Madelyne Pryor: Red Queen Appreciation 2018

[WallStreeter]

What are you all's thoughts on the "Sisterhood" that Brian Wood was developing last time we saw Maddy?

It honestly could have been great had he not gotten booted off the title. I wish another writer would reconstitute them. Powerful female villains, especially leaders are underutilized in the X-Men. They've gotten better with that lately, with Miss Sinister going full mad scientist and with the return of Selene. Technically Madelyne is back too, but it's battle world Goblin Queen Maddie.

I think either version of the Sisterhood had a lot of wasted potential. The writers just used both Sisterhoods to bring back female characters from Limbo or from the dead.

[Drey]

I agree that Madelyne should acknowledge her past; but then she needs to rise above it and get on with her life. But the X-Men should acknowledge that she's as much a real person as any of them.

I'd like to see her portrayed as a scarred soul trying to find her way back from darkness to light. She's horrified by what she almost did in Inferno, and is grateful to those who stopped her. She needs to accept that the Goblin Queen is part of her. But so is Anodyne. She's struggling to unite these disparate aspects of herself into a whole woman.

An alternate scenario: Maddie is de-aged to infancy (by whoever did it to Magneto?) and adopted by a loving family who'll give her the childhood and parental guidance she was denied. Will the Goblin Queen's sins be redeemed, or will memories of them eventually come back to haunt the new Madelyne (or maybe her adoptive parents will give her a new name). Either way, may she have supportive parental figures to guide her this time.

I definitely think it's time for Madelyne to rise above and maybe pay Cable a visit. A mother/son reunion would be nice!

As for the Sisterhood, there was potential. Seeing Selene and Maddie together again made me happy. Made me remember when Selene took Maddie under her wing when she was amnesiac after being resurrected by Nate Grey.

[WeirdSpider]

Best Mom ever.

I hope that we see more of Maddie(any version)again soon.

[niconico00]

I definitely think it's time for Madelyne to rise above and maybe pay Cable a visit. A mother/son reunion would be nice!

As for the Sisterhood, there was potential. Seeing Selene and Maddie together again made me happy. Made me remember when Selene took Maddie under her wing when she was amnesiac after being resurrected by Nate Grey.

But that was not the real Maddie, was she?

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Uncanny X-Men #170 Jun 1983
"Dancin' in the Dark!" Part 2 of 2.
Prelude: Alaska. Scott Summers is dancing the night away with Madelyne Pryor. Its their first date. Its a lot more than either thought it would be.
Never one to let a good moment go unspoilt, Scott withdraws to have an angst-filled internal monologue about Jean.

He tells Madelyne about Jean, who stands by the fire to think about it. More internal angst from Scott,
but Maddie comes back. Neither of them is willing to walk away from the other that easily.

The Alley: Callisto intends to marry Warren against his will. The X-Men object, and take that moment to break their bonds and start another fight.
While Nightcrawler manages to defeat Callisto by multiply porting with her, his companions aren't nearly so lucky as Plague gets the drop on Storm.
Nightcrawler backs down - he's unwilling to kill Callisto, and Plague is more than willing to finish Storm. Callisto reveals the origins of the Morlocks.

Elsewhere, Caliban tells Kitty he cannot bring her fever down. Kitty pleads with Caliban to save the X-Men,
and gives him an ultimatum - help the X-Men and she'll stay with him, refuse and she'll hate him forever!

Interlude: Mystique is running from dogs across a familiar landscape. Her ankle breaks and she tumbles into a stream.
Jason Wyngarde pulls the dogs off her, but only to give Lady Jean Grey the pleasure of slitting her throat!
Mystique wakes up. She goes downstairs where Destiny is waiting for her.
They talk, and Destiny says the being responsible works on a fundamental level of time and space.
Suddenly, a timeline becomes clear to Destiny, and she shouts out that Rogue is in danger!
Mystique rushes up to her room, but as Destiny predicts she is already gone.

We briefly see Rogue on a Greyhound bus.

Masque starts playing with Storm's features, and Nightcrawler demands he stop. Callisto offers him membership in the Morlocks, and he declines.
Suddenly, Caliban appears in the chamber carrying Kitty! Colossus easily snaps the 'stronger' chains they bound him with in his rage at seeing her thus,
and Nightcrawler tells the Morlocks that he needs to be allowed to get her to the Mansion's medilab. Callisto refuses.
Caliban tells Nightcrawler that leadership of the Morlocks is decided by a one-on-one duel,
and he's in the process of challenging Callisto to one when she informs him these duels are to the death.
At that point Storm tells Nightcrawler to back down - she is leader of the X-Men, and the challenge is hers to make.
Protests from her teammates that she is still feverish are ignored.

Hoping to unnerve Storm, Callisto tosses a dagger high in the air to her, but Storm catches it smoothly out of the air.
The duel is fierce, and Callisto scores first blood. But eventually Storm gets her opening and uses her cape to tie up Callisto's dagger arm.
She raises up Callisto's arm, opening her up for Ororo's dagger thrust - straight through Callisto's heart Callisto collapses.

Callisto lives, but only because of the quick action of the Morlock Healer (offstage). Ororo takes Angel, and offers the Morlocks sanctuary at Xavier's.
While they choose to remain, Caliban verbally wishes that they become friends.

Epilogue: Alaska. Dawn finds Scott and Maddie awake and making out on the couch. Maddie offers to make breakfast,
and when the bright sun causes her to squint she asks Scott if she can borrow his glasses, reaching over to grab them.

Scott reacts in horror and hits her to prevent it. She demands an explanation and he shows her his power. They make up.

