The Land That Mind Control Never Forgot Part III: Savage Send Offs

The X-treme X-men are still in the Savage Land, which would explain why this particular four part mini series is called X-treme X-men: Savage Land.
Issue # 4 opens with the Black Bird landing in the village square, piloted by Bishop and Sage, and filled with the Saurid children believed lost when the plane crashed. Fortunately, Sage had been able to restore the plane's flight capabilities and now the X-men and Saurids were reunited once again. All seemed right in the world until the Savage Land Mutates attacked the village... led by Storm.

Luckily, there was still some additional mind control to be had...

Losing the spikes around her slave collar for some reason, Leash mind controlled Thunderbird, forcing him to kill Bishop... and while the future X-man did indeed seem to perish, trying to wound an energy absorbing mutant with plasma isn't exactly lethal.

In the end, Rogue took the fight to Brain Child himself who was more than ready for her...

Unfortunately, Brain Child was aware of Rogue's inner turmoil and used his powers to cause a shooting war inside her head between herself and everyone she ever took over. By the by, Rogue never imprinted comedienne Roseanne Barr but sheesh... the visual similarities between Roseanne and Rogue in this mini are striking...

Instead, Rogue literally had to fight everyone she ever touched, which made for an interesting splash panel to say the least...

While Rogue is busy struggling against her inner demons, Beast finally managed to break free from Lupa's mind control... right in time to save the helpless Rogue from the still feral and blood thirsty Storm who now acted as Brain Child's bodyguard. Rogue only managed to free herself when Storm throws Beast on top of her and she took over his form and abilities...

Speaking of people taking over other people... Let's see what the supervillain Leash is up to...

Leash had the misfortune of running into the X-men's mentat Sage... A cold and calculating woman who knew exactly what the mind controlling mutate was planning: win the day by forcing the captives in Brain Child's slave pens to help out. Still, Leash merely considered Sage a temporary inconvenience.

"Before Leash is even aware of what's happening her attack is reflected back on her. Instead of being the mistress... she finds herself the slave."

Leash was now under someone else's control and the sly Sage cleverly used her new slave to take over Brain Child, thus ending all the hostilities... However, the aftermath proved rather intense for Storm who remained in her feral form for quite some time afterwards. Luckily the Beast had some choice advice.

"And I have no answers. I wish to hell I did. I'm sorry."

That is some status quo shake up. Not only did Brain Child revert her to a murderous, savage state... he also  made it stick. Even when she regained control of her faculties, Storm still longed for the urges provided by the inner demon she had willingly embraced under Brain Child's thrall.

Yet, the final panels provided a hopeful message.

"But you're not alone in this, Ororo. We are FAMILY.
And with that on your side... EVERYTHING... becomes possible!"

Everything becomes possible indeed... such as Storm abruptly forgetting this mind and life altering event altogether when the X-treme X-men series continued. Hey, Henry *DID* say that éverything was possible.

Speaking of impossible dreams, this concludes the 150th Chris Claremont: Mind Control Central post. It's been a bumpy ride, but let's continue on to # 200 and see where it ends up... Should be fun!

The Land That Mind Control Never Forgot Part II: Savage Is The Controlled Mind

When we last left the X-treme X-men, they had travelled to the Savage Land along with a band of  American born reptile people who wanted to start a new life there. Unfortunately, the team ran into some old enemies as Brain Child and his Savage Land Mutates caused a cave in that crashed the X-men's Black Bird jet.

Brain Child decided to stir up conflict between the human settlers of the Savage Land and their Saurid neighbors, hoping to benefit from the ensuing war and grab control. But he wasn't above personal vendettas considering he kidnapped Storm to settle some old bets and use a little mind control to boot.

Storm was valiant and defiant as always, but Brain Child's promise to have her betray everything she ever cherished in favor of loving the passion and cruelty of murder wasn't exactly an empty one... Just look what being subjected to the primeval genius' experiments can do to you...

"There will be MURDER. There will be WAR! Thanks to my emissary... Storm!"

Yup, in a move reminiscent of his first run in with the X-men back in 1982's Marvel Fanfare, Brain Child had used his machinery to devolve the X-men's leader to a more primal, bloodthirsty warrior version of herself. Dressed in war paint, with claws and featers for hair... the pierced Storm was now evil and that means dressing up in black leather and wearing a slave collar... 

