Beware the Brain Blasted Bratpack

Its New Mutants Annual # 2 and some explanation might be in order. This annual actually preceeds the Uncanny X-men annual covered in the previous post. That book introduced Longshot to the team, this particular tale is usedbring Psylocke in the Marvel Universe proper.

Introduced in 1976 as Captain Britain's mildly telepathic sister, Betsy Braddock had been through through a rather tumultuous decade before this 1986 annual made her an unwitting pawn of Mojo and Spiral. Long story short: Betsy had just recently been blinded by the assassin Slaymaster. While struggling to deal with her new situation, she was abducted by Mojo who outfitted her with bionic eye implants that also served as cameras that allowed everyone in the Mojoverse to look through her eyes in real time.

In retrospect, this single story idea makes Claremont responsible for the world's first ever reality tv show. But this being Big Mojo rather than Big Brother, the producer needed a little more excitement and decided to stir up some mischief for ratings through the medium he knows best: the airwaves.

With Psylocke firmly in his thrall, Mojo made his 616 television debut on a kids' show that swayed a rather eclectic bunch. Some of the New Mutants showed up, joined by Karma's siblings Leong and Nga and last but not least Butch, Darla and Alfie who had previouslyappeared in the Longshot limited series.

Mojo and Spiral already pretty much controlled their minds by the time they showed up, but Mojo decided they weren't quite there yet so he had Psylocke use some previously unknown and never mentioned again super power to empower Karma's brother and sister so they would, well...

By artificially ageing the mind controlled Leong and Nga, Mojo unlocked their superpowers which were a variant of their psyche controlling sister Karma. The siblings were able to mind control and reshape everyone they came across...

Calling themselves the Bratpack after a popular band of 80s actors, they waited around for the New Mutants to come looking for their missing team members. Leong and Nga, calling themselves 'Template', proceeded to use their powers and controlled the team.... with some noteable exceptions.

Only Magma seemed unaffected by Template's mind control whammy. After Doug and Warlock fled the scene, she tried to make a stand on her own. Guess how that turned out? 

With Magma properly subdued, Template can finally add some new members to Mojo's Bratpack.

Magma, however, is still less than convinced.

Her desperate pleas fall on deaf ears, as the New Mutants actually declare to love their new adult lives. Frustrated by the situation, she runs off. In the meantime, Doug and Warlock decided to join  forces in a rather extreme way that is by no means related to mindcontrol at all... *coughs*

Doug and Warlock quickly discover the Bratpack is being mind controlled by Psylocke, who has been transformed into a Mojo-like creature. Despite gaining new powers through their union, the boys still aren't up to the task of taking her down.

 Mojo Betsy yanks their minds out of their bodies and Doug/Lock finds himself in a hellish mindscape that allows penciller Alan Davis to show just how demented the situation really is.

"...We all float down here..."

Allusions to Stephen King aside, the notion of having Mojo's mind controlled victims represented as helpless merry-go-round rides is a brilliant one.

Naturally, Mojo Betsy tries to force Doug/Lock to take his place on the carousel, but he refuses and in the ensueing fight it turns out the demonesque Betsy on top of the roundabout is actually Spiral who has danced her way into Betsy's brain. Guess what happens when the team manages to free Betsy's actual mind...

Look at Spiral making a case for slavery... "Sure, there's no freedom but at least you'll still have eyes."  Betsy doesn't buy into this 'generous' offer and forcibly removes Spiral from her mind. And once she's gone, everyone wakes up... naked. 

Mojo left Betsy with her bionic eyes intact, which she didn't know were actually cameras, and despite her best efforts she can't force herself to claw them out. The annual ends with Betsy deciding to stay at Xavier's school for gifted youngster for the time being, setting up the sequel in the Uncanny X-men Annual we covered HERE. 

Forever young... and mind controlled!

Oy... its like a bad 1980s fantasy film. So, how did we end up in this particular pickle?

Chris Claremont must have written Uncanny X-men Annual # 10 with tongue firmly in cheek. It almost reads as a pastiche to those movies where teens and adults switch bodies like Tom Hanks in Big, Lindsay Lohan in Freaky Friday and most recently Zac Effron in 17 Again. But of course, this annual has that typical Claremontian twist so there's plenty of mind control.

