The Byrne & Claremont reunion is only a mind control away*

What if... Chris Claremont and John Byrne had never broken up?

Surely, its a question many fans of their seminal Uncanny X-men run must have asked themselves. What did the world miss out on because John Byrne left over creative differences after issue #144?

We'll never know for sure, but judging from Claremont and Byrne's 2004 collaboration on Justice League of America, its pretty safe to say the world dodged a bullet when these two legendary creators parted ways back in 1981.

What did Chris & John have in store for their big reunion shot? Why, stick to what you know, of course... So, lets get this mind control party started. The Silver Age is back, baby... and it wants to claim your soul... Forever!

Justice League: The Tenth Circle focussed on, well, The Tenth Circle. Who? Thousands of years ago, the Amazons fought and banished this band of equally ancient vampires to another dimension. In recent years, one of them had managed to weasel his way back here. That would be the villain to beat: Crucifer (a play on Lucifer and Crucifix, but don't tell anyone!)

So far, so 1970s... In six issues, the Justice League went up against Crucifer, his band of flunkies, met up with the all new Doom Patrol and... Ow, I just don't have the energy for this. Can anyone help out with the obligatory info dump?

Ah... Thanks J'onn. Crucifer's big plan was to get his fellow Tenth Circle vampires back to Earth. But, he needed bodies for them. No problem, you just go out and mind control some people off the street...

What's Superman doing there? Heh, well, the little girl is called Nudge, she controls minds by gently 'nudging' them to go along with her wishes. Even Kryptonian ones as it turns out. 

You're a scared, young girl who is unwillingly working for a bad guy and you have just managed to ensnare the world's strongest hero. What do you do?

Do you force him to take you away from there, or maybe send him to get the other JLA members? You might even consider releasing him altogether so he can take the lead and help out. World's strongest hero, after all.

But no, she just takes him along as one of Crucifer's captives. Because if anyone can beat an immortal vampire, its the man of steel.

... Well, twas worth a shot...no need to bite my head off, sheesh. 

With Superman already under one form of mind control, Claremont and Byrne have an uber-vampire snack on him as well. Crucifer didn't actually turn him, because Kryptonian blood isn't exactly appetising (and he probably doesn't need the super powered competition).

After snacking on one of his enthralled followers, Crucifer was ready for the next step of his plan.

With a little 'help' from Superman, Crucifer took on Faith, the JLA's resident psychic and potential threat to his plans. Bless her heart, she even made a Buffy the vampire slayer reference before Crucifer took her out.

Crucifer wasn't all about business, though... He also enjoyed revenge, specifically against the Amazons who had driven out his kind. This means the JLA's resident Amazon was about to get humbled by a mind controlled Superman.

Yes Diana, I also felt there was something strange going on. Like how a comic from 2004 read like it was written in the early 70s... Back when this sort of storytelling was already tired and out of date.

But enough meta commentary, on to the obligatory hero versus hero part of the exercise.

Crucifer mortally wounds Wonder Woman, forcing Batman to leave the scene so he can save Diana. Crucifer is free to continue unopposed... Time for the end game, lets bring back the tenth circle...

...Ow for heaven's sake, Chris?

Your big reunion with Byrne climaxes in a giant burning X that draws in hordes of mindless slaves that defend it with their very lives. This X might be nothing more than the Roman numeral 10, or it could be a little tiny dig at the X-men franchise and their hordes of slavishly devoted fans.

Yeah. Probably not. Lets stick with what we know for the finale. You guessed it: more mind control!

Yup, the only reason Crucifer kept his cronies around was for them to get mind controlled by his returning fellow Tenth Circle vampires.

"Out with the old, in with the new", eh, Chris?

Try that with your story telling techniques sometimes.

*... With sincerest apologies to Paul Simon

Mind control hyborean style: Kulan Gath's a bone to pick

Chris Claremont and John Byrne will probably always be identified with their fan favorite Uncanny X-men run. But they had actually cooperated on several books before taking on the merry mutants.

Today's entry in the annals of all things mind control hails from one of those early Claremont/Byrne collaborations: Marvel Team Up # 79, a delightful little tale of sweet talking, soul stealing jewelry and women warriors kicking butt in a thong made of prehistoric pennies.

