Madelyne's Mean Mind Control part III: X-tracting The Worst.

Assuming the role of the Goblin Queen during Inferno changed Madelyne Pryor.

A lot.

For one thing: she developed certain abilities... No doubt because she was a clone of Jean Grey, one of the world's premiere telepathic minds. Maddie's mutant powers however, focussed more on moral corruption... mind control, by any other name.

At the height of Inferno, she orchestrated a meeting between the X-men and X-Factor... An encounter rife with tension, because X-Factor didn't know the X-men were still alive (nor were they easily recognisable due to Inferno's demonic corruption).

And as far as the X-men were concerned, X-Factor was little more than a team of mutant bounty hunters. Hardly what professor Xavier had in mind when he assembled his first group of students.
It made for tense moments... and having Maddie there in the opening pages of X-Factor # 38 didn't exactly help matters.

And ow yeah, she had already overpowered Jean Grey. Of course, this was signified by Jean wearing a slave collar made of energy. Anyhoo... She gleefully revealed the nature of her new powers...

"I bring out the demon in things... and in people... as I have in all of you." 

Makes sense.

After all... What could keep the X-teams from attacking the Queen? Well, apart from a virtually unending horde of demons... mostly their own teammates, of course.

Y'see, remember how Madelyne had already started to corrupt the X-men well before she even turned into the Goblin Queen? Back in Uncanny X-men # 242, Alex finally and most willingly made the decision to serve as Maddie's lover...

 "Spoken, lover, like a true Goblin Prince!"

That explains why he was at her side, tattered costume and all, when the Queen confronted the X-people in Central Park...

"I offer...the spotlight! Center stage. The starring role!"

Bless Madelyne for knowing just how to seduce the already influenced X-men. After living with them for an extended period of time, she's fully aware of their deepest desires. Dazzler always wanted to be a world famous singer, before her mutant powers forced her out of the limelight. And Longshot, while not a mutant per se, was genetically engineered to be *the* star of Mojo's many movies.

It only makes sense their life with the X-men, living in the obscurity of the Australian outback and being believed dead by most of the world at the time, left them longing for... well, recognition. And they were more than willing to do anything for that spotlight.

"The world is watching! So play your parts like the stars I know you are!"

Dazzler and Longshot brought down X-Factor charter member Warren Worthington, formerly the Angel. But after Apocalypse gave him a pair of techno organic wings and pressed him into service as one of his horsemen, the now blue skinned Warren reinvented himself as the much more volatile and deadly Archangel...

Just the right tool for a mind controlling woman intent on causing carnage...

"We have been tainted by evil. But evil is the price of power."

The Goblin Queen managed to corrupt Archangel... somewhat. But his initial corruption by Apocalypse took precedence, in a way. His techno organic wings refused to obey Madelyne's commands long enough for him to inadvertently free the others, which led to a big fight between the two X-teams and Maddie.

Who won was never really in doubt...

"X-men and X-Factor confront Mr. Sinister!"

And indeed they did... As we covered *here*.

But there was even more mind control, courtesy of Mr. Sinister... As we'll cover in the next entry.

Madelyne's Mean Mind Control Make Over Part II: Inferno Infers The Inconceivable

The Goblin Queen just might be Chris Claremont's most stereotypical creation ever.

"It appears your devices have limits. And I don't."

Yes, the Goblin Queen is 'Claremont concentrate' when it comes to the way he writes villains and powerful women. A driven, determined and strong willed woman who wields considerable power and dresses provocatively in black leather... radiant in her glory all the way through.

Goblin Queen started out as Madelyne Pryor, the self reliant pilot wife of Cyclops who was also a dead ringer for Scott's first love Jean Grey. They shacked up, had a baby boy and then it all fell apart. Cyclops abandoned her, the Marauders tried to kill her, the X-men rescued her but before long she was forced to sacrifice her life in a fight against the Adversary...

After being revived by Roma, Madelyne stayed with the X-men, tending to the advanced computer systems in their new Australian base. Those systems showed her what had happened to her husband: Scott had joined the other original X-men into forming X-Factor... With Jean Grey!  

Driven insane by jealousy, anger and grief... Madelyne slowly went down the path to become the fearsome Goblin Queen, after getting influenced by Limbo demons S'ymm and N'astirh. But before she put on the tattered, black thong bikini, she had already started to corrupt the X-men.

"No more, dear heart... nor less... than I."

Madelyne slowly started to seduce Havok, better known as Scott's brother Alex Summers. On the eve before her ascension, she slept with him... Which would lead into a plot point later in the Inferno crossover. But before that, Madelyne had another score to settle...

"I want the Marauders found... so that the X-men can pay them back..."

And in Uncanny X-men # 240, the X-men did just that. Sneakily teleporting into their base in the Morlock tunnels, the team proceeded to clean the villain's collective clocks. Their fight eventually moved to the surface and there... they noticed the city of New York was right in the middle of a demonic infestation... and the X-men weren't immune to its effects!

The Marauders were pretty much routed in Uncanny X-men # 241, when all of a sudden a new threat entered the scene...

