Mastermind (Jason Wyngarde)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mastermind
Mastermind with Jean Grey. Art by Steve Lightle.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	X-Men volume 1 #4 (March 1964)
Created by	Stan Lee Jack Kirby
In story information
Alter ego	Jason Wyngarde
Species	Human Mutant
Team affiliations	Brotherhood of Evil Mutants Factor Three Hellfire Club
Notable aliases	Nikos
Abilities	Illusion generation

Mastermind was a Marvel Comics supervillain, an adversary of the X-Men. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby, he first appeared in X-Men #4 (March 1964).

The original Mastermind was Jason Wyngarde, a mutant with the power to generate complex telepathic illusions. He was a founding member of the first Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and later a probationary member of the Lords Cardinal of the Hellfire Club, where he played an important role in the “Dark Phoenix Saga.”

The visual appearance of Jason Wyngarde was originally based by artist John Byrne on that of British actor Peter Wyngarde, who played the leader of the Hellfire Club in an episode of The Avengers.^{[citation needed]} Peter Wyngarde is best known for playing Jason King, whose character visually resembles that of Jason Wyngarde a great deal.

After Wyngarde's death from the Legacy Virus, his two daughters appeared, possessing their father’s illusion-creating abilities. One now uses his codename and the other is known as Lady Mastermind.

Contents 1 Fictional character biography 2 Powers and abilities 3 Other versions 3.1 Ultimate Mastermind 3.2 Age of Apocalypse 3.3 House of M 4 In other media 4.1 Television 4.2 Film 4.3 Video Game 5 Bibliography 5.1 List of titles 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Fictional character biography

Nothing is known of Jason Wyngarde's life before joining the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, except that he was a carnival mentalist. With Mastermind's help, the Brotherhood was able to take over a South American country, with an illusion of thousands of soldiers. As a member of the original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, he aided Magneto in repeated clashes with the X-Men.^[1] After the Brotherhood's defeat by the X-Men, the group attempted to lure the Stranger to their cause. The Stranger, being an enigmatic cosmic entity, instead of a mutant, temporarily turned Mastermind into stone.^[2]

After the spell wore off, Jason joined Factor Three, an organization that attempted to conquer the Earth. Factor Three eventually disbanded when their leader turned out to be an alien, instead of a mutant. They teamed with the X-Men to defeat the alien Mutant Master.^[3] Mastermind was then captured by Sentinels, but freed by the X-Men.^[4] Former members of Factor Three, Blob and Unus, joined with Jason to reform the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

This new Brotherhood was looking for new recruits. Mastermind attempted to recruit Beast to his group, but ultimately failed and wound up battling him instead.^[5] Mastermind was also briefly held captive by the second Secret Empire.^[6] Magneto returned to the Brotherhood to resume his leadership and created Alpha the Ultimate Mutant. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants battled the Defenders, but this new creation of Magneto's turned the entire Brotherhood team into infants, including his master.^[7]

After being restored to adulthood, Mastermind became involved with the Hellfire Club during the famous "Dark Phoenix Saga," in which he was largely responsible for turning Phoenix into Dark Phoenix. He initially posed as Nikos, and began a romance with Phoenix.^[8] Then, he manipulated her through the use of his own powers and a mind-tap mechanism created by Emma Frost, which he used to project his illusion directly into her mind, causing her to believe she was a Victorian aristocrat, married to Jason Wyngarde (Mastermind),^[9] and that she was the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club. He eventually turned her against the X-Men. Cyclops attempted to free the Phoenix in a duel with Mastermind on the Astral Plane, but was soundly defeated when Mastermind "killed" him during the fight, which Cyclops' physical body barely survived. But instead of binding the Phoenix to him forever, as Mastermind had hoped, the shock of Scott's psychic "death" broke her free from his control. Enraged at what he had done to her, the Phoenix reached into his mind and expanded his consciousness, literally making him one with the universe. This experience flooded his mind with images of the cosmos and left him catatonic.^[10]

When Mastermind was able to regain his sanity, he sought revenge on everyone that caused him pain. He gave the final nudge to Rogue towards leaving Mystique for the X-Men through subtly manipulating Rogue's rapidly deteriorating mental state, while at the same time inflicting nightmares on Mystique. He interfered with the engagement of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor by manipulating the X-Men into thinking Madelyne was the Dark Phoenix. Mastermind also ruined with the wedding of Wolverine and Mariko Yashida by psionically compelling her to reject Wolverine. Cyclops uncovered Mastermind's plot to trick the X-Men into believing that Pryor was the reincarnation of Phoenix and defeated Mastermind in a battle in the X-Mansion in which he had used illusion to manipulate the other X-Men into attacking Cyclops.^[11] Jason later sought to tap into the power of the Phoenix Force, but this time he had to face Rachel Summers and Excalibur and was defeated. He was imprisoned with the delusion that he had achieved cosmic awareness.^[12]

Mastermind later died of the Legacy Virus, but before he succumbed, he asked Jean Grey's forgiveness for what he had done to her, unaware she had never truly been Phoenix. Nevertheless, she did forgive him, and he died at peace.^[13]

After his death, Mastermind appeared in a flashback sequence that implied that he, on orders of the United States military, was responsible for the creation of the Void, the murderous and all-powerful counterpart of the super-hero Sentry.^[14]

Mastermind's name and powers still live on through his daughters: Martinique Jason and Lady Mastermind.