A security guard in a museum falling under the spell of a mysterious necklace? Well, as far as generic openings go, this is about as bland as it gets... but its a perfectly serviceable way of kicking off the story. The guard gets mind controlled and tricked into putting on the necklace and all hell breaks loose as the entire museum is caught in a mystic blaze that can be seen from afar.

This curious fire also transforms the museum into an actual ancient Egyptian temple site, as Peter Parker discovers when he sneaks in dressed as Spider-Man to snap a few pictures for the Daily Bugle. Before long, he finds himself assaulted by the temple's legion of demonic guardians.

Right before he's about to get overrun, his ladyfriend Mary Jane Watson shows up. Never able to leave well enough alone, Mary Jane had followed him in and managed to get herself mind controlled by... a sword?

"And within that eldritch glow, Mary Jane Watson ceases to be"...
How right you are, Chris... because once she grabbed the sword, it was bye bye MJ and hello Comics Code approved slice of ginger cheesecake:

Penny for your thoughts, sailor... And no, you can't borrow them from her bra.

Mary Jane's body got transformed into Red Sonja, a character from Robert E. Howard's Conan: the barbarian mythos that Marvel had recently gained the publishing rights to. After the licensing deal ended, Marvel lost the rights to reprinting this tale for years, until  it appeared as a back up in the hard cover edition of 2007's Spider-Man/Red Sonja miniseries.

Be that as it may, Sonja the She-Devil was there and ready to help out Spider-Man.
Sidenote: in a nice little bit of added realism, neither one knew what the other was saying, since Sonja only spoke in an ancient Hyborean dialect.

No matter, all language barriers were torn down once the baddie of the book showed up, sporting that overly familiar necklace from page 1...

As far as origins go, this one's a doozy. Kulan Gath was an ancient devil priest who escaped death by transferring his essence into a dark jewel that in turn got mounted on a gold necklace. Anyone who willingly put it on was instantly taken over by Gath, whose magics also transformed their bodies to resemble his. 

Ah, do forgive that overly wordy piece of plot exposition... Kulan is far more eloquent in explaining this sort of shtick. 

Ah, do forgive that overly wordy piece of plot explanation just now... Kulan is far more eloquent in explaining this sort of shtick. 

Despite his somewhat goofy looks, he almost succeeded in killing Sonja and Spider-Man (who he kept referring to as Man-Spider for some unknown reason)... but during the fight, he was knocked out of the museum and on to the busy streets of modern day New York. 

"By the great python!" 

One can never be too sure if Kulan is calling on the elder god Set for help, or is trying to find comfort in the size of his manhood. Either way, the sudden change of scenery catches Gath off guard as he struggles to grasp just how how much the world has changed.

Imagine for a second how this scene might appear to the crowd gathered outside the museum, let alone to people at home watching the footage that newscrew is shooting. They have no idea what's been going on at the museum, the first thing they see is Spider-Man and a half naked woman knocking around an obviously frightened, elderly man.

Having him yell "And one more thing, bozo! Its not 'Man-Spider'... It's SPIDER-MAN!" ... as he knocks Gath out isn't the best move either. What does the crowd get from this? They just witnessed Spider-Man punch out an old timer because, by the wallcrawler's own admission, he didn't get his name right?

Good job Spidey... If that doesn't put to bed all those nasty rumours the Daily Bugle's been spreading about you being a menace... NOTHING will.

Still, Spidey's punch did more than just further wreck his public image. It knocked out Gath as well, which caused everything and everyone to revert back to normal.

After this particular caper, Peter realised the necklace was too powerful to simply leave on display at the museum and he decided to dispose of it.

"The wizard almost had my soul. But his amulet's at the bottom of the Atlantic now (...) It'll never harm anyone again."

Ah. Yeah. About that...

A few years later, in Uncanny X-men # 189, the Gath Gem popped up again when it was found by a construction worker called Jaime Rodriguez. He was able to withstand its demonic temptations. Unfortunately, on his way home, this happened...

Jaime's mugger was considerably weaker willed and Kulan Gath rose again. Unopposed, he was able to weave a spell that transformed Manhattan into his private Hyborean age island kingdom. Fortunately for Spider-Man, Kulan's not the type to carry grudges, thank the great Python....

... Oops.

Trouble taming Tigra? Try mind control!

The previous entry dealt with the events of 1981's Avengers Annual # 10, in which Chris Claremont railed against the use of mind control by fellow writer David Michelinie.

