Latest / Vigilante Vibes Podcast / Ep. 128. Who is Mystique in Marvel Comics?!

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Ep. 128. Who is Mystique in Marvel Comics?! · Vigilante Vibes Podcast

• 0:14
  Hi guys, it's Megan with vigilante vibes and I am here
• 0:17
  with another character breakdown.
• 0:19
  I love doing these. I need to calm down like I'm
• 0:23
  doing so many, but whatever. You know what, there's no rules.
• 0:26
  We're all fine. So for this character breakdown,
• 0:29
  I'm still going on the theme with Pride Month because why
• 0:33
  not? So today's is who is Mystique?
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  That is such a loaded question because it's Mystique Raven Dark
• 0:45
  Comb. She is.
• 0:49
  She is a force to be reckoned with.
• 0:53
  And then I'll tell you all about her right here.
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  So I'm so sorry my nose. It's just so bad.
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  Mystique's first appearance in the Marvel Universe is in Miss
• 1:02
  marvel #16 in April of 1978. While her full appearance and
• 1:06
  true name were revealed later, she was first seen observing
• 1:10
  Miss Marvel from a rooftop. In this issue she is referred to
• 1:14
  as a black haired woman and expresses her dislike for Miss
• 1:17
  Marvel, a more complete appearance and her real name,
• 1:21
  Raven Dark Comb. It's revealed in Miss marvel #18
• 1:25
  so it was just two issues after her first appearance.
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  That's not bad. Mystique.
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  The shape shifting mutant has lived a long wildlife under many
• 1:35
  names. Terrorist, thief, mercenary.
• 1:39
  All these lovely little nicknames she's been given have
• 1:43
  all been well earned. I promise you.
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  No matter what face she's wearing, she's usually got one
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  goal, protecting mutants and more often than not bringing
• 1:53
  humanity down a few pegs every now and then.
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  She'll work with the X-Men if it suits the bigger picture, which
• 1:59
  makes her seem less like a full on villain and more like someone
• 2:02
  whose loyalties change with the wind.
• 2:04
  Just like her appearance. It's basically whatever her plan
• 2:08
  is at that moment, she will take one for the team and work with
• 2:13
  that team. So it's, you know, she's loyal
• 2:16
  to herself, she's loyal to her plans.
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  She's not loyal to many people. There are a few, but not many.
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  Her mutant powers kicked in around age 12, back when mutants
• 2:26
  were rare and had to fight to survive.
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  That blue skinned girl would eventually become known as
• 2:33
  Mystique. In the early 1900s, while posing
• 2:37
  as a private investigator named Raven Darkholm, she meets Irene
• 2:41
  Adler, AKA Destiny, a blind mutant who needs help making
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  sense of her prophetic visions. The two quickly become more than
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  partners, falling in love and working together for years, one
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  of their early missions solving a string of brutal murders
• 3:00
  linked to Jack the Ripper. Which leads them to none other
• 3:03
  than Mr. Sinister, which we all know who he is.
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  By 1921, Raven crosses paths with a memory wiped James Logan
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  Howlett, better known as Wolverine, and the two share a
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  short lived romance and a few crimes along the way.
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  Which it's never made sense to me.
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  It is never made sense. I've never liked that.
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  But I mean, girls got needs, you know?
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  Fast forward to the Cold War and she's now posing as a German spy
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  named Lenny Zauber. There she meets Saber Toothed,
• 3:40
  you know, Victor Creed. That guy and their fling leads
• 3:43
  to the birth of Graydon Creed. But when Graydon grows up to be
• 3:48
  human, Raven abandons him, seeing no future in raising a
• 3:55
  non mutant child since like mother of the year I guess.
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  Later, Raven marries German aristocrat Christian Wagner, but
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  can't have a child with him. At the same time.
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  She falls for the demonic mutant.
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  Azazel shows him her real form, which he dubs her Mystique.
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  So that's where the name came from.
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  But Azazel bounces and Raven suddenly finds herself pregnant.
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  Except the pregnancy was actually the result of Mystique
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  shape shifting into a man so she and Destiny could have a child
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  together. That that caused quite a stir in
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  the fandom because it's always been Nightcrawler has always
• 4:43
  been a Zazel's son. I mean, it's it's hinted at, you
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  know, they have the same teleportation.
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  They even kind of look the same. But then Marvel said, actually
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  Mystique is the father and Destiny as a mother.
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  Now I will say that does make more sense because Destiny and
• 5:00
  Mystique have been together for so long.
