UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #22
“No Clean Hands”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Marquez
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Mutina cuts through the cover of issue #1. The issue has the “Shadows of Tomorrow” branding, though this story doesn’t really have much to do with anything from “Age of Revelation”.

THE X-MEN:

Nightcrawler. He goes on what seems to be his first date with Mackenzie DeNeer, and shows up for it in a tuxedo. In the near-future “Age of Revelation” timeline, we saw them as a married couple in Last Wolverine #1. While attempting to talk Mutina down, Kurt sings Mackenzie’s praises as having “the kindest heart I’ve ever known”, so he seems serious.

It’s his birthday, and the X-Men and Outliers throw him a surprise party when he gets home (still referring to him as “fuzzy elf”, as Kitty used to back in the 1980s). Naturally, everyone’s very nice about him – Rogue claims that there’s no X-Men team without him, and Ransom claims that he’s everyone’s favourite X-Man.

Kurt’s instinctive reaction to Mutina is to try to talk her round, though he also accepts her challenge to face her in a “test”. He regards her as a bully and sadist, and clearly unfit for X-Men membership, but makes a dutiful attempt anyway to talk her into pursuing salvation. He insists on rejecting her persona (which, after all, is a contrived attempt to intimidate rather than a regular mutant codename), and consistently addresses her by her real name.

Wolverine. As usual, his instinct is to try and deal with Mutina himself in order to shield the rest of the team from her. He seems genuinely unaware that she’s used her powers to get into Haven and harass Calico before (in issue #18), which would imply that he didn’t pick up her scent on that occasion. That would suggest that Mutina is telling the truth when she claims that he can only smell her in this story “because I let you”.

He finds Mutina “chill[ing]”, more for her psychopathic tendencies than for the actual level of physical threat that she presents to him.

Rogue, Gambit and Jubilee are also at the party.

SUPPORTING CAST:

Mackenzie Deneer. Her first date with Kurt seems to go well. She’s apparently in on the surprise party – Kurt certainly assumes so, though it was actually him who offered to take her back to Haven. Still, she doesn’t seem at all surprised by what’s waiting.

There’s a slightly odd exchange about who’s looking after Mackenzie’s children, with Mackenzie replying “Oh, I found someone” with enough prominence to make me wonder if it’s meant to be significant. They’re not at the party, which would be the obvious solution. The St Juniors aren’t seen at the party, so maybe they’re looking after Mackenzie’s kids.

She finds being teleported by Kurt extremely enjoyable (which Jubilee treats as a fairly normal reaction). If we’re going to be boring and ignore the gag, this is actually a little odd, since traditionally teleportation used to be portrayed as disorienting and unpleasant to people who weren’t used to it.

When Mutina threatens to slit her throat, her understandable reaction is to whimper that she has kids, and cry. We don’t really see her reaction once Mutina is driven off, but this isn’t a great ending to her first date.

The Outliers (Deathdream, Jitter, Ransom and Calico) are at the party, but don’t get a huge amount to do. Mutina spells out for us that Jitter, Ransom and Calico have all killed or seriously injured people – which we’ve basically known since issue #3 – but hints at some unpleasant story involving Deathdream and his brother. I think this is the first mention we’ve had of a brother.

Joining Wolverine when he confronts Mutina outside Haven are Ember (Calico’s horse), Waffles (Deathdream’s cyborg dog) and Figaro, Oliver and Lucifer (Gambit’s cats). Ember rejects her entreaties, but the cats seem to be easily charmed.

Chelsea St Juniors doesn’t appear in this story, but Mutina claims to Wolverine that she’s the Endling – the prophecied last mutant on Earth, as first mentioned back in issue #1. In Unbreakable X-Men #2, the near future Gambit also said he had “been told she will be the last mutant”.

VILLAINS:

Mutina. She claims that some mutant kids have been beaten up “by normies” after seeing her film – which is precisely what the X-Men were worried about in issue #17 – and that she wants to join the X-Men in order to improve her image. She attributes this plan to “my people”, though if she’s telling the truth, it seems unlikely that they expected her to petition for membership by showing up and threatening people.

Generally, her behaviour seems weird and conflicted throughout this issue. On the one hand, her sadistic and terrorising impulses seem to be in full effect. Wolverine seems clear that she’s fighting to kill and appears to know what she’s doing. On the other hand, her bid for membership of the X-Men is bizarre, and Kurt’s speech to her about the damage that she’s causing to mutants actually prompts some hesitation before she falls back on declaring “I hate mutants.” She reacts very badly to Kurt refusing to honour her persona and calling her Leticia, at least the first time, but lets it go on subsequent occasions. The suggestion in issue #17 was that she was a self-loathing mutant and all of this could be read as glimpses of the person underneath the persona.

Although she isn’t a good enough fighter to beat Kurt in a straight fight, she’s good enough to hold her own for breif periods against Kurt and even Logan. As she points out, with her power to teleport through shadows, she’s a stealth attacker, so this is really much better at combat than she needs to be.

She has a remarkable amount of knowledge about the Outliers, which she attributes to “research”. She knows that it’s Kurt’s birthday – and it can’t just be because she’s seen the party, because she’s brought him a cake. She also claims to know that Chelsea is the Endling; it’s impressive enough that she’s heard of the Endling concept, and we know from Unbreakable that her claim is at least plausible. She clearly has sources of information that go beyond the public domain, and she’s advertising the fact. Possibly she’s using her powers to sneak into places.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES:

• Mutina’s movie came out in issue #17.
• Mutina says that Jitter “beat one girl so bad she can’t walk.” Jitter already told the X-Men this in issue #3; it seemed to be the incident that led to her leaving home.
• Mutina refers to the fire that killed Calico’s mother, and says that Calico “walked away, let it burn”. This is what we saw in the flashback in issue #3, but it’s not what she actually told the X-Men in terms.
• Mutina refers to Ransom’s kidnapping (again, a flashback in issue #3) and says that “all four kidnappers went out the window somehow”. We saw that with one of the kidnappers in issue #3; the expanded version of the flashback, in issue #21, strongly implies that Ransom kills all of them.
• Mutina says that she’s already been inside Haven; that would be when she stalked Calico in issue #18.
• Mutina’s “catchphrase” would be “Murder me, Mutina,” from issue #17 (which is why she wants Mackenzie to say it).