Madelyne Pryor
Madelyne Pryor is a comic book character that first appeared in The Uncanny X-Men #168
Created by Mister Sinister, she is the clone of Jean Grey and the mother of Christopher Summers. She is currently the leader of the Sisterhood of Mutants and looking for a new body.
Origin
The Day Dark Phoenix Died
Then, on the day that Dark Phoenix died on the moon, the Phoenix Force sought to return the "borrowed" portion of Jean Grey's psyche back to her body which was in suspended animation. Appalled after receiving the memories of the destruction wreaked by Dark Phoenix, the original Jean Grey rejected this portion of her consciousness and it wandered the globe, lost. Eventually it became attracted to Madelyne Pryor since she was an exact genetic clone of Jean. The portion of the Phoenix Force mistakenly infused itself into Madelyne, granting her some of Jean's memories and the Phoenix’s power and giving the clone consciousness for the first time. Sinister watched in awe as his creation burst out of her incubator, surrounded by a bird of fire and shouting the name Scott, before passing out.
Finally, his plans bore fruit and, after naming the clone Madelyne Pryor, he created a false background for her.
Scott Summers
Marrying Scott
Meeting Scott
Scott, still recovering from Jean's death, became obsessed with the idea that Madelyne was her reincarnation, eventually confronting her with his suspicions. Madelyne, furious and hurt, punched Scott and seemingly transformed into the Dark Phoenix. This, however, was revealed to be the doing of Mastermind, who had been manipulating the X-Men for months — as revenge for being driven temporarily insane by Phoenix due to his involvement in her corruption. After the conflict, Scott finally came to terms with the fact that Jean Grey was dead and that Madelyne was not her, and that he loved her all the same. The two were soon married at the X-Mansion, and Scott retired from active duty with the X-Men.
Anodyne
Anodyne
When it was discovered that Loki's intentions were never altruistic, and that his gift was badly flawed as the cost of those powers was the loss of individual creativity and imagination, everyone went against him. Also, the magical fountain drew its energies from magical beings, like Shaman and Snowbird, who was on the brink of dying. His plans ended, Loki was ordered by Those Who Sit Above In Shadow to restore everyone to their original state. He spitefully removed all the powers he had granted and everyone who Anodyne had cured were also regressed back. During the incident Madelyne and Charles Xavier revealed she was pregnant.
Motherhood
Waking Up In The Hospital
Marriage Crumbling
Over time their marriage became strained and Madelyne resented the fact that Scott was rarely home and that he continued to miss Jean. Maddie tried her best to make Scott happy, but her efforts seemed wasted. Finally Scott received a call from his former teammate Angel that Jean Grey had miraculously been found alive. Without explaining himself, Scott left Madelyne and their son to reunite with his lost love. Furious, Maddie told him that if he were to leave, to not return. Scott left nonetheless and formed X-Factor with his old friends from the original team of X-Men.
Mister Sinister, reacting quickly to Jean's return, aimed to eliminate Madelyne before the truth of her creation was revealed, and sent his Marauders to kill her. Maddie used her latent psychic powers to defend herself and let the baby to her enemies. She was shot multiple times and left for dead. She was taken to a hospital as a “Jane Doe“. Though the doctors thought she was a hopeless case, Madelyne pulled through and awoke months later from a coma. There was no record of her or the baby left in existence, as Sinister had erased them all.
Joining the X-Men
Having nowhere else to turn, Maddie called the X-Men, who arrived right as the Marauders tried to murder her again, having been alerted to her being alive by the police searching records for her. The X-Men managed to protect her and Havok, especially, swore that he would stand by Maddie’s side to make up for his brother’s mistake. With the Marauders hot on their trail Madelyne, like Dazzler, had to stay with the team.Shortly afterwards, the X-Men battled the Adversary in Dallas. To seal the portal to his dimension with a magical spell, Forge needed the essences of nine souls – the problem being that only eight X-Men were there. Madelyne opted to be the missing piece and the group was transformed into pure energy. The entire incident was recorded by a film team and reporter Neal Conan provided Madelyne with the chance to say goodbye to her loved ones.