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  The man that Raven married. Wagner suspects something's
• 5:07
  often demands A paternity test to keep her secret.
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  She just unalives him just quick and easy.
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  She gives birth to a blue skinned mutant baby Kurt Wagner
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  AKA Nightcrawler AKA my favorite mutant of all time besides
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  Polaris. Those two I will fight for but
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  loses focus during labor and reverts to her true form.
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  The villagers freak out, forcing her to run.
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  In a moment of desperation, she throws baby Kurt off a Cliff,
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  though Azazel secretly rescues him and leaves him with a
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  traveling performer named Margali Zardos.
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  It's just this whole thing is just, you know how some comics
• 5:50
  end up off the rails. This whole thing like just
• 5:53
  started off the rails, but I dig it.
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  I really liked it. Years later, it turns out that
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  the story of Mystique abandoning Kurt wasn't the whole truth.
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  Mystique and Destiny had asked Professor X for help stopping a
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  future where Azazel would become a serious threat.
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  The idea was to distract Azazel by giving him a child to protect
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  the plan and her memory. Xavier made Mystique believe she
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  left Kurt for selfish reasons. Later on, while living with
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  Destiny, Mystique takes in a runway mutant girl named Anna
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  Marie, better known as Rogue. Y'all know who Rogue is and
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  raises her like a daughter. Around the same time, Mystique
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  and Destiny form their own version of the Brotherhood of
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  Evil, mutants constantly clashing with the X-Men.
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  And like everything else in her life, those alliances shift with
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  the tides. Mystique's mutant power lets her
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  completely reshape her body at the atomic level, allowing her
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  to look and sound like pretty much any humanoid out there,
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  clothes and all. Her shape shifting is incredibly
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  precise, she can copy things like fingerprints, retinal
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  scans, vocal patterns, even the pores on someone's skin without
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  breaking a sweat. She can also rearrange her
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  internal organs, which lets her take on totally non human forms,
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  blending into her surroundings like camouflage, or flatten
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  herself to be razor thin if needed.
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  She's even pulled off more creative tweaks like growing
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  wings to fly, sprouting claws, hiding weapons in a fake stomach
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  pouch, and whipping up a tail that actually works.
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  At one point she even managed to grow an extra set of arms and a
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  second face on the back of her head, though that trick only
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  lasts about two minutes. There are limits though.
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  She can't change her body mass, so even if she looks like
• 7:43
  someone much bigger, she won't weigh as much as they do.
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  If she stays in a bigger form for too long, she'll wear
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  herself out and automatically snap back to her natural
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  appearance. You know, the blue.
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  And while she can copy someone's look down to the last detail,
• 8:00
  she cannot mimic their powers. Like Morph, where the last time
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  we saw them was X-Men 97, they can change their powers and
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  mimic powers. She cannot do that.
• 8:12
  So I actually really like to see them hang out, but that's fine.
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  Mystique's mutation also slows down her aging and helps her
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  recover from minor injuries quickly.
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  Her body's super resistant to drugs and poisons, and she stays
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  in peak condition far longer than a normal human.
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  On top of her powers, she's an expert in hand to hand combat,
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  great with guns and knives, and sharp as a tactician.
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  She also is a skilled actress, able to disappear into roles
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  literally and figuratively. Languages.
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  She's fluent in a ton of them, English, German, French,
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  Spanish, Czech, Korean, Farsi, Portuguese, and Swedish.
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  After being brought back to life by the Red Right Hand, she
• 9:02
  levelled up a bit. Now she can fool even
• 9:05
  Wolverine's heightened senses, grow tentacles and shape, shift
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  into animals, or even turn partially liquid.
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  As the leader of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Mystique
• 9:16
  regularly clashes with the X-Men, though she's not above
• 9:19
  teaming up with them when it suits her.
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  She's the definition of a wild card, siding with either heroes
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  or villains depending on what benefits her the most.
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  When her partner Destiny had a vision that Carol Danvers then
• 9:35
  Miss Marvel. Later Captain Marvel will be a
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  threat to to their adopted daughter Rogue.
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  Mystique starts keeping tabs on Carol.
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  Eventually she even sends the Brotherhood in to attack her.
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  Later on, Mystique finds out the alien scrolls have created a
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  copy of the original Captain Marvel Marvel.
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  So naturally she impersonates Carol and uses the clone against
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  her, mostly for her own amusement.