Michelinie wrote Avengers # 200 which saw the superheroine Ms. Marvel get taken, mind controlled and impregnated by her captor Marcus Immortus. Claremont felt this course of action was very much like rape.

Claremont, through Ms. Marvel, gave the Avengers a stern talking to and accused them of (emotional) negligence. A point well made, something as traumatic as being enslaved and forced to perform unspeakable acts against your will isn't something you just gloss over.

Yet... its exactly what Chris Claremont did three years earlier in an issue of Marvel Team Up. In this story, Claremont pitted Spider-Man against his old foe Kraven the Hunter and his new pet...

Take a look...

Gotta love that vintage John Byrne artwork. Yep, that's Tigra the Were Woman, captured by Kraven to be his mindless pet. Kraven had a bone to pick with Tigra because she had him arrested for murder. So, the master of jungle fever and skintight leopard pants swore revenge... He had taken her as his personal slave, plaything and attack dog.

'Oboy!' is right, Spidey... De-humanising a woman, regressing her to the mere animal whose name she uses is debasing enough, but lets find out how Kraven managed to get her to comply...

Ah, why, thank you exposition heavy flashback... That clears it right up. Kraven forced a collar on Tigra that scrambled her higher brain functions, basically turning her into his mindless slave. In this state of mind, she would have been unable to defend herself from even the most vulgar of his whims.

Mind you, the word 'rape' is never used, but dialogue like "You will be my willing slave, cat-thing, forever" certainly hints at the fact that this goes far beyond your traditional, non-sexual, super villain revenge scheme.

Still, Spider-Man was a bit too busy to take all this into full consideration... Sometimes trying to stay alive takes precedence so I suppose that oversight can be overlooked. And hey, he *DID* figure out what made the lady so feral and unwelcoming.

"I wonder if this little gizmo has something to do with the tiger-lady's anti-social behavior!" Nah, probably not, maybe she's just suffering from that certain 'curse' that comes once a month and gives you cramps and a bad mood. Sigh... Spider-Man broke the collar and set Tigra free.

"She couldn't care less about me. She wants..." 

Ow, yeah... way to make it about you, Spider-Man. You just freed a proud, strong woman from what must have seemed like an eternity of demeaning servitude to a man who made her do God knows what... And you automatically assume YOU are her first concern?

Tigra goes after Kraven in an attempt to get revenge and, preferably, her pound of flesh. But Kraven is a master of conquering animals, wild or otherwise, and soon gains the upper hand again...

"Pain more than I can bear...I...I...I...can't..."

No worries Greer, that's Spider-Man in the background there, coming to rescue you from a man with a lion face for a jacket... Don't you worry, little woman, Spidey will keep you safe from the bad man. And he did, actually. He knocked down Kraven and helped Tigra regain her senses a little. And then, this happened on the very last page..

After all that humiliation she had to bear as Kraven's slave, after all the unvoiced trauma she most likely suffered through, Tigra had no part at all in defeating her tormentor.

As he lunges at them, Kraven gets knocked out by Spider-Man with a single punch. One could argue his spider-sense clued him in before Tigra even noticed Kraven coming at them, but don't forget Tigra has supremely enhanced senses as well.

In addition to that, she must have been intimately familiar with Kraven's scent after all that time in his presence, so there's no reason she couldn't have been the first to respond. At the very least, it would have gotten her a small measure of regained self respect.

Truth be told, while it would have made more sense storywise to have Tigra deliver the coup de grace, Marvel Team Up is still a Spider-Man book, so its half expected that the main star gets to save the day.

That's usually all well and good, but in this story it sticks out like a sore thumb, considering the message it sends:  After 22 pages, Tigra is still the assaulted, battered female who needs a man to stand up for her.

By comparison, this single issue of Marvel Team Up is worse than the entire Ms. Marvel storyline Chris Claremont took offense to over in Avengers. 

At least Ms. Marvel managed to break free on her own and took the chance to protest and even defend herself... Whereas Tigra, well... she had to be rescued not once but twice in a single issue and wasn't even allowed to assist in helping to bring her bully down. 

Spin the karmic mind control wheel

So, how about them New Mutants?

Back in 1982, riding high on the huge sales of Uncanny X-men, Chris Claremont was approached by then-editor in chief Jim Shooter to produce a spin off to the series. After all, more of the same popular thing, equals even bigger sales, right? Ah, the eighties... a stunningly innocent age, in retrospect.