As everything was broadcasted live on national TV, X-Factor watched and heard Madelyne‘s final moments. Her last words were addressed to Scott, telling him to find their missing son. Unknown to the world, Roma resurrected the X-Men shortly afterwards, providing them with a new chance at life. They decided to go underground and keep their rebirth secret, wanting to use this new status to their advantage. They began working secretly out of an abandoned Reavers base in Australia, and Madelyne became the team's technical support. During this time, Madelyne and her brother-in-law, Alex Summers (Havok), were growing closer; both of them were lonely — Alex himself had lost his long-time love Polaris, whose body had been taken over by the Marauder Malice.
Demonic Corruption
Monitoring news transmissions, Madelyne learned that Jean Grey was alive and with Scott. Seeing the evidence of Scott's betrayal, Madelyne punched the computer monitor's screen, breaking it and causing electrical feedback that rendered her unconscious. Illyana Rasputin's treacherous Limbo-demon, S'ym, then invaded Madelyne's mind during her unconscious state, and offered her the power to hurt Scott just as he had hurt her. Helpless and confused, she unwittingly accepted the offer; the formerly heroic woman began the transformation into the Goblin Queen.Madelyne kept the existence of the original X-Men as X-Factor — and of the "resurrected" Jean Grey — secret from the others. Later accidentally captured by the Genoshans and taken by force to their island-nation, Madelyne was subjected to psychic torture intended to transform her into a docile slave who served the state. Madelyne instinctively lashed out with some powerful subconscious abilities that caused the deaths of her torturers. However, the psychological damage was done, as the process deprived her of all motherly instincts.
During her captivity the vengeful side of Pryor's personality grew much stronger, and her latent powers continued to emerge. In the recorded images of the psychic probe performed on Madelyne, her appearance reflected her change into the Goblin Queen, while Genosha's Genegineer appeared in Mr. Sinister's outfit. Shortly after being rescued by the X-Men, Madelyne struck an additional bargain with another demon, N'astirh, to find her missing son; also, she and Alex began an affair. Her latent telekinetic and telepathic powers fully activated, Madelyne completed her transformation into the Goblin Queen, sparking the Inferno crossover.
Inferno
This crossover fully revealed the origin Madelyne. N'astirh took Madelyne to the orphanage in Nebraska where Scott grew up, which was actually a front for Sinister's genetic laboratory. There, Sinister revealed himself as her "father" and began to tell her all about her creation and purpose. Believing a child of Scott Summers and Jean Grey would be a mutant of great power, Sinister created a clone of Jean specifically to fall in love with Scott and produce a child. (The child, it would later be revealed, was Sinister's intended secret weapon against his master Apocalypse.) When Phoenix took her own life, a part of the Phoenix Force entered the clone and gave it life. Sinister named the clone "Madelyne Pryor," created a false background and implanted memories, and sent her to Alaska where she and Scott Summers met and fell in love. However when Jean Grey returned, Madelyne was no longer needed and now a liability, so Sinister ordered his Marauders to kill her and abduct the child.Those revelations — and that her entire existence was nothing more than a facsimile of her hated rival Jean Grey — destroyed Madelyne's tenuous grip on sanity. N'astirh returned with her son, intending to sacrifice him to open the gates of Limbo and ensure a permanent demonic presence on Earth. In a last ditch effort to hurt both her husband and her "father", Madelyne was now all too willing to go along with the destruction of her son Nathan Christopher.
Returning to New York City, where Inferno and the demonic invasion was already in full swing, she pitted the X-Men against Scott, Jean and the rest of X-Factor by reverting to her normal appearance and claiming that Scott wanted to take her baby away. Madelyne meanwhile convinced Alex to join her as her "Goblin Prince".
The X-Men and X-Factor eventually defeated N'astirh, but Madelyne, determined to destroy her rival, encased herself, Jean Grey, and baby Nathan Christopher in a telekinetic bubble. The heroes broke through the bubble and Cyclops rescued his son, but Madelyne committed suicide in an attempt to telepathically take Jean with her. The Phoenix Force appeared to Jean and offered to save her, but in order to survive Jean had to integrate the tainted essence of both the Phoenix and Madelyne, gaining their memories and personalities. The teams then returned to the fresh ruins of the Mansion for a showdown with Mr. Sinister, whom they recognized as the true villain. Sinister revealed a long history of meddling in Scott's life, and Scott, with one powerful optic blast, seemingly destroyed Sinister, leaving only a smoking skeleton.