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  At one point, Norman Osborne AKA the Green Goblin forces Mystique
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  onto his version of the X-Men by planting nanotech in her that
• 10:11
  could turn her into a walking bomb.
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  She had no choice but to follow orders, at least until his whole
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  operation falls apart and the team is disbanded.
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  So that's the only a few of her enemies.
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  In reality, she's the enemy of so many characters, so many
• 10:28
  organizations, so many governments.
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  They didn't label her as a terrorist for funsies.
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  Now let's focus on her family ties, close allies, and all the
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  friendos in between. Mystique has three kids, though
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  her relationships with them are complicated to say the least.
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  Her first son grade on Creed, the human son that she did not
• 10:51
  care for one bit. So he grew up to lead an anti
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  mutant group and Mystique later seems to have killed him.
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  Seems to but it's a comic so he's you know.
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  Then there's Nightcrawler, Kurt Wagner.
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  Later Mystique takes in Rogue as her foster daughter and raises
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  her with Destiny. Rogue eventually joins the X-Men
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  to learn how to control her powers, which causes a lot of
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  tension between them. Mystique's not thrilled about
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  her daughter's siding with the people she often fights.
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  Mystique's love life is just as wild.
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  She had a brief romance and crime spree with Wolverine back
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  in the day, which like I said, I did not like.
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  She also had a short relationship with Forge which I
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  forgot about. A love hate mostly hate dynamic
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  with Iceman, who's Bobby Drake, though her way of showing
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  affection was repeatedly trying to unalive him.
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  As for leadership, Mystique forms her own version of the
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  Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to fight anti mutant forces.
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  Her team includes Destiny, BLOB, Avalanche, and Pyro.
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  Eventually she works with Valerie Cooper from the US
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  government to create Freedom Force, a rebranded government
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  approved version of the Brotherhood.
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  That team also included BLOB, Avalanche, Pyro, and Crimson
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  Commando, and they were all given pardons in exchange for
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  helping the government. Mystique's affiliations do not
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  stop there. Over the years, she's worked
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  with DARPA under her alias Raven.
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  Dark Home, joined the Marauders, served with the X-Men and X
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  Factor, infiltrated the Xavier Institute disguised as a student
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  named Fox, joined the X Corpse with AS Surge, not with Surge as
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  Surge, and even helped lead another version of the
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  Brotherhood of Mutants. She's nothing if not adaptable,
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  so when Rogue first got her absorption powers, Mystique
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  pushed her to join the Brotherhood.
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  Back then, Mystique was undercover as an assistant
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  secretary at DARPA, which gave her access to all sorts of
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  military secrets and cool weapons.
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  That is when Destiny has the vision that Miss Marvel Carol
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  Danvers will hurt Rogue someday and that is when Mystique makes
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  it her mission to just mess with her.
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  Later the Brotherhood tried to kill Senator Robert Kelly, a big
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  anti mutant politician, but the X-Men with help from time travel
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  and Kitty Pride stopped them. During that fight Mystique ran
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  into Nightcrawler and he was surprised how much she looked
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  like him. Most of the Brotherhood got
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  caught but Mystique got away. Of course, Rogue once attacked
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  Miss Marvel by herself to prove she didn't need Mystique's help,
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  but accidentally absorbed Carol's powers and memories
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  permanently, which messed both of them up pretty badly.
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  Rogue and Mystique freed the Brotherhood after that, but they
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  were quickly caught again by The Avengers after a failed
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  jailbreak. Only Destiny got out, and the
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  three women stuck together as a sisterhood, fighting off various
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  enemies until Rogue finally asked Professor X for help
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  controlling her powers. Mystique had a hard time
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  accepting that, but eventually accepted Rogue's choice.
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  As anti mutant feelings grew, Mystique offered the Brotherhood
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  to help the US government in exchange for a pardon.
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  They became Freedom Force and took on missions like hunting
• 14:29
  down Magneto, The Avengers, and other mutants.
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  They even saved Senator Kelly from a drug Lord.
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  Sadly, after two teammates died fighting cyborgs called the
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  Reavers, Mystique took a break to mourn Destiny and scattered
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  her ashes at sea. During this time, the Shadow
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  King saw Mystique as a threat and tried to mess with her, but
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  she outsmarted him by morphing into her handler Valerie Cooper
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  and stopped him from killing Xavier.
