Sage Under Pressure: Purging The Mind Controller

So, yeah...

Time to come clean. While post 125 bragged all the Sage related mind control stories had been told... today's Sage centered entry kind of disproves that statement. And yes, while its true the content of this post was previously featured, however briefly, in the final part of the Sage Saga... It does require further examination.

In a way, this post is a sequel of sorts to the anniversary blog... Turns out, Sage was facing identical problems as teammate Psylocke was at the time: someone who was essentially them was trying to usurp control of their minds... In the case of Betsy Braddock, it was her evil alternate reality counterpart Lady Mandarin...

But before we get to Sage's adversary, lets set the scene first. The book is New Exiles, obviously the writer is Chris Claremont, and the situation?

Well, the Exiles had teleported to an Earth where Atlantis had literally emerged to become a super power centuries earlier than they would in 'our' universe. In a world of warring empires, the Atlanteans controlled the seas and therefor  all warfare and technology. As all of this occurred well before the American revolutionary war of the 1770s, this meant the British were still in control of North America, while France had become a major world dominating nation in its own right.

Britain and France were on the brink of war, with France planning to invade America. The French invasion force was set to land in New York, just as the Exiles arrived to aid in the city's defense.

Alas, during one of the initial confrontations, both Sage and Morph were kidnapped by the French... And that's where the mind control comes in...

Take a few seconds to read Purge's dialogue. He is a French operative, ever so clearly enjoying his task... that is controlling the minds of his victims. Even Sage seemed unable to deal with his powers because, well... you've read all of this so far, right? Go on...

Yes, there are just so many things wrong here. From Purge manhandling the sweaty, bound Sage to her desperate and slightly unbelievable promise she'd break free... Purge, whose gloves are awfully reminiscent of Nightcrawler's original costume, seems to be the man in charge and takes active glee in watching Sage suffer while her personality is being erased. However, he did not expect this...

Ah yeah... Way before Chris Claremont wrote Sage in New Exiles, he made her star in New Excalibur in which Sage had offered to infiltrate the criminal organisation of Albion, an evil Captain Britain counterpart.

To make sure she couldn't be detected, Sage's computer brain produced the persona of Diana Fox and made herself believe she was indeed the aforementioned blonde bombshell. It allowed her to do her work undetected, but it also had a lasting effect on Sage, as 'Diana Fox' became a new, seperate identity within her mind, taking every chance to wrest control away from her... And with Purge taking care of Sage's dominant personality, Diana was allowed free reign....

So how did Sage's actual body transform into Diana's form? That's never truly explained... It might be an unexpected effect of her powers to catalyse (physical) mutations in others. Or not... but hey, whatever works right? Purge wasn't so easily beaten and he once again tried to take control of Diana/Sage by taking the fight to the astral plane... Alas, that didn't exactly work out for him either...

All the dialogue speaks for itself. While Sage is knocked out, keep that in mind, the Diana Fox aspect of her mind appears without a face in her astral form... yet is indeed capable of transforming Sage's physical form into hers? Yeah, that makes a decent amount of sense...*cough* NOT * cough*

Anyhoo, how will all of this end then?

With Purge out of the picture, Morph and Sage quickly recovered and helped prevent the French invasion of New York harbour. But despite the fact Sage passed out on deck in her Diana Fox form, she wakes up as her old self and no one seemed to have a clue about what had just happened...

"... So HOW did we defeat Purge?"

Well, Sage... mainly because you're being written by Chris Claremont, the man who loves you and mind control so much, he doesn't mind controlling the forces of logic... Shine on, you crazy diamond!

Celebrating 125 Mind Control Moments: Psy versus Psy

Its official! It took close to 5 years, but this is blogpost 125!

And what better way to celebrate 125 moments of mind control than by focussing on Psylocke, star of this blog's second most popular post? Well, focussing on the most popular blog, sure, but that's the first part of the Sage Saga and though it took five mind control stuffed chapters, her story has pretty much been told.

Still, Sage does make an appearance in today's entry, because she was part of Chris Claremont's 2008 Exiles reboot, the rather unimaginatively called New Exiles. Fans of the original Exiles were a little afraid Claremont would blatantly ignore the beloved continuity outgoing writer Tony Bedard had created in favor of his own pet characters...