Still, creating a second X-men series wasn't exactly something Claremont wasn't too sure how to do, never mind the fact that he wasn't too eager about rehashing the same formula. Still, alongside his longtime editor Louise "Weezie" Simonson, he came up with a format for a new series based around a group of young mutants studying at Xavier's school for gifted youngsters.

A perfectly legitimate notion, considering the X-men had started out as a book about teenagers coming to terms with their powers, themselves and a world that hates and fears them. But by 1982, the team only had one preteen in Kitty Pryde. The book had strayed off considerably from what Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had set out to accomplish, way back in 1963.

Still, the solution to this problem seemingly originated from Kitty Pryde as well, as a 1978 character design by John Byrne proves. After designing 'Ariel', Byrne jotted down some ideas on how she could be used in the book. Go on, you can read it yourself...

So, if it had been up to Byrne, Kitty would have been the first member of a second team of "X-men in training." Of course, things turned out differently when Kitty joined the main team and the notion of a rookie class ended up on the backburner. 

Yet, Claremont was forced to come up with a cast for his new teambook... Kitty was off limits, with the The X-men lost in space, fighting (and getting mindcontrolled by) the Brood at that point. Still, he had plenty of young mutants to choose from...the first being Karma, a character he had created a year or so earlier.

                                   

Meet Karma, Xi'an Coy Manh to friends, basically the living embodiment of Chris Claremont's mind control obsession... Karma's mutant power allows her to control other people's mind, taking over their bodies and essentially steering them to do whatever she wants them to. She discovered her powers back in her native country of Vietnam, when she instinctively tried to stop a Vietcong soldier from harming her family.

In her first appearance, she pitted the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man against one another in a somewhat enjoyable yet convoluted tale in which she jumped from hero to hero, causing Spidey and the FF to fight for a few pages. In a nuthsell: Xi'ans brother Tran enjoyed his mind control powers and used them for personal gain, even entering the employ of his uncle, the crimelord Nguyen Ngoc Coy.

What's worse, Tran had taken his two younger siblings with him, and Xi'an tried her darndest to get them back, by any means necessary... Even taking over famous heroes to help her. At the end of the tale, Karma was forced to 'absorb' her brother, into herself which caused her considerable grief.


                                              

Traumatic as it might have been, it set Xi'an on the path to becoming Charles Xavier's newest pupil, even though she was already a young adult by that time. Still, Charles can't resist a good attempt at having mutants show off their powers and causing harm to common citizens. He's like Magneto that way, with less hair and more moral fibre. Or does he?

                                  

During her initiation at the school back in Marvel Graphic Novel # 4, Xi'an was forced to give a demonstration of her power by taking over Xavier's long suffering associate Moira MacTaggert. Everyone seemed shocked at Xi'an's capabilities. 

But Xavier couldn't be happier about it and even offered her a job on the spot and promoting her to team leader of the New Mutants before the issue was through.

Having a girl in your midst who can take over your mind and body, without you even realising it? Not sure how you feel about that, but it would creep me out, to say the least. Yet, everyone seemed to accept Karma without a second thought, even when she pulled stuff like this:

               
                                         

Ahhh, so her very reason to be on the team was to dominate and control others, yet... she won't allow that power or anyone else to corrupt her.

Yeah, funny story.

Early on in their run, the New Mutants came across Viper and her partner the Silver Samurai. During that mission, Xi'an was mentally contacted and corrupted by the X-men's old enemy the Shadow King. For more on this disembodied mind control maniac, click HERE. 

The Shadow King took over Karma's body and turned her evil (and fat), thereby proving that Chris isn't above subjecting his characters to cruel twists of fate.

Having the mind controller get mindcontrolled?

I do suppose karma *IS* a bitch, after all.

... Sidenote: with a frowning, scowling look like that, turning out to be the bitchy puppet of an evil psychic overlord isn't that unlikely at all. And the hair, well... yeah. Did I mention Karma came out as a lesbian in the early 2000s? Twas a big surprise then. 

Not to her hairdresser, though. 

Like unto a thing of... mind control

So, remember when Claremont used to do Iron Fist? A few years before Chris Claremont and John Byrne would team up for their classic run on Uncanny X-men, they partnered for the last couple of issues of Iron Fist.

It would turn out to be an enjoyable, productive run... Pitting Iron Fist against foes like the Wrecking Crew and even introducing that villain of villains Sabretooth (or Sabre-Tooth as he was called during his first appearance in issue # 13).

