Saturday, February 21, 2009

Hi, I'm Rogue, thanks to mind control also known as...


So, little known fact: the character of Rogue was created by Chris Claremont (first appearance: the Claremont written Avengers Annual 10, 1981). Basically, Rogue is Claremont's mind control fetish with legs and a nice pair of boobies... Rogue is a mutant who takes over a person's spirit, memories and feelings if her bare skin touches theirs. No matter how brief the contact is, Rogue takes over their entire being, in fact becomes the person...

This became a bit of a problem when Rogue was forced by her foster mother Mystique to hold on to Mystique's nemesis Carol Danvers, better known as Ms. Marvel. Rogue took over Carol's mind, personality and memories permanently, leaving Ms. Marvel a mindless shell. In the years that followed, the Carol Danvers personality would often struggle to gain dominance... Mind control within the mind of an unwilling mindcontroller... Its certainly a unique concept. Time and again, Carol Danvers would manage to 'come out' on top... One of those instances is shown above, Rogue and Wolverine were captured by the Genoshan Magistrates and Rogue was rendered powerless by the powers-blocking mutant Whipe Out. In her cell, Rogue was confronted not only by the sadistic Magistrates but also by her own inner demons... Literally.

As it turns out: whenever Rogue touches someone, she retains a small part of their essence permanently. All those ghost images of her past victims haunted her, including Thor, Loki, a Dire Wraith or two, Captain America, Spiral and teammate Nightcrawler... But Ms Marvel (being the only 'complete' presence, I suppose) came to Rogue's aid and took control... Beating the guards outside her cell, freeing Wolverine and kicking ass generally.



And then we have this scene: the mind controller about to be controlled! Taken from X-men Annual 2001, we have Rogue in battle with the Prime Sentinels, a 90s creation Claremont very gracefully worked into his stories... The Prime Sentinels were normal humans who got outfitted with robot Sentinel parts that caused them to turn into mutant hunting cyborgs, capable of infecting both mutants and humans with nannites that turned them into Sentinels as well... Of course Rogue wasn't infected, thanks to Psylocke's timely intervention, but look at the implied S&M fantasy here: the subdued female, forcibly held against her will, about to be dominated by the agressor who is ready to stab her with a penis shaped object... How very, very subtle Chris!

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