a claw that's rather clearly tentacle porn oriented is a minor kink of Claremont's, seeing as he would expose Rogue to pretty much the same thing years later in a 2000 X-men annual...

It didn't work then, either.

Rogue is saved and the team finally manages to corner their quarry. That is, until the police and some locals showed up to reveal they weren't exactly who they seemed to be...

"We're all of us Brood her. And soon, old enemies, very soon... YOU will be too!"

Oh boy, talk about a cliffhanger...

To find out who lived, who died, who spawned wings and tossed airplane engines around, check back for Brand New Brood Control part II: Temptress *IS* A Harsh Mistress...

....

But before all that good fun... consider this: remember how Harry was shocked to see the Brood that killed his friends and recruited him. So, whatever happened to her? She didn't just die off, or Havok and Polaris would have discovered her remains among the campers she killed. And given the Brood's strong matriarchal society, it's pretty hard to imagine an elder queenf would relinquish or even share power with Harry, her half human daughter. Anyone care to explain this away?

Subtle Brooding part I: Controlling Banzai Charlie, Comatose Suicide Commando

In today's entry, the X-men are about to meet the alien parasitic race known as the Brood, but before that, they have to deal with Charles Xavier. He isn't doing so well.

That's an understatement, if ever there was one. Back in Uncanny X-men # 158, Charles tried to telepathically contact Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler when he discovered something was wrong deep inside himself. At the time, no one knew he had sensed the growing Brood queen embryo, a creature so vile and horrifying touching its mind was enough to throw Xavier into a coma.

Back then, no one knew much about the Brood. They had served as Deathbird's henchmen in a plot against her sister Lilandra. The Brood fought the X-men and kidnapped Charles and Lilandra, probably implanting the egg behind the scenes in issue # 156.

"How's the professor?"

But because no one knew they were about to do a sequel to Alien without Sigourney Weaver, the X-men took Charles to their base in the Bermuda triangle. There, in spite of Moira MacTaggert's best efforts, he remained completely unresponsive to any and all outside stimuli.

In the old days, Jean Grey would have been able to telepathically connect with him, but she died on the Moon. That's why, in a clever piece of writing on Claremont's part, Shi'ar princess Lilandra called in the help of Oracle, the Imperial Guard's chief telepath. 

"Nothing much happens... as Oracle picks her way, cautiously, carefully... into Xavier's mind."

Ignoring the fact that Dave Cockrum basically gave Oracle the same face, hairdo and headband as Storm... the alien telepath soon made a connection with Charles' mind and the images she was bombarded with were a bit more... intense... than she might have bargained for.

"A curious duality to the man's psychic aura. A sense of hunger... insatiable, predatory, alien... coupled to so foul and evil a presence that the moment she perceives it... She denies it, forgets it."

In retrospect, it seems so clear that Xavier was turning into a Brood. But remember, the gruesome truth of this already rather obvious picture wasn't known. And having Oracle instantly forget what she'd learned, kept the others in the dark as well.

Plus, they had another threat to deal with anyway... Oracle herself.

"She's under his control! He's adding his power to hers, using the psibolts to attack the medical unit... and himself!"

Realising he was fighting a losing battle, Charles used his psychic rapport with Oracle to take over the young telepath's mind and force her to attack his helpless body. In effect, he was committing suicide, prefering death over eventually turning into a host body for the Brood.  

So, just like he'd done once before during the X-men & Micronauts limited series and years later in Grant Morrison's New X-men, Charles is ready to kill himself for the greater good. 

Also, having the mind controlled Oracle scream "KILL! To live... Must kill...I!" While it's generally assumed this was Charles' desperate attempt to tell his students what he was doing, consider this: it might also have been the Brood embryo pleading its case. In order to live, it had to kill as well.

Whoever was behind the wheel didn't succeed anyway. Wolverine's adamantium claws rather conveniently severed the mental connection between Oracle and the professor. Xavier slumped back into his coma for three more issues, finally waking up in # 161 after reliving his memories of meeting Magneto and fighting Baron Strucker over his nazi gold.

"Professor, you're awake! You're all right!"

The fact he woke up at all is a clear sign the Brood egg had gained the upperhand. Charles put himself in a coma to protect himself and his students. Waking up while the embryo was still inside, indicated he had lost and didn't even know it himself.  

Unfortunately, that was just the start of unknowing X-men with Brood embryos inside them, as we'll see in part II of Subtle Brooding: Embry-whoa! 'tcherdoin' there? 

Seducing Storm part I: Marilyn's got nothing on Munroe

Ever noticed how hot Storm is?

Chris Claremont certainly has. In many ways, Ororo Munroe can be described as Chris' dream woman... Not only is she a strong, independent individual... Ororo also makes it a point to fight naughty evildoers in skimpy black leather outfits held together by either a choker or a slave collar... That's enough to make any SM-enthusiast pant and wince with excitement.

An awful lot of X-men villains found Storm to be totally irresistible. It goes without saying she wasn't too happy about all that unwanted attention. Luckily for those spurned yet smitten supervillains, there's always mind control...

