A MATTER OF PRYOR POTENTIAL
                         by Grant Cooley-Cruger

       Many times in life, those driving forces that lead mankind on, are
the very things that are  just beyond our reach. Such things may be the
scorned love of the opposite (or same) sex, that car that is just out of
affordibility's reach, or even the very foundations upon which the
universe is built. More often than not unfortunately, those very things
should not be attained, but should be dangled, like a carrot to an ass, in
order to keep the person motivated and moving. In the critically acclaimed
comic book, the Uncanny X-Men, the long-running character of Madelyne
Pryor discovers this truth at the cost of her own life. If Madelyne had,
like the man in John Keats's "Le Belle Dames Sans Merci", been denied what
she thought she wanted more than all else, then her life and her role as
an X-Man would have continued and evolved her into something more. As is
however, she succumbed to her desires, and like many people in real life,
fell along the wayside as well.
        In "Le Belle Dames sans Merci", the story of a faerie lover and
her human counterpart is revealed. The human walks through the night until
he finds his fey woman waiting for his embrace upon the hill. After their
procreatively challenged coupling, the man always asks her to return with
him, so that he may wed her and cherish her at all times. And with the
same regularity, she refuses. For what she realizes is that he means to
possess her, though not in a malevolent way, and that as long as she will
visit him only on occasion, their magical dance will continue. It is upon
this premise that perhaps the title is a misnomer.
        In a presentation titled "Le Belle Dames Avec Merci", English
Professor, Dr. Tim Wolf, challenges this topic. As the name implies, Dr.
Wolf believes that this is the story of a beautiful woman who, although
she is without mercy, is "taunting" the man for his own good. According to
Wolf, it is the longing for this maiden (though considering their
activities she seems no longer so), that keeps this man's otherwise dismal
and religiously downtrodden life going. Dr. Wolf pointed out that " if she
did go home with him and become his wife, after the short-lived
excitement, she would have ended up cooking him dinner, and bringing him
and the guys beers and chips". Whereas this is a rather comical and
updated image, the reality of requited desire lends truth to this image.
The point of this argument is that it is the chase, or the hunt that is
the truly magnificent experience, not the prize attained at the end. Even
though each night the man may never see or feel her again, the
anticipation of he event will stir up all of the wonderful feelings and
memories. Whereas this story can be observed in its continuance, the tale
of Madelyne Pryor is much more final.
        To tell the tale of Madelyne Pryor, a good bit of history must be
recalled.
        It all began when the X-Men, in a meteor damaged shuttle, were
reentering Earth's atmosphere from a space station where they had been
imprisoned. Solar radiation was leaking into the pilot's chamber leaving
their resident telekinetic/telepath, Jean Grey, a.k.a. Marvel Girl, to
take them home under her tek shields. The issue, #202, ends with the plane
crashing into some body of water. Jean Grey was a crispy critter, so they
believed, and all were panicking. Up pops Jean wearing a new costume,
wielding new powers, and proclaiming that now and forever more, she was
The Pheonix. Time progresses, the X-Men evolve as a team, and Jean and
Scott Summers, a.k.a. Cyclops, the longtime and original leader of the
X-Men, fall in love.
        Then the power that Jean possesses begins to corrupt her.
        This process began at the intervention of a group of malevolent
mutants, called the Hellfire Club. When all is said and done, Dark
Pheonix, as she is known throughout the galaxy, has destroyed a planet and
is fighting alongside the X-Men for her life on the moon's surface. Rather
than destroy anymore of those she loves, she commits suicide and there is
much railing at God and the wind by all. Scott leaves the X-Men, and tries
to start leading a normal life.
        Then came Madelyne.
        Madelyne Pryor was first introduced as a character in Uncanny
X-Men issue number 168. From this point forward she will be treated like a
real character. Madelyne was the pilot of a cargo ship that belonged to
Scott's grandparents.  The reason that their meeting was of any note or
interest, lies in Madelyne's appearance. She was a direct look alike of
Jean Grey, Scott's now-dead fiancee. Furthermore after the initial shock
wears off and they begin a normal relationship, Maddie (Madelyne's
friendly nickname), reveals that she has no memory of anything prior to a
plane crash that she had been the sole survivor of; a plane crash that
happened on the day that Jean Grey had died on the dark, and ancient side
of the moon. They discuss things, and decide that they have a chance at
something special.
        Everything was progressing normally as the issues rolled on, until
issue 175, when Scott asks her if she is the Pheonix reborn from the ashes
of the plane. Whoops. She decks him and stalks off. When he tries to
follow her, he gets hit by one of Jean Grey's patented psi-bolts. Out
walks Maddie looking like Dark Pheonix and for all intents and purposes,
acting the same. A battle ensues, and it is revealed that it was all a
complex illusion that had been set by one of the Hellfire Club's members,
Jason Wyngarde. He had just been using Madelyne to hurt the team. Even
though her life had been at stake, Maddie agrees to get married to Cyclops
shortly afterwards. After that, other than a brief giant squid attack on
their honeymoon, Scott and Maddie fade into the background for awhile.
