Jason Wyngarde (Joint Venture)

Mastermind is a supervillain and frequent antagonist of the X-Men. This is the Joint Venture Universe version of the character.

The Man Without A Past
To a man like Jason Wyngarde, deception is second nature. Thus, he has become an expert at covering his tracks, making learning his history a truly baffling endeavor. Even his name may be a lie. He has proclaimed himself a mutant, and that is all that is truly known of his origins or his distant past.

Sometimes he pretends to be the bastard child of a wealthy British family. At others, he's a rough-hewn, self-made man from New York. Still another includes being the son of a famously vanished demonic superheroine from World War II. None of these claims have ever been proven either true or false.

What is known of Wyngarde largely stems from his adult life. It is presumably through his power of illusion that he fathered three daughters by three different women, only one of whom he views as "legitimate" -- his second daughter, Regan. It might not be coincidence that of the three, she is the most powerful, surpassing even Jason himself.

Even despite her 'legitimacy', however, Regan lived with her mother -- as her two half-sisters lived with theirs -- and rarely, if ever, saw her father.

Factor Six
Somehow, the enigmatic being known only as "The Mutant Master" learned of Wyngarde and his powers, and approached him to join his organization, Factor Six. Indeed, Jason was the first person to be approached for the group. Seeing easy money and a chance for genuine power, as opposed to the illusory power he wielded, Wyngarde accepted, adopting the moniker of "Mastermind."

As Mastermind, Wyngarde was one of the most deceptively dangerous members of Factor Six. His power could frighten people with thier worst fears, entice people with visions of what they wanted most, or turn close friends against each other by making them see each other as hated enemies, and he delighted in doing all of these. However, it was the subtle illusions that he enjoyed the most -- tiny actions with greater consequences, like making a computer programmer enter a bad line of code that would crash a security system. Mastermind understood the nature of the ripple effect, and put it to good use with his powers. He took a special pleasure in playing with the mind of his reluctant teammate Sean Cassidy, the ex-Interpol agent known as Banshee. Cassidy had been forcibly drafted into Factor Six, and thus required motivation to do his part for the criminal organization. Wyngarde would happily provide that motivation time and again, using illusions and misdirection to make Banshee believe he was fighting on the right side...only to end the illusion after the mission was complete, torturing the Irishman with the truth of what he had done.

The Fall of Factor Six
Ultimately, Factor Six would fracture based on ideological differences. The Mutant Master gave them orders to wipe out a small town in upstate New York. Mastermind, the cruelest and most sadistic member, was all too willing to comply, as was his teammate Unuscione. But the other three voluntary members -- Stonewall, Vanisher, and Morph -- were against it, as Stonewall and Vanisher only wanted to make their own lives easier, and Morph was fundamentally a good person, who had chosen the wrong side out of desperation.

There was eventual infighting, which only got worse when Factor Six's most dogged enemies, Professor Charles Xavier and Magneto, finally found their base, freed Banshee from the controlling neural-interface costume he was forced to wear, and waged war on the rest. During the fight, Stonewall and Vanisher deserted. Left to their own devices, neither Mastermind's illusions nor Unuscione's energy exoskeleton were enough to stand against their opponents, and they were imprisoned and hauled off to an experimental prison in New Mexico, one designed especially for superpowered criminals.

Jailbreak
Wyngarde was placed in a power-dampening cell that blocked psionic signals, like the ones he needed to send to cast his illusions. However, he remained an extremely adept liar. Using his talent for seduction, he convinced one of the guards that he had fallen in love with him, securing himself an ally within the prison walls. When he pretended to be dying of an incurable illness, the guard snuck him to the prison garden, to "look at the flowers together". However, it was there that Wyngarde struck, trapping the guard's mind in an illusion so powerful that it rendered him completely catatonic, a prisoner inside his own mind. He then escaped the prison, and currently remains at large.

Powers
Psionic Illusions: Mastermind is a mutant with the power of illusion. He can cause any sentient life form to alter people's perceptions so that they see and experience multi-sensory impressions of things that do not exist. For example, if Mastermind causes the illusion that a room is flooded, most people, even if they know it is an illusion, will still be unable to breathe in it. He can focus this power solely on himself, to change the way he looks and sounds, effect illusory camouflage, or become invisible, or he can use it on his surroundings, creating illusory landscapes or effects that can feel completely lifelike.

Mindtap: Thanks to special training from the Mutant Master, Wyngarde can project his illusions directly into the mind of another person within close proximity, ensuring that they are the only one who sees them. This is how he eventually overcame the guard assigned to him at the superhuman penitentiery.

Memory Alteration: Wyngarde's power of suggestion is such that he can alter or rewrite people's memories. He can erase or alter life-changing events, even completely change someone's personality, based solely on his manipulation of their perceptions of the past. He has done this with his daughters, Regan and Martinique, to make them see him as a loving father figure rather than his true self.

Weaknesses
Electronic devices: Since Mastermind's power of illusion is psionic in nature, and thus only affects the mind, his illusions cannot be recorded by any photographic or electonic devices. Robots and androids are similarly immune.

Mindtap Proximity: Jason must be within a certain range of someone he wants to use a "Mindtapping" illusion on, and he must be familiar with them or their brain patterns.

Consciousness: Wyngarde's illusions fade if he loses consciousness or concentration.