They weren't too wrong.

Claremont came on board with issue 90 and did indeed get rid of most of the cast, replacing them with his personal favorites. As is any incoming writer's prerogative, to be fair. Claremont decidedly made the book his own by writing out everyone but Sabretooth and Morph, bringing in the 616-versions of Psylocke and Sage, and pairing them with alternate reality versions of other favored Claremont creations such as Kitty Pryde (Cat), Rogue (erm, Rogue), Mystiq (Mystique) and Gambit (the son of a black Namor and the Invisible Woman!) Staying on from the team's previous incarnation were Morph and Sabretooth.

But make no mistake, this really became the Psylocke show, as Betsy quickly took center stage and  remained there for all of the 18 issues New Exiles lasted.  Of course, when you're the feature star in a Chris Claremont comic, getting mind controlled is as inevitable as death and taxes. But this time around, she actually mind controlled herself... No really!

In New Exiles # 7, the team lands on an alternate Earth where the French are a world power and are about to invade the United States. The Exiles are sent in to right some wrongs, but seconds after arriving Psylocke is struck down by a mysterious force.

Just as her teammates come to her aid, Betsy wakes up a totally different person; speaking Mandarin Chinese and not recognizing any of them, Betsy uses her telekinetic powers to flee the scene.

For some unknown reason, she flies halfway across the globe to Shanghai, all the while feeling like she should be someone else. 

The rings she thinks of are actually the powerful Mak'luan artifacts worn by Iron Man's arch enemy the Mandarin. Late in Claremont's first run on Uncanny X-men, Betsy was brainwashed into believing she was Lady Mandarin, and wielded the same power rings as the villain. Arriving in Shanghai, she makes a terrible discovery.

Finding her alternative self dead at the hands of an equally alternate Slaymaster brings back unpleasant memories for Psylocke. She herself was once blinded by the Slaymaster of her own reality and this incident always left her more than a little afraid to face the villain. With good reason, because for a man without superpowers, the ruthless Slaymaster is remarkably lethal...

And now it seems a Slaymaster is killing Betsy Braddock in every alternative world he visits. Psylocke is so rattled by this discovery, she doesn't notice that someone is sneaking up behind her until its too late and he knocks her out. Much to her chagrin, she doesn't find it was all a bad dream after she recovers.... And worse than that, this world's Lady Mandarin might not be as dead as she looked.

But before we get to that, Psylocke is confronted by the owner of the house she just broke into: it happens to be none other than everyone's favorite immortal sensei/demon Ogun. Lady Mandarin was his prized pupil and he is more than a little annoyed at Slaymaster for killing her. After a brief struggle, Ogun makes an offer Psylocke can't refuse: he will train her to face her fears so she can stop Slaymaster and avenge his victims.

Naturally, she agrees, but during the intense training sessions in New Exiles # 10, it becomes apparent that, in her dying moments, Lady Mandarin used her own psychic powers to place her mind inside Psylocke. Lady Mandarin is slowly changing Betsy's body to mirror her deceased form, starting with the Crimson Dawn tattoo appearing on her face. As the training continues, the differences between Betsy and the assassin's apprentice slowly melt away. They become one.

But before she is allowed to pursue Slaymaster, Ogun asks his obedient pupil to perform one final, tiny little task: go to Paris and kill France's emperor Bonaparte. She merrily agrees and takes off for Europe, only to discover nothing was quite the way it seemed.

Yup, turns out Ogun was just grooming her to be a lethal weapon in Bonaparte's war with the Atlanteans. Namor's race rules the oceans with an iron fist and doesn't allow mankind to defile their waters. All they're allowed to use are wooden galleys from the 18th century. As fascinating a story idea as this really is, let's get back to the mind control mirth at hand...

Emperor Bonaparte uses a mind lock on Lady Mandarin's psyche in hopes of controlling her. However, the lock actually allows Psylocke to regain control of her mind and body. Quickly seizing the emperor, she uses him as a hostage to end the crisis the Exiles had come to prevent and everyone went home happy. Except for one little thing: Lady Mandarin was still in Betsy's mind and she brought company...

In New Exiles # 13, Betsy discovers both Lady Mandarin and Ogun have taken up residence within her mind, once more ready to completely take over. But just as the battle seemed hopeless, Betsy was pushed to the limits....

