Mystique (character)

• 1. Introduction

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  Mystique, the blue-skinned shapeshifter of Marvel Comics, has an earliest recorded appearance in her own stories that dates to the years around 1900. At that time she lived in a male guise as a consulting detective. She formed a romance with her world's version of Irene Adler. Those details imply that the detective is Sherlock Holmes, and the comics confirmed that implication by 2022.

  Mystique can copy the look and the voice of any person so perfectly that no one can tell the difference. Her own face is the one she shows least. It has blue skin, red hair, and yellow eyes.

  Who is she when she is not wearing someone else? She has served as a supervillain and as an antiheroine, and she has led and served the Brotherhood of Mutants. Why does a woman who assassinates politicians also hide a baby, adopt a runaway, and nurse a grudge against her own mind? And how did a character born from one artist's design become one of Marvel's most notable and powerful female antiheroes?

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• 2. Created Under the Code

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  David Cockrum drew the design, and Chris Claremont supplied the name. Claremont saw Cockrum's artwork, dubbed the character Mystique, and, with the artist's permission, placed her in Ms. Marvel #16 in 1978.

  Ms. Marvel #18, also from 1978, showed readers her true appearance. Her first cover appearance followed in The Avengers Annual #10 in 1981.

  The woman at the center of a later dispute was Destiny, who is also called Irene Adler and is Mystique's wife. In July 2006, Claremont, a former X-Men writer, said he had always intended Mystique and Destiny to be the biological parents of Nightcrawler. Marvel did not agree at the time. The Comics Code Authority then prohibited the explicit portrayal of gay or bisexual characters. The storyline was finally made canon in November 2023.

  Mystique herself usually went by a borrowed name too, the human identity of Raven Darkhölme.

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• 3. Powers and Skills

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  Mystique's power works on the cells of her body, which she can rearrange at will to look like any human or animal. She can also reproduce another person's voice exactly. A recent story put it bluntly, saying she can "rewrite every disgusting trace of sapiens code if she has to." The same story credits her with an instinctive command over cells, hormones, and ribosomes, which makes her a gene-shaper rather than a mere skin-changer.

  In her early stories, the limits were firm. She could copy only appearances, could not take on the powers of the people she imitated, and could not adapt her body to new situations. She also could not change her total weight when imitating someone larger or smaller. Later enhancements loosened that rule, and she now says her body mass is not fixed. Some of the unknowns about her abilities may come from her secretive nature, or from memory tampering that clouded her understanding. She admits she does not know the science behind all of them.

  Her copies reach beyond skin. She can build the appearance of clothes, glasses, zippers, identity cards, handbags, and even test tubes out of her own body. In at least one instance she turned a metallic part of her costume into a working blaster pistol. Because she constantly alters and renews her cells, her body does not age. She has lived for over one hundred years and still looks youthful and in her physical prime.

  The X-Men Forever miniseries gave her first power enhancement. She was exposed to dangerous levels of radiation in order to save the life of Toad, and the process let her grow useful traits to suit the moment. Examples include night vision, wings, talons on her fingers or toes, and natural body armor. She can flatten to nearly two dimensions like a sheet of paper and glide on air currents, much as Mister Fantastic does. She has shifted her organs out of place to survive gunshots to the torso and head. She can blend into her surroundings until she is nearly invisible. With strain, she has given herself two heads and four arms to fight on two fronts. She has also turned into a small child version of herself. She can now hold a shape while unconscious and hide items in pouches under her skin.

  A later resurrection by the Hand enhanced her again. She can now change and hide her scent from characters with sharpened senses. She can form tentacles and bladed weapons from her limbs, and she can compress herself into a dog. Her tissue heals quickly, she builds resistance to poisons on contact, and she can regrow severed limbs. She is also immune to disease and has enhanced agility and strength.

  Mystique is fluent in over fourteen languages, and she is also a gifted actress. She is a cunning strategist in terrorist and commando operations, skilled in martial arts and information technology. She has a talent for finding, stealing, and understanding cutting-edge weaponry. Her mind is naturally unreadable because her grey matter keeps changing, and she wears devices that block telepathic intrusion. Over a century of posing as other people has taught her to spot impostors by body language and shifts in behavior.

