Shape changing is one of those relatively low key powers that often gets taken for granted by writers. \u00a0We know what Mystique can do, it’s a handy plot device sometimes, on with the show.<\/p>\n
This is Seanan McGuire’s second story for Marvel – the first was the\u00a0X-Men Gold Annual<\/em> with the holiday camp – and since any wider plotlines are at best marginal, it’s free to spend its time re-stating the premise, and reminding us of why Mystique runs rings around everyone. \u00a0So whether it’s in the real world or a superhero setting, Mystique is happily bouncing around unnoticed as a background character.<\/p>\n Of course, this is from Mystique’s point of view, but the idea is pretty clear. \u00a0She’s dating a senator so that she can frame him for her own amusement. \u00a0She’s enjoying the challenge of sneaking onto commercial airlines disguised as a flight attendant so that she doesn’t have to pay. \u00a0She becomes someone famous when she needs the distraction.<\/p>\n Regardless, the plot involves a teenage mutant, Whitney, who’s being held prisoner at Trask Industries prior to being handed over to the bad guys. \u00a0Mystique seems to have heard about her somewhere, and decided to go and rescue her. \u00a0Kind of. \u00a0For one thing, Mystique also has a thingummy to steal from the same building, something to do with data from the Mothervine storyline – it’s really not clear. \u00a0Nor does it need to be, because while it’s ostensibly Mystique’s main goal, it’s entirely incidental to the story.<\/p>\n More to the point – and spoilers ahead, by the way, because it’s one of those stories where you really have to talk about the ending – Mystique is only dubiously here to help Whitney at all. \u00a0She certainly does get Whitney out of the building and free from Trask, but she also goes out of her way to gratuitously frame Whitney for other stuff. \u00a0The clear aim here is to screw Whitney over.<\/p>\n Why? \u00a0Well, that’s not spelled out. \u00a0In her narration, Mystique claims in passing to be helping a young mutant to “learn how the world works”, which is as close as she comes to giving us a clear answer. \u00a0So the suggestion is that she’s toughening up the mutants of the future, I guess. \u00a0But really, whatever reason Mystique might give for her actions, she shows very little interest in it – and that’s more the point. \u00a0Mainly, in this story she talks about herself as an artist and an agent of chaos. \u00a0She’s enjoying outwitting people and being one step ahead, and for the most part that’s become an end in itself.<\/p>\n Now, my main reservation is that I’m not at all sure I agree with that take on Mystique. \u00a0I’ve always tended to think of the core character having a much stronger genuine concern about mutants, even if its mixed in with self-interest, personal amusement, and a particular concern about Rogue. \u00a0She comes across here as a bit of a psychopath, and I see her as a lot less malicious than that.<\/p>\n But she’s also a character who’s never been written very consistently, and this take isn’t miles away from the norm. \u00a0And if you’re prepared to take the story on its own terms, it’s a pretty good take. \u00a0McGuire and artist Marco Failla play up the creepiness of Mystique’s behaviour nicely, with a string of inconvenienced, ruined or just plain dead bit players in her wake throughout the issue. \u00a0Failla’s art is suitably understated in the real world sections, but there’s a lovely range of character designs.<\/p>\n There’s a particularly good segment of Mystique going shopping as a teenage girl, in which essentially nothing happens other than her buying some rat poison – it works because we have no clue at that point what she’s up to, and the gap between Mystique and her innocuous appearance is nicely jarring. \u00a0Mystique only really shows up in her regular character design right at the end, when she’s playing the hero for Whitney’s benefit. \u00a0She’s not dropping the act; it’s just another act.<\/p>\n In the long run, it’s a take on Mystique that could prove limiting – she’s an agent of chaos and malice without much in the way of an agenda. \u00a0But for a story like this, where the point is just to restate the character, it gets to the core of what makes her an effective villain in a world full of characters that massively outpower her. \u00a0She’s on the margins of the story, steering it the way she wants to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shape changing is one of those relatively low key powers that often gets taken for granted by writers. \u00a0We know what Mystique can do, it’s a handy plot device sometimes, on with the show. This is Seanan McGuire’s second story for Marvel – the first was the\u00a0X-Men Gold Annual with the holiday camp – and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4350,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4349\/revisions\/4350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}