Subtle Brooding part I: Controlling Banzai Charlie, Comatose Suicide Commando

In today's entry, the X-men are about to meet the alien parasitic race known as the Brood, but before that, they have to deal with Charles Xavier. He isn't doing so well.

That's an understatement, if ever there was one. Back in Uncanny X-men # 158, Charles tried to telepathically contact Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler when he discovered something was wrong deep inside himself. At the time, no one knew he had sensed the growing Brood queen embryo, a creature so vile and horrifying touching its mind was enough to throw Xavier into a coma.

Back then, no one knew much about the Brood. They had served as Deathbird's henchmen in a plot against her sister Lilandra. The Brood fought the X-men and kidnapped Charles and Lilandra, probably implanting the egg behind the scenes in issue # 156.

"How's the professor?"

But because no one knew they were about to do a sequel to Alien without Sigourney Weaver, the X-men took Charles to their base in the Bermuda triangle. There, in spite of Moira MacTaggert's best efforts, he remained completely unresponsive to any and all outside stimuli.

In the old days, Jean Grey would have been able to telepathically connect with him, but she died on the Moon. That's why, in a clever piece of writing on Claremont's part, Shi'ar princess Lilandra called in the help of Oracle, the Imperial Guard's chief telepath. 

"Nothing much happens... as Oracle picks her way, cautiously, carefully... into Xavier's mind."

Ignoring the fact that Dave Cockrum basically gave Oracle the same face, hairdo and headband as Storm... the alien telepath soon made a connection with Charles' mind and the images she was bombarded with were a bit more... intense... than she might have bargained for.

"A curious duality to the man's psychic aura. A sense of hunger... insatiable, predatory, alien... coupled to so foul and evil a presence that the moment she perceives it... She denies it, forgets it."

In retrospect, it seems so clear that Xavier was turning into a Brood. But remember, the gruesome truth of this already rather obvious picture wasn't known. And having Oracle instantly forget what she'd learned, kept the others in the dark as well.

Plus, they had another threat to deal with anyway... Oracle herself.

"She's under his control! He's adding his power to hers, using the psibolts to attack the medical unit... and himself!"

Realising he was fighting a losing battle, Charles used his psychic rapport with Oracle to take over the young telepath's mind and force her to attack his helpless body. In effect, he was committing suicide, prefering death over eventually turning into a host body for the Brood.  

So, just like he'd done once before during the X-men & Micronauts limited series and years later in Grant Morrison's New X-men, Charles is ready to kill himself for the greater good. 

Also, having the mind controlled Oracle scream "KILL! To live... Must kill...I!" While it's generally assumed this was Charles' desperate attempt to tell his students what he was doing, consider this: it might also have been the Brood embryo pleading its case. In order to live, it had to kill as well.

Whoever was behind the wheel didn't succeed anyway. Wolverine's adamantium claws rather conveniently severed the mental connection between Oracle and the professor. Xavier slumped back into his coma for three more issues, finally waking up in # 161 after reliving his memories of meeting Magneto and fighting Baron Strucker over his nazi gold.

"Professor, you're awake! You're all right!"

The fact he woke up at all is a clear sign the Brood egg had gained the upperhand. Charles put himself in a coma to protect himself and his students. Waking up while the embryo was still inside, indicated he had lost and didn't even know it himself.  

Unfortunately, that was just the start of unknowing X-men with Brood embryos inside them, as we'll see in part II of Subtle Brooding: Embry-whoa! 'tcherdoin' there? 

Starting Marvel Fanfare with mindcontrol melodies

Back in 1982, Marvel started a new experiment in publishing: Marvel Fanfare, an anthology title that featured top creators crafting special stories printed on deluxe format paper. More bang for your buck, basically. 

 So, who was selected to kick off this auspicious new title? Considering Chris Claremont was one of Marvel's most popular writers it was pretty much a no-brainer he would write the first arc.

Unfortunately, while the format was new, the plot relied heavily on the old familiar mind control and enslavement shtick. It all started with Spider-Man and Warren Worthington teaming up in the Savage Land to find Karl Lykos, a man who was presumed lost.

Alas, what was supposed to be a relatively simple search & rescue mission turned sour when both Spider-Man and Angel were ambushed and captured by Brain Child and the other Savage Land mutates who subjected them to a little experiment.

This leads to several interesting mind control and transformation situations.

While Spider-Man fights against his conditioning, Angel fully embraces his new feral state.
In the end, both manage to break free and return to normal.

Alas, the damage was done by then: Lykos was forced to drain Angel's mutant energies, which caused him to revert to the villainous, energy draining man-reptile Sauron.  

Time to call in the cavalry... With Spider-Man returning to New York, Angel awaited the arrival of his fellow X-men. Together they set out to deal with Sauron and his henchmen.

After rather easily beating most of the Savage Land Mutates, they made their way to Sauron's island citadel and then this happened.

So... Not only have they had their will power silently sapped the second they entered the Savage Land and, now they are subjected to Sauron's mind control hypnosis and will soon get reverted to animalistic versions of themselves thanks to BrainChilds machine? 

Yes, I do believe we just hit the mind control trifecta. Angel barely managed to evade capture and met up with Ka-Zar. The lord of the Savage Land had a little trouble getting Angel to join him in opposing Sauron.

 Warren felt a little jittery going up against the raving reptile. But surely, what are the odds he would mess up and get beaten three times in the same story?

Ah, yeah. Oops. 

 Meanwhile, inside Sauron's citadel, Brain Child had Storm sent up for this particularly disturbing scene.

Having a drained, battered and virtually helpless woman dolled up and sent to your room is just... Wrong.  

 It didn't take long for Storm to knock out her dimunitive stalker. She escaped and freed the other X-men who made short work of both Sauron and his cronies.  

 All's well that ends well, and despite its obvious mind control involved flaws, the tale is well worth seeking out, if only because it features amazing art by Michael Golden, Dave Cockrum and Paul Smith in their undisputed prime.  

"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!"