The Maliciously Mind Controlled Mam'Selle Goes A'Maraudin'

Continuing our mind control heavy adventures in the alternate realm of X-men Forever, today's entry focuses on that time when Chris Claremont had the Marauders fight the Starjammers in Alaska.

Yeah. That actually happened. And guess what? It was a truly fun, original romp.

As part of an ongoing storyline we'll touch on at a later time, Mr. Sinister was after Cyclop's son Nate who in this reality never got infected by the techno virus, let alone got sent into the future to become Cable...

Nope, young Nathan was just a happy go lucky kid, living with his great grandparents in Alaska. As luck would have it, Nate's grandfather Corsair was also visiting his parents, along with his fellow Starjammers... So before long, it was cloned villain versus interstellar space pirate galore.

And whenever you face the Marauders, you're bound to run into their discorporeal, body jumpin' and mind controllin' leader Malice... But who's gonna tell Mam'Selle Hepzibah? Sure as heck not the cloned copy of Sabretooth who placed Malice's choker around Hepzibah's throat.

 "This is such a delicious body (...) Now let's both of us go play."

Malice proved her worth as the perfect mole, no one noticed the odd skull adorned collar around her neck, not even the X-men when they arrived to help out. Cyclops himself actually handed her a job that put Malice within arm's reach of the Marauders' goal...

"To Lockheed, something about this moment doesn't seem quite... right."

How very perceptive... Which explains this next scene.

"Lockheed was protecting me... from Hepzibah."

Unfortunately, the word of an 11 year old little girl and her mute pet dragon doesn't carry mucht weight, this isn't Game Of Thrones after all. No, it's sad to say Havok doesn't hold much stock at all in what 'Ro is yelling.

"Not anymore, pet. Time for you to die."

Fortunately, Havok's girlfriend Polaris has a far better view of the situation, not in the least because she herself was once mind controlled by Malice for an extended period of time. 

Remembering the atrocities she was forced to commit while under Malice's control, Lorna showed no mercy.

"Don't touch it, or she could grab control of you."

And that seemed to spell the end for Malice, if not for this rather unexpected move by Mystique, who had actually joined the X-men in those days so she could be closer to her children Nightcrawler and Rogue. But that didn't mean she'd become an actual good guy...

"This should be delightful fun to play with."

I bet it would, Mystie... But we'll probably never know what happened, because this thread shared the same fate as most of Claremont's X-men Forever storylines: the book was cancelled well before any of them could reach a satisfying conclusion. So, as far as the Malice medallion stuck in Mystique's boot is concerned... she's still down there.

Let's just hope Malice has no sense of smell. 

Madelyne's anything but Pryor mind control...

Remember how Jean Grey watched as her clone Madelyne 'Goblin Queen' Pryor died during the final moments of the Inferno crossover?

Unfortunately, even in death the evil that corrupted Maddie was a force to be reckoned with. As Jean herself found out while she held her clone's dying body...

The scene of Jean crying out in agony as she holds a dying woman who is closer to her than even the most intimate of lovers nicely mirrors the moment Jean's telepathy first manifested itself... When she was about ten years old, her best friend Annie Richardson was hit by a car and Jean held her dying body while her mind instinctively reached out to Annie's fading consciousness. 

Naturally, Jean wasn't able to shield herself from Annie's final thoughts, which caused her to revert to a seemingly catatonic state she remained in until Charles Xavier helped her to deal with her powers. Interestingly enough, Jean had lost her telepathy at the time of Madelyne's death, yet she was affected in very much the same way. 

In an attempt to figure out why Jean was in agony, Storm had Psylocke take Cyclops and some of the other X-men inside Jean's mind where they made an interesting discovery.

"Oh Scott, please forgive me. I didn't mean to do that. I couldn't help myself. I've lost control!"

Jean's mind didn't really seem her own any more...For some reason, half of Jean's memory consisted of Madelyne's memories and the Goblin Queen appeared to be the dominant presence.

With her dying breath, Madelyne had successfully managed to transfer and merge her mind with Jean's. But how? Well... the answer is rather Sinister indeed.

"Even if the body lives... the mind... conscious and subconscious, spirit and soul... will be completely obliterated"

The aspect of Mr. Sinister that had invaded Jean's mind was busy destroying her personality so Jean would be a blank slate, ready for him to control her mind in whatever way he felt appropriate.

But even the visiting X-men weren't safe...

"Once I consume your essence... you'll effectively cease to exist. A tabula rasa, Storm, a blank slate, the emptiest of vessels... Which I will then fill to the brim... reshaping you in my psychic image... as I will miss Grey, once I've done the same with..."

It never ceases to amaze why villains don't just skip the exhibition and simply execute whatever evil plot they insist on explaining in the greatest detail beforehand... Their exposition always gies the heroes plenty of time to gain the upper hand.

