#manikin

Who is Scramble?

It’s unlikely you’ve heard of Scramble or his alter ego Lionel Jefferies. Which is fair he only appeared in thirteen issues of Alpha Flight during the Mantlo run. Barely existing in comics for three IRL years.

Which is kind of a shame because Lionel is awesome.

Appearing in Alpha Flight #30, the team’s newly appointed leader, Heather Hudson, decides to seek out some new superpowered beings to join her team. While searching through Alpha Flight’s supercomputer the Alphanex, she finds records of one of her teammates, Madison Jefferies (later known as Box), and finds out that he has a younger brother living in Montreal with mutant abilities.

Tracing Lionel’s last known location to Montreal General Hospital, Heather flies out to go fetch him. Only to find out when she arrives that Lionel is not a doctor at the hospital but rather a patient. She’s brought to a small room where Lionel is being kept.

Lionel is chained to the floor by two tubes, his hands and feet are restricted, and his face is hidden with a metal mask (probably a reference to the literary figure the Man in the Iron Mask). He makes a charge at Heather and manages to unlock his powers.

Where Madison has the ability to transmute and morph in organic parts, Lionel’s ability is that he can manipulate flesh and blood to his will. Before being institutionalized by his brother, Lionel was a medic during the Vietnam War, and after his squad was killed in a land mind, he attempted to raise them back from the dead.

Lionel has spent years locked away and once free decides to continue his plans to raise the dead. Transforming the doctors and patients in Montreal General into monsters, while he runs down to the morgue to try and raise the dead.

Madison and the rest of Alpha Flight arrive and try to rescue the patients, while Madison heads downstairs with the intent to lock Lionel back up.

This turns into a fight between the two brothers, with Madison managing to turn Lionel’s powers back on him, effectively “curing” Lionel of his insanity.

Lionel turns the patients and doctors back into their former selves, Alpha Flight forgives him, with the exception of Heather who doesn’t fully trust Scramble after what he did to her.

In Alpha Flight #31, Lionel is offered a place on Alpha Flight but turns it down (smart man). He’s more interested in trying to get his medical license reinstated. However trouble arises when it’s revealed that Lionel’s plan to raise the dead worked. That while he was in the morgue, he resurrected the corpse of Ernest St. Ives (Deadly Ernest). Another Alpha Flight villain, who is seeking revenge on Aurora and Northstar.

After Lionel’s brief appearance in this issue, he isn’t seen again for another year. Making an appearance in Alpha Flight #43 and #44, when Rodger Bochs seeks out Lionel to cure him of the bends.

We learn some interesting things about Lionel, such as how he managed to start the New Life Clinic in Vancouver (with the help of a mysterious and never revealed benefactor). He has also begun employing an intern known as Dr. Whitman Knapp.

After freeing Rodger from the constrains of the Box suit, Lionel offers him a deal he can’t refuse. To restore his legs and ability to walk.

Lionel and Knapp appear in the next issue, showcasing Rodger’s new form. Lionel is given another offer to join Alpha Flight, but he once again refuses claiming to have his hands full at New Life.

Alpha Flight once again seeks Lionel’s help after the resurrection of their teammate Sasquatch, who has been reborn in the body of another one of their dead teammates Snowbird.

Lionel tries to transform Sasquatch (now going by Wanda) back into her male form but fails as Wanda’s body isn’t human (also that there was nothing to be fixed).

After Alpha Flight leaves, Knapp approaches Lionel about splotches he’s seen on Rodger’s legs. Lionel becomes angry at Kanpp, grabbing his arm. Clearly annoyed to find that his powers have limits he claims to Knapp that his “power of my human subjects is…must be…unquestionable!”

Lionel reappears in Alpha Flight #48, after Rodger attempts to kill Aurora and fights the rest of his teammates, Madison seeks out his brother’s help in curing Rodger of his “madness”. Lionel agrees but claims this particular case will take some extra time. He leads the team down to the sublevel, taking Rodger, Madison, and Knapp to a separate room.

When trying to figure out what caused Rodger to go insane and his legs to rot, Lionel reveals that he took the tissue to restore Rodger’s limbs from a corpse. Shocking everyone.

Lionel goes onto reveal that he was never cured from his “madness” and had been lying the entire time. Madison and Knapp try to warm Alpha Flight, but Lionel mutates them, causing them to lose their ability to walk.

Lionel approaches Rodger with another offer, to let him fuse their bodies together, combining Rodger’s intellect with Lionel’s powers. Rodger agrees.

Meanwhile, Aurora and Northstar go snooping. Aurora finds a room filled with glass cells where Lionel has been keeping the patients of New Life to do experiment on them (these characters would later be known as the Derangers).

Northstar stumbles upon the mutated mass of Rodger and Lionel, who have begun calling themselves Omega.

(This thing is truly horrifying to look at.)

Back with Madison and Knapp, Knapp discovers that Lionel triggered a latent mutant ability within him. He is now able to summon different versions of himself, all enhanced in their own unique ways. I’m not going to get to detailed but there is Apeman, a hairy lifeform with super strength and agility. Proto, who can dissolve matter. Then Highbrow a techno-hybrid with enhanced senses that could float and teleport.

