Stranger Things has never made a secret of the fact that it draws on the X-Men comics for inspiration. Eleven is basically a Jean Grey analogue, and her story tends to draw on the iconic “Dark Phoenix Saga.” Season 4 went one step further, rewriting Doctor Brenner’s Hawkins Lab as a twisted version of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.
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But the seeds were sown all the way back in Stranger Things season 1, episode 1, which featured a scene with Uncanny X-Men #134, which was published in June 1980. This is the mid-point of the “Dark Phoenix Saga,” and it featured the psychic Mastermind manipulating Jean to unleash the evil of Dark Phoenix – a parallel of Brenner’s experiments with Eleven, which unleashed the Demogorgon. But that reference has become even more significant over the years.
Stranger Things Season 1’s X-Men Reference Sets Up Another Psychic Power
Uncanny X-Men #134 sees a villainous group known as the Hellfire Club (no, not a band of D&D players) twist Jean Grey according to their own agenda. This is done through the power of a mutant illusionist named Mastermind, who can enter the minds of others and make them perceive his own reality. That same power was teased in Stranger Things season 2 when the show introduced Eleven’s sister, Kali, but she didn’t really dig particularly deep. It’s not until Stranger Things season 4 that we meet the show’s true Mastermind.
Stranger Things season 4 introduced viewers to Henry Creel, another Hawkins child who had become Vecna. Vecna is the true villain of Stranger Things; he’s taken control of the Upside Down and launched a campaign to destroy the entire human race. Crucially, though, his powers are an evolution of those shown by Mastermind in the comics. Vecna’s victims are immersed in a false reality, one that simulates the real world but allows Vecna to sink his claws into their minds. When a strong enough connection is established, Vecna begins to unleash his evil and manipulate this perceived reality.
It’s exactly what Mastermind did to Jean Grey in the “Dark Phoenix Saga.”
Stranger Things’ First X-Men Reference Means So Much More Than We Thought
Stranger Things has long been described as a love letter to Jean Grey and the X-Men comics. What’s remarkable, though, is how that inspiration has been revisited time and again, at ever-increasing scale. The Uncanny X-Men #134 reference made so much sense in Stranger Things season 1, took on yet more meaning with the introduction of season 2’s Kali (who’s essentially an analogue of the Hellfire Club’s White Queen), and has become even deeper after Vecna’s season 4 reveal.
The interesting question, of course, is whether or not Stranger Things is done with its Uncanny X-Men #134 callbacks. Season 4 upped the ante with Vecna (and the show’s own incarnation of the Hellfire Club, to boot). That means we perhaps shouldn’t rule out the possibility it will return once again in season 5, bringing the Duffer Brothers’ epic full circle.
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