Sinister was defeated, the X-men returned to their physical bodies and deduced Sinister and his Marauders were hiding inside the ruins of professor Xavier's school for gifted youngsters.

Making their way to Westchester New York, the X-men and X-Factor fought several Marauders, until their leader Polaris showed herself to face off against their assembled might. Needless to say, the Malice possessed mistress of magnetism was no match for the children of the atom...

After capturing Polaris, Storm figured turnabout was fair play so this happened...

Two can play that game... Psylocke forcibly extracted Mister Sinister's actual hiding place from Malice's mind without too much arm wrestling and Cyclops had a final confrontation with the criminal mastermind that didn't involve any mind control at all...

Ahhh, how utterly satisfying it must be to find you can utterly obliterate a seemingly unconquerable, insidious villain just by virtue of who you are... a mutant, born with the ability to fire deadly optic force beams. 

Cyclops ended the Inferno crossover by blasting Mister Sinister to smithereens. All's well that ends well, even though this panel basically made Cyclops a killer... 

But then again, killing a bad guy wouldn't make him any less unlikeable... not after the way he had previously ditched his wife Madelyne and their son Nathan the second he realised his first love Jean was still among the living... forcefully romancing her while still married and keeping quiet about that for months...

Luckily for poor adulterous Scott Summers, events after Claremont left the book showed he wasn't thát reprehensible... and even a little mind controlled at that...

Mister Sinister can handle optic blasts just fine, he just shifts out of the way. And, as a right of passage he had his Dark Riders kick the crud out of Cyclops.

Serves him right for not sticking to the one red head... 

Maliciously mindcontrolling the mindcontroller

Y'know... you NEVER think it'll happen to you until it does.

That's certainly what the mind controlling mutant Malice believed, before she realised she too can be mind controlled in today's entry focussing on Mr. Sinister and his equally sinister schemes.

Now, we all know who Malice is, right? No? For shame, go check out THIS post for more info. But, in a nutshell: Malice is a discorpeal being, able to jump from person to person, instantly taking over their bodies and manifesting a lovely S&M style necklace.

As an unseen member of Mr. Sinister's Marauders, she briefly fought the X-men when she unsuccesfully attempted to possess Dazzler. But it didn't take long before she'd set her eye on another prime candidate from the X-men's ranks: Lorna Dane, better known as Polaris.

"Malice... You possessed her!"

That she did, and the union was a happy one... Just imagine the shock when the X-men first fought the new leader of the Marauders was actually Polaris. Malice's involvement wasn't even expected until Psylocke did a little poking around...

It didn't take long for Malice to regain control and continue her killing spree, almost wiping out the X-men and Lorna's lover Alex 'Havok' Summers as a result. But as Malice discovered just before the big Inferno crossover, even mind controllers can be sucker punched.

Look at who just got trapped... and didn't even realise it.

Ow, isn't that just delightful? Malice gets tricked into invading the one person's body that by its very nature disturbs Malice's own sense of self. Turnabout really is fair play after all, or so it seems.

"You're still free to roam, my pet... And possess whom you please..."

Wait, what? She still can jump from person to person after all? What's there to be upset about then? Also, how interesting that Claremont has Sinister casually point out that Lorna Dane will still be 'subservient' without Malice controlling her.

Consoled, Malice leaves and Sinister gets back to what all insidious and shadowy masterminds do best... talk out loud about how great they are...

"Vanity, ah, vanity... The key to a person's soul... and thereby... to dominance over them."

And with that ever so disturbing nugget of wisdom from Chris Claremont, we end today's entry.

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"

Mind control? Not even Power Pack is safe!

Say what you will about Chris Claremont, when it comes to mind control he's an equal opportunity offender. At least, that's what he proved in Uncanny X-men # 195 when he subjected small kids to it.

The story: Morlock and natural mother Annalee was desperate after her children had mysteriously disappeared.

So, what do you do? Well, you could always search for them of course. Maybe ask your fellow Morlock Caliban to help out, he's able to sense mutants after all... Or, you could go and kidnap someone else's kids. Yeah, that is indeed the easiest way out.

The Morlocks went out to get Annalee some replacement kiddies and, instead of raiding an orphanage, they opted to go after the Power children... Better known as Power Pack.

The kids got their minds tampered with, convincing them they were indeed "momma Annalees's children". But young girl Katie Power managed to break free and informed the X-men of her situation. So, the team came down into the tunnels and set the matter straight.

Lessons learned? You're never too young to be played like a puppet when Chris Claremont is writing you... And, for those of you wondering what happened to Annalee's actual children? They were killed. By Scalphunter. Of the Marauders.

Hey kids... comics!