Jessica Jones: Purple Daughter #3

[cyberghostface]

Part 5:















Part 6:

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

Fuck Killgrave.
Fuck Benjamin.
To Hell with both of them.

At least Kara and the Purple Kidz don't seem too awful right now... but how long before someone turns them evil again?

Sigh.
The more I see of this, the more I hate mind control characters in comics. They're just all so awful and creepy and rapey nowadays.

[lordultimus]

Doesn't that eliminate, like, half of the X-Men?

Now I want to see an asexual mind controller.

[beyondthefringe]

To me, there's a difference between telepaths and mind control characters.
Killgrave, the Mandrill, the Controller, Mesmero, Mastermind (okay, he's more illusions but still), Shadow King, Maximus the Mad, Mister Negative, Psycho-Man, Hate-Monger -- all awful, all horrible people. (And not so coincidentally all men).

The only good guy with mind control I can think of offhand in the Marvel Universe is Karma, who at least feels remorse for her actions when she has to control people... (and even she had an awful turn when Shadow King was controlling her.)

It seems to be a rule that even good guys with mind control have to go bad at some point.

But yeah, if you start talking about telepaths who occasionally take over other people, we'll be here all day. THANKS PROFESSOR X.

[q99]

And one can even be an evil telepath without controlling people's minds, or at least not too much.

If someone say, uses their powers to read the code to the vault then make them fall asleep? That's obviously villainy, but it's not really the level of most of the ones listed who use their powers to screw with people's lives, mess with their wills, or such. Or even if one does puppetry but only for short-term small stuff (Make you punch in the code, but not making anyone inflict violence or such).

It's just most aren't like that.

[crinos]

I am reminded of a story from the super hero anthology Common Grounds (Which, if you never heard of it, is this neat little series about a chain of coffee shops which cater to superhumans, and are a neutral ground for super heroes and villains, with the peace enforced by super powered bouncers.)

Anyway, in one issue a hero (a Telepathic super hero with Dwarfism) and his arch enemy (a magic user) meet each other in the bathroom, and decide to just talk for a bit, and the good guy confesses that when he was young he used his psychic powers to force the prettiest girl at his school to go to prom with him. And he's haunted by the fact that he basically ruined the most important night of her young life for his own personal gain.

Then there was Seth Green's comic the Freshmen, where a bunch of college kids develop super powers, one of whom is The Seductress who gains the power to make people fall in love with her, which you can imagine, leads to some unpleasant places.

So yeah, mind control powers, even when wielded by good guys, can be problematic.

Edit: Wait wait I thought of one mind controller who isn't problematic. In Top Ten (a story about a police prescient in a town where everyone has super powers) there is a hostage negotiator with mind control powers, who is called in to help deal with an insane Santa with high end telekinesis.

[lordultimus]

Actually, that raises a good point. What about all the "seductress" type of characters, like Enchantress and Poison Ivy? Usually it gets played in that "beauty is a weapon" kind of way, but when it involves mind control, that gets pretty creepy. Usually it's for villains, so I guess I can't complain about that too much, but Ivy keeps getting redeemed, so does she stop with the mind control stuff?

[crinos]

Well the last time we saw Ivy prior to heroes in crisis she had basically mind controlled the entire world with sexy dreams (except for Bruce and Selina natch).

So with her I think its a case by case basis.

[lordultimus]

Except it was for their own good and P.S. she never killed anybody, so I'm not sure how that was supposed to count.

[cyberghostface]

Doesn’t she make snuff films of people getting devoured by her plants for fun?

[janegray]

That horrible story gets ignored by fans. Just like the story where Harley blows up hundreds of children with bombs hidden in videogames.

I for one can't throw stones. Lord knows I'd rather eat nails than acknowledge Jason's characterization in Battle For The Cowl.

[deh_tommy]

To be fair, Poison Ivy's seduction is more to weaken people's resolve so they'll either fall under her spell or stay under just a bit longer; when they are mind controlled, she never actually takes advantage of them (at least, not sexually).

[lordultimus]

"Mastermind (okay, he's more illusions but still)"
"(And not so coincidentally all men)."

Well, Mastermind has daughters. But I concede your point.

[beyondthefringe]

Mastermind... the character so compelling that after they killed him off, he needed not one, but two dueling daughters with the same power set... and then they tied Pixie into him for literally no good reason. o.0

[dcbanacek]

To me, there's a difference between telepaths and mind control characters.Killgrave, the Mandrill, the Controller, Mesmero, Mastermind (okay, he's more illusions but still), Shadow King, Maximus the Mad, Mister Negative, Psycho-Man, Hate-Monger -- all awful, all horrible people. (And not so coincidentally all men).

In rebuttal:
Moondragon (mind controlled an entire planet), Moonstone (manipulation through training and suggestion), Morgan le Fay (what is it with all the M names and mind control?), Rose (an assassin who makes her victims kill themselves), Venus of Agents of Atlas (who's generally MUCH nicer than anyone else mentioned on these lists) and probably many more that doesn't come off the top of my head.

[beyondthefringe]

Some good suggestions, although I'd rule out Moonstone since she's really just an evil psychiatrist, and her power set doesn't involve actual mind control. :) Morgan le Fay is basically just a sorceress who's used mind control in conjunction with other schemes--it's not her primary thing.

But Venus is a good example of someone with the power set who hasn't gone bad along the way.

[cainofdreaming]

Well, she kinda started bad. But since she was a soulless creature in thrall of a primordial horror I think we can give her a pass there.

[gnarll]

Pretty sure what Moonstone did to Thor counts as flat out rape. I remember a discussion on a comics forum too that men around Moonstone for a long while seemed to lose some inhibitions.

