Madelyne Pryor
Madelyne Jennifer Pryor is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Paul Smith, the character first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #168. Primarily a featured character of the X-Men, Madelyne Pryor is a clone of Jean Grey, the ex-love-interest and first wife of Cyclops, and the mother of Cable. She was a long-standing member of the X-Men supporting cast until a series of traumas eventually led to her being manipulated into being an antagonist.
Jennifer Hale voices Madelyne Pryor in X-Men '97, a sequel series to X-Men: The Animated Series.
Publication history
Madelyne Pryor was introduced during the acclaimed 1983 Uncanny X-Men run that saw long-time writer Chris Claremont pair with artist Paul Smith for a series of issues that would see the look-alike of Jean Grey marry the retired X-Men leader Cyclops. She first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #168. Multiple retcons in her publication history and that of Jean have particularly complicated her biography.Madelyne's hairstyle design was modeled on that of Louise Simonson, the book's editor then known as Louise Jones—a design retained on the character until 1988. Claremont named the character after Steeleye Span singer Maddy Prior. Claremont had already created a character named "Maddy Pryor", a little girl who appeared briefly in Avengers Annual #10, and has no in-story connections to the X-Men character. Claremont, nonetheless, years later took an opportunity to indulge in an in-joke: in Uncanny X-Men #238, a similar child would appear as Madelyne's mental image of herself, wearing the same clothes as the little girl from The Avengers Annual #10, repeating the girl's same line of dialogue, but also singing "Gone to America", one of Steeleye Span's biggest hits.
According to Claremont, the original link between Madelyne and Jean was entirely the product of Mastermind's powers of illusion. Seeking revenge against the X-Men, Mastermind deceived the X-Men that Madelyne is the Phoenix in an attempt to have the team kill her to demoralize them. Mastermind's plan fails, and Madelyne and Cyclops are married shortly after. Claremont had conceived Madelyne as a device to write Cyclops out of the X-Men and have retire "happily ever after" with Madelyne and their child.
The story became more complicated in 1986 when moves by the editors and other writers to reunite the original X-Men, for the new title X-Factor, resulted in Jean's resurrection and Scott leaving his wife and son. This deeply compromised Cyclops's character and left little room for Madelyne, and Cyclops's actions then—and towards even Jean years later—have been controversial ever since. Marvel avoided addressing these problems, instead resorting to a deus ex machina, in the 1989 Inferno crossover, in which Madelyne is retconned to be a clone of Jean created by Mister Sinister to produce a child with Cyclops, and corrupted by her anger and demonic influence as the Goblin Queen, leading to her elimination and into an object of damnatio memoriae for several years.
Asked about his intended plans for Madelyne's character, Claremont said:
The character was brought back in 1995 as a supporting character in X-Man, a marginal X-Men related title. Though by 2001 and along with the cancellation of the X-Man title, this became a false start at reviving the character, as Pryor would again cease being featured in any Marvel titles, except when Chris Claremont included the character in his non-canon limited series, X-Men: The End.
In 2008, the 25th anniversary of the character's debut in Uncanny X-Men, the character was brought back in the flagship X-Men title for the first time since the 1989 Inferno storyline. But the following year and the 20th anniversary since Inferno, she was removed completely again, and would not be featured in another story until 2014—25 years since Inferno—in a single issue of the secondary title, X-Men, and was also included in a flashback story by Claremont included in a 2014 X-Men 50th-anniversary one-shot titled X-Men: Gold.
Pryor was again absent for an extended time until featured in another flashback story also by Claremont, included in the one-shot X-Men: The Exterminated in 2018 – 35 years since her debut. She was subsequently brought back as a recurring character, first in Hellions from 2020 to 2022, and then New Mutants in 2022. Immediately following this, Pryor was featured as a main character in the crossover storyline Dark Web, a combined sequel to both Inferno and a recent Spider-Man storyline, Beyond. Released from 2022 to the following year, its 2023 conclusion—the 40th anniversary of the debut of Madelyne Pryor—featured the character granted the most significant change and elevation to her status quo by Marvel since 1989.
Fictional character biography
Whirlwind romance
Madelyne Pryor was a cargo pilot in Anchorage, Alaska working for Scott Summers's grandparents when she and Scott meet during a Summers family reunion. A romantic relationship quickly begins between them, however, Scott is disturbed at her striking resemblance to Jean Grey. Also, she was the sole survivor of an airplane crash that occurred the same day Jean died on the moon. In addition, Professor X is unable to telepathically scan her mind, noting it is a rare immunity that does exist even in normal human brains. Scott, still recovering from Jean's death, becomes obsessed with the idea that Madelyne is Jean's reincarnation, eventually confronting her with these suspicions. Madelyne, furious and hurt, punches Scott and runs from the latter. As soon as she is alone, she is abducted by Mastermind who had been manipulating the X-Men for months as revenge by having Madelyne appear as the Phoenix. Storm summons a violent storm which defeats Mastermind and nearly kills Madelyne, but Scott resuscitates her. After the conflict, Scott comes to terms with the fact that Jean is dead and that Madelyne is someone else, and that Scott loves her all the same. The two are married, and Scott retires from active duty with the X-Men.Anodyne
Scott giving up the life of an adventurer for Madelyne proves harder than imagined. Early in Madelyne and Scott's marriage, they are taken to an abandoned city by Loki. Entirely for his own purposes, Loki bestows mystical powers on a small group of non-powered humans, including Madelyne, giving her the ability to heal virtually any injury, illness, psychological issue, or physical defect. She adopts the name Anodyne and cures Scott's childhood head injury, enabling him to control his optic blasts without the use of ruby-quartz lenses. She also removes Aurora's dissociative identity disorder and Wolverine's berserker rage. When it is discovered that Loki's gifts are extremely flawed and fatal to some, everyone assembled rejects the gift. Madelyne and the other beneficiaries are reverted to the original states, as are all those who had been healed by Madelyne. During this adventure, Madelyne reveals that she is pregnant.Abandonment
Going into premature labor, Madelyne gives birth to Nathan Summers alone in the X-Mansion. Sensing a reluctance on Scott's part to retire to family life, the powerless Storm challenges Scott to a duel for leadership of the team, which Storm wins. This in effect forces Scott to accept his role as a husband and father.Although Scott tries to live a normal family life in Alaska, he often thinks of Jean and of life with the X-Men. Maddie tries her best to make Scott happy, but her efforts seem wasted. Finally Scott receives a call from former teammate Angel that Jean has been found alive. Without explanation, Scott abandons Madelyne and Nathan to reunite with Jean, and forms X-Factor with old friends from the original X-Men. Madelyne and Nathan are then attacked by the Marauders; Nathan is kidnapped and Madelyne left for dead, but survives and is hospitalized as a "Jane Doe". The guilt-wracked and increasingly unstable Scott returned home to find the house empty, and all records of Madelyne's and Nathan's existence erased.