The plot picks up next issue, with Omega absolutely wiping the floor with Alpha Flight. Rodger realizes the error of his ways but is stopped by Lionel who gains full control of the body. Before Omega can destroy Alpha Flight, Purple Girl manages to mind control Lionel, forcing him to return Madison to his previous state. Afterward, Madison uses Rodger’s Box suit to destroy Omega, effectively killing both Lionel and Rodger.

However there is no time for Madison to dwell on the ramifications of murdering both his brother and best friend, because Northstar has decided this is a great time for him to start dramatically dying.

Alpha Flight #49 is the last time Lionel is ever seen, that was back in 1987, it’s been nearly forty years, and he hasn’t so much as been mentioned since then.

Why I Like Scramble

Compared to Alpha Flight’s other reoccurring villains who either have rapidly confusing backstories (see: Master of the World) or are personified fatphobic jokes (See: Pink Pearl), Scramble has a lot of depth to him.

His story is centered around his relationship with his brother, Madison. Although at times it seems that Lionel and Madison were close (going to war together), Madison having Lionel committed seems to have put a damper on their relationship. Along with Madison’s hypocrisy, himself often being implied to be mentally ill, but condemning Lionel for his own struggles with mental health.

It brings an interesting dynamic to their relationship and makes them near perfect parallels to Aurora and Northstar. One sibling believing themselves better suited to see to the needs of their other sibling because of that siblings’ mental illness. Meanwhile both Madison and Jean-Paul are implied to be mentally ill but insist that they are fine. this belief that they are somehow better than their siblings leads to rifts in their respective relationships bordering on resentment.

Then of course there’s his power set. Scramble has control over every organ in the human body. His favorite method of incapacitating his enemies is manipulating their bodies to the point where they can’t support themselves. Such as what he did to Heather in his first appearance.

It’s a very unique method of torture, something one expects to see out of a horror movie. With Lionel’s powers being able to work with a quick small touch it makes him almost unstoppable and impossible to capacitate.

It makes him a formidable foe and an actually terrifying supervillain, that leaves the audience on the edge of their seat wondering if Alpha Flight can actually stop Lionel.

There’s also Lionel’s belief in superhuman superiority. He isn’t like early Magneto, where he believes mutants are the next step in evolution and should rule over the human race. However he does seem to believe that people with high intellect (like Rodger) or special abilities like the rest of Alpha Flight are inherently superior. Hence his insistence on using them to create a super race of beings.

Also one of my favorite novels is Frankenstein and I’m a sucker for a mad scientist character.

What I Don’t Like About Scramble

As much as I love Alpha Flight, I’ll be the first to say that it does have its problems. The first runs are plagued with racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and stereotyping. One of the things that always catches my eye is the stories reliance on ableist tropes. Mainly when it comes to characters like Rodger, Jeanne-Marie/Aurora, and Puck.

Lionel has been kept locked in a cell without the ability to move for years. It’s mentioned that Lionel was placed in psychiatric care during the Vietnam War. If we’re going to apply real world time to Alpha Flight #30, the Vietnam War ended in 1975, Lionel’s first appearance came out in 1985. The minimal of time he would’ve spent in that cell would’ve been ten years. A full decade unable to speak or move.

Despite this inhumane treatment, Madison is still set on having Lionel recommitted, only changing his mind once Lionel appears “sane.” Not thinking about how this treatment has harmed his younger brother.

Lionel is often described with words like “mad,” “insane,” and “psychotic.” The implication within the text is that Lionel’s mental illness (which is implied to have come about from his experience on the front lines), makes him dangerous to be around. Something that’s supported when Lionel tries to kill Alpha Flight. A thesis that is supported when Maidson makes the choice to kill him.

The guilt Madison feels for the deaths of his best friend and his brother is later explored in Alpha Flight #65, where he begins to have nightmares about Omega, claiming that Madison is just as insane as they are and doesn’t deserve to live.

This accumulates in the Box suit going rogue and Madison having to forgive himself for his actions. Continually to reinforce the idea that killing his “crazy” brother was for the best.

My issue isn’t that characters like Madison (or Northstar, I love him, but he has faults), hold ableist beliefs. I think if anything it serves to make Madison’s character more interesting as he is mentally ill himself and probably views himself as “unworthy” or “crazy.”

My issue with the way the story is told is how it tends to justify its characters in their ableist beliefs. Constantly reinforcing their beliefs.

I think there’s a missed opportunity to make Lionel’s story one of how the restrictions and control over the lives of institutionalized patients can make their mental health worse. That inpatient care is not a one size fits all solution. That society’s inability to listen to the mentally ill and take their perspectives into account during treatment leads to more harm. That many people will deny being mentally ill in order to avoid being othered.

I am aware that this story takes place in the eighties. That in the late twentieth century conversations surrounding mental illness weren’t where they are today. However I don’t think this makes up for the harm these stories can cause.

What Should Be Done with Scramble in Modern Comics?

Bring him back Marvel!

Please, with the whole Krakoa storyline you can just claim that any mutant that died before Fall of X was just resurrected off panel. You could make him another X-Men villain. Put Madison on a team and have Scramble show up to take his revenge.

Or you can put him on the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. He’d be a great addition.

Or do another run of Alpha Flight and make him a big bad.

I don’t really care what you do just put Scramble in something.

I like to think he’s been resurrected you know alongside Joanne Beaubier, Diamond Lil, and of course Madison himself.

i do not have a tentacle fetish it's just omega flowey's vines please 😭🙏