The Sage Saga part IV: Taking A Big, Steaming Info Dump On The Living Computer

Meet Albion, a Brian Braddock from an alternative reality in which World War I didn't end in 1918. Instead, the conflict raged on well into our modern day, ending only when this Brian was given powers by Roma and Merlin. With his superpowers, he managed to end the global conflict, but after decades of brutal and exhausting war, Earth was decimated. This drove Albion over the edge, swearing vengeance on Roma, Merlin and all the alternate Captain Britains because, well...

I dunno, its as good a reason as any to drag him to the 616-reality. Upon his arrival, he caused considerable trouble and Sage devised a way to stop him: by going undercover.

Dying her hair blonde and creating the new identity of Diana Fox, Sage went to join up with Albion and his forces so she could help defeat them from the inside. Smart thinking, but she soon discovered there was something odd about the costume Albion gave her...

A costume that not only shapes your body to be the ultimate weapon, but also mindcontrols you into believing it? If I had one of those, I'd never have to go to the gym again. Still, Sage's computermind sort of kept her own identity intact. But that caused another problem: the Diana Fox persona became a seperate personality in her own mind.

Still, that's not half as bad as it sounds, right? Its not like Sage would do anything rash or give in to the murderous rage and bloodlust all of Albion's other corpsmen seem plagued by...

... Well, maybe yeah, maybe not. Sage, or Britannia as Albion called her, got in a fight with the alternate reality X-men team known as Shadow X... and she didn't think twice to decapitate Cyclops. Oops. After that, Sage pretty much lost control, giving Diana Fox/Britannia free reign. It was only after Captain Britain gave her a stern talking to that she came to her senses again.

"You are Sage". 

That proverbial splash of verbal cold water reset the computer and Sage was Sage again. It was also near the end of New Excalibur, the book got cancelled due to poor sales. The remaining storylines were dealt with in a miniseries called X-men: Die By The Sword and featured a team up with the Claremont-penned otherdimensional Exiles. 

Now, I would be committing a crime against all that is decent and holy if I took the time to provide a full recap of that five issue catastrophe of a miniseries. All you need to now: Mad Jim Jaspers, an old foe of Captain Britain's, had returned to life and was using his reality warping powers to cause incredible destruction in the Omniverse. 

The Exiles and New Excalibur teamed up to stop Jaspers and his allies, but not before one of the bad guys fatally injured Roma, the guardian of all that is, was and will be. Luckily, Roma was able to pass on her knowledge right before she died. 

Who? Ow, three guesses and the first two don't count...

Roma used her final moments to transfer all that she knew about everything that ever was, is and will be in the entire Omniverse... into Sage. Sure, she may have a computer-like mind and can store and analyse data faster than anyone else... But even living computers can be overwhelmed... 

Uploading an Omniverse worth of data into your skull is like force feeding your Windows 3.11 computer the entire internet. Needless to say, Sage didn't react too well....

With New Excalibur coming to a close, Claremont had Sage jump ship so she could join his New Exiles. Her exploits with that team will be the focus of the fifth and final part of the Sage Saga.

The Sage Saga part II: Compelling The Living Computer

Your name is Sage and you are a living computer. This means your formidable brain has a natural immunity to outside influences.

Furthermore, you're also blessed with telepathy, a gift honed by Charles Xavier, the world's premier telepathic intellect, making it virtually impossible for you to ever get influenced, hijacked or controlled. You'll always be you.

Unless, of course, your name is Sage and you appear in a comic written by Chris "don't mindcontrol if I do!" Claremont. Lets take a look at the mind control influenced shenanigans Claremont had his pet character hop through in recent years.

First things first, lets find out how Sage ended up with the X-men to begin with... She was doing fine, serving as advisor to the Hellfire Club until 2000. Then, Chris Claremont took over the X-books and there was a line-wide 'six months later' gap, which allowed all the established status quos to be shaken up. Teams had new members, some old familiar faces were missing, what happened?

Sage was one of those new faces among the X-men, serving along with Forge in an advisory capacity.  It wasn't until about 5 years later when we found out what caused her to join the team.

The answer to that riddle no one really cared about came in the pages of X-treme X-men # 44. Which provided the origin of Elias Bogan, one of the founding fathers of the Hellfire Club and also a long lived telepath near the level of the Shadow King.

Sebastian Shaw had wrested control of the Inner circle from Bogan years ago, thanks to Sage (then called Tessa) and Bogan was out for revenge. He took over her mind and tried to offer her to Shaw for ransom. He wasn't too interested, but luckily Storm was around to save Sage.

Free from Bogan's mind control, Sage aided the X-men in several missions and developed a close working relationship with fellow X-man Bishop. The detective from the future and the woman with the impenetrable computer mind made a pretty good team. And then stuff like this happens...

Remember when Xavier's was turned into a public school for mutants and all sorts of super powered preteens covered the grounds? Sure you do, it was before Wanda Maximoff decimated the entire mutant population with three simple words.

"No more mutants" is something Sage and Bishop undoubtedly would have agreed with in X-treme X-men # 22.  Considering the little trick these kids pulled on them. And wait til you see what they made Bishop do...

Turning an angry black man with guns into a tree snogging weirdo and his deadly lady friend into a rat? No wonder all those young mutants tended to end up dead before their sweet 16... 

After some more adventures with the X-treme X-men team, Sage became a part of the X-men proper, serving as their mentat. Unfortunately, not long after that, this happened in Uncanny X-men # 446...

The background to this story can be found HERE, but suffice it to say, the computer crack'd again.

"Something's happened to Sage" sort of became the official tagline for whatever team she happened to be on in the latter years of Claremont's dealings with the character. That'll be the focus of the  Sage Saga part III: Semi Sapphic Symbolism.

Hell hath no fury like a Sage mind controlled...

So, we covered Chris Claremont's third Uncanny X-men run a post or two back... But its worth revisiting as even Claremont's first storyline features a prime example of rehashing the old classics. Claremont and artist Alan Davis pitted the team against an old Captain Britain enemy known as The Fury... A supposedly undefeatable killer robot from an alternate dimension. No matter what you throw against it, the Fury will adapt and recover. And apparently, it can also invade minds... The X-men's resident mentat Sage was taken over by the Fury, via the team's cybernetic sunglasses (as seen in Uncanny X-men 446).



As a Fury controlled puppet, Sage disabled the Xavier institute's defences and residents before being able to somewhat rid herself of the creature's influence. She remained susceptible to The Fury, as was shown many years later during the X-men: Die By The Sword miniseries in which the Fury reappeared to cause trouble all over again... Still, aren't Sage's sunglasses cool?!