"Its not fair. I just want to live. I swear I'll be good. I can help..."

Ignoring Lady Mandarin's soul rendering pleas for life, Betsy finishes what Slaymaster started and kills her other self in a flurry of all things pink.

"Finally... I'm free."

Well, for the moment at least... So long as you're in a Chris Claremont comic, one is never truly safe... as we'll continue to highlight!

Too Catty For Mind Control

Can it be? Could Chris Claremont finally have created a character immune to his favorite pet peeve... mind control?

It sure looked that way when he introduced the mysterious girl known only as Cat back in Exiles # 97. 

Cat is an obvious analog for Kitty Pryde, one of Claremont's favorites from the regular 616 Marvel universe. A natural genius, she quickly became the Exiles' resident computer whiz, using the Crystal Palace's Panoptichron multidimensional scanning systems like she was born to do so.

However, she also had some curious quirks. For one, she was decidely anti-social and nothing like the semi carefree teenage Kitty the other Exiles were familiar with. She was also far more lethal. During a mission, she killed an alternative Wolverine by phasing the adamantium claws from his skeleton and lodging them in his vital organs.

And the mysteries kept piling up. For over a year, Claremont teased readers with little hints about her mysterious backstory and delivered on them in New Exiles # 12 by finally letting (the) Cat out of the bag.

*waits for crickets to quiet down after that particular zinger*

As it turns out, the reason this Kitty Pryde acted so different was because she wasn't actually a member of the X-men at all! In an interesting reversal on established 616 history, both professor Xavier and Emma Frost tried to recruit the young mutant but in this reality the White Queen won out.

Under her tutelage, Kitty quickly became one of the Hellfire Club's best and deadliest elite agents. And ow yes, the White Queen was also mind controlled by the Shadow King.

Just cos.

"She also knew that, regardless of how hard Emma tried to sink her hooks into Cat's mind and soul... the young girl was too intangible to be properly ensnared."

So, being able to phase makes one invulnerable to mind control? Guess that's a new one. But this is still a Chris Claremont comic and that means his pet characters will always have whatever it takes to make them awesome... Common sense is for pussies, and she is a Kitty, darn it!

Y'think I'm being a bit harsh? Well, just read what Wikipedia wrote about the new additional abilities Cat's intangibility granted her...

"Cat's skill with using her powers means she is not tied to any dimension and can see through various realities, including those of the mind (...) Her arrival in the Crystal Palace and connection to its computers has increased this, giving her the ability to "cascade" through different alternate versions of herself, altering her appearance and details of her powers."
Did someone just start whistling Chaka Khan's classic "I'm Every Woman" ? Because that's exactly what Cat turned out to be once her body continuously started transforming against her will. For those of you keeping score: Yes, forced female body transmogrification is indeed another one of Chris Claremont's long cherished peeves.

So it only made sense Kitty would turn into this...

"She interfaces with an infinite collection of alternate identities and bounces randomly from one to another... until she finally synchs with one that feels "right".

And I suppose turning a 13 year old into every Furry cosplayer fetisjist's dream come true apparently felt right too. Still, there was more ahead for poor ol' Cat.

Remember how she killed that Wolverine? He was one of the lieutenants of the New Exiles's greatest enemy: an alternative reality Invisible Woman who had come to rule Earth as the evil Empress Hydra. Essentially, think Viper with a blond fright wig and invisible forcefields.

Cat was mortally wounded during one of their confrontations. Luckily, another mind control related power kicked in to keep her going...

Cat phases with fellow team member Mystiq, the two becoming one and miraculously healing both their injuries instead of inflicting double the wounds on one body. And what a body it was...

For some reason, merging an alternate male version of Mystique and an equally alternate, body hopping Kitty Pryde leaves you with a 616-like Shadowcat. Who, I'm sorry to report, also dies by the end of the issue.

Hey, the arc is called Away We Go for a reason, right?

Two issues after Cat's demise, New Exiles folded with Sage becoming the living essence of the Crystal Palace's omniverse monitoring systems. However, so it seems when one reads between the lines, had the series had continued... This also would have been Cat's job...Because that really would have made her the epitomy of awesomesauce.

