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  • infinityson FULL SYNOPSIS (Part 1) // As the Blackbird cruises over the Atlantic, another private jet owned by the Hellfire Club transports Jason Wyngarde to the States as well. He causes Jean to experience hallucinations of being an 18th century noblewoman who is in love with his own ancestor. Jean thinks that her Phoenix abilities may be causing her to experience actual timeslips, perhaps experiencing the life of an ancestor of hers. Cerebro alerts them to the existence of two new mutants whose powers have manifested, one in Chicago and the other in New York. The Professor mobilizes the X-Men to investigate the two new mutants: he will lead half the team to Chicago while Scott takes the other half to New York. The team is unaware that they are being spied on by the inner circle of the Hellfire Club, which includes Jason Wyngarde. The shadowy members of the Hellfire Club want to acquire these mutants before the X-Men do. The Club’s White Queen is dispatched to deal with the one in Chicago, while Jason Wyngarde is sent to deal with the one in New York. In the suburb of Deerfield, Kitty Pryde returns home from ballet practice to find her parents meeting with Ms. Emma Frost, who is headmistress of the exclusive Massachusetts Academy. Kitty lays down on her bed upstairs to rest as a migraine hits her. After enduring the pain for a few moments, she opens her eyes to find herself on the floor of the living room! Baffled, she rushes back up to her room just as her parents see Ms. Frost out and welcome their next visitors: Charles Xavier, accompanied by Ororo, Piotr and Logan. Like Ms. Frost, Xavier is seeking Kitty as a student at his own school. Kitty spies on Xavier and his students and decides they are much more interesting. While Charles talks with Kitty’s parents, the rest of the team take her down to a coffee shop to get acquainted. Three armored mercenaries barrel through the storefront window and attack the three X-Men. Each of the X-Men’s attackers has find that they has armor specially equipped to neutralize their abilities. As the fight erupts, Kitty cringes in fear and is extremely surprised when she passes right through the outside wall, landing in the alleyway behind the shop. Before she can fully comprehend what happened, she passes out. The X-Men are then struck down by a powerful psionic bolt from the White Queen and she takes Kitty. // (X-Men #129)
  • infinityson FULL SYNOPSIS (Part 2) // Cyclops, Phoenix and Nightcrawler investigate a Manhattan dance club to seek out the mutant detected by Cerebro. Cyclops orders Nightcrawler to stay outside and remain on the lookout from the shadows for trouble, while he and Jean search the nightclub for the new mutant. Jean is confronted by Jason Wyngarde and instantly finds herself experiencing another "timeslip", seemingly living the past life of an ancestor once more. She finds herself in a burnt-out church in the middle of a wedding ceremony between her and Jason, with Sebastian Shaw presiding. After they have exchanged vows, Wyngarde removes Jean's wedding dress to unveil her as the Black Queen. As the assembled guests cheer, she lustily kisses Jason. Just as suddenly as it began, Jean finds herself back in the present but kissing the modern day Wyngarde right in front of Scott. Before Jean can even begin to explain what happened, the club's musical act takes the stage amid an amazing pyrotechnic light show. She is a singer known as Dazzler, the mutant they are seeking. Hellfire Club soldiers burst into the club and a fight breaks out. Another soldier and Nightcrawler crash through the skylight. // (X-Men #130)
  • infinityson FULL SYNOPSIS (Part 3) // When Xavier and his team regain consciousness, they return to the school and use Cerebro to locate Kitty again. The rest of the team are told to meet them at Frost Industries in Chicago. A battle erupts between the X-Men and the Hellfire Club soldiers. Jean and Ororo search inside and find the White Queen, outraged and threatening to wipe Kitty's mind clean, leaving her a drooling zombie. Before she can carry out this threat, however, Phoenix confronts her and challenges her to a one-on-one duel. Phoenix quickly overpowers her opponent but Ororo is nevertheless unnerved by Jean's show of power. Outside, the other X-Men have dealt with the rest of the troops and are searching for Phoenix and Storm when suddenly the complex explodes. Cyclops momentarily fears the worst, but then Phoenix emerges with Storm and Kitty in tow, all unharmed. They take Kitty home and her frantic parents emerge from the house. They demands answers from Xavier about what they’ve been doing with his daughter all night but then they quite abruptly change their tone and invite them all inside to discuss the school. Professor X appears as baffled by the about-face as everyone else. Jean confesses to Scott that she used her telepathic powers to alter the Pryde’s thinking and make them agree to let Kitty study at Xavier's school. Alone with Ororo, Scott expresses his fears that Jean is using her powers far too casually. Ororo agrees and confesses that she was terrified to see the Phoenix at full force in her battle with the White Queen. As they rejoin the others, Storm believes that something, or someone, is exerting an unnatural influence on Jean. // (X-Men #131)
