- Height- 5'6"
- Weight- 110 lbs
- Eyes- Green
- Hair- Red
When Jean Grey first manifested her powers, she withdrew into herself and her parents consulted many specialists to get Jean out of her catatonic state. As soon as Mr. Sinister learned of Jean, he planned to eliminate her parents and take the girl to his orphanage, but Charles Xavier had already approached them and started to work with the young girl. Sinister could only acquire a blood and tissue sample and tried to clone the mutant. Years later, when the clone was already beyond puberty, he was disappointed as she did not manifest any mutant talents. 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.
Sinister sent Pryor to Alaska and placed her in a job as a pilot for North Star Airways, the air freight company run by Scott Summers' grandparents, Philip and Deborah Summers. The two met during a Summers family reunion and quickly began a relationship. Mystery however surrounded her from the beginning: not only did she bear a striking resemblance to Scott's dead love, Jean Grey/Phoenix, but was the sole survivor of an airplane crash that occurred the same day Phoenix died on the moon. In addition, Professor X was unable to scan her mind (which, he noted, was occasionally possible among normal humans). 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.
Giving up the life of an adventurer proved harder for Scott than imagined. Early in Madelyne and Scott's marriage, they (along with Alpha Flight and the rest of the X-Men) would have a brief but dramatic encounter with the Norse trickster-god Loki. Entirely for his own purposes, Loki magically endowed mystical powers on a small group of normal humans. His magic fountain could transform ordinary people into super-powered beings and Madelyne became a mystical healer of virtually any injury, illness, or physical-defect known as "Anodyne". Among Madelyne's acts of healing were giving Rogue and Scott control of their powers and making Alpha Flight’s Puck a normal sized man again. 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.
Madelyne had a son who she named Nathan (the name an implanted suggestion by Mister Sinister). Shortly after the infant was born, Cyclops and his fellow X-Man Storm held a competition to determine which of them would be leader of the X-Men. As yet, Pryor was unaware of her own superhuman powers. However, she did not want Scott to divide his time between her and the X-Men, so she unconsciously used her own awakening powers to influence the contest. As a result, Scott lost, and he went to live with Madelyne and the baby in Anchorage, Alaska. 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-MenEdit
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 afterward, 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 broadcast 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 afterward, 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, were growing closer; both of them were lonely — Alex himself had lost his long-time lover Polaris, whose body had been taken over by the Marauder Malice.
Maddie learned that Jean Grey was alive and with Scott. Seeing the evidence of Scott's betrayal, Madelyne punched theand 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 to help her 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 and taken by force to-nation, Madelyne was subjected to psychic torture intended to transform her into a docile state. Madelyne instinctively lashed out with some powerful subconscious abilities that 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 helped her change into the Goblin Queen, while Genosha's Genegineer appeer's outfitted 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 powers fully activated into the Goblin Queen during the Inferno crossover.
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.
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, 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. He 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 TwelveEdit
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 is 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.
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.
Sisterhood of MutantsEdit
She has assembled a team consisting of Spiral, Lady Deathstrike, Regan Wyngarde, Martinique Jason 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 and AbilitiesEdit
Since Madelyne was cloned from Jean Grey's DNA, she was essentially another version of Jean, and possessed Jean's telekinetic and telepathic abilities. However her lack of experience and the specialised training, which Jean had received from Charles Xavier, made her slightly weaker.
Telepathy: powers to manipulate the minds of others and even higher order animals within a vast, potentially limitless radius. Her notable powers include:
Telepathic Cloak: powers to mask her presence from being detected by others. Her abilities can at times go undetected or be counteracted by other more powerful telepaths depending on their level of skill in using their own psi abilities. She can extend these defenses to others around her as well.
Psionic Shield: powers to erect a psychic shield for protection of herself and of others minds.
Telepathic Camouflage: powers to mask herself, and other peoples' presence from those around her. Can telepathically disguise herself, making her appearance to those around her quite different (changing the appearance of clothing, as well as more involved disguising).
Mind Control: powers to control the minds of others upon mere concentration.
Mind Possession: powers to possess the mind of another, and use that beings body as her own.
Mind Alteration: powers to alter the minds of others by force of will, changing their personality partially or entirely.
Telepathic Illusions: powers to create realistic telepathic illusions and cause people to experience events which are not actually occurring.