How did the X-men get turned into younger versions of themselves, you wonder? Well, during an otherwise uneventful training session in the Danger Room, the X-men and Magneto got covered in some weird form of ectoplasm when someone just teleported in, along with all that goo.

The mysterious stranger would turn out to be Longshot. But he doesn't really play any part in this story, spending most of it in a coma in the X-men's med-bay. And its not like the X-men or New Mutants have any time to focus on him... the X-men appear to be deaging at an alarming rate. 14 year old Kitty Pryde is turned into a young girl overnight. This prompts Warlock and Cypher to research this change. Of course by merging together... mind control by any other name...

The 'team surpreme' is able to deduce what's causing the X-men's problems but alas... the young X-men appear to be under someone's influence because they act rather irrational.

Nice to see forced infantility hasn't dulled Magneto's mean streak. The soon to be X-toddlers commandeer professor Xavier's limousine as they seek out Mojo and Spiral. Note the dialogue in the last panel. Apparently Kitty's reverted to a pre-potty trained state. Charming. Still, diaper changes or not, the team soon locates Mojo at an old theatre downtown. And he's more than happy to see them.

"Please, sir... may we come in and play?"

"Of course, little wind-rider... That's why I am here... to play with you!"
Mojo luring in a bunch of innocent, googly eyed children with a sadistic smile and the promise he wants to 'play' with them just seems... wrong. Lets just agree any sexual undertones are completely unintended and move on.

Meanwhile back at Xavier's, the New Mutants had recovered from Magneto's whammy and figured it was up to them to save the X-men from whatever evil scheme Mojo was up to. This prompted the X-babies to consider themselves replacement X-men. Figuring they had to take up the mantle, the teen team decided to dress for the part and donned their graduation uniforms for the rescue mission.

Just look at those Art Adams designed costumes. Fair's fair, Cypher's costume makes him look like an off colour Cyclops, Warlock basically mimicks Superman and Mirage's impossibly tall legs in that outfit make her look like a cross between a stripper and an extra from a Cher video.

But the designs for Magma, Karma and Wolfsbane are actually pretty decent. Adams really went to bat designing these, as it turns out, one off costumes. And yet, the design for Cannonball proved to be inspirational to, of all people, Rob Liefeld, when he designed Sam's first X-Force garb.

Anyhoo, Magik uses her, well, magic to locate Mojo and her teleportation powers allow the new X-men to pop right into the theatre Mojo is using as a hideout. As it turns out, the place isn't as deserted as they had expected. In fact, there's a huge crowd waiting for some action... And action is what everyone is about to get when the all new X-men meet their all screwy predecessors...

"... Let the play truly begin!"

Ahhh, yeah... Part of Mojo's de-aging whammy was a mind control spell that bound the X-men to him as they regained their lost years. Of course, that meant they were dressed as twisted versions of themselves. Just look at Magneto, a former victim of the third reich, wearing the uniform of a Nazi soldier. Rather jarring.  But as set ups to exciting fight scenes go, this one's a doozy...

In an interesting twist, Karma actually realises she has the power to possess people. So she should be able to take over the Mojo controlled X-men, right? She first tries that trick on Wolverine, who doesn't seem too fazed at first, even uttering the ironic "Nothin' can hold me!" as he's still under Mojo's influence.

Meanwhile Mirage and Sunspot are having similar problems with Rogue...

You might wonder why the audience hasn't fled during this obvious fight to the death. Well, that's because there's mind control involved there as well...

Spiral mind controls the crowd to stay put... After all, what's a resounding victory really worth without a captive audience to witness your triumph? Unfortunately, the battle goes poorly and the crowd gets restless which forces Mojo to act.

In the end, the former New Mutants are able to reign in the X-men and together they manage to turn the tables against Mojo and force him to retreat to the Mojoverse. The semblance of order restored, Mojo is allowed to close out the story in style...

Fantastic forces of faux pas timing

Chris Claremont sometimes just can't catch a break.

Sure, the man loves his mind control, not to mention an almost criminal amount of hyperbole ridden dialogue per panel. But even he didn't deserve the sheer awkwardness that resonated from his Fantastic Four oneshot Fantastic 4th Voyage Of Sinbad. 