Scott was reunited with his son Nathan Christopher at the end of Inferno, and Jean, having re-absorbed her stray essence imbued in Madelyne, inherited her maternal feelings for the child and became his stand-in mother. They would raise Nathan Christopher until Apocalypse, seeing the potential threat in the child, infected him with a techno-organic virus. Dying, the child was saved by Askani and taken 2,000 years into the future to be cured. Around this time, a mysterious new character called Cable debuted. Cable was eventually established to be Madelyne and Scott's aged son returned from the future.
Resurrected
Later the powerful Nate Grey traveled to this world from Earth-295. His mind looked for a companion, and discovered the spirit of Madelyne Pryor on the astral plane. X-Man subconsciously gave the echo of Madelyne's psyche a new form. Madelyne remembered very little of her past. In Paris, she was lured away from Nate by Selene, who slowly took her to New York and met with Sebastian Shaw, suggesting a revival of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club. Selene presented Madelyne as Black Rook. She proved her value by winning a battle against the London Club's Red Rook Scribe, pulling the parasitic mutant Mountjoy out of the woman‘s body.One night, Tessa attempted to probe Madelyne's mind, but was discovered. Madelyne angrily defeated Tessa and proved to be telepathic too, making Tessa forget the incident. Madelyne's memory was fully restored at last. She searched for Nate Grey but met Threnody instead, who revealed to her that even though she was walking around and breathing, she was actually still dead. Angered, she murdered Threnody.
She then found Nate with Jean Grey. In a battle, Nate chose to side with Jean over her. Nate and Jean discovered that Madelyne was a psionic ghost, subconsciously given form by Nate. Nate tried to re-absorb her, only to find that he couldn’t, as she had become independent.
Madelyne escaped back to Sebastian Shaw and shared an intimate night with him. Madelyne returned to the Hellfire Club with Sebastian Shaw, also with whom she began a physical relationship. This was of great concern to Selene and Tessa. Madelyne and Shaw grew close, demonstrating their intimacy even in public, during a Hellfire Club ball. Yet, when Cable opposed a Hellfire Club operation in the Swiss Alps, Maddie switched sides. She gave her son hints about the villain’s location and, afterward, quit the Inner Circle.
While Cable was in the middle of his Askani meditation[15], his mother appeared to him on the Astral Plane. She explained her life story to him and proposed they join forces to destroy all mutants and rule the world together. After a heated discussion, in which Cable refused to side with her, they decided to meet at a neutral contact point in Alaska. Cable emerged from his meditation and formed an uneasy truce with his mother.
Madelyne later returned to Nate Grey's side, now with the ability to teleport. Nate didn't want her around at first, but he eventually started to come around to her. She aided him in battle against the Great Beasts, showing that she would be there for him, even against his will. H was not fond of her company but, when the Psi-War, a battle between Psylocke and the Shadow King, caused a temporary worldwide blackout of psionic abilities, he welcomed her assistance. Their relationship developed, having aspects of friendship, love and family connection to equal parts.
When Nate was attacked by Strikesquad: Gauntlet, a group of operatives wearing psi-shielded armor, Madelyne was buried alive by one of them. She managed to escape by teleporting, yet, as the battle had taken a lot out of Nate, her body rapidly became drained and withered. In no shape to carry out her plans, she departed Nate's side.