[edit] Powers and abilities

Mastermind's mutant powers are of illusion casting. He can psionically cause other people to see, hear, touch, smell, and/or taste things that do not actually exist. He can also cause people to sense things in ways that they would not naturally; for example, he can make himself look and sound like a different person, or look and feel like a wall, or even seem invisible. For this to work, these people have to be within a range of his powers. Without artificial aids, Mastermind cannot cause only one person among many who are present to see his illusions. He is capable of affecting even telepaths as powerful as Professor Xavier and Jean Grey, although to manipulate Dark Phoenix he required an amplifying device called a "mind-tap mechanism" provided by the White Queen that enabled him to project illusions directly into the entity's mind, so that the entity "saw" them, and to monitor the entity's thoughts, both over great distances.

Jason Wyngarde was a slight man with matted grey hair. He frequently used his illusory powers to assume the appearance of a younger, more handsome man. In his favorite disguise, he sported Victorian era style whiskers.

[edit] Other versions

[edit] Ultimate Mastermind

Mastermind has also appeared in the Ultimate Universe. His look, however, has changed drastically. While 616 Wyngarde used to be of average build, with cropped black hair and long sideburns, Ultimate Mastermind is lanky and white-haired, sports sunglasses and ponytail and looks like a beatnik. Here too he appeared as a member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants. Currently he has taken Mystique's work to pose as Magneto in the S.H.I.E.L.D. prison, though with the company of his girlfriend Stacy.

[edit] Age of Apocalypse

In the Age of Apocalypse, Jason Wyngarde was one of the many victims of Apocalypse's regime. He was a victim of the experiments of a time-traveling Sugar Man, which left him mute, though he was rescued by a time-traveling X-Man, as well as Forge and Magneto. Years later, he joined Forge's Outcasts, a resistance cell traveling under the cover of a theater troupe. He was ultimately killed by the bounty hunter Domino.

[edit] House of M

Mastermind has been mentioned to be a business rival of Tony Stark.

[edit] In other media

[edit] Television

Mastermind made a cameo in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends on a TV monitor, when Magneto is demanding for The Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants to be freed from prison ("The Prison Plot"). He projects illusions of Mephisto, Psyklop, Annihilus, and Zarathos/Ghost Rider.

He appears with The Inner Circle/Hellfire Club in X-Men The Animated Series episode, The Dark Phoenix Saga parts 1-3. Wyngarde is also a member of the Mutant Resistance in the alternate reality shown in the first part of the episode One Man's Worth.

In the animated series X-Men: Evolution, Mastermind (voiced by Campbell Lane) appears as an occasional lackey of Magneto. Despite often being bullied by Magneto, he seems to respect him to a point, and though he is hinted to be a shady character when left to his own devices, he is not particularly malicious. His most notable act was altering the memories of Magneto's daughter, Scarlet Witch.

[edit] Film

In the film X2, William Stryker's son Jason (portrayed by Michael Reid McKay) is loosely based on Mastermind. In this interpretation, he was once a student of Xavier's whose father wanted him to be "cured". Because Xavier was unable to do this, Jason used his powers to take revenge on his parents, driving his mother to suicide. Stryker subsequently had him lobotomized so he would only obey his orders, and used him in his plan to eliminate the mutant race. Jason appears as a crippled, wheelchair bound man, with atrophied muscle, a flaccid face and watery eyes. The lobotomy deprived him of free will and left him paralyzed, but his psychic powers are strong enough to control even a great mentalist like Professor X, appearing as a little girl. His father extracts his spinal fluid and uses it to control his mutant minions. Under his father's orders, he tricks X into using a modified copy of Cerebro to find all mutants and send telepathic screams that could kill them. But Magneto temporarily ended the illusion and Mystique, disguised as his father, had him target all humans. He presumably died at the end of the movie, after Storm's blizzard froze him and ended the illusion, as well as when the dam collapses.

[edit] Video Game

Jason Stryker appeared the X-Men: The Official Game (which filled in the gap between X2 and X-Men: The Last Stand) voiced by Steven Blum as a teen and by Grey DeLisle as a child. Jason taunts Nightcrawler saying that he left him to die. Jason later in the game tells Nightcrawler that there is an evil version of him at Alkali Lake too. He then helps Nightcrawler to destroy the Sentinels and sacrifices his life to do that.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] List of titles

• Amazing Adventures Vol. 2 #12-13
• Avengers Vol. 1 #103
• Defenders Vol. 1 #15-16
• Excalibur Vol. 1 #26
• Incredible Hulk Vol. 1 #174
• Journey Into Mystery Vol. 1 #109
• New Avengers #9-10
• Uncanny X-Men #4-8, 11, 37-39, 59-60, 122, 125-126, 129-130, 132-134, 172-175
• Uncanny X-Men Annual #17
• X-Men Unlimited Vol. 1 #33

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Mastermind on the Marvel Universe Character Bio Wiki