So, what's so awkward about this, you wonder? Well, for one thing there's the September 2001 coverdate. Of course this meant it came out back in July, but having 'September 2001' stamped on an anything really connects it with you know what... Anything that could even remotely be considered inappropriate was censored. Remember how the first Spider-Man movie had to cut that infamous scene that saw Spidey catching a helicopter by spinning a web between the twin towers?

Anyhoo, what did this September 2001 Fantastic Four oneshot deal with?

"I am JIHAD! And you will bow before me."
Ah yes, Jihad, the Arabic word for 'struggle' but more commonly known as the term used for 'holy war'. Talk about painful... Still, lets get to the actual story. The Fantastic Four had just returned from a recent mission and were enjoying some downtime with their children Franklin and Valeria, not to mention nanny Caledonia and Puppy, the teleporting dog. Everyone was sound asleep when they were suddenly attacked in their Pier 4 headquarters by Jihad who teleported them to an ancient Arabic sailing ship.

It didn't take long for Valeria to figure it all out. For those of you wondering why Valeria doesn't look like the toddler we've seen in recent years... Well, this is actually her alternate future teen counterpart, raised by Doctor Doom and his wife, Susan Richards. Yes... I know. Still, the smarts were there. She deduced the FF were supposed to go on a Sinbad style adventure. Lets have her explain it...

Hey ho, hey ho... its off to challenges we go. Actually, the Invisible Woman used her powers to grab the Crystal Casque with very little effort. So, a slightly overconfident foursome sails towards their second challenge and there we have some good ol' mind control and body morphing waiting for them...

Meet Iblis the eternal, mother of djinns and demons. Her gaze is able to turn any creature into either a demon or stone. Three of the Fantastic Four have already fallen victim to her, but she intends to complete the set by turning a man already made of stone.

Ah, the classic claiming of body and soul... forever. Unfortunately for poor old Iblis, Ben had other plans and turned the djinn queen's powers against her.

Talk about borrowing a page from the mythological Medusa's book. With Iblis gone, there were still two more artifacts to win. One was gained after Mister Fantastic used his actual teammates in a game of chess and the other? Well, it involved a giant bird roosting in a giant statue and... Check the dialogue and remember... coverdate September 2001.

Out of all the skyscrapers in New York, the Thing had to mention the World Trade Center?

Wotta revoltin' development indeed!

Getting back to the mind control part of the post... The Fantastic Four were able to find the four artifacts just in time for Jihad to show up and do this.

Keeping the mind controlled wooden forms of Franklin, Valeria, Caledonia hostage, Jihad forces the team to give him the artifacts. But, what's the ship's figurehead doing there? And better yet, who will the team rescue first?

"Benjamin J. Grimm (...) What could have possessed you...?!"

Turns out he really was possessed... by the ship's masthead who turned out to be. Ow, you guessed it...

Teaming up with the mythical sailor Sinbad, the Fantastic Four sail off to confront Jihad who is busy using the artifacts and the mind controlled offspring of both the FF and Sinbad to merge his reality with our own, and making him the absolute ruler of both.

"Double, double... toil and trouble..."

"Fire burn and cauldron bubble!"

Thank heavens for that teleporting puppy you decided to adopt, eh?

Anyways... Jihad is stopped, the artifacts are used to restore Franklin, Valeria and Caledonia to life and Sinbad is reunited with his daughter Dioné. Time to take the team home...

"Mommy! Daddy! It's home!"

Coverdate September 2011 and the Fantastic Four are sailing towards the barely visible image of the twin towers covered in mist.

Just plain awkward... though nothing quite tops the ending...

"Insallah"

Which, really, is a typo... The actual spelling is 'Insha'Allah', or: 'God willing'. What seemed a clever, topical ending in July really ends up leaving a bitter taste in one's mouth a mere two months later.

That concludes this look at Fantastic 4th Voyage of Sinbad, a oneshot plagued by so much bad timing it almost could have been an actual Sinbad fable without the happy ending.

Oh, and for all you conspiracy theorists out there... Did you know you can't spell 'Sinbad' without 'sin' and 'bad'? And the man's an Arab as well... I know. Crazy, right?

Pretty's Perfunctory Persuasions

Meet Pretty Boy... a likeable, if not handsome guy. Why is that lady running away from him? Well, here goes... a post on Pretty Boy, maybe the ultimate of mind control goons, a cyborg capable of controlling minds, making his victims love what he does to them and looking positively hot while raping them. He'll make you like it, cos he's just that good.

