Introduction
When Madelyne Pryor attempted to find a body for her incorporeal spirit, she assembled a team of the X-Men’s most deadly villainesses to help her do her bidding.
First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #499
Last Appearance: Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #511 (disbanded off panel after Madelyne Pryor was defeated)
All Appearances: Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #499, 501-504, 508-511
Roster: Madelyne Pryor aka Red Queen (leader), Spiral, Lady Mastermind, Mastermind III, Lady Deathstrike, Chimera, Psylocke
Associates: Empath, Revanche/Kwannon
Before
- During Inferno, Madelyne Pryor, the clone of Jean Grey, had given herself over to the Goblin Force and became the Golbin Queen. However, before she could take revenge against the X-Men, she was killed by the real Jean. Though dead, Madelyne endured and she later appeared to her alternate reality son X-Man as a psychic construct without a real body.
- Spiral worked alongside Mojo and operated the Body Shoppe, a place that augmented people’s body and mind with technology.
- Lady Mastermind was seemingly killed on Muir Island in the final battle for control over the messiah baby. [Messiah Complex crossover]
- Mastermind III was so traumatized by the mass de-powerment on M-Day that she became amnesiac. She inadvertently blanketed the whole of San Francisco with an illusion of a 1960’s-era world until the X-Men came and stopped her. She regained her memories and escaped before she was caught. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #496-499]
- Chimera was apparently killed by M-Plate. [Generation X #38]
- Lady Deathstrike was seemingly killed by X-23. [Messiah Complex crossover]
- Psylocke was a member of the reality-hopping team of the Exiles. Many years before, she’d had her mind placed into the body of the Japanese assassin named Kwannon. Psylocke’s original body, containing the mind of Kwannon, died of the Legacy Virus leaving, Psylocke stuck in Kwannon’s body.
- The X-Men had briefly disbanded after the death of Professor X but decided to reform after the events involving Mastermind III in San Francisco.
- Jean Grey was killed in battle. [New X-Men (1st series) #150]
Chronology
|
Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #499 |
As Martinique Jason, aka Mastermind III, fled from the X-Men in San Francisco, she is approached by Madelyne Pryor and recruited into the Sisterhood. |
|
Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #501-502 |
Madelyne decides to cause a little chaos on the X-Men’s new home of San Francisco. She uses her powers to coerce Empath into working for her. He uses his emotion controlling powers to manipulate groups of men into attacking mutants and anyone who sympathizes with them. The X-Men soon track Empath down and Madelyne abandons him to his fate. |
|
Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #503 |
Madelyne travels to Madripoor and enlists Chimera into the Sisterhood. Afterwards, she briefly appears to her former husband Cyclops but vanishes before he can talk to her. |
|
Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #504 |
Spiral and Lady Deathstrike are brought into the group. |
|
Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #508 |
The last member of the team, Lady Mastermind, is recruited and Madelyne starts enacted her plan. To be fully reborn into this world again, she needs a body to inhabit, but it must be compatible with her and the only candidate is Jean Grey’s body. Since the spell she will use is risky, she decides to test out first. She uses magic to bring Psylocke back to Earth 616 from across the multiverse and then sends the Sisterhood to retrieve Psylocke’s original body from its grave in Japan. Spiral, Chimera and Lady Deathstrike dig up the body but are disturbed by Domino. They escape with the body but Chimera is stabbed with a sword. As a demonstration of her abilities, Madelyne uses her magic to heal Chimera. The team then cast a spell and heals Psylocke’s original body before putting her mind back in it again. |
|
Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #509-510 |
Madelyne easily brainwashes the confused Psylocke and explains the next stage of her plan to the group. The full team launches an attack on the X-Men’s base under the cover of darkness. Empath, in the X-Men’s brig, uses his power to subdue most of the mutant team whilst Lady Mastermind traps more of them in an illusion. As the rest of the team attacks, Madelyne locates Wolverine’s room and steals a small box containing a locket of Jean Grey’s hair. As the X-Men start to fight back, the team retreats, having acquired what they went there for. |
|
Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #511 |
Using the hair as a talisman, Madelyne sets out to find Jean Grey’s body. She leaves Mastermind, Psylocke and Lady Mastermind at their base to distract the X-Men, who are on their way. Madelyne locates the body in the graveyard of the X-Mansion but she discovers Domino has beaten her to it and dug the grave up already. The rest of the X-Men arrive and take on the Sisterhood. Madelyne avoids the fight and tries to cast the spell to put her mind in Jean’s body. However, the spell goes wrong and she realizes Domino switched the bodies and it is not Jean’s. Madelyne cannot hold herself in the new body and seemingly dissipates away. When Spiral sees what happened, she grabs Chimera and Lady Deathstrike and teleports away to collect the two Masterminds. |
Afterwards
- Without a leader, the Sisterhood disbanded.