But, bless her for trying, she still tried to resist her reprogramming...

"That's my girl!"

Some of the other X-men had been captured by Brain Child as well. But they had to deal with his female operatives, both capable of controlling minds and binding people to their wills. Here's why Leash is called Leash...  

Unfortunately, Rogue's powers made it impossible for Leash to control her. A shame... But for those of you rereading the arc, it's never explained how Rogue became a prisoner of Brain Child by issue 3 of the mini, let alone how she esacped captivity. A couple of pages after Leash's failed attempt at mind controlling her, she just shows up at the village the other X-men have been staying at without mentioning what just happened to her. Weird.

Still, doesn't it look like she borrowed some of her clothes to Brain Child when he he needed a new outfit for the devolved Storm? Speaking of primal girls in skimpy clothes, the second sexy slaver is the lupine woman called Lupa, who revealed herself to be working for the evil mastermind as well....

 "If these X-men are so great a threat why not kill them? There are four of them within our walls."

Say what? There's Storm and for some reason Rogue, but who are the other two? Bishop and Sage remain with the Saurid kids inside the crashed Blackbird, trying to get the plane operational... While Thunderbird and Beast are in the village, so that's everyone accounted for, right?

And just how Lupa manages to leave and return to the village undetected... not to mention in time to join the X-men and the human warriors in a final battle against the Saurids isn't revealed. She's just there... Shoddy writing at its worst.

Speaking of shoddy, the eventual confrontation between human and saurid warriors is tepid at best. There's a few nice panels with velociraptors tearing into whatever moves, but in the end Rogue forces both parties to settle their differences and make peace. She even has them shake on it. 

That concludes issue # 3, so with one more 22 page fun filled fest to go, let's see how all of this is wrapped up in the third and final part of The Land That Mind Control Never Forgot: Savage Send Offs
 

The Land That Mind Control Never Forgot Part I: Welcome Back To The Jungle

Back in 2002, Chris Claremont wrote a four part X-treme X-men miniseries in which the team travelled to the Savage Land to check out just why Rogue was having horrible nightmares about the team turning into ferocious dinosaurs. Believing it to be a vision and a psychic request from some unknown source, Rogue managed to persuade team leader Storm to get to the bottom of this.

However, Rogue's teammate Bishop didn't buy into this theory of psychic requests...

A valid point, Rogue *had* been a bit of a mess in those days. With her absorption powers gone haywire, she manifested the powersets of everyone she had ever touched. What if the personality of the bad guys she had taken over would suddenly reemerge and take control of her mind? Luckily, Rogue's visions were genuine as the X-men find the source of the psychic messages...

Actually, this band of intelligent dinosaurs doesn't come out of left field (well, not entirely). Delving into late 70s (!) continuity, Claremont reintroduces the Saurids... A tribe of sentient, super powered reptiles who used to live a sheltered, underground life in the American south west before Ms. Marvel ran across them in her Claremont penned solo series.

Ms. Marvel was only allowed to leave their nest alive after promising to keep the Saurids' existence a secret. It makes sense that Rogue, who still had all of Ms. Marvel's memories and powers at the time, was susceptible to the Saurid's psychic summons.

Turns out they need help: their old nest is no longer safe and the tribe wants to relocate to the Savage Land where they expect to be free from both prosecution and prying eyes. The X-men agree to take them there...However, their entrance into the Savage Land is hindered when Brain Child of the Savage Land Mutates triggers a rock slide that crashes the X-men's Blackbird jet. He gleefully picks up the prize for his handiwork...

While Storm is taken prisoner, the other X-men eventually wake up to find themselves in one of the human settlements that dot the Savage Land. Neophyte member Thunderbird (Neil Shaara) tries to reach out to founding member Henry McCoy for guidance, but the Beast appears to be... occupied...

The lupine woman calling herself Lupa shares an instant attraction with Hank... but as it turns out, that's just the way she'd planned it...

"Drink deeply as the intoxicating scent of the blood lotus combines with my own pheromones... to bind...you to my will FOREVER!"