Story by Chris Claremont. Art by Paul Smith and Bob Wiacek.

[Havok83]

But that was not the real Maddie, was she?

I thought it was. How was it explained how she returned?

[Drey]

But that was not the real Maddie, was she?

Which Maddie are you referring to? The Maddie in X-man or the Maddie in X-men? As far as I'm concerned, they are both the same. Nate Grey reconstituted her psionic essence/soul and gave her physical form (like how Selene was bodiless and Amora reconstituted her essence and gave her physical form via magick). Then she's replaced by Queen Jean, stuck as a ghost on the astral plane, then is able to make it back to the physical plane, but still relatively a ghost wanting to truly live again.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Uncanny X-Men #230 Jun 1988
'Twas the Night...!"
At their new secret headquarters located in the Australian outback, Storm takes the opportunity to enjoy her recently returned powers,
while Madelyne Pryor uses the systems created by the Reavers to track her progress.

While elsewhere on the property, the other X-Men are engaged in a training session to try and take down Rogue.
While Havok and Dazzler fail, Psylocke's mental powers take her down and Logan pins her until she surrenders.

When the session is over, Madelyne marvels at how advanced the systems are
and hopes to use the Reaver's devices to help track down the Marauders and take back her son.
As the X-Men wind down from their training session Storm notices that Longshot is missing and wonders where he has gone.

Below their base, Longshot is searching the tunnels, having heard voices he goes to see if there are any prisoners of the Reavers
that they might have missed when they forced the cyborgs out. What he finds is the stolen loot that they had amassed over the years.
Longshot's psychometric powers are extremely sensitive to these stolen goods and they cry out to be returned to their rightful owners.
Longshot is soon overwhelmed by all the phantom voices and passes out.

Later, Dazzler begins the process of cleaning out the Reavers former possessions out of the living house and is disgusted by the amount of filth the cyborgs lived in.
The final straw is when Dazzler screams when she sees something moving, prompting Colossus to smash into the room and investigate.
She is disgusted when Colossus finds a mound of animal feces from under the bed.
Going out side she has a temper tantrum from being so far away from civilization,
it prompts Storm to use her powers to create a rainstorm that literally washes out the filth, which Havok promptly incinerates with his plasma powers.

When the X-Men begin to consider Gateway, the silent Aboriginal mutant teleporter who quietly sits on the hill outside their base, Logan surmises that this is his land.
Rogue makes an effort to communicate and be friendly with him, however her attempts to get him to socialize are met with silence.
After a much needed shower, Dazzler finds that Longshot has awoken from the coma they found him in and he tells them what he had gleaned from the treasure room.
The X-Men confirm what Longshot had experienced, who convinces them to return everything to their rightful owners.
Wolverine is the only one who has issue with this task, although the other X-Men find it quite daunting.
When Storm decides to carry out Longshot's wishes the X-Men work out a plan:
Sifting through each item, they have Longshot divine it's location and then they will have Gateway teleport them around the world to drop the items off to their rightful owners.

As they are going through the items, Dazzler falls completely in love with a motorcycle which is among the loot, envying the original owner.

Eventually, the X-Men manage to find the homes for the majority of items and go to see Gateway. After Rogue explains what the X-Men intend to do,
Psylocke telepathically gives him the locations they need to get to and to their delight Gateway opens a portal for them to travel through.
The X-Men then travel around the world dropping off all the stolen items to those who had their belongings stolen by the Reavers.
Lastly, Storm makes a trip to Salem Center to look in on the New Mutants. She finds them out with their leader Magneto caroling in a snowstorm.
They are not in the mood since the death of their teammate Cypher and the "death" of the X-Men.
Unable to reveal herself in order to maintain the X-Men's cover, Storm instead uses her powers to divert the snowstorm, making the Mutants decide to keep on caroling.

When the X-Men return to their new home, they realize that it's Christmas Day and celebrate.
Dazzler gets a surprise when Logan and Storm reveal that they kept the motorcycle with her.
She is happy and pulls Longshot on for a ride. Lastly, Rogue pays a visit to Gateway and gives him a gift: a wood carved flue.
Gateway is visibly touched by this and invites Rogue to sit next to him as he plays the musical instrument for her

Story by Chris Claremont. Art by Marc Silvestri and Joe Rubinstein.

[Bl00dwerK]

Silvestri's Maddie can't be topped. I rank her right up there with Jim Lee's Rogue.

[Havok83]

Silvestri's Maddie can't be topped. I rank her right up there with Jim Lee's Rogue.

Paul Smith's can. His Maddie was the definitive version

[Uncanny X-Man]

Silvestri's Maddie can't be topped. I rank her right up there with Jim Lee's Rogue.

Agreed. Silvestri's Maddie in Genosha was the sexiest, scariest bad@$$ evah.

[EmeraldGladiator]

Silvestri's Maddie is my fave as well, and the one I want brought back, Kid Maddie is ok and so was Mutant X Maddie but Silvestri's is the one I want back either as a villain or maybe as a member of Astonishing X-Men, she should never be on any team that is on good terms with Jean but them on opposing X-teams would work.

[Drey]

616MarvelYear Is Leap Year - Thanks for the memories!!

I agree about Silvestri's version of Madelyne. She was sexy from the pilot jumpsuit to the Goblin Queen outfit!

EmeraldGladiator - I loved the Mutant X version of Maddie. It was like a second chance for her character in a way.

[AbnormallyNormal]

How would Maddy get along with Rachel Grey-Summers or Emma Frost?

[JudicatorPrime]

I'd like to see a family reunion. Maybe everyone just happen to show up to commemorate the anniversary of Scott's death. A temporary truce called.