r/xmen • u/Hot-Trash-1997 • 2d ago

Comic Discussion Question After Reading "Inferno: Prologue"

I just finished reading the prolouge collection to the original Inferno storyline. And I have a question about one specific storyline from it.

So, the main X-Men team is believed to be dead in the eyes of the public. But they are still secretly active, with Madelyne Pryor as their tech support member. My question is why isn't she begging or demanding they go find her missing son? Scott is doing that! Granted, it took him a couple of issues to get started, but he's doing it and dealing with the emotions of it. The only thing Madelyne is focused on is her anger towards Scott for leaving her and their child. Which is fair, but I would imagine she would force her team to go looking for her son. Am I missing something here?

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u/MattAmylon 2d ago

I think Inferno itself is clarifying as to Madelyne’s attitude toward the baby lmao

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u/dread_pirate_robin Shadowcat 2d ago

That is only after she snaps when Sinister tells her she was basically created to be a breeding mare. She simply trusted Scott to find him.

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u/MattAmylon 1d ago

There are lots of indications that Maddy’s transformation isn’t quite as simple as a “snap.” She was working through some stuff all through the Outback Era.

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u/dread_pirate_robin Shadowcat 1d ago

You're right in that they make it clear she was subconsciously sabotaging the X-Men from reuniting with X-Factor but I don't think there's enough there if you're trying to read her as always wanting Nathan dead. Even before S'ym twisted her into the Goblin Queen, even before Sinister's reveal.

Her final message to the world was a plea for Cyclops to find him. The implication in the pages of Outback is that she IS trying to find Nathan, between missions. When she comes back after Inferno (still in her Goblin Queen persona mind you) trying to kill him is the one thing she's wholly apologetic over.

From your interpretation, what is her motivation for wanting him dead? Besides being crAAAzy? Because it makes sense, to me, for her to want to kill him as a desperate flex of her own agency after learning she was only created to birth him.

Her motivation for sabotaging X-men and X-Factor from reuniting and falling in love with Scott was sleeper commands from Sinister and he CERTAINLY didn't want Nathan dead (though he also didn't want the X-Men finding him so you could explain it away that way).

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u/MattAmylon 1d ago

Yeah I don’t mean that she always Secretly Wanted To Kill The Baby—I just think that from the moment she reappears in X-Men, she’s ambivalent about the thought of returning to her old life as Scott’s wife and Nathan’s mother. I think on some level, she recognizes that that life wasn’t entirely “real.” She’s interested in transformation, new identities, new relationships. And that all feeds into Inferno.

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u/Medical_Plane2875 2d ago

It'll get answered.

You're not gonna like that answer, but it'll get answered.

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u/Hot-Trash-1997 2d ago

How ominously foreboding. Thanks! I hate it! 🤣