Must… Kill… Frank… Drebin

May 27th, 2004

Filed under: Comics

Has there ever been a good mind-control story?

It has always been one of my least favorite story cliché³® I’ve never seen it carried off very well. Either the explanation for the power control is poor (Ruse), or it seems like little thought has gone into the story itself. Often it seems to be done because the writer needs a quick explanation for a plot hook or needs to explain someone acting out of character (“I was mind controlled! No, really!”).

It still occurs up regularly (in the last year alone: Scion, JLA, X-Treme X-Men, and Alias, just to name a few off the top of my head).

Brian Michael Bendis pulled it off better than most in the the last story arc in Alias. He certainly put some thought into the villain’s motivations. It showed a seamier side to mind-control powers that I’m sure most of them would indulge in (because, well, they’re evil). While it showed some nice back-story of Jessica, and explained some of her psyche, I still thought it was one of the weaker Alias stories. Especially the ending, which was far too deus ex machina for my taste.

The worst recent story was the first story arc in Ruse: mind-controlling magnetic snuff. The less said about this the better.

How about it? Can anyone name a good mind-control story, or have a particularly favorite bad one?

7 Responses to “ Must… Kill… Frank… Drebin ”

  1. Dave
    May 27th, 2004 at 12:01 pm

    I always thought the ones from Savage Dragon were kind of ridiculous, but the cute little worms were, well, cute.

    So my vote is for Savage Dragon having the cutest mind control villain.
    It may be the first vote SD has ever gotten for anything that involved the word cute.

  2. Rose
    May 27th, 2004 at 1:40 pm

    Well, this isn’t an example of a good mind control story, but as I recall part of the Riot at Xavier’s arc in New X-Men involved a certain amount of mind control going on within the Omega Gang, and the part that bothered me is that all the members were punished and even mocked by Wolverine. OK, I said that the problem is that they were punished, but that’s not really what I meant. The problem is that punishment is inconsistent and that useful ongoing characters can use the excuse to be totally absolved of responsibility for what they’ve done. I don’t know if the alternative that mind control victims need to suffer more is a good one, but the inconsistence makes the stories even more annoying.

  3. Johanna
    May 27th, 2004 at 4:28 pm

    How about the Eclipso story in Legion of Super-Heroes written by Paul Levitz? I’ve forgotten its exact title, but it’s the one where four Legionnaires find themselves have to rescue their teammates (and the rest of the brainwashed world). It also makes a nice point about the different ways willpower can be demonstrated.

  4. Scott
    May 27th, 2004 at 4:58 pm

    I remember that Legion story — it was a good one. I think it was Universo, though. Most of the stories involving him are some of the better “hypsnosis” stories, including the recent one in Legion.

  5. Ken Lowery
    May 27th, 2004 at 7:37 pm

    Steven Grant’s recent 3-parter My Flesh is Cool explores the idea of invading another person’s mind and taking over, and what would happen if everyone with enough money could buy a drug to produce that effect. It’s a great, great read.

  6. matthew rossi
    May 28th, 2004 at 9:01 am

    Dan Simmons wrote an interesting novel called ‘Carrion Comfort’ which was about a telepathic war of sorts. Also, I have to say I enjoyed Ted Sturgeon’s ‘More than Human’ which has telepathy, mind control, and so on.

  7. Bret
    January 24th, 2007 at 6:46 pm

    I kinda liked emporer doom.

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