Alone and threatened, Madelyne calls the X-Men for help and fight off another attack by the Marauders. Despairing from Scott's absence and of Nathan's fate, she contemplates suicide. Havok talks her out of it, and the two of them grow closer. With the Marauders still after her, she stays with the X-Men, and the group sacrifice their lives to stop the Adversary from remaking the world in Fall of the Mutants. A reporter video-interviews them before their death, and Maddie uses this to deliver a message to Scott, pleading that Scott find their child. With the world thinking the X-Men dead, Madelyne and the X-Men are resurrected by the Omniversal Guardian Roma and begin working secretly out of the Reavers' abandoned base in Australia. Madelyne serves as the team's technical support.
Demonic corruption and origins revealed
Monitoring news transmissions, Madelyne learns that Jean is alive and with Scott. She punches the computer monitor's screen, breaking it and causing electrical feedback that renders her unconscious. The Limbo demon S'ym invades Madelyne's mind during her unconscious state and puts her through a traumatic Nightmare Sequence, until she runs into S'ym offering her a deal to become more than she had been and shows her images of a girl, a pilot, a woman, and a demon, which reflects what she was, is, and what she dreams to become. Thinking this all is just a dream, Madelyne chooses the demon, whereupon S'ym stabs her with a finger. She falls unconscious, dressed in a cropped black leather shirt, leather loincloth, and thigh-high Combat Stiletto boots, thus reflecting her eventual change into the Goblin Queen.Afterwards, she keeps the existence of the original X-Men as X-Factor secret from the others, filtering only information and news showing X-Factor as an anti-mutant group. Later abducted by the Genoshans and taken to the island-nation, Madelyne is subjected to psychic torture intended to transform her into a docile slave of the state. Madelyne instinctively lashes out with her developing abilities, and thus causes the deaths of her torturers. In the recorded images of the psychic probe performed on Madelyne, a connection is made to the Phoenix Force, and her attire reflects again her eventual change into the Goblin Queen. Shortly after being rescued by the X-Men, Madelyne strikes a bargain with N'astirh to find the Marauders and return Nathan to her. During this time, she and Alex become lovers.
Image:MadelynePryor.jpg|180px|thumb|right|Madelyne Pryor as the Goblin Queen. Art by Marc Silvestri.
To keep the end of their bargain, N'astirh takes Madelyne to the orphanage in Nebraska where Scott had grown up, actually a front for Mister Sinister's genetic laboratory. Sinister appears and tells Madelyne about her origins. When Sinister learned about Jean, the former planned to take the girl to the orphanage but Charles Xavier had already approached and started to work with the young girl. Sinister only managed to acquire a blood and tissue sample from which a clone was created. However, the clone had no life and failed to develop any mutant powers, so Sinister left the clone in her incubation tube as a failed experiment. However, a part of the Phoenix Force entered and awakened the clone, giving her sentience. This renewed Sinister's interest in her, named her as a pun on her prior existence, created a false background, implanted memories, a personality designed to attract Scott, and conceived a plan to use the clone to facilitate selective breeding between her and Scott. He then planted her with Scott's grandparents' company, thus ensuring the two would eventually meet. Jean's return threatened to cause the truth about Madelyne to be uncovered if the two were to meet, so Sinister tasked the Marauders with killing Madelyne and bringing Nathan, the fruit of Sinister's scheme.
Broken in spirit and reduced to insanity by these revelations, when N'astirh gives Nathan back to her, Madelyne willingly decides to aid the demon in the "Inferno" invasion of Earth. Returning to New York City during the invasion, she confronts X-Factor. When the X-Men arrive, Madelyne manipulates the teams against each other at first, and convinces Alex to join her. X-Factor and the other X-Men work together to defeat N'astirh. Madelyne refuses to stop, forcing the heroes to overwhelm her. Cyclops is unable to act because most of her accusations are true. Cyclops rescues Nathan, but Madelyne commits suicide in an attempt to telepathically take Jean with her. The Phoenix Force appears to Jean and offers to save the latter, but in order to survive Jean has to integrate the essence of both the Phoenix and Madelyne, gaining their memories and personalities. Mister Sinister attempts to entrap all of the X-Men and X-Factor in Madelyne's dying mind, but forced to choose between having revenge either on the X-Men or Sinister, Madelyne ejects Sinister from her mind. With her personality influencing Jean's, she then prompts the X-Men and X-Factor to attempt lethal retribution against Sinister.
Jean, having inherited Madelyne's maternal feelings for Nathan, becomes a proxy mother until Apocalypse infected Nathan with a techno-organic virus, resulting in the child taken 2,000 years into the future by Askani to be saved.