"We are well aware of your abilities, Dazzler. There's no need to boast."

During their confrontation, Colossus noticed his teammates were rapidly changing. Becoming more rough, unhinged, lethal and yes... demonic. 

"Work ain't done, heroes... So long as a Marauder's left! Let's bust some heads!"

Storm and Wolverine are already falling prey to the Inferno lit by the Goblin Queen. The other X-men share their fate, slowly giving in to their nastiest, most undesirable impulses... Like when Longshot tries to make love to an anything but cooperative Dazzler.

"Your eye... that glow... Makes me feel...okay, lover."

Yes, they all succumbed to the madness of Maddie's Inferno. Everyone, except Colossus...

"In my heart and soul... I burn. I want to join the others... let myself be consumed..."

Colossus lumbers off by himself, eventually playing a part in the New Mutants chapters of the crossover, before returning right in time for the finale.

Speaking of which, when next we see the X-men, they've met X-Factor for the first time. There's quite a bit of distrust between the two teams, not in the least because the X-men have been fully consumed by the Inferno...

All that right around the same time the Goblin Queen finally makes her appearance as well, as we'll see in part III of Madelyne's Mean Mind Control: X-tracting The Worst.

Madelyne's Mean Mind Control Make Over Part I: Jogging The Ol' Grey Matter

Poor Madelyne Pryor...

She meant so well, but she was punished so much for being who she really couldn't help but be... A clone of Jean Grey, created by Mr. Sinister to seduce Cyclops in producing the most potent mutant offspring ever conceived... And after accomplishing that goal, all the thanks she ever got was her husband abandoning her for the real Jean, while Sinister ordered his Marauders to kill her.

Needless to say, she was more than a little ticked off at the hand life dealt her. And when Limbo's top demon S'ym offered her a better deal in Uncanny X-men # 234, the tired, slightly naive and mostly world weary Maddie Pryor accepted, thinking it was only an elaborate dream of sorts...

"And you've just bound yourself to mine!"

Turns out... It wasn't. 

S'ym had set in motion a chain of events that would turn Madelyne into the Goblin Queen, a central player in the 1989 crossover Inferno. And, clone of Jean Grey or not, by the time the story started in Uncanny X-men # 240, Maddie had proven herself capable of quite a bit of mind control ánd body transmogrification.

For example, this is what happened when she visited her own grave of sorts...

"Curse you both... I'm not your precious daughter!"

That much seems obvious... Most beloved children don't shoot their parents on sight. But the already far from mentally stable Madelyne wasn't out to kill professor John and his wife Elaine Grey. No... A fate far worse than death awaited them.

"It's but a foretaste... of what I mean to do to her!"

Yes, those are cocoons in the background. Maddie didn't murder her 'parents', no... But before she could deliver another classic 'triumphant villain' style monologue, she got an unexpected guest...

Moments after N'astirh's unexpected arrival, the Goblin Queen's pods hatched with a distinctive *skrak!* and we learn the Greys are alive and well... Sort of.

"Isn't it nice to see the professor and mrs. Grey reduced to their demonic essence."

That Madelyne! 

She had just used her Goblin Queen powers to turn two innocent civilians into a pair of mind controlled pet demons... Pawns in her war game against the woman she originated from. And this wasn't the only mind control power she wielded, as we'll see in part II of Madelyne's Mean Mind Control Make Over: Inferno Infers The Inconceivable.

Backdoor Brain Befuddlement aka Mind Control Madelyne Style

Sometimes, even Chris Claremont doesn't know he's writing mind controlled characters.

Case in point, January 1986's Uncanny X-men # 201 in which Claremont gave the team time to catch their breath and reflect.

In this prototypical classic 'downtime' issue, the X-men were reflecting the many changes thrust upon them after Uncanny # 200, which featured the departure of professor Xavier, the arrival of their former archenemy Magneto as the new headmaster and...

The birth of Cyclops and Madelyne's first child: Nathan Summers.

Which was a little weird for Rachel Summers, the redhead telepathic future daughter of Scott from an alternate timeline. Here we have a touching scene between Kitty and the Summers siblings.

"Wow That's beautiful!"

It's hard to imagine just how 'beautiful' the thoughtprocess of a newborn is, considering they can't even recognise their own fingers yet. 

Still, years later during his Excalibur run, Claremont remembered this psilink, established between Kitty, Rachel and young Nathan. At the start of the Inferno storyline, Nathan was kidnapped and Rachel flew to his rescue, dressing Kitty up as a baby in the process... 

"Long story. Later."

Getting back to the actual story... Uncanny X-men # 201 saw the X-men and their former leader Cyclops returning to the mansion after some adventures in Asgard and Paris, France. Their recent experiences had left Scott with the nagging notion that he should take over as teamleader. Storm had been a more than capable replacement after he left in the wake of Jean Grey's death... But Ororo had recently lost her powers.

Scott felt this no longer made her fit to lead, forcing him to step up, especially in light of the professor's absence and Magneto's presence. Madelyne didn't really agree.

