Mother Night (comics)

Mother Night is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

Publication history
Mother Night first appeared in Captain America #123 (Mar 1970), and was created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan.

Fictional character biography
Susan Scarbo was born in Teaneck, New Jersey. Susan and her brother Melvin Scarbo formed a sibling hypnosis stage act for profit. They soon after became professional criminals, hypnotizing innocent people into doing their bidding. Under the name Suprema, Susan soon attracted the attention of the Red Skull who hired Susan as a nanny to his daughter Synthia Schmidt. Under Susan's tutelage Synthia later became Sin.

After a successful infiltration of the original S.H.I.E.L.D. organization and an attempt at stealing a Wolverine Jet from them, Suprema became an enemy of Captain America. Some time later, Susan was revealed as an aide to the Red Skull, and his daughter Sin's tutor, nanny, and instructor. Changing her name to Mother Night, she became the headmistress of the Sisters of Sin team for a short while, and was revealed to be running the Red Skull's youth indoctrination hate camp. When Magneto captured the Red Skull, Mother Night became a member of the Skeleton Crew in an attempt to rescue the Red Skull. She battled the Black Queen and her Hellfire Club mercenaries. She aided the Crew in the rescue of the Red Skull, and it was insinuated that she has or had a personal relationship with the Red Skull.

Mother Night, with the Machinesmith and Minster Blood (her brother Melvin) then brainwashed the Avengers' support crew. She attacked the Avengers by forcing them to relive their greatest nightmares, however she was captured by the Vision. After this Red Skull replaced Mother Night with Viper as his lover. Because of this she betrayed him to Captain America and received a severe beating from Red Skull for it. Wishing to die at her ex-lover's hand she asked Red Skull to kill her, to which he said no. Pitying her, teammate Cutthroat began an affair with Mother Night. This relationship ended when he was seemingly killed by Crossbones.

She and her team were eventually killed by The Winter Soldier.

Marvel Max
In Wolverine Max, she moved in a trailer park in Las Vegas, Nevada. She meets Wolverine after watching him in an unsanctioned MMA fight. They have sex, and during pillow talk, she mentions that she is from Teaneck, New Jersey. It is later revealed that she is not a psychic, but a hypnotist. She obtained her black sapphire from Brazil, and works as an independent hypnotist by "appointment only". As she is talking, Wolverine suddenly becomes ill, and passes out. Wolverine beginning confused, ends up getting into a fight, only to find out his claws won't pop out. He storms back to her trailer, to find out what she did to him. He is in Mother Night's control. She orders him to hate and kill a man named Max Fisher with rage and anguish. After his last fight in the ring, he takes Sean's van and heads to confront Max Fisher It turns out Mother Night was married to Max Fisher, and used Wolverine to kill him to get a hold of his fortune. It's also revealed that Sean and Mother Night were working together. Wolverine managed to get his memory back by shooting his head with a double barrel shotgun. He then meets up with Mother Night, while he is pretending to be hypnotized. He confronts her and slices her jugular, effectively killing her.

Powers and abilities
Mother Night has developed a mastery of hypnotism. Mother Night has to get a person to look at her for her hypnotic abilities to work. Certain individuals are not susceptible to hypnotism.

Mother Night has a limited knowledge of street-fighting techniques and karate.

Mother Night's necklace contains a special suggestibility gas as well as a "dark light" casting mechanism. She also uses various brainwashing drugs and paraphernalia.