Apocalypse The Twelve
In Egypt, the Twelve are all assembled in the null orbs. Cable gets the low down from everyone there. Suddenly, him and Cyclops are transported to the psionic plane. They find themselves in the future, Cable’s future. They’re in a graveyard filled with people who died fighting to stop Apocalypse. Nathan talks about his past with Aliya and what it was like growing up after him and Jean left to go back to the present. Cable thinks he’s failed everyone. Scott tells him it’ s not true. They hug and the snow starts falling. Scott disappears and Cable finds himself in Alaska where he lived as an infant. Madelyne Pryor is there and he finds out she’s responsible for pulling him and Scott to the psionic plane. She knows what’s going on and wants him to stay there with him in safety. He tells her that’s not going to happen. He realizes as long as he’s still alive he has a chance of stopping Apocalypse. She reluctantly sends them back to their bodies.Impersonated
About half a year later, X-Man was again accompanied by “Maddie,“ but it turned out to be an evil Jean Grey from an alternate timeline. It seems that she took advantage of Madelyne’s weakened state and assassinated her to take her place. Her own explanation was “I replaced your Maddie several months ago.” Nate Grey finally discorporated while fighting a being called the Harvester and was never seen again.It appears the original Madelyne Pryor has returned and create a Sisterhood of Mutants (see Red Queen).
Sisterhood of Mutants
She has assembled a team consisting of Spiral, Lady Deathstrike, Regan Wyngarde (Lady Mastermind), Martinique Jason (Mastermind) and Chimera promising a series of resurrections for its members leading up to a massive return of a character from the X-Men's past.Members of her assembled sisterhood are found by Domino in Tokyo, Japan in a private graveyard owned by Wolverine stealing a coffin. During the ensuing fight Chimera is stabbed through the chest with a sword by Domino and the Sisterhood escapes. Domino contacts Wolverine asking "Who was Kwannon?". The Red Queen is later seen to heal Chimera's wound with what she describes as magic and requests that Lady Deathstrike fetch her "prisoner". The Red Queen says they will perform a ritual to "fill" the dead body, when Chimera asks what she intends on filling a dead girl with the Red Queen replies "but what else? a live one." and reveals her prisoner who appears to be Psylocke. The sisterhood then begin to perform their ritual and Emma Frost and other psychics everywhere are shown to be suffering from seizures. When Emma wakes up in the X-Mansion hospital she and the Stepford Cuckoos confirm that there had been a "massive psychic event" that they had been "very much cut off from it". The body of Kwannon then rises and asks "Where am I, what happened?" to which the Red Queen replies "You're home. You're in your new home. Or at least, your new body..."
It was then revealed that Madelyne is still without a physical body and is now looking to possess either her original body or Jean Grey's. She said that they are the only two bodies capable of containing her massive energies. Part of her master plan is revealed when she and her sisterhood attack the new X-Mansion. She manipulated Empath and put him in the position to be captured. Once captured Pryor used him as a beacon for her magicks/psionics in order to infiltrate the mansion undetected. The battle then turned out to be a rouse - Pryor's objective was to steal the lock of Jean Grey's hair that Wolverine keeps on his nightstand...
Madelyne uses the lock of hair to locate Grey's grave site, and then attempts to repeat the ritual with her corpse. But Cyclops had ordered Domino to substitute the body with someone else's, and it somehow causes Madelyne to either discorporate or become absorbed into the fake.
Powers
As a clone of Jean Grey, Madelyne Pryor also possessed mutant abilities of telekinesis and telepathy.
These powers remained latent while she was believed to be a baseline
human, but later manifested in ways that Jean's never had. As the
Goblin Queen, her mutant powers were exponentially enhanced by demonic
eldritch magic to the point where she could warp reality within a localized area. The black magic awakened and shaped her latent powers to tap into her small portion of the Phoenix Force and manifest telepathy, telekinesis, and transmutation powers that draw forth the physical and mental evils of others.
As Anodyne, Madelyne possessed the ability to wield Asgardian magic that manifested as eldritch flames with the power to heal and cure. Among her beneficial actions were fixing the childhood brain injury that prevented Cyclops from controlling his optic blasts, curing Puck of his mystically induced dwarfism, unifying Aurora's multiple personalities, and giving Rogue the ability to control her mutant power. When transformed into Anodyne, Madelyne also took on the stature of an Asgardian, possibly also gaining the hardier physiology and strength of that race.