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  Freedom Force eventually broke up and Mystique had adventures
• 15:00
  with Wolverine and Forge, and when her son Graydon Creed found
• 15:04
  out who his real parents were, he blackmailed Sabretooth to
• 15:07
  kill Mystique. That didn't work out and
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  Mystique even assassinated Graydon during a presidential
• 15:14
  speech later on, which he'll probably be brought back some
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  point. She went into hiding as the wife
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  of a senator, kidnapped Dr. Myra Mctaggart to create a deadly
• 15:25
  virus, and tried to stop Senator Kelly from becoming present
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  again, but the X-Men and a traitor from her own team
• 15:32
  stopped her. During her escape, she shot
• 15:35
  Myra's adopted daughter Wolfsbane and stabbed Rogue, but
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  Rogue, who had absorbed Wolverine's claws, stabbed
• 15:42
  Mystique back. Mystique survived and justified
• 15:46
  her actions by talking about Destiny's predictions.
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  She infiltrated the paramilitary ex corpse under the name Serge
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  and nearly took it over, but got pulled into a weird dimensional
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  portal by a mutant called Abyss. Steek was freed during a battle
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  but was soon captured by Homeland Security and sentenced
• 16:09
  to death until Xavier stepped in and made a deal.
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  She'd work as a secret agent for the X-Men, and he'd keep her
• 16:16
  safe. She got paired with a little
• 16:20
  telepathic handler named Short Pack and went on a mission to
• 16:23
  Cuba to destroy a Sentinel factory, but was later tricked
• 16:28
  into becoming a double agent by a spy named Shepherd.
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  Shepherd wanted her to kill Xavier, but Mystique failed and
• 16:34
  became a fugitive instead. Still, she stayed loyal to Short
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  Pack and helped rescue him, taking down Shepherd's boss, The
• 16:41
  Quiet Man. Trying to help Rogue, Mystique
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  disguised herself as a student named Fox and tried to seduce
• 16:49
  Rogue's boyfriend Gambit, but failed, which is so weird.
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  She then revealed who she really was and asked to join the X-Men,
• 16:57
  and Rogue watched her very closely.
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  During this time, Rogue got infected by a virus that turned
• 17:02
  her powers deadly and mentally unstable.
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  Mystique teamed up with Mr. Sinister's Marauders to help
• 17:10
  Rogue, even betraying the X-Men. She appeared to kill Sinister,
• 17:15
  but really used a baby mutant's powers to cure Rogue.
• 17:19
  Rogue was disgusted by Mystique risking a baby and asked Cyclops
• 17:24
  to kill her. Wolverine fought Mystique but
• 17:26
  spared her, leaving her wounded and alone in the desert, which
• 17:29
  really shook her up. After that, Mystique started
• 17:33
  attacking Iceman, who she apparently had feelings for but
• 17:38
  couldn't express it in a healthy way.
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  When Norman Osborne took over the US security, she implemented
• 17:44
  nanotech with in her, forcing her to obey him as part of the
• 17:48
  fake X-Men. She even pretended to be Xavier
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  in public to discredit the real X-Men.
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  Despite doubts about her team mates, Mystique led the team and
• 18:00
  frequently morphed into Jean Grey's form.
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  On a mission to investigate mutant energy weirdness in
• 18:07
  California, they accidentally brought back Nate Gray, who was
• 18:11
  an X-Men, who Osbourne then possessed.
• 18:16
  Mystique fought Osbourne's inner Green Goblin persona, but
• 18:20
  Osbourne won. Eventually, Osbourne was removed
• 18:23
  from power and his fake X-Men disbanded, though it's unclear
• 18:27
  what happened with the nanotech inside Mystique.
• 18:30
  Maybe they're leaving that in their back pocket for another
• 18:32
  time. Later, working for a group
• 18:34
  called the Red Right Hand, who hates Wolverine, Mystique
• 18:39
  disguised herself as Wolverine's girlfriend to trap him in a
• 18:42
  hellish realm. But after hearing their plans,
• 18:45
  she turned on the group and helped rescue Wolverine's soul.
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  With an exorcist's help, the Red Right Hand resurrected Mystique
• 18:52
  and Saber Tooth, but they later betrayed their Japanese bosses.
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  Mystique then joined the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants,
• 19:00
  using Psylocke's form to poison Phantom X, and tried to take
• 19:05
  over the group from the Shadow King, but X4 stopped her after
• 19:11
  the big Avengers versus X-Men battle.
• 19:13
  We all know it. Mystique tried to rebuild the
• 19:17
  Brotherhood with Sabretooth and Lady Mastermind, attempting to
• 19:21
  create chaos among the X-Men and frame the original 5X Men
• 19:25
  brought to the present. Both plans failed.