"Yeah, well now she's too DEAD."

Yeah, that too, Psylocke. Alas, poor Cat, we hardly knew ye.

Karima Karima Shapandar... Your Mind Control Comes And Goe-ooo-oees

Its 2013 and sadly enough... Chris Claremont still isn't writing any new comics. Thankfully, his bibliography still contains plenty of mind control heavy gems we can revisit, so lets do the timewarp again.

The year is 2000 and Chris Claremont had just taken over the reigns of Uncanny X-men and X-men.As he got busy creating new, or rather Neo, storylines, he also didn't forget the works of those who came before him... Or after him, depending on your point of view.

He would use, of all people, Stryfe in an Uncanny X-men annual and for the origin story of Neal Shaara, one of his newest creations, Claremont chose Bastion and his Prime Sentinels from 1997's Operation: Zero Tolerance crossover.

Readers were introduced to Neal out of the blue. Back when Claremont came on board, the X-offices decided to have all the books jump forward 6 months in time, so they could introduce all kinds of changes. One of them was Neal, who popped up as the X-men's latest Thunderbird. No connection to the late great John Proudstar, though. Neal was a young Indian man who suddenly found himself capable of generating and controlling white hot plasma.

X-men Unlimited # 27 finally gave Neal a backstory. Hailing from Calcutta, Shaara grew up relatively care free, enjoying the perks and affluent surroundings that accompanied being the son of the city's head of police. All of that changed when his journalist brother Sanjit disappeared while working on a story. Rather than trust his father's officers to do their job, Neal went out looking for Sanjit himself, initially unaware he was being shadowed by Karima Shapandar, Calcutta's best police detective.

It didn't take long for Neal to get into trouble, when he ran afoul of a local street gang and Karima had to step in to save his life. There was an instant attraction between the two of them, but romance didn't have much chance to blossom because when they finally found Sanjit, they also discovered trouble. And lots of it.

At the time, Bastion had been gathering Prime Sentinel candidates from across the globe and the reason for Sanjit's disappearance was a simple one: the younger Shaara brother had become an unwilling recruit of Operation: Zero Tolerance. That is, until his Prime Sentinel reprogramming was completed and he turned into a willing supporter of the cause... a fate Neal and Karima were about to share.

"Protests are useless as resistance is futile"

"Resistance is futile"? Really? This from the mouth of a cybernetic organism that isn't a Borg? Its a wonder the Star Trek people didn't sue for copyright infringement. Still, Sanjit flicked the switch, beginning the proces of transferance and revealing some interesting results.

While Karima showed remarkable potential and was about to be turned into a top of the line Prime Sentinel, the proces also did a real number on Neal... Apparently being turned into a cyborg mutant hunter also kickstarts any latent mutant genes one might have. His plasma powers emerged out of control, destroying the Prime Sentinel lab.

During the ensuing chaos, Sanjit managed to temporarily beat his Prime Sentinel programming and aided Neal. This defiance cost him his life, but it did allow Neal to escape with Karima... Who suffered from a bit of a problem...

Her reprogramming had already crossed the point of no return. In her last moments as a free human being, Karima struggled to keep the Prime Sentinel programming to fully take hold of her mind. She urged Neal to flee from her, before she completely succumbed to the digital mind control and would be forced to fight and kill the man she loved. Powerful stuff.

And go he did, running off to become part of the 2000-2001 X-men team before being relegated to the X-treme X-men for close to 50 issues and finally getting turned into a background character before disappearing into obscurity altogether... Although he might one day pop up again, considering he actually was one of the 198 mutants to retain their powers after 2005's M-Day event.

Karima, however, would grow to be a Claremont favorite of sorts, briefly featuring in his 2004 return to Uncanny X-men and even getting a starring role in Claremont's short-lived Excalibur series that saw her joining forces with Charles Xavier and Magneto on Genosha.

Guess not resisting mind control has its perks after all...

Shooting Up The Daughters Of The Dragon

Today's entry might just be a little too graphic for readers who are used to Chris Claremont's writing being reigned in by the edicts of the Comics Code Authority.

Cleverly capitalizing on the martial arts craze of the 1970s, Marvel launched Deadly Hands Of Kung Fu, a black and white magazine that didn't adhere to the Comics Code, which meant creators were free to indulge themselves. Show some nudity? Go ahead. Have your characters curse? Be my guest. Overt substance abuse? Don't let me keep you.

