"Brood her? I hardly know her!"

As if it wasn't too obvious by now... Chris Claremont sure loves mind control. Take Uncanny X-men # 155 for instance, in which the team has to face Deathbird, an old Ms. Marvel villain who turns out to be princess Lilandra's sister.

Kidnapping both Lilandra and professor Xavier, she almost got Earth destroyed by the Shi'ar imperial fleet. But despite all these grand schemes, she was also ready for some one on one action. For instance, in the panel above where one of Deathbird's henchmen fires on Storm and Corsair.

Apparently, it was some form of mind altering beam, which caused them to hallucinate and attack their friends. Same old, same old, you might say... Yes. But the tentacle pulling the trigger actually belonged to a member of the Brood species. Artist Dave Cockrum originally designed it as a one off character, but both he and Claremont agreed that the creature's look merited further stories... So,  a few issues later (Uncanny X-men # 162) we are treated to this delicious scene...



Gotta love that Dave Cockrum artwork.

Fleshing out their backstory, Claremont reveals the Brood are parasitic race of insectoids that infect other species with their offspring. The Brood eggs slowly mature in the host's body and once they hatch, they literally transform the body and mind of their victims.

The Brood are led by a gigantic queen who showed up shortly after the X-men's fight with Deathbird. The team was mind controlled by the queen, thinking they were at a fancy Shi'ar banquet in their honour when in fact, the queen was planting her royal embryos in each and every one of them.


But the Brood queen hadn't taken Wolverine's mutant healing factor into account. His immune system saw the Brood egg as an infection and proceeded to deal with it accordingly, very nearly killing Wolverine in the process.




Naturally, Wolverine survived.

Learning of his fate from a Brood he ambushed, Wolverine rejoined the X-men but couldn't bring himself to tell them they were carrying young Brood queens. Through various rather well plotted means, the other X-men (and Lilandra!) eventually did find out and in the end managed to beat the embryos.

And that, as they say, is that... Well, no... There's just one little snag. The Brood queen boasted that the X-men had already lost, despite the fact they just beat her on the Brood homeworld of Madrizar. Y'see, there was one egg left. Guess who got it...






You guessed it! None other than the X-men's leader had become infected by the Brood. Racing back to Earth, the X-men tried to save their leader but to no avail. Charles Xavier turned and in his place, a young Brood queen arose.

After a fierce battle, Xavier briefly managed to regain control of his mind, begging his students to kill him. Luckily, thanks to the advanced Shi'ar medical knowledge no one had to off the prof. Using some skincells, the Starjammer's doctor Sikorski cloned a new body and managed to remove Xavier's mind from the Brood creature.

Incidentally, the Brood embryo had been infuencing Charles' decisions for quite a while. Long before he turned, Xavier was doing the Brood's bidding. For instance, by gathering a new group of young mutants around him. Officially, he merely wanted to help them learn to control their powers... unoffically, the Brood wanted to infect these New Mutants as well in their first steps to conquer Earth




In New Mutants # 3, semi-psychic mutant Danni Moonstar finally discovers the source of the nightmares she's been having. Its the alien Brood queen, prepping her and her teammates for the big change. The Queen would have succeeded too, if not for the timely intervention of the X-men, the Starjammers and Binary.

With all the Brood eggs destroyed, Earth seemed safe... But heck, you just can't keep a good space parasite down. A few years later, a band of Brood crashlanded their space shark (don't ask) on Earth and the game was on again.

Their game plan hadn't really changed: conquer Earth, but this time around the Brood only infected mutants so they could create a formidable fighting force of super powered Broodlings. Naturally, once the X-men got wind of the Brood's presence, they came a-running to do some emergency extermination.

That didn't go exactly as planned... The Brood had infected a mutant called Temptress, who was able to use her pheromones to... wait for it... mind control people. Temptress took control of Rogue and was bringing her and the recently re-infected Wolverine to the Brood Queen when the inevitable happened back in Uncanny X-men # 234.



Sigh... You'd think the Brood would have caught on after the first time. You just don't waste a perfectly fine egg on the Wolverine...

Or, to coin one of Claremont's own pet phrases "That trick NEVER works!"

Dracula drains control... mind you!

Poor Storm, in the early Uncanny X-men run, she couldn't catch a break. Emma Frost blasted her with a mind control gun back in # 152 and a mere three issues later, Vlad the Impaler shows up, better known to haemophiliacs everywhere as Dracula.

The count infects Storm with the curse of the Vampyr, causing her to fall under the vampire lord's spell.