After her apparent resurrection by , Madelyne returned as sentient echo of psionic energy that could tap vast psionic
energies funneled through Nate Grey, enabling her to utilize powers of
telepathy, psychokinesis, and teleportation. Madelyne's telepathy was reduced to a lower level, limiting her to reading minds, broadcasting her thoughts, creating illusions,
changing or erasing memories, and defending herself against other
telepaths. Her telekinesis was still considerable, such that Madelyne
could lift and manipulate large objects, levitate, fire powerful mental
force-blasts, form protective shields, and even rearrange objects on a molecular level. Madelyne also developed powers that Jean never possessed: she was able to teleport over long distances by shifting in and out of the astral plane (and was shown to be able to carry along at least one other person with her when teleporting), and also able to channel psionic energies from other psionic-powered mutants to boost her own abilities or those of another (usually ,
and on occasion Cable). Madelyne has also utilized her powers to
augment her physical strength and agility, to a level of being lethal
in hand-to-hand combat.
As the Red Queen of the Hellfire Cult and Sisterhood of Mutants, the returned Madelyne apparently possesses telepathy,and has other considerable powers of a mysterious nature, being referred to as "magic." Also, it has been revealed that the Red Queen is still not corporeal, which has motivated most of her plans and actions. Moreover, she mentions that her previous host had been destroyed and that there were only two beings in existence that could house her disembodied form, her original clone body and Jean Grey's body. Her powers are massive and appear to be a coalescence of her past psionic and mystical abilities. In her most recent appearances, she has resurrected Psylocke's original body, transferred Psylocke's essence into that body, created a new persona from Psylocke's mind, mentally controlled Empath and enhanced his abilities, channeled the combined abilities of her Sisterhood, and telekinetically atomized a gun.
Alternate Realities
Earth-1298 Mutant X
In the alternate reality known as the Mutant X universe, young Scott Summers was abducted into space along with his father Christopher and mother Kate, leaving his brother Alex to become one of the founders of the X-Men as Havok. As in the main Marvel universe, Jean Grey died and was replaced by her clone, Madelyne Pryor. But this reality's Madelyne fell in love with Alex and had a son, named Scotty, with him. She also made a deal with S'ym and N'astirh and initiated the "Inferno Crisis", unlocking her latent mental abilities. As "Marvel Woman", Madelyne survived the crisis and left with her husband when he formed the splinter group called "The Six". Her evil side resurfaced a number of times, first as the "Goblyn Queen" and later as the "Goblyn Force". When it returned a second time, it merged with the Beyonder to form a nigh-omnipotent being. Havok supposedly saved Madelyne by placing the "Nexus of Realities" in her body, purging her of the malevolent Goblyn Force and reuniting her with her son Scotty, before Havok returned once more to the void.Earth-9997 Earth X
In the future world referred to as Earth X the powerless middle-aged frumpy woman who lived with Wolverine in an unhappy relationship shocked him when she walked out on him by announcing suddenly that she was not Jean Grey as he had always thought, but Madelyne Pryor and that she had fooled him all the time. Later though, as they met again at a royal wedding, she revealed that she was in fact Jean and only said that to spite him. However, there was another Jean - the Phoenix - in the realm of the dead and perhaps the living Jean lied a second time, and actually was Madelyne, though it doesn’t appear very likely. Other than that, it was mentioned that Nate Grey died several years earlier, while protecting Madelyne. If she still had her powers, there is a big likelihood she was killed like every other telepath when the new Red Skull rose to power.