- Madelyne Pryor eventually got her wish and was resurrected by the Enchantress and joined another incarnation of the Sisterhood. [X-Men (4th series) #11-12]
- Spiral would later earn the wrath of Mojo and be cast out of the Mojoverse. She teamed up with Storm’s X-Force team as they took on Cassandra Nova. [Uncanny X-Force (2nd series)]
- Lady Mastermind teamed up with Mystique and Sabretooth to attack the X-Men. [All-New X-Men (1st series) #12-14].
- Mastermind III was next seen sitting in prison for unknown crimes. [Cable and X-Force #9]
- Chimera became part of Mister Sinister’s new group of Marauders [Extraordinary X-Men #1-4]
- During the final battle, Psylocke’s original body was damaged once more but she managed to put her mind back into Kwannon’s again. Kwannon’s body was completely destroyed by Matsu’o Tsurayaba, causing Psylocke to kill him in revenge.
- Empath was blinded by Pixie during the Sisterhood’s attack. He was moved to the island base of Utopia until the time when all the prisoners were freed during the island’s destruction.
- Lady Deathstrike went on to collect the Reavers back together and attack the X-Men’s base. [Uncanny X-Force (2nd series) #5.1] She would later be a key figure in forming the second iteration of the Sisterhood. [X-Men (4th series) #7-12]
Members
Red Queen (Madelyne Pryor-Summers)
First appearance: Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #168
All Sisterhood appearances: Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #499, 501-504, 508-511
Powers: Post-human insubstantial psionic entity able to manifest powers of telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, and material/spiritual manipulation to restore dead tissue and control the transmigration of souls, effectively bringing the dead back to life.
Mastermind III (Martinique Jason)
First appearance: Gambit/Wolverine – Victims #2
All Sisterhood appearances: Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #499, 501-504, 508-511
Powers: Telepathic abilities allow her to assimilate the thoughts and memories of others, stimulate different portions of their brains to elicit reactions such as fear, hatred or lust, and incorporate these manipulations into psychic illusions to create elaborate and convincing false realities.
Chimera
First appearance: Wolverine (2nd series) #97
All Sisterhood appearances: Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #503-504, 508-511
Powers: Cast ectoplasmic dragons from her hands that can lift and manipulate matter or strike with psychic poisons and a neuroelectric charge when they "bite".
Spiral (Rita Wayword)
First appearance: Longshot #1 (As Spiral), #2 (As Rita Wayword)
All Sisterhood appearances: Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #504, 508-511
Powers: Genetically-engineered with bio-cyberonic implants that gave her six arms, heightened strength, agility, stamina, reflexes, and developed the ability to weave magical spells through movements and dancing, allowing her to sense and manipulate energy patterns, fire concussive blasts, negate superhuman powers, teleport through time and space, render herself and others invisible, paralyze nervous systems, cast defensive barriers, etc. She also runs a Body Shoppe, which contains alien devices capable of rebuilding beings into new physical and mental states.
Lady Deathstrike (Yuriko Oyama)
First appearance: Daredevil (1st series) #197
All Sisterhood appearances: Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #504, 508-511
Powers: Bio-cyberonically altered by Spiral's Body Shoppe to gain augmented strength, speed, agility, stamina, and reflexes, computer enhanced senses, nano-regenerative capabilities, extendible forearms and Adamantium fingernails
Lady Mastermind (Regan Wyngarde)
First appearance: Xtreme X-Men (1st series) #6
All Sisterhood appearances: Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #508-511
Powers: Telepathic abilities allow her to probe the thoughts and memories of others, induce specific reactions such as hallucinations, unconsciousness, or a fugue state, formulate psychic illusions that create elaborate and convincing false realities, and resist other forms of mental manipulation.
Psylocke (Elizabeth Braddock)
First appearance: Captain Britain (1st series) #8
All Sisterhood appearances: Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #508-511
Powers: Telepathic and telekinetic abilities, often expressed through a psychic knife or katana that serves as the focused totality of her powers.
Note: Psylocke was the only member of the Sisterhood to be brainwashed into joining.