Yes, she's forced to do his bidding, ever so slowly becoming his mindless puppet. Needless to say, she breaks free in the end but not before she fought the entire team... AGAIN!

How I Long For A Gun...

Now this, this is Mind Control Madness at its finest.

In Uncanny X-men 152, the Hellfire Club decided to move against the X-men and devise a mindboggling scheme.

First, Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost convinced Kitty's parents to transfer her from Xavier's to the new Massachusetts Academy run by Emma Frost. Of course, the X-men were reluctant to see Kitty go, but the transfer was perfectly legal, so what choice did they have?

Storm offered to drive her there, but on the way home the weather goddess got attacked by Emma Frost, who used a mind control gun to change minds with Ororo.

I'll repeat that.

I'll repeat that... because its the kind of plot point that makes your head go boom.

Emma Frost. The White Queen. One of the most powerful telepaths on the planet. Able to wipe minds, delete personas and control crowds of people at once... Needs a gun... To switch minds.

I need to lie down for a bit now.

Days of future mind control's not a thing of the past

"Days of future past" in Uncanny X-men 140-141 is considered one of Claremont's high points in the series. It certainly ranks up there with the Phoenix Saga as best remembered moment in the history of Marvel's mutants. A shame Cordial Chris wasn't able to write it without resorting to a form of mind control.

In the future (the year 2014, no less... Only 6 years to go, people!) Sentinels rule America and the remaining mutants are placed in camps. The few X-men still left alive are desperate to change the course of history and decide to travel into the past, using the powers of a certain red head called Rachel. She uses her psychic abilities to send the mind of Kathryne Pryde back in time to inhabit her younger self for a while. In effect, the Kitty of 1980 gets mind controlled by Kathryn. Sure, its basically the same person but its definitely not Kitty....

Mind control, cos Jean felt like having brunch...

Uncanny X-men # 131, just before the Dark Phoenix saga. The X-men were introduced to two new female mutants who would go on to become future members of the team.

First, they ran into the light generating songstress Dazzler and then, there's Kitty Pryde. She was just 13 years old and had only barely begun to understand her phasing powers. Yet, the X-men showed up at her parents' doorstep anyway to whisk her away, only to be met by some initial scepticism from her parents...

I suppose that's only understandable. Who would jump at the chance to send their children off to a private school ran by a creepy, bald headmaster who drops by your house, accompanied by a white haired African American woman, a small, gruff Canadian and a blushing, dumbstruck Russian?

But lo and behold, once Jean and Scott made an appearance, the Prydes practically packed Kitty's suitcase for her. That is... after Jean mental convincing. Yes, Jean caused Kitty to join the team.

Cyclops is shocked at her behaviour, Charles is dumbstruck. And Jean? She just wanted a free lunch out of the whole deal.

Of course, in retrospect this wasn't Jean at all, but the Phoenix Force posing as her... A few issues after this, Phoenix' ravenous hunger flared up and only got stilled after she was finished snacking on a star.

How's that for brunch fixings, Carmen?

Smart girl!

Mastermind masterminds... mind control?

Whoops, almost messed up the chronology. In Uncanny X-men 125, the seeds are laid for the corruption of Phoenix. Former Brotherhood of Evil Mutants founding member Mastermind had been propped up in a new identity as the mysterious Jason Wyngarde. Jean was being subtly manipulated to fit her upcoming role as Black Queen of the Hellfire Club. As this picture shows, she had no idea she was being molded and prepped...

Ah yes, its come to this... In a year's worth of issues, Claremont had managed to change Jean from the strong, independent woman to Mastermind's puppet. "Jean Grey belongs to the Hellfire Club, body and soul, now and FOREVER!", or so Wyngarde boasted. A couple of pages later, the Phoenix force that was posing as Jean burst free and went on to destroy the D'Bari, aka the Asparagus People.

Mutant X spells Mind Control

And so we reach Uncanny X-men # 127, the one where we finally meet Moira McTaggert's son: Kevin, better known as Mutant X or Proteus. Anyways: he can change reality but his mutant energies consume his physical form so he needs to body-jack others in order to survive.

He takes over their bodies and consumes their lifeforce and souls. Kevin jumped from his own form to that of curmudgeon Angus McWirther, one of Multiple Man's clones and then by way of the Scottish police officer in this picture to the girl who finally led him to his father, Joe McTaggert.

In the end, Colossus destabilised Proteus' energy form, dispersing and seemingly killing him.