Pretty Boy was introduced in Uncanny X-men # 228, as a member of the Reavers, a band of marauding cyborg thugs who used the mutant known only as Gateway to teleport them from their base in the Australian desert to wherever they had planned their next heist. And they weren't exactly subtle about it either...

But while most of his fellow Reavers were little more than cybernetically augmented humans with big guns, Pretty Boy possessed a few additional powers.

His foremost ability was to rewrite people's brains using filaments that shot forth from his eyes. He first used this power when he kidnapped banker Jessan Hoan, a gifted financial expert. The Reavers needed someone like her to make sure all the loot they recovered from their raids was put to good use. Jessan wasn't too eager to assist them, but that didn't stop Pretty Boy.

"No muss, no fuss, presto changeo... a whole new you! Isn't that nice?"

Marc Silvestri's art answers that question, Jessan is enjoying the sensation of being violated and reshaped into the person her assailant wants her to be. And Pretty Boy would have gotten away with it too, if not for the X-men who happened to pick this moment to attack the Reavers in their desert town.

Longshot's throwing knives cut off Pretty Boy's mind control tendrils (or, his eyes) causing him to be pretty miffed at the two X-men. He even tried to recruit Dazzler into the Reavers using the same trick, but her eyes proved to be just as dangerous...

"And once these fiber-optic filaments... burrow into your brain... you won't want to fight me anymore. You'll be a Reaver, body and soul!"

Ahhhh, yeah, that's the good stuff right there... Already claiming people body and soul in his first appearance... Lemme tell you, that Pretty Boy is going places!

As it turns out, the place he was going first was Gateway's teleporation gate. The X-men defeated the Reavers and took over their desert base, but Pretty Boy, Skullbuster and Bonebreaker managed to escape. They hooked up with Donald Pierce, former Hellfire Club member and cyborg in his own right to form a new incarnation of the Reavers.

They were later joined by Lady Deathstrike and Cole, Reese and Macon, three former Hellfire Club soldiers who were cybernetically enhanced as well. These Reavers managed to drive the X-men out, relishing in their victory and destroying the team's personal belongings out of pure spite. Here's Pretty Boy hacking away at stuff in Wolverine's quarters...

In a nice bit of characterisation, Claremont has Lady Deathstrike step in to prevent Pretty Boy from further defiling the blade of the Yashida family. Sure, she may be criminally insane and obsessed with killing Wolverine, but Yuriko still knows more about honouring and respecting a great house like the Yashida's than a hick like Pretty Boy ever could. Not that it stopped him from trying to get what he wanted, the only way he knew how...

Pretty Boy's fortright, even arrogant demeanor cost him dearly. Pierce got fed up with his constant lip and after Pretty was damaged during a confrontation with Wolverine and Jubilee, the Donald decided to play a cruel trick when he rebuilt his frame.

Still, his mostly robotic body didn't make him any less of a threat, quite the opposite. A fact Polaris discovered when the Reavers attacked Muir Island in Uncanny X-men # 255.

This time, it was the Banshee's wail that cut Pretty Boy's fiber optic mind control filaments. Pretty Boy didn't get to control any more people during Claremont's initial run on the X-books. And soon after Chris left, he was presumed to have died along with most of the Reavers during a Sentinel attack by future villain Trevor Fitzroy.

Luckily, you can't keep a good cyborg down... So by the time X-treme X-men Annual 2001 came along, Chris Claremont was back and so was Pretty Boy. As usual, both were up to no good...

Ahh, just look at those sensual, seductive and even downright pornorific poses Pretty Boy and his victim Sage are in. He is all ready to use his powers to scramble her computerlike brain and turn the X-men's mentat against them. And with no one to interrupt the process, how'd it turn out?

"I take it then, Pretty Boy's new program didn't take?"

Sage's computer mind proved to be the stronger mental CPU, easily overriding Pretty Boy's cybernetic commands and even using them to take control of him to boot. Considering that annual is the last time Chris Claremont ever wrote the character, one can only applaud the irony of Pretty Boy's story arc.

For close to 15 years, every single attempt to mind control people gets thwarted... And the minute he does succeed and has his (s)way, it backfires... Because he's actually the weaker party in the mind control.

Such delicious irony. One might even say pretty... boy.