Wait, wait... Lets not jump the gun, even though after this two parter who wouldn't be temped to jump in front of one? Sit back and lets review the seductors of Storm, starting with this sweaty, Morocco Mole cosplaying charmer...

Storm caught the lusting super villain's eye pretty young in life. As a little girl on the streets of Cairo, she survived as a pickpocketing thief under the tutelage of Achmed El Gibar. Unbeknownst to her, Cairo's master thief had promised the young girl to the crimelord Amahl Farouk... who was little more than a host for the psychic monstrosity known as the Shadow King.

The King sensed Storm's mutant potential and intended to groom her. Yet, he wasn't able to make good on his plans after he accidentally got his host body killed when Amahl Farouk was foolish enough to challenge a visiting Charles Xavier to a fight on the astral plane.
For more on that, click here. 

Half a lifetime later, the Shadow King had just recently acquired a new host when he came across Storm, and wanted a second chance. He failed, of course... and would try again later in Joe Kelly's 1997 run on X-men when he'd pose as the African goddess Anansi. Oh, and for the record, the reason Storm looks so young is the result of a mind control heavy story featured here.

Being inherently evil isn't the only way to Storm's heart. Sometimes just being a monarch will do too, as Arkon the Imperion found out in 1981's Uncanny X-men annual. Arkon rules over Polemachus, an extra-dimensional world that derives its light and power from a series of orbital energy rings.

Unfortunately, these rings regularly tend to lose their charge. Whenever that happens Arkon comes to Earth looking for help. That is, if by 'looking for help' you mean forcibly taking what or whoever you want. In this case, he figured Storm's lightning could recharge the rings, but sparks flew and young love soon was a fact. No mind control here, though it'd be pretty hard to resist the ruler of an entire world who also has a pretty big... quiver... he just dangles there for everyone to see.

Speaking of half naked rulers of all they convey... When the X-men were in the Savage Land, Storm and the others were captured and subjected to mind control experiments. But only Ororo caught the eye of Brainchild, the leader of the Savage Land Mutates...

Despite his boorish behaviour, its hard to feel threatened by someone like Brainchild. So, lets move on to true villainy... Storm was even able to melt the armor clad heart of Doctor Doom.

While her fellow X-men were fighting for their very lives, Doctor Doom invited Storm to dinner and the two of them actually had a good time making googly eyes at one another... That is, until Doom felt it was time to earn his keep as a villain and a dastardly deed was called for...

You see, an added aspect to most of the flirts Storm enjoyed with the bad guys, involved them wanting not only her heart... cos that would have been too easy...  No, every single one of them made it a point to exclaim their desire for her heart, body and soul... forever!

In this case, Doom turns her into a living statue... not just to imprison her, but also to preserve her beauty for the ages. As far as torture goes, that actually sounds somewhat poetic. Still, all a statue does is take up space and look pretty and even the good doctor knows a talented woman like Storm is capable of doing much more than that... So he improvises...

Imprisoning the original and building a robot double to use as your houseslave? Hardly behaviour befitting a king. At least Storm's next baddie beau had more class and a straightforward approach...

Yup... that's Vlad 'Dracula' the Impaler alright... He was so taken with Storm that he decided to make her his bride. Making an African American woman the princess of darkness just seems wrong or at least slightly superfluous. Moving on...

The Brood?

Well, yes... Storm and her fellow X-men were selected by the Brood Queen herself to be hosts for her daughters, she personally implanted them with the embryo of a Brood princess. As a side effect of that implantation, the X-men spent a few cosy, slightly dazed days with what they thought were Shi'ar... It wasn't until Wolverine's healing factor broke the conditioning that it became clear the team was being kept on the Brood homeworld, waiting for the eggs to hatch.

So, a monarch wants Storm to be hers and uses mind control to achieve that goal? I'd say the Brood qualify...

The X-men finally managed to escape the Brood homeworld on board Lilandra's royal space cruiser Z'reee Shar. Wolverine was the only one who knew what was going on after having defeated his own Brood egg, Storm was second to realise something was wrong.

After discovering her infection, she took one of the Shar's shuttlecrafts and fled. In the vastness of space, she managed to become one with the universe itself (don't ask)... An act that burned the Brood egg to a crisp, but also destroyed the shuttle... seemingly condemning Storm to die. Yet, she turned up alive and sort of well by next issue...

"The Acanti and I... Are one."

Ah, yeah... this one's going to take some 'splainin'... The Acanti are a sentient race of massive, brown and pink space whales that the Brood have hunted for ages. But the young leader of the Acanti, the so called Prophet Singer, has managed to stay free which is the one piece of good news.

Unfortunately, its mother fell victim to the Brood which left her child virtually defenseless. Enter Storm: the Acanti encountered her dying form in space and decided to kill two birds with one proverbial stone by placing her inside the Acanti for safe keeping. This allowed her mind to act as a mothering influence to the child leader of his ancient race.

And to be fair, she never looked better doing it...

Next time, Seducing Storm part 2: Ororo gets a mohawk and the supervillains keep on keeping on.