  One of her aliases is the billionaire B Byron Biggs, who owns safehouses around the world, often guarded by sophisticated security systems. She also controls many weapons and gadgets, including a stealth ship called the Changeling. The ship can cloak itself and fly at very high speed. It carries sophisticated weapons, surveillance systems, an analysis computer, and power-suppressing containment cells.

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• 4. Three Children

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  Baron Christian Wagner, an affluent German noble, was the husband Mystique married while still posing as Raven. Older sources call him Count Eric Wagner. He was loving but infertile. Mystique used her shapeshifting for numerous affairs, and she arranged for Irene Adler, her true lover, to be hired on as a maid in the household.

  One of those affairs was with Azazel, a fellow mutant who claims to rule an island nation off the coast of Bermuda called La Isla des Demonas, the Island of Demons. He is later revealed to be immortal. He is also the father of an ancient race of mutants called the Neyaphem, active since at least 2000 BC.

  Mystique appeared to become pregnant, and her husband grew suspicious. His own father suggested a blood test to check whether the child was his. In terror, she stabbed her husband to death and hid the body.

  The pregnancy turned out to be a performance. Destiny was the one carrying the child, and Mystique used her powers to simulate the condition in sympathy. At a deeper level, her ability had copied the genetics of Azazel, Christian, and other men, which let her create her own sperm. She then took a male form and impregnated Destiny, because the two wanted to start a family.

  Destiny gave birth to a boy with black hair, yellow eyes, blue skin, and a pointed tail. After Mystique revealed her true form, the locals took her and the child for demons and tried to kill them. Mystique escaped and hid her son briefly, planning to help Destiny flee and then return for him. Destiny had escaped on her own, and when Mystique went back the boy was gone. Azazel had found him and given him to the Roma sorceress Margali Szardos, who named him Kurt Wagner.

  Mystique later learned that Destiny had partly used the conception as a manipulation. Destiny had foreseen that Kurt would wreck Azazel's plan for world domination, which involved gathering several of his children. She needed a child that Azazel would assume was his own.

  The pain of the loss strained the couple, and they went to Charles Xavier, some time before he formed the X-Men, to erase their memories of Kurt. Mystique chose to keep the knowledge that she had a son out there somewhere. Xavier advised against it. He warned that a perforated memory fills its gaps with invented stories, and that false memories could be uglier than the truth.

  That is exactly what happened. Mystique came to believe that Azazel was the father and that she was the mother. She believed she had either abandoned Kurt to save herself or dropped him off a cliff to spite Azazel. Those beliefs help explain her coldness toward Kurt even after they were reunited. Destiny never learned that she had given birth to him, and Xavier, who regarded the matter as private, deleted his own memory of it.

  Mystique told Nightcrawler the truth after her real memories reasserted themselves. This followed a fall off a cliff at the third Hellfire Gala, while she was resisting a psychic push from Xavier. The experience left her mentally unstable until Nightcrawler's "Hopesword" undid Xavier's changes.

  Victor Creed, better known as Sabretooth, was assigned along with a German secret agent named Leni Zauber to assassinate a scientist in East Berlin. Leni was dead, so Mystique, living as Raven, took her identity and completed the mission. She and Victor then hid together in a safe location for a while and became lovers. She soon faked her death to leave him.

  The result of that short-lived affair was reportedly Graydon Creed. Some stories say Mystique gave him up for adoption soon after his birth. Others show her making arrangements from a distance. She tracked his activities until he reached adolescence.

  Graydon was not a mutant, even though both his parents were. Mystique was disappointed and soon abandoned him. He grew to hate his parents and then all mutants. He became leader of the mutant-hating organization Friends of Humanity and then a politician. At the height of his rise, an unknown shooter assassinated him. The shooter was later revealed to be a time-traveling version of Mystique, in a convoluted paradox involving Jean Grey, Iceman, Toad, and Juggernaut.