• 19:28
  They weren't great. She then stole Dazzler's
• 19:31
  identity to build a mutant sanctuary on Madrapore through
• 19:35
  heists. Magneto thought she was
• 19:37
  betraying Mutant Kind because she used Mutant Growth Hormone
• 19:40
  to fund them, attack them, and destroyed their base.
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  Soon after, Xavier died like again, revealing he'd once been
• 19:49
  married to Mystique, though that timeline was later erased.
• 19:54
  Despite that, Magneto recruited Mystique to fight Red Onslaught
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  in Genosha. A magic spell flipped everyone's
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  morals on the island, turning Mystique into a hero who fought
• 20:06
  the X-Men. After the spell was reversed,
• 20:10
  Captain America recruited her for an Astonishing Avengers.
• 20:14
  After Wolverine died, Mystique showed up at an auction of his
• 20:16
  remains, where Dakin killed almost everyone except her.
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  She was forced into a team called the Wolverines with
• 20:24
  Dakin, Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, and X-23.
• 20:28
  They fought the Wrecking Crew and Mr. Sinister, who stole
• 20:31
  Wolverine's remains and Dakin's eye and arm.
• 20:34
  Oh, by the way, Dakin is Wolverine's son, just so you
• 20:36
  guys know. Mystique declared herself leader
• 20:40
  and set out to bring Destiny back, following Destiny's old
• 20:43
  prophecies. But Destiny's letter told her to
• 20:47
  bring Wolverine back instead, leaving Mystique pissed and
• 20:51
  ready to ignore what the world needed.
• 20:54
  Later, Mystique helped Xavier Magneto create a mutant nation
• 20:58
  called Crocoa. In exchange for Destiny's
• 21:01
  resurrection, she planted a special flower on the moon that
• 21:05
  helped link mutant minds. Once Crocoa was up and running,
• 21:09
  all mutants were invited to live there safely.
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  Xavier and Magneto sent Mystique to steal info about some
• 21:16
  dangerous robots, Mother Mold and Nimrod to stop Nimrod's
• 21:20
  creation. During the attack on a space
• 21:23
  station, Mystique was killed along with some X-Men, but was
• 21:27
  later resurrected in cloned bodies.
• 21:32
  She joined Cocoa's ruling council and represented the
• 21:36
  Criminal Minds, even voting to exile Sabertooth, who's her baby
• 21:40
  daddy. She went back to the space
• 21:43
  station to finish the mission but failed again.
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  She struck a deal to bring back Destiny if she succeeded.
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  Mystique then impersonated Xavier to steal Destiny's
• 21:53
  genetic data and managed to bring her back, but Destiny was
• 21:57
  overwhelmed with visions. Mystique helped get Destiny on
• 22:01
  to the council, surprising Xavier Magneto.
• 22:05
  Then Mystique and Destiny found out that Myra Mctaggart was
• 22:10
  still alive, a mutant who resets timelines when she dies, which
• 22:16
  helping create Curricoa. Mystique tried to kill Myra to
• 22:21
  stop the resets but was stopped by Cypher who reminded her it's
• 22:25
  against the law to kill humans. Myra was freed, leaving Mystique
• 22:30
  and Destiny frustrated but warning Cypher they'd come after
• 22:33
  him. So that's some of her back
• 22:37
  story. Mystique is a very, very complex
• 22:41
  character with a huge rich back story that gets more complicated
• 22:45
  as time goes on. It just, it just keeps going.
• 22:49
  She is a powerhouse of a character, to put it plainly.
• 22:53
  As usual, I have comics for you to check out to get to know
• 22:55
  Mystique even better. Most recently she was in Marvel
• 22:59
  United, a Pride special, which is a very act of actually a very
• 23:03
  wholesome story. It was a short story, but it was
• 23:06
  very wholesome. It was threw me off.
• 23:10
  Then check out the miniseries. It's more much more recent
• 23:14
  within the last year. Mystique by Declan Shelvey.
• 23:17
  It's it's great. I really enjoyed it.
• 23:20
  X Factor volume 1 numbers 112 to 143.
• 23:26
  Sabretooth of Mystique X-Men Black Mystique Dark X-Men one
• 23:32
  through 5 Wolverines Weapon X series from 2017 issues 20
• 23:38
  through 27. So that is my breakdown.
• 23:42
  A Mystique. I hope you learned something and
• 23:43
  I hope you enjoyed it. With that being said, have a
• 23:45
  marvelous day.