Now surely, that might just as well be more of that typical hyperbole villains tend to spout. This leather cladvixen is undoubtedly little more than all talk, right?

Or maybe not...

So, how is Storm holding up through all this?

Kudos to Claremont for picking up on the storyline he set up two decades earlier when Brainchild captured Storm for the first time and made similar... promises....

With at least two of their own not in their right minds, the X-treme team seemed to be in way in over their heads, mind controlled or otherwise. The resolution to this four part miniseries will reveal all, so check back for The Land That Mind Control Never Forgot Part II: Savage Is The Controlled Mind

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.  

Old mind control habits die hard

Who says you can never go home again? Chris Claremont proved poet Thomas Wolfe wrong at least twice so far...During his third stint as Uncanny X-men writer, he and long time collaborator Alan Davis created a Savage Land storyline in which the X-men were pitted against a long lost race of saurids. These evolved dinosaur mutants were every bit as powerful and dangerous as the X-men and they had plans to take over the world. During the course of their schemes, the Saurids managed to capture Rachel Grey, aka Marvel Girl... They succeed in freeing her inner dinosaur, and reverted Rachel to a Saurid... thus controlling her mind and making them one of their own...

Which is slightly ironic, considering the X-men once travelled to the Savage Land before in a Claremont penned tale involving the Savage Land mutates and Brainchild... who used his machinery to revert mutants into sub-human barbaric versions of themselves... Years later, Brainchild used the same technique in yet another Claremont created tale over in an Xtreme X-men limited series:


During the course of that same limited series, we were introduced to a 'new' Savage Land inhabitant known as Leash... She is able to mind control people, which is signified by a mental leash appearing around their necks. Leash controlled Beast and now, both Brainchild and Leash were at it again in the Claremont/Davis run in Uncanny... take a look...



... Ow mind control, when will you go out of fashion? Well, considering this is a land that time forgot, not anytime soon... Of course, mind controlling of the Saurid Raiina was key to winning the day and all the players involved lived to tell the tale... but this was one arc that showed just how heavily Claremont relies on one simple and tired storytelling device: mind control!

Savage land, savage loss of any mental control

Uncanny X-men # 250! 

A nice round number waranting a big anniversary issue. Claremont decided to celebrate by taking the (by that time severely thinned out) team to the Savage Land again.

There, they faced off against Zaladane and a new band of Savage Land mutates. One of them was Worm, whose power... well... You can see what he does. Coating his victims with self produced jelly, basically turning them into his slaves...

Of course, in the same issue, Zaladane employed a form of control first used by Magneto. You see, the whole storyline began with the magnetically powered Polaris.

Lorna Dane was last seen as the mind controlled vessel of the Marauder Malice, but at the beginning of the story she appeared free of Malice's influence right before she was kidnapped to the Savage Land... Where she met Zaladane who claimed to be her sister (Lorna...Dane...Zala...Dane...see?).

Using some technology left behind by Magneto/the High Evolutionary/the aliens who built the Savage Land (take your pick) Zaladane robbed Lorna off her powers and claimed them for her own. This left the metallic Colossus especially vulnerable to her and she forced him to kill a young mother and her child...

How cruel...

(of course, they turned out fine...)

Sauron signals swaying of the mind

And here we are again.

After breaking free, the X-men fought Magneto in his subterranean lair located within an active volcano on Antarctica (such a delightfully retro location for a supervillain headquarters).

During their fight, Magneto's lair was breached and lava started pouring in. The mutant master of Magnetism used his powers to escape unharmed, and left his enemies to die. Phoenix used her powers to get herself and Beast safely to the surface, but the other X-men would surely die...

No, of course not... Cyclops had Storm cool off the lava long enough for him and Banshee to carve a an escape route straight through the crust of the planet... Before long, they ended up in the Savage Land.

There, Chris Claremont wrote a little homage to the Roy Thomas/Neal Adams run, pitting the new X-men against Karl Lykos, better known as the mutate Sauron. He feasts on mutant energies and ow yeah... employs mind control!

All the old tricks are new again as Wolverine's mind is clouded. Logan perceives his teammates as horrible monsters and attacks them.

Naturally, everyone survives...