  Another thread in Graydon's story involved a run for President on an anti-mutant platform. Mystique and Graydon both learned that Destiny had married and had children during one of the couple's separations. Her children were now adults with children of their own, and one of those grandchildren was a mutant. Graydon had the mutant teen savagely beaten by members of the Friends of Humanity as a warning to his mother. Mystique wanted to kill him but stopped when a message told her that Graydon's backers wanted exactly that, to turn him into a martyr. She tried to save her son from being betrayed by those backers and failed. His death ushered in a new wave of anti-mutant violence.

  Later, the original X-Factor's sentient ship sent Mystique back in time. She found herself holding a time delay weapon that she was about to program to kill Graydon. After deliberation, she activated it.

  Rogue was fourteen when Mystique found her. The girl had run away from her home in rural Caldecott County, Mississippi, and was living alone in a wooded area with a shotgun and no trust for anyone. Destiny foresaw that Rogue would be important to them. Mystique sought the girl out, won her trust, and took her in, and the two women raised her. Rogue's mutant power is to absorb the memories, personality, and skills or powers of anyone she touches.

  Destiny also foresaw that Ms. Marvel would be a danger to the girl, a prediction Mystique took seriously.

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• 5. Brotherhood to Breakdown

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  Under the identity of Raven Darkhölme, Mystique rose rapidly through the United States Civil Service to become Deputy Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, part of the Department of Defense. The post gave her access to military secrets and advanced weaponry, and she used both for criminal ends. She tried to steal the Centurion weaponry from S.H.I.E.L.D. She also spied on Carol Danvers and Ms. Marvel for some time, beat Danvers's lover Michael Barnett to death, and then sought to kill Ms. Marvel.

  To help with her crimes, Mystique formed her own incarnation of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Its members were herself, Avalanche, Blob, Destiny, and Pyro. They tried to assassinate Senator Robert Kelly, a notorious anti-mutant politician. The X-Men stopped the attempt, and everyone except Mystique went to prison.

  Rogue trained under Mystique and joined the Brotherhood. To free the others, Mystique planned for Rogue to absorb the powers of Ms. Marvel and the Avengers. The plan worked, but the Avengers defeated the Brotherhood anyway. Rogue discovered that she had absorbed Ms. Marvel's memories, personality, and powers permanently. At the Pentagon, a powerless Ms. Marvel turned a defeated Mystique over to the authorities.

  After the Brotherhood escaped, Mastermind took revenge on Mystique by unbalancing Rogue's mind with the psyche she had absorbed from Ms. Marvel. Rogue defected to the X-Men without a word. Mystique assumed that Professor X had brainwashed her, and the Brotherhood launched an attempt to kill him. Rogue stopped her and explained that Professor X, as the world's most powerful telepath, was her best hope of healing her fragmented psyche. Mystique reluctantly gave up her guardianship.

  Project Wideawake, a covert federal anti-mutant program, marked a turn in her fortunes. Mystique went to Valerie Cooper, special assistant to the head of the National Security Council, and offered the Brotherhood's services to the government. In return she won a presidential pardon, to be revoked if any member committed a crime. Cooper demanded that the Brotherhood arrest their own founder, Magneto. The reborn team, called Freedom Force, lost to Magneto and the X-Men, but he surrendered voluntarily when he learned that they were federal agents.

  Freedom Force fought the Avengers, X-Factor, and the New Mutants, and Mystique captured Rusty Collins and Skids. On Muir Island the team fought the Reavers in a disastrous mission. Freedom Force lost two members there, Stonewall and Mystique's lover Destiny. The loss scarred Mystique, and she deserted her allies.

  Mystique resurfaced months later in a failed attempt to kill Legion for his role in Destiny's murder. After her arrest for trying to blow up a dam, she was forcibly reassigned to the government-sponsored X-Factor, with an implant that Forge put in her skull so the government could track her. She had in fact been trying to save the dam, which the government wanted to destroy in a false flag attack and blame on mutants. Sabretooth joined the team later as a sleeper agent, with the main purpose of killing her before she exposed the conspiracy. She slowly developed a romance with Forge, though he later thought she was only using him.

  When "Operation: Zero Tolerance" activated, Sabretooth moved to kill the members of X-Factor. Mystique distracted him long enough to keep him from finishing the team. She abandoned her teammates again, but this time she made sure they received medical treatment first.