Yet, even back then Claremont couldn't help but himself to some mind control.

In the first panel, a mystic crystal is used to cloud the mind of martial artist and lawyer William Hao. Just call it a simple case of Hypnosis: Murder. Iron Fist survives of course.

And then there's this next scene...



"The Jera'ad Al-Din, Halwan... Wednesday, 10 March, 1976".

Its interesting to see a writer use an actual date and time in a comic. Creators usually tend to shy away from it, claiming it would not only date their work, but also cause continuity issues because the characters themselves don't tend to age in real time. But, getting back to the mind control at hand:

Poor Colleen Wing! I guess associates of the Iron Fist just can't catch a break. Colleen was working on a case in the Arabic state of Halwan when she was kidnapped by the criminal mastermind known as Master Khan.

He deemed Colleen a useful asset in his plans to destroy Iron Fist, but only after she had received some... proper conditioning. To provide these services, Khan called upon Angar the Screamer to break her spirit and put Colleen under his command.

Angar did this by, surprise surprise, screaming. His voice causes people to experience illusions and hallucinations with devastating effects to their psyche...

For early Byrne art, heck, for any artist, this is a prime example of creativity in storytelling. Not only is Colleen's decent into madness being shown in all its harrowing detail, the entire scene itself is actually part of the fortress Khan's keeping her captive in.

Sublimely surreal!

Malice Masters Mindcontrol

John Byrne and Chris Claremont have very different creative processes. Byrne loves to plan ahead, while Clarmont prefers to have plenty of room for last minute improvisations. Yet, when they were co-plotting Uncanny X-men together, these disparate styles led to some truly creative, great storytelling.

And as this post will show, great minds *do* think alike. Sort of. Confused? Don't be. We'll get to the point eventually.

First, lets revisit Uncanny X-men # 214, in which Storm, Rogue and Wolverine meet up with Allison Blaire, the mutant songstress Dazzler. After she'd been publicly outed as a mutant in the Dazzler graphic novel, she'd changed... carelessly showing off her mutant light powers on stage, which isn't the smartest thing to do in a world that hates and fears you.

What's gotten into Dazzler, you might ask? Well, its more of a question WHO, as we meet Malice, a psychic entity capable of controlling both mind and body. As as a sign of her presence, Malice's hosts manifest a slave-collar like choker around their necks. Very tasteful. Malice bodyhops around quite a bit during her first appearance... Which causes fun scenes like this...

"There's more malice in her sweet soul than she gives herself credit for.
But I go where I can have the most fun... and do the most harm!"

Ah, exciting... Wolverine in a berseker rage about to attack his teammates. When has that ever happened before, eh?

In the end, Malice is driven out... yet, a few issues later, we discover Malice was actually part of Mr. Sinister's Marauders. In order to be a more effective part of the team, Malice decides she wants to bond permanently to a host. Awww... it's truly heart warming to see even violent psychic entities feel the need to settle down and be exclusive.

Oh, look who she picked to go steady with, by the way...

"Malice... you possessed her!"

Her being Lorna Dane, better known as the X-men's Polaris! Quite a nice reveal back in the day and one of the few instances Claremont's dabbling with mind controlled heroes wasn't quickly reversed. Malice stuck with Polaris for a good few years before she was cast out. She briefly reappeared alongside Sinister in X-Factor during the mid 90s but remained mostly forgotten after that. It wasn't until Mike Carey's run on X-men  (Legacy) that Malice showed up again to take control of Karima Shapandar, the Prime Sentinel... A possession that gave us the immortal soundbite "I've gone digital, bitches"*

Soo, what does all this have to do with John Byrne ? Well... At about the same time Malice appeared in X-men... Just look who the Fantastic Four had to deal with...



Meet Malice, mistress of hate. And no She-Hulk, she's not kidding. Malice was mean and nasty, dressed in black leather with a spikey slave collar to boot. If that doesn't sound like a typical Chris Claremont female, I don't know what does... Ow, and here's the final straw...


Surprise, surprise... Malice was actually a mind controlled Sue Richards... Ow Invisible Woman, when will your suffering end?**




* No, the actual panel didn't say 'bitches', but it sure felt like she meant to say it.
** Not quite as sarcastically hypothetical as you'd expect, considering Millar's current run on FF is called 'The Death of the Invisible Woman"