When Chris Claremont was asked to write a story, he crafted a tale featuring martial artist Colleen Wing and her partner Misty Knight, the tough New York cop with a bionic arm. Together, they'd been making waves in the Claremont penned Iron Fist as the Daughters of the Dragon.  However, while this tale does have some ties to then current Marvel chronology, all bets were off.

After the traumatic experiences she suffered in Iron Fist # 5, Colleen Wing returned to Japan in order to find herself, with some help from her grandfather Kenji Ozawa. Unfortunately, agents of Hong Kong crimelord Emil Vachon killed him, which prompted Colleen and Misty to seek revenge... to the death.

Arriving in Hong Kong, they quickly got involved in page after page of senseless but entertaining fighting as they sought out Vachon. Over the course of their many confrontations, their clothes slowly got ripped to tatters which gave their their ample tatas plenty of opportunity to show. In an interview, Marshall Rogers defended this artistic choice rather effectively.

"Chris's plot called for Colleen and Misty to move from point 'A' to point 'B', fighting a shitload of bad guys along the way. My thought was, 'When a male protagonist was in that situation, nine times out of ten, he would end up with the shirt ripped off his back. It would be very sexist of me to assume that a woman wouldn't fight as hard or be in a less precarious situation so...' the shirts were ripped off their backs."

After a few more hijincks, Colleen and Misty finally caught the attention of Vachon after they managed to blow up quite a few of his ships that were docked in the Hong Kong harbour. However, the explosion knocked both of them out and they were pulled out of the drink by Vachon's henchmen who, in issue # 33, brought them over to the crimelord's lair inside a hollowed out volcano...

By 1976, Vachon was already enjoying anti-gravity in his 'eagle's nest'. In retrospect, that makes this scene with the avant guard mutant inventor Forge in his Aerie from 1984's Uncanny X-men # 186 seem rather dated.

Either way, Vachon had a far more sinister plan in mind for his unwilling prisoners. He wanted to make them pay for destroying his fleet of smuggling vessels. How? Well, by making them drug addicted sex slaves, of course!

"The days blur, one into the next, time losing all meaning as it focuses down to the eternity between the fixes. They fight at first, their minds denying the drug, their bodies hungry for it... but by the second day its all over. By the third, they're shooting the smack themselves."

The lack of a professional bad guy in a flashy outfit using mental or otherwise supernatural powers to bend Colleen and Misty to his will, is reason enough for some to claim these chilling scenes aren't evidence of 'proper mind control'. But consider this: the simple act of forcibly drugging Colleen and Misty with heroin until they are so addicted they actively crave it is indeed an act of forceful control and might even be considered a form of rape. Speaking of rape... 

Just read the dialogue for yourselves... without the Comics Code Authority in place, Claremont and Rogers were free to combine kids' friendly issues like forced drug addiction and rape. The first three panels contain so much distasteful imagery and dialogue, one wonders what anyone was thinking. 

Thankfully, Misty Knight comes to the rescue, snapping Hartmann's neck and revealing she wasn't affected by the forced heroin bender because she'd been injecting the drug into her bionic arm. However, Colleen was still struggling with the severe withdrawal symptoms...

In a powerful scene, Colleen enters a deep state of meditation to combat her addiction head on. Marshall Rogers' art impressively captures the deep anxiety and pain she has to face in order to overcome her plight. The artwork and text keep the outcome of this struggle in doubt, as Colleen is seen lurching butt naked towards the loaded syringe. But, spoiler alert, check this next page...

In retrospect, its amazing to see what gifted artists like Claremont and Rogers could come up with if their creativity wasn't severly curtailed by the edicts of the Comics Code Authority. Both Colleen Wing and Misty Knight felt like real people who were able to show genuine emotions. Marvel wouldn't drop the Comics Code until 2001, which saw the launch of the supposedly 'edgy' MAX-imprint. 

And while those books were loaded with extreme violence and tons of shock value, they didn't reach the level of maturity and class the Daughters of the Dragons had mastered a quarter century earlier.

Beware Mind-Master's Daring Bedevilments

Man, the 1970s sure were a strange time for comics...