  • infinityson FULL SYNOPSIS (Part 4) // Following their near defeat by the White Queen and fearing that the mansion is no longer safe for them, Cyclops takes the team to the former X-Man Angel's aerie in New Mexico. Cyclops recounts the X-Men's recent adventure and states that they were targeted by a group called the Hellfire Club. Warren finds this hard to believe as he and his girlfriend are members of the Hellfire Club. He organizes invitations for Scott, Jean, Piotr, and Ororo to attend a prestigious party within the club. As they enter the party and try to blend in, they are spotted on the club’s security monitors by the Hellfire Club's inner circle. Shaw tells Wyngarde this is his chance to prove that he has full control over Jean Grey and sends him out into the party. Sure enough, as Scott and Jean are dancing, Wyngarde cuts in and sweeps Jean off into another one of his illusions. She instantly believes she’s in the 18th century and that Wyngarde is the love of her life, ignoring the perplexed Scott. Wyngarde takes Jean upstairs and Scott follows after them, until he is blasted by Jean who has now been transformed into the Black Queen and is under Mastermind's full control. Hearing Scott's scream of pain over the crowd, Storm and Colossus run upstairs and encounter Shaw. Colossus learns the hard way that he can absorb any physical attack inflicted on him and Shaw easily defeats him. Storm manages to escape by creating a thick fog to obscure his vision. Down in the basement, Wolverine and Nightcrawler emerge from the sewers only to be attacked by Pierce and Leland. Upstairs, Storm is tracked down by Shaw who easily defeats her in hand-to-hand combat. // (X-Men #132)
  • infinityson FULL SYNOPSIS (Part 5) // The X-Men are the shackled prisoners of the Hellfire Club’s inner circle, who celebrate not only their victory over the X-Men, but the addition of Jean Grey to their ranks as their new Black Queen. With a ruby quartz muzzle covering his head, Cyclops puzzles over how Mastermind was able to take control of Jean. She sees the X-Men not as her friends but as several captured thieves who have betrayed her. Cyclops recalls a psychic rapport between him and Jean and tries to telepathically communicate with her through it in an attempt to shake Jean free of Mastermind’s control. Scott’s mind is transported to the astral plane. To his dismay, he finds his own image transformed into a colonial-era outfit and that Jean appears as the Black Queen as well. He’s stunned, though, when Jason Wyngarde appears as well despite the fact that Scott knows Mastermind has no telepathic abilities. The two get into a sword fight which ends with Mastermind stabbing Scott through the chest with his sword. In the real world, the X-Men watch in horror as Cyclops suddenly keels over. // (X-Men #133)
  • infinityson FULL SYNOPSIS (Part 6) // Cyclops manages to regain consciousness, albeit as a prisoner still, while Wyngarde gloats that he has permanently severed the link between Scott and Jean. Wolverine bursts through the door and Wyngarde orders Jean to attack Wolverine. Although she pretends to comply, her attack on Wolverine is merely a distraction while she unlocks the ruby-quartz muzzle on Cyclops’s head and loosens his shackles. In short order, Cyclops pummels the muzzle with his optic blast, which causes it to fly off his face and clock Pierce in the back of the head. Cyclops next blasts Leland, knocking him through a door, over a banister and down to the floor of the ground level. He then quickly blasts the shackles off his team-mates, freeing them. A cocky Shaw reminds Cyclops that any attack on him only makes him stronger but Cyclops surprises Shaw, blasting at the floor beneath him indyrsf, sending him falling out of the room. In the ballroom, Cyclops tries to calm the party goers down. With everyone else preoccupied with fights, Mastermind attempts to flee but an unusually intense Jean has been lurking nearby, waiting for him to reveal himself. In the ensuing confrontation, Jean acts fundamentally different. Despite being aligned with the X-Men once more, she is cold and vicious in her actions. A terrified Mastermind is forced to confess that the White Queen devised a “mindtap mechanism” to enable him to access Jean’s mind. Although she is darkly amused, she destroys the device. Jean opens up his mind to the vastness of the universe, flooding his consciousness with more information than a normal human mind can comprehend. Mastermind completely shuts down and she leaves him in a drooling, catatonic state. Cyclops finds Jean and immediately senses something is gravely wrong with her. The X-Men board a small hovercraft they left hidden in Central Park. Cyclops is in a hurry to get Jean to Professor X, realizing that something is very wrong with her. Meanwhile, Jean feels herself succumbing to the dark forces that Mastermind has unleashed within her. From the air, the X-Men see police cars converging on the Hellfire Club mansion. They are then startled to see Jean, now in a darker version of her Phoenix attire. It’s clear that Jean’s mind has been overtaken by the dark side of the Phoenix force. Suddenly, the X-Men's hover-craft explodes in mid-air. Miraculously, the X-Men survive the explosion and with quick thinking manage to make it safely to ground with only minor injuries but Jean is nowhere to be seen. // (X-Men #134)

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