Earth-2301 Marvel Mangaverse
In the Marvel Mangaverse title Legacy of Fire, Madelyne Pryor was reinvented as Madelyne Pyre, a powerful sorceress and possessor of the Phoenix Sword, who was training her sister Jena to be her successor.X-Men: The End
Madelyne Pryor appears in an important role late in X-Men: The End, Chris Claremont's limited series about a "possible future". In the story, Madelyne - through circumstances left unexplained - makes a surprise return, implied as being the first time since Inferno, with no references to Nate Grey whatsoever (although she and Cable are later shown to be already familiar). Mysteriously joined with the X-Men's alien enemies, the Skrulls and the Shi'ar, Madelyne affected a disguise to infiltrate the X-Men, planting herself near Cyclops for the rest of the series. No longer insane, but still seeking revenge against her former husband, Madelyne nonetheless hesitated and instead took to protecting him, after eavesdropping on him expressing remorse for everything that happened to her, and even implying that he genuinely loved her. Cyclops later admitted to having recognized her at some point, and an understanding and peace was finally reached between them, for the sake of aiding their son Cable in battle. When Cable's effort leaves him dying, a grief-stricken Madelyne is accepted back with the X-Men again. After Cyclops and Jean Grey are also killed, Madelyne cryptically reveals that, since the very beginning, she was always both Madelyne Pryor and a crucial portion of Jean Grey herself (and even hinted to being the Dark Phoenix), explaining that she is the part of Jean that truly and completely loved Scott, and that was why Jean and Scott's marriage failed. Madelyne then sacrifices herself by turning into energy and fusing with Jean Grey, who is once again resurrected. Jean is able to use her power to its fullest again, which allows her and all the dead X-Men to merge with the Phoenix. Madelyne/Phoenix, along with several other X-Men, then recreated the “Tree of Life” from the Quabala and presumably transcended this plane of existence. In the story's final panel, Madelyne's image is present next to Cyclops' among the X-Men who died heroically.Earth 998
On Earth 998, at the end of the 19th century, Madelyne Pryor was a great warrior Queen, who ruled the British Empire and through it most of the world. When she died of old age, she vowed to rise like a phoenix from the ashes and return. However, she remained dead and another woman claming to be Madelyne (who actually was an evil, alternate version of Jean Grey) took her role. It is unclear if the original Queen Madelyne truly was an alternate of Madelyne Pryor and whether this is actually possible (given her convoluted origin), yet the name, not to mention the fact that a Jean Grey could impersonate her, seem to hint at more than a mere coincidence.What If...
What if (2nd series) #6 Earth-89112
In one alternate reality (Earth-89112), Madelyne Pryor and S'ym were successful in opening a portal between Limbo and Earth (having killed baby Nathan Christopher) and demons overan the planet. The X-Men and X-Factor were dead (with the exception of a possessed Wolverine), and the only resistance left was led by Doctor Strange, who attempted to summon the Phoenix Force through Rachel Summers, the reality-hopping daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Madelyne however was successful in quelling the resistance and wresting control of the Phoenix Force from Rachel, but was ultimately betrayed and killed by S'ym, using Wolverine's reanimated adamantium skeleton. Rachel, reassuming the mantle of the Phoenix, used the Force to cleanse the planet of the demon plague.What if (2nd series) #74
Another reality saw Madelyne Pryor as a member of an "X-Men" team formed by Mr. Sinister alongside Cyclops (Scott Summers), Havok (Alex Summers) and Sabretooth. However this version of Madelyne had never been awakened by the Phoenix Force, so was simply a mindless shell inhabited by the psychic entity Malice. Scott noticed his physical attraction to Madelyne, but could not respond to her advances; when he encountered Professor Xavier's X-Men and their leader Jean Grey, however, much deeper emotions were stirred. Sinister called for their deaths, and under his orders Cyclops and Havok infiltrated Xavier’s X-Men as double agents.Earth-9250
On Earth-9250, most mutants in the city of Manhattan are vampires ruled by Wolverine. Madelyne wasn't infected, but became the Goblyn Queen and planned on releasing a demon army to wipe out the vampire mutants and dominate the world. Madelyne made contact with the lord of the Dark Dimension, Dormammu, who became her ally. However, the vampiric Marvel Girl (Jean Grey) bonded with the Phoenix Force, became Dark Phoenix, and killed Madelyne and Dormammu.
#222 in
Power Rank
Rank Game
| Super Name: | Madelyne Pryor |
| Real Name: | Madelyne Jennifer Pryor |
| Aliases: |
Madelyne Pryor-Summers Goblin Queen Anodyne Marvel Woman Black Rook Red Queen Maddie Madalyne Pyre |
| Publisher: | Marvel Publishing |
| Gender: | Female |
| Character Type: | Mutant |
| 1st Appearance: | The Uncanny X-Men #168 |
| Appears in: | 142 issues |
| Birthday: | |
| Died: |
Add a power to this list?
Reality Manpulation
You propose to remove this. Changed mind?
You propose to add this. Changed mind?