        In the midst of their reverie, the two find themselves in the
Arctic in an Asgardian stronghold where mutant powers are normal, and
Maddie herself is gifted with healing powers. Although they, along with
the X-Men and Canada's Alpha Flight reject this gift for story line
purposes, they also discover that Maddie is pregnant. When their child is
born, Scott battles for leadership of the X-Men and fails. At this point
Maddie begins to feel rejected and hurt because Scott refuses to be happy
with just her. Once again they fade away. Maddie resurfaces in a San
Fransisco hospital, damaged, alone, and without any proof that she exists.
The X-Men rescue her from an evil band of mutants called the Marauders.
Nobody knows where Scott or the baby are, so Maddie stays with her
X-Friends. Even though she is surrounded by friends to whom it doesn't
matter, Maddie starts to wish she had some power, so that she may be of
benefit to the group.
        Now is where the fun begins.
        Once again, the X-Men's story line sweeps Madelyne up placing her
dead with the team in Dallas. That is what the world sees anyway. Instead
they survive, and relocate to Australia. Maddie is now cut off from the
world and alone with nothing to contribute to the X-Men. They put her in
charge of the computers and communications so she'll have something to do.
Before too long, while watching a newscast, Maddie views Scott, and a
woman who looks exactly like Madelyne, holding hands as members of the
mutant hunting group, X-Factor. The console suddenly explodes, and all
sorts of stuff hits the fan. Madelyne enters a prophetic dream state
wherein a demon offers her power if she merely seeks revenge against
Scott. The dream shifts to an image of a blank person devoid of all
feature. Scott appears and begins taking Madelyne's features and placing
them on the clean slate, leaving Maddie now truly naked. Scott and the
newly recreated dream form of Jean Grey disappear leaving Maddie facing a
fork in the road. One path leads off into the desert, and the other back
to the town the X-Men live in.
        Madelyne chooses desolation and the means to her own damnation.
        From then on, Madelyne begins to acquire her own unique
personality that is far from the original. She seduces Havok, Scott's
brother Alex, and begins to take real-life jaunts to limbo to visit
demons. Madelyne's tale comes to a boil when she, along with demonic
influences, turn most of Manhattan into a demonic hell where even
mailboxes attack. This is issue 238 for those who care. Whereas the
demons' goal is to turn the world into another limbo, Madelyne's is simply
revenge on Scott, and her identical "sister", Jean Grey. The battle comes
to a head on top of the Empire State Building with Maddie and Jean locked
together and the truth being revealed. As it turns out, Madelyne was a
clone of one of Jean's cells. She was created by Scott's hidden enemy for
the purpose of creating a Summers-Grey offspring that would inherit the
Phoenix. Maddie was awakened when a piece of the Phoenix possessed her,
but lay dormant until now. Faced with the awful truth of her existence and
the source of her powers, Madelyne tries to kill Jean by blowing both of
them up. Instead, Jean reabsorbs the Phoenix, and Maddie dies.
        This is a breakdown of issues 168-243.
        In the end, the power that Madelyne had sought, had been beneath
her fingertips. She destroyed everything she loved to get it and was
instead consumed by the power she released. As in the presentation, "Le
Belle Dames Avec Merci", it is better to leave well enough alone. Even
though Maddie had an unfair and abusive life, if she had chosen to revel
in the life she still lived, perhaps the power of the Phoenix would have
eventually revealed itself, and she could have had what she had always
craved; a true place amongst the X-Men.
        In Dr. Wolf's presentation, it was also brought up that the
motivation of man for the seemingly unreachable, is also what has prompted
the continued growth of science. He claims that "whenever a plateau in
scientific discovery is  reached, most of the scientists claim that
everything is wrapped up with just a few loose ends. And as for those,
we'll have them figured out shortly." It is these "figured out shortly"s
(is that right) that spark the discoveries of progress. If everything was
solved, then to what would the physicists turn their heads to? With all of
the quandaries of the molecular universe down to the base quan revealed,
what then is left to be discovered? All of those crinkles on the brows of
physicists may well be seen as the future being mapped out.
        Along with the idea of "avec merci", the Pryor principle will now
be introduced. This could be defined as the wariness to continue
exploring. What if in the search for the true identity of the quan, we
find something horrific to our comprehension, or obliterate the known
galaxy in the process. True this may sound melodramatic, but what about
the first testing of the atomic bomb? They didn't know if the chain
reaction of atoms-splitting would stop. What if it hadn't? Civilization on
this planet might have been evaporated, along with most life, so that a
weapon could be made to stop a war. Such risks seem hardly worth the goal
that they wished to achieved.
        It can be said, that all of the inventions and designs that have
softened mankind, are for the best. That because of these wonderful
things, humans can live longer and safer. But what if, at some point
during the creation of the printing press, the inventors believed that
there was nothing else to be done. Would mankind be able to remain
satisfied with a shorter but more robust existence? Has the evolution of
technology brought more happiness, or just pollution and relatively poor
health? These seem rather profound statements, and it is true that there
have been many wonderful things accomplished to this day. The point being,
that if progress is not tempered by patience, like Madelyne Pryor the
human race may consume itself with what it discovers.

                                    END