Mental Paralysis: powers to induce temporary mental or physical paralysis.
Mental Amnesia: powers to erase any awareness of particular memories or cause total amnesia.
Psionic Blasts: powers to project psionic force bolts which have no physical effects but which can affect a victim's mind so as to cause the victim pain or unconsciousness and turning someone brain-dead.
Mind Transferal: powers to transfer both her mind and powers into other host bodies if her own physical body could be somehow killed.
Mental Detection: powers to sense the presence of another superhuman mutant within a small but as yet undefined radius of herself by perceiving the distinctive mental radiations emitted by such a being.
Induce Pain: powers to induce mental pain merely by touching the brow of her victim.
Cloak Mind: powers to rearrange the “mental engrams” of mutants so their distinctive mutant though patterns cannot be detected by Cerebro-type devises or by other telepaths.
Mind Link: powers to develop a mental link with any person which remains as a connection to that individual.
Psionic Siphoning: powers to siphon the psychic energies from other psionic mutants. She could then use the stolen psychic energy to boost her own powers or channel the energy into someone else (usually Nate Grey) to temporarily increase their psionic abilities.
Telekinesis: powers to manipulate matter and energy, and to some extent energy, psionically. She can levitate herself in order to fly at high speeds or merely hover, manipulate matter on a molecular level, project telekinetic shields capable of withstanding missile blasts, create objects of pure psionic force, focus her mental energy at a specific target in order she can release devastating force blasts, and control the biological functions of other lifeforms including other humans.
Dark Psyche: powers to release the dark side of a person's personality, and make them evil.
Astral projection: powers to project her astral form from her body onto astral planes or the physical planes. In the physical plane she can travel in astral form over vast distances. In the astral plane, she can mentally create psionic objects and manipulate the aspects of her environment. She can communicate with others astrally through her own will, or through contact with the thoughts and memories of others.
Astral Teleportation: powers to teleport over long distances by psychokinetically shunting herself in and out of the astral plane (she was also shown to be able to carry additional weight, such as another person, when she teleported, but her limits were never fully tested).
Telekinesis: Possesses telekinetic abilities enabling her to manipulate matter and energy, and to some extent energy, psionically. She can levitate herself in order to fly at high speeds or merely hover, manipulate matter on a molecular level, project telekinetic shields capable of withstanding missile blasts, create objects of pure psionic force, focus her mental energy at a specific target in order she can release devastating force blasts, and control the biological functions of other lifeforms including other humans.
Sorcery: possesses considerable magical abilities, having gained a great deal of mystical knowledge while as the goblin queen. She may also have learned some magic from Selene. The number of magical effects that she can create has yet to be cataloged, but it is known that she can cast and counteract spells and summon extra-dimensional demons.
Reality Warping: powers to bend the quantum strings that make up reality within a localized area.
Goblin Force: powers to tap into dark sorcery allowing her to summon various goblins, demons and other entities.
Phoenix spark: It is strongly hinted in X-Man #33 that Madelyne is indeed a living spark of the Phoenix which explains why Nate was able to psionically recreate her, though she is in truth only a living mass of psionic energy.
Psychic vampirism: Though it is not confirmed in the pages of X-Man it is strongly hinted that Madelyne either learned new powers from Selene or stole some of her powers. The ability to teleport, and the ability to drain mutants energies were both examples of Selene's influence. This was further hinted at in X-Man #52 when she was shown to be aged and withered after over-exerting her powers much like Selene.
Madelyne was a skilled pilot.
Goblin carriage driven by N'astirh.
- Certain memories that Madelyne believed were her own were actually from Jean's past. They were transferred to Madelyne's mind when the Phoenix Force found her.
- Madelyne was a pilot for North Star Airways, an air freight company owned by Philip Summers (Cyclops' grandfather).
- Madelyne and Scott honeymooned on a fictional South Pacific island called Boragora. This is probably a nod to the short-lived TV series "Tales of the Gold Monkey" which took place on and island with the same name.
- Madelyne gave birth to Nathan by herself in the X Mansion.
- Given that Madelyne had some of Jean Grey's memories due to the Phoenix fragment that awoke her, it is probable that her piloting skills were inherited from when Jean "downloaded" Peter Corbeau's piloting skills in Uncanny X-Men # 100.