For instance, to fully explain the plot to 1976's Daredevil Annual # 4, it would take at least two or more additional chapters, not counting about the utter randomness required to make this cover possible.

First things first... Namor the Sub-Mariner doesn't break up any fight between Daredevil and the Black Panther. In fact, he only appears because Daredevil overreacts and believes Namor is the bad guy. 

Oh, you actually want the full story?

Well, the annual opened with Robert Trevanian Mallory, a wealthy inventor/industrialist who was pitching a business deal to the Black Panther. Mallory has designed a 'tidal power station' that taps the 'vast energies contained in the deep ocean currents'. But he needed some Wakandan vibranium to actually build the thing. Unfortunately, right in the middle of closing the deal, the phone rings. 

And here's where things got a bit wobbly. The story continues with Daredevil patrolling the city and spotting a crashed police car. As he investigates the scene, he discovers a wounded cop who rather eagerly tells him about Mallory and the apparent involvement of the Sub-Mariner. This prompts DD to search out Namor... And when he finds the prince of the realm, he manages to kill about half a dozen pages with a fight scene that leaves him injured and none the wiser.

Black Panther, however, decided to take an active part in finding Mallory's son Keith. After hours of tracking, T'Challa confronted the true culprit: small time criminal Ruffio Costa. Despite his polite demands that the child be released, Ruffio actually manages to take the Panther hostage as well... by pointing a gun at the man with jungle cat like reflexes.

Not too long afterwards, Daredevil received a call as his civilian alter ego, attorney Matt Murdock. Ruffio demanded 5 million dollars ransome money from the Avengers for the Panther's release. Changing back into his Daredevil duds, DD pays a quick visit to Murdock's law partner Foggy Nelson who happens to have that kind of money lying around.

On his way to get the money to the crook, Daredevil bumps into Namor again who is still frustrated about... well, everything... And decides to use DD as a stress relieving punching bag for a while longer, almost ruining the entire rescue plan when he tossed both Daredevil and his suitcase full of money into the water. 

Retrieving it just in time, Daredevil fights Namor some more until he finally gets billy clubbed with some common sense.

Finally listening to reason, Namor backs off... although offering his strength to help solve the case would have been far more appreciated. Not that it seemed necessary, this Ruffio character seemed little more than a small time crook and indeed, was easily defeated by both the Panther and Daredevil when he got caught in the blastwave of some exploding machinery.

All's well that ends well, I suppose. No way there could still be anything mind control related going on, right?

Wait for it, waaaaaait for it...

Ahhh, that's the ticket! Chris, you tease, 29 pages in but you finally delivered. A classic hero versus hero mind control heavy fight in the closing moments of a rather disappoint annual so far. Lets have a little taste of those sweet, sweet cliches...

"The harder I hit the Panther, the easier I make it for Mind-Master to take him over body and soul."

That's got to be one of the earliest uses of what soon would become one of his favorite chestnuts, the taking over and controlling of someone, body and soul... And heck, the Panther's already used to wearing black leather, so its a natural fit.

Meanwhile, the fight is going poorly for Daredevil whose radar sense is being disrupted by the residual energies from Mind-Master's powerblasts. That's why he doesn't 'see' this coming...

"FOOK!"

Apparently, that's the appropriate sound effect when hitting someone in the face while slinging from the ceiling. Who said comics couldn't be both fun ánd highly educational?

Panther only managed to break free because Mind-Master's concentration was broken but both heroes were still... FOOK-ed... because their best blows didn't seem to harm the bad guy. That's when Daredevil decides to do something really daring and goad the villain into pouring on the power, pushing himself to the limits... And gets killed for his efforts. All according to plan.

Right before he can kill the Panther too, Mind-Master runs out of juice and reverts back to his human form who the Panther easily knocks out spouting some lines that are just a little too precious...

... Ehm, T'Challa? Its a pretty safe bet the 'other maffia thug'  that will take Costa's place isn't a mind controlling super villain in his spare time. Also: killing's never been the Panther's way? I'm no expert on Wakandan tribal customs, but I'm guessing that chieftains who outright refuse to kill, not even to defend their people, soon find themselves out of a job. Or a people.

Anyhoo, lets wrap this headache of an annual up...