"Not so coincidentally all-men"? What's your point there?

[deh_tommy]

I'm utterly terrified of mind control and evil mind controllers, too, but to be fair, those kind of mind controllers and their usages of mind control are meant to be unnerving and creepy. Plus, characters like Shadow King (I think?), Mister Negative, Maximus, Psycho-Man and Hate-Monger aren't really rapey (heck, Mister Negative's not even that bad a guy in his normal persona).

Do mood influencers count? Because I feel characters like Starfox and Spider-Woman get way too bad a rap for stuff they never did.

EDIT: A thought just occurred to me: weirdly enough, the Sith are the ones against using mind tricks while the Jedi are the ones who do employ mind tricks.

Re: "Not so coincidentally all-men"? What's your point there?

[beyondthefringe]

It just felt to me like most of the major mind control villains seem to be men, and at the time I wrote that, it felt like they were also the more problematic of the lot. Killgrave, whose greatest defining stories involve enslaving women; Puppet Master, who had a storyline where he solely went after female superheroes; The Mandrill, who can -only- enslave women.

Of course, people have suggested enough female counterparts to make that comment kind of moot.

Starfox is one of those characters whose concept really didn't age well... he went from "Oh, I can induce pleasure in people" to "Ew, Starfox is sleazy" which never seemed to be the original intent. Even though at the time, even his teammates were slightly unnerved by the power and its usage... And Spider-Woman's pheromone powers were a weird trait, especially since they attracted men and antagonized women, entirely against her own control or desire. But in general, I wasn't counting mood influencers.

One of the greatest/most tragic mind control characters in related fiction would have to be The Envoy, from Wild Cards, whose power worked through pheromones (so if he was in a glass booth he couldn't affect you) and which wore off as soon as he was out of range (thus negating anything he might have done, like broker peace treaties.)

Re: "Not so coincidentally all-men"? What's your point there?

[gnarll]

I believe the Treaty of Jerusalem or whatever it was called is still in force, mainly because he signed on as a coffee boy (easy with his powers) and worked incognito. So no one knew that they had been under influence when they reached agreement.

Re: "Not so coincidentally all-men"? What's your point there?

[arilou_skiff]

Shadow King tends to be pretty rapey, but then it's hard to tell because Claremont tends to make all mind-control kinda rapey.

Re: "Not so coincidentally all-men"? What's your point there?

[lordultimus]

Part of the problem people have is the whole normalization thing - Jack Bauer wasn't portrayed as a good guy when he tortured people, but it lessened people's disgust of it.

Actually, the Sith manipulate people way more than the Jedi. The Jedi just do little "everything seems to be in order" type of deals. The Sith have seduced, brainwashed, and turned people into raging psychopaths.

Re: "Not so coincidentally all-men"? What's your point there?

[deh_tommy]

Well, apart from what I presume to be people missing the point (see also: Rick and Morty, Bojack Horseman, Breaking Bad, etc.), Jack Bauer was the main protagonist -- characters like Purple Man, Morgana, Enchantress, Shadow King, etc. are typically not.

Re: "Not so coincidentally all-men"? What's your point there?

[lordultimus]

Okay, then Griffith from Berserk. "Griffith did nothing wrong", after all.

(If you haven't read or watched Berserk, research at your own risk.)

[brerrabbit]

I would love to see Kara Killgrave get her own solo book because not only she's an interesting character with a lot of backstory and storylines one can use, It's the fact that she's a good, kind person even though she has a heritage and powers that should make her evil that makes the core of the character.

[crinos]

Like I mentioned before, In top ten they had a mind controller on the Police force as a hostage negotiator with basically the same apparent power as the Killgraves (Compelling voice). I could totally see Kara getting work doing something like that.

Honestly if they hadn't axed the Netflix MCU shows, it might have made an interesting season 3 of Jessica Jones to have the two of them meet and have to work together.

[thehood]

Except wasn't the first thing she did with her powers was make a gay man love her? Plus before this story, Kara was acting like a villain and helping the Master of the World overthrow the Canadian government.

[lordultimus]

It didn't make sense for her to be helping him anyways.

[thehood]

That's certainly true.

[brerrabbit]

For one Northstar hadn't come out until #106 of Alpha Fight when Kara Killgrave used her powers on him on issue #41 so she (and the audience) thought he was straight plus Kara was thirteen at the time that had just gotten mind control powers of course it was going to go to her head.

As for Master, Kara herself was being mind control by the man.

[donnblake]

I mean... is it any better if he's straight?

[brerrabbit]

No but to Kara credit she never pull anything like that again.

[thehood]

You say it like that makes it better. That doesn't change the fact that Northstar himself said he felt violated and her thinking he was straight doesn't make forcing him to love her ok.

And she wasn't, she appeared as a villain even after that arc. We even saw her in prison.

[brerrabbit]

Like I said earlier Kara was thirteen at the time and really didn't know any better and wasn't handling the "I'm a mutant and a child of rape." very well as and she has a power that can easily corrupt your soul unlike most examples of people with mind control powers who did some icky things I give Kara some leeway on that.

Yes she WAS being mind control by the Master of the World I read the issue in the beginning of the arc Kara was trying to stop the Master... She just went about it in a very stupid way and when she was jailed the Master kidnap and brainwash her, and yeah Kara was in jail but to her credit she didn't break out and serve her time.

[starwolf_oakley]

As I said when this was first posted, Killgrave seems embarrassed by all this: his son makes him a prisoner, and the only person who can help him is Jessica Jones.