"Or... are you afraid... they really can get along without you?"

... For someone who just gave birth, Maddie Pryor sure is in amazing shape. Bye bye excess baby weight, hello skin tight mumus. And, quite understandably, she wants Scott to leave the team and be a father to his son. After all, would you prefer a husband who abandons you on a regular basis to court death? With, from her point of view, a band of strangers no less?  

Their argument led to a fight Storm broke up by offering a resolution.

"One of us must lead. The best way to choose, I feel, is a duel..."

And what better place for a duel than the X-men's holographic Danger Room?

"Hadda happen."

In a truly classic 1980s scene, the X-men and the New Mutants (along with Magneto dressed in hot purple pink in the far right) huddle in the Danger Room's control perch to witness the confrontation that's about to take place. Doug 'Cypher' Ramsey programs an environment that compensates for Storm's lack of powers. And while the two X-men leaders throw down, Madelyne has a quiet moment with the baby...

"I want Scott to lose, so he'll be coming with us. Except losing will break his heart."

And ow dear... he *did* lose...

"I don't believe it. I'm dreaming! This isn't happening! I lost"

Scott doesn't know the half of it. He leaves the team to be with his wife and son, but before long he abandons them after learning his first love Jean Grey was still alive. Along with the former original X-men, Scott and Jean formed the new team X-Factor, took a hold of baby Nathan... While Madelyne was abandoned and, well... let's see how she fared?

After some decidely convoluted doings, Madelyne was almost killed by the Marauders... This assassination attempt only made sense, considering their leader Mr. Sinister was the one who created Maddie, a clone based on a genetic sample of Jean Grey.

When Jean returned, Madelyne had become superfluous to the evil genius' plans... Not in the least because she had already gave birth to a child that contained Mr. Sinister's ideally imagined bloodlines: Jean & Scott.

But poor Maddie would soon become essential to the schemes of Limbo demons S'ym and N'astirh, who ultimately transformed her into the Goblin Queen during the 1989 Summer crossover Inferno.

The X-men and X-Factor gathered to oppose her, but in X-Factor # 38, Louise Simonson had the Goblin Queen drop a little truth bomb...

"I didn't know that till later, that my nascent powers had awakened."

It may seem like a bit of a cheat of a convoluted cop out, but it actually makes sense. If you clone a telepathic telekinetic, it only makes sense you end up with a clone that has at least a similar genetic potential.

But Scott kept things in perspective.

"Stop! ENOUGH!"

Mind controlled or not, the X-men and X-Factor joined forces to stop the Limbo demon's invasion and Madelyne didn't survive the experience...

All's well that ends well, but with Maddy revealed as the reason Cyclops lost... one does wonder who would win: Cyclops or Storm?

Any thoughts?

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... 

Maddie Pryor's prior mind control

The nostalgia factor is strong when yours truly revisited Uncanny X-men vol. 1 # 234, one of the first X-men comics he ever read.

It turned out to be a great issue, set in the middle of the team's period in the Australian outback. Madelyne Prior, Scott Summers' estranged wife, was functioning as the X-men's tech support gal, operating the massive computer complex underneath their new headquarters.

So far so good... but once Maddie discovered her husband was part of X-Factor along with his first love Jean Grey, she quite understandably got pretty miffed. Her intense anger made her susceptible to the machinations of Limbo's prime demon S'ym, who sought a powerful minion who could quite literally unleash hell on Earth... Madelyne proved to be a perfect and welcome pawn, as she  began her slow transformation into the Goblyn Queen...


As the Queen-to-be, Madelyne suddenly developed several powers. Immunity to mind control for one... Quite a shocker for Claremont... AND the Genoshan genengineer who wanted to turn Madelyne in a mindless mutate in service of Genosha.

An attempt at mind control that failed? Ouch... that's gotta smart!

Mastermind's Merry Marvel Mutant Mind Control Marathon

Owwww snap!

Welcome to Uncanny X-men # 173, two issues before the big anniversary book and a tale filled with heartbreak for everyone's favourite claw-popping Canadian. After a romance that started when they met in Japan during Moses Magnum's attack, Wolverine and Lady Mariko Yashida had steadily been working towards their marriage.

Logan beat Mariko's father Lord Shingen in honourable combat back in the first Wolverine Limited Series and now the road was cleared for the two to tie the knot. Only, on the eve of the ceremony Mariko got... wait for it... mind controlled by Mastermind, who forced her to call off the ceremony and emotionally cripple Wolvie.

Heck of a wedding gift, guess the store must have been out of toasters or gravy boats.

Anyway, the cancelled wedding was part of Jason Wyngarde's big revenge scheme on the team. After the debacle with Dark Phoenix, he was rendered virtually insane but eventually got better. He began plotting his comeback by manipulating Cyclops into thinking his new bride Madelyne Pryor was actually the Phoenix.

Then he convinced the X-men in issue 175 that Cyclops was actually the Phoenix, forcing Scott to fight the entire team to a standstill in a somewhat confusing but ultimately rather amusing romp.