  She hid as Mallory Brickman, wife of an influential senator, and used her husband to set the FBI on Sabretooth. In Europe she took the form of a blond woman, and a famous photographer who did not know her identity scouted her as a fashion model. She accepted, became rich, and moved into an expensive penthouse in New York. Skrulls in a nearby building then framed her for the murder of a Japanese diplomat. Shadowcat and Rogue helped clear her, and Shadowcat found one of Destiny's diaries left behind.

  Mystique lost her powers while pretending to be a man in a busy office, in the middle of gathering intelligence on the people behind her son's death. She was arrested. The government destroyed all the alternate identities she had built over the years and confiscated the money she and Destiny had hidden away. The High Evolutionary was responsible for depowering all mutants. When the X-Men defeated him and restored everyone's powers, Mystique escaped from jail.

  A harder blow came next. Mystique learned that Destiny had been a founding member of the anti-mutant conspiracy that she herself had spent countless years fighting. Destiny had also willfully withheld medical treatment that would have kept mutant children from growing up deformed by their mutations.

  The revelation broke her mind again. She reformed the Brotherhood for another attempt on Senator Kelly, and she kidnapped Moira MacTaggert and impersonated her to reach her Legacy Virus research. From samples of the virus, Mystique made both a cure and a biological weapon that would infect humans but not mutants. The Kelly attempt failed when Pyro betrayed his teammates. Mystique blew up MacTaggert's research facility and fatally injured the doctor. She shot MacTaggert's foster daughter Wolfsbane with a prototype of Forge's neutralizer gun, depowering her. When the X-Men confronted her, she was seriously wounded. She told them that Destiny had predicted a dark future for mutants, and that the future kept unfolding despite everything she had done. She now believed the only way to save mutants was to eradicate all humans.

  She escaped prison and allied with Martinique Jason to take control of the X-Corps from its founder, Banshee. Using a device that let her generate an electrical charge, she created the supervillain identity of Surge and joined the organization. While Jason mind-controlled the other members, Mystique slit Banshee's throat and left him in critical condition. The authorities now wanted her executed.

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• 6. Death and Return

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  Professor X broke the cycle by turning her into his secret agent. His previous agent, Prudence Leighton, had died, and Mystique was the only suitable replacement. Xavier posed as Magneto to rescue her from the Department of Homeland Security and from execution at the hands of Johny Kitano, a mutant and the Special Magistrate for Homo Superior crimes against humanity. The condition was that she complete her missions without killing anyone. Xavier, working with Forge, kept the authorities away. Mystique claimed an impostor had framed her by taking over the Brotherhood.

  One of Xavier's enemies, the Quiet Man, contacted her. He was actually Prudence Leighton inhabiting the body of her assassin. He offered an interference transmitter that would keep her safe from the authorities if she killed Xavier. To free herself from both men, Mystique pretended to attack Xavier while secretly working with the mutant thief Fantomex, and she alerted Forge to stop her at the last moment. The other X-Men believed the attempt was real. Rogue tracked her down and attacked her, and Mystique escaped by blowing up the house and changing her form to cushion her fall through the window.

  Mystique then killed the Quiet Man, saved her former field handler Shortpack, and learned that the Quiet Man's transmitter was a fake. She tried to steal Forge's transmitter but was caught. He smashed it, told her he never wanted to see her again, and they shared a sad goodbye kiss. Only after she left did Forge realize that she had already swapped his transmitter for the fake.

  Mystique next infiltrated the X-Men as a young girl named Foxx and joined Gambit's training squad, the Chevaliers. Her scheme was to break up Gambit and Rogue so she could pair her daughter with a young mutant named Augustus. She assumed Rogue's form and told Gambit it would not be cheating if he slept with her in that shape. He refused. Emma Frost discovered who Foxx really was, and Mystique told the X-Men she had been lonely and wanted to join. They voted to accept her on probation, though Rogue voted against, and Nightcrawler asked her to leave for a while. After M-Day she joined the X-Men and brought Augustus, called Pulse, with her. Both were crucial in the downfall of Apocalypse.

  Rogue's childhood home in Caldecott County, Mississippi, belongs to Mystique, and it became the setting of her worst betrayal. After the battle with Hecatomb on Providence, Rogue's team went there for downtime. Mystique warned the X-Men of intruders, but when Lady Mastermind dropped her illusions, the X-Men saw an all-out attack by the Marauders. Mystique stopped Scalphunter from shooting Rogue. Then she revealed herself as a traitor, shot her adopted daughter, and ordered the Marauders to kill the X-Men.

  She stayed with the Marauders during the hunt for the first new mutant baby, and she had secretly murdered Mister Sinister. When Sinister approached her as she sat with the comatose Rogue, she shoved him onto Rogue and killed him with fatal skin-to-skin contact. Following the Destiny Diaries, she then touched the baby's face to Rogue's. The baby's touch purged Rogue of the Strain 88 virus and of all the residual psyches she had absorbed, including Hecatomb. Rogue was sickened by the manipulation and left.

  Wolverine tracked Mystique to the Middle East and then into Afghanistan. Hints suggest that her recent betrayal was not his only reason, since the two share a history of friendship, love, and betrayal. After a heated fight he wounded her but refused to deliver the final blow.

  Mystique later posed as Bobby Drake's ex-girlfriend Opal Tanaka, planted a bomb in his Blackbird, and shot him out of the plane. She followed Iceman to the hospital and injected him with a fatal dose of a toxin created by Mister Sinister. She set a truck on fire with him inside. Iceman walked out unharmed and disarmed her, but she escaped by turning her body into her child form. She then impersonated Iceman on top of the Golden Gate Bridge and threatened to blow it up. Her reason was that Wolverine had told her she would die alone. Iceman froze the bomb, Mystique jumped into the water, and he later thanked her for what she had done for him.

  Norman Osborn recruited her for his Dark X-Men. At first she posed as Professor Charles Xavier for public relations. Osborn had her injected with nanites so he could turn her into a human bomb if she stepped out of line. After Emma Frost, Namor, and Cloak and Dagger left the team, Mystique led the rest under the public guise of Jean Grey, mainly to hurt those who had caused her great harm.

  Wolverine came back from hell, having learned that Mystique was responsible for sending his soul there at the request of The Red Right Hand. A hit-man named Lord Deathstrike, the brother of Lady Deathstrike, shot her. Badly wounded, she patched herself up and fled on a motorcycle, with Wolverine and Lord Deathstrike chasing her through the streets of San Francisco. Wolverine finally confronted her and killed her with his claws. Lord Deathstrike collected her body and auctioned it. It sold for 5 million to a group of ninjas, who are implied to be agents of The Hand.

  Mystique was soon seen alive again, posing as Sabretooth at Los Angeles International Airport. As Sabretooth she agreed to help the Hellfire Club destroy the Jean Grey School, and she became a faculty member of the Hellfire Academy. When word came that the original X-Men were in the present day, she sought out young Scott Summers to manipulate him. She used Lady Mastermind and Sabretooth to commit robberies and frame the X-Men, and she told Viper she wanted to buy Madripoor from Hydra. After Thor shattered Iceman, who was possessed by the Apocalypse fragment, Mystique swallowed the fragment to inherit its powers. She then drugged and replaced Dazzler, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mutant liaison, which let her build a New Brotherhood under Maria Hill's nose. Magneto declined a place in it because she financed the group with drug money from Mutant Growth Hormone sales.

  In the Uncanny Avengers storyline, a flawed spell cast by the Scarlet Witch and Doctor Doom inverted the morals of heroes and villains. Mystique joined the inverted villains and briefly posed as Professor X to reach the reborn Apocalypse, the adult clone Evan Sabahnur. At the story's end, she went back to her usual villainous attitude.

  On Krakoa, Mystique went with a team of X-Men to stop the anti-mutant organization Orchis from activating Mother Mold. They succeeded, but the entire team died in the raid and was resurrected on Krakoa. She then took a last-ditch mission to detonate a singularity bomb in the Orchis base before leader Alia Gregor could finish her own Nimrod prototype. In exchange, Destiny's resurrection was