Whose mind controls who?

"Ah'm Carol... In all the ways that count!"

Welll, how to explain this one?

Remember how back in 1981, Rogue tok over the powers and mind of Ms. Marvel? Sure ya do, it was back in Avengers Annual #10. 

Yeah, funny story: turns out you can't just absorb another person without some serious repercussions. After getting drained, Carol remained dormant for a while... But all of that changed in 1984's Uncanny X-men # 182 in which Rogue lost control of her mind.

A little background: this tale is set right after the X-men returned from the gruelling events of the first Secret Wars. The X-men departed the Beyonder's Battleworld and, much to their own surprise, found themselves in Tokyo upon being returned to Earth. Before long, they'd be forced to fight Lockheed's dragon girlfriend who had grown to giant size and planned to turn downtown Tokyo into her nest... But before all that went down, professor Xavier asked Rogue to check in on the New Mutants back in Westchester... Which meant she had to fly halfway across the world.



I know this tale is set in the early 80s, welll before the internet made global communication a lot easier... But how about dropping a yen or two in the nearest payphone and simply call home?

Just a thought.

Still, flying from Tokyo to the States tired her out so much that Carol's spirit was able to gain dominance. Once she got home, she found the New Mutants missing, they were busy getting mind controlled by Emma Frost at the Massachusetts Academy, but the school's answering machine also included a call for help from one colonel Rossi... Hearing his voice was all it took for Carol to take over.

Rossi happened to be one of Carol's former lovers and he was being held captive. Carol/Rogue immediately flew off to rescue him and even invaded their fearsome flying fortress... the Helicarrier. In this really cool scene, Carol's smarts combine with Rogue's innate brashness to come up with an impromptu way of breaching the Carrier's defenses...

Penny for your thoughts...

She was able to rescue Rossi from SHIELD's clutches, but was shocked when the colonel (naturally) didn't recognise the young woman. When she told him the story, Rossi freaked out and slapped her. No way to treat a lady... especially one who can absorb your mind when her skin touches yours...

"I wish I had the power to kill you."

Wait, he *did* just hit her with his bare hand, right? So much for falling prey to her aforementioned powers!

Ow, continuity...

Diamonds are a man's best friend

"Yield me thy soul... so small a price for so great a gift..."

Owww brother... now even jewels do mind control.

In Uncanny X-men # 189, the Hyborean sorceror Kulan Gath was about to make a comeback.

Gath had been around to fight Conan the Barbarian. When his life seemed over, Gath used ancient magics to transfer his consciousness into a dark jewel of unspeakable evil. In recent times, the jewel came to New York City where a briefly revived Gath fought Spider-Man and Red Sonja (don't ask) in a very enjoyable Claremont/Byrne issue of Marvel Team Up. 

Now, Gath was about to claim a new host: Jaime Rodriguez, an honest, hard working Puerto Rican sailor who dregged the jewel from the bottom of the New York harbour. Pretty soon, Gath started to work Rodriguez, tempting him to give into his dark desires.

But he was getting nowhere, until this happened:

Gath quickly won over the already greedy crook and that led to all of Manhattan reverting into an Hyborean citystate ruled over by a revived Kulan Gath.

Sometimes, you just can't win...

Empath and his amazing friend

Say what you will about Empath, but the mind-manipulating Hellion sure had the right idea in Uncanny X-men # 193. For a while, Empath was Claremont's go-to-guy when it came to mental manipulations and other mind control shenanigans.

Here, he forced Anjelica Jones (aka Firestar) to not only do his bidding, but also love him unconditionially. Yes folks, it is more than a little disturbing.

Mind you, not as disturbing as the Red Queen loving, SM-enthusiast Empath featured in Brubaker and Fraction's Uncanny X-men run, but hey... It just goes to show that Empath's always had a thing for redheads... That's not just a fetish people, in comics it also counts as good characterisation and scores you major continuity points...

Meanwhile...

Ah, that Emma Frost! She sure kept herself busy during her days as the White Queen of the Hellfire Club. Right before the Beyonder kidnapped the X-men to fight in the first Secret Wars, the White Queen had managed to entice Kitty Pryde's best Douglas Ramsey to join the Massachusetts Academy. Ramsey, as it turned out, was a mutant translator, able to speak and understand any and all languages. Kitty was worried that Emma Frost wanted to harm Doug so she accompanied him on his visit to the Academy.

Of course Kitty was right, the White Queen WAS up to no good. Her big plan was to use Doug as bait for both Kitty and the New Mutants. Emma wanted them to join her own team of young mutants, the Hellions. With the X-men missing, it was up to the New Mutants to help free Kitty. That didn't go exactly as planned and the entire team got defeated by the Hellions.

In a remarkable display of restraint on her behalf, the White Queen actually DIDN'T use mind control to force Kitty and the New Mutants to her side. No, she actually tortured Kitty in hopes of breaking her spirit. That Emma, all class...

Mastermind's Merry Marvel Mutant Mind Control Marathon

Owwww snap!

Welcome to Uncanny X-men # 173, two issues before the big anniversary book and a tale filled with heartbreak for everyone's favourite claw-popping Canadian. After a romance that started when they met in Japan during Moses Magnum's attack, Wolverine and Lady Mariko Yashida had steadily been working towards their marriage.

Logan beat Mariko's father Lord Shingen in honourable combat back in the first Wolverine Limited Series and now the road was cleared for the two to tie the knot. Only, on the eve of the ceremony Mariko got... wait for it... mind controlled by Mastermind, who forced her to call off the ceremony and emotionally cripple Wolvie.

Heck of a wedding gift, guess the store must have been out of toasters or gravy boats.

Anyway, the cancelled wedding was part of Jason Wyngarde's big revenge scheme on the team. After the debacle with Dark Phoenix, he was rendered virtually insane but eventually got better. He began plotting his comeback by manipulating Cyclops into thinking his new bride Madelyne Pryor was actually the Phoenix.

Then he convinced the X-men in issue 175 that Cyclops was actually the Phoenix, forcing Scott to fight the entire team to a standstill in a somewhat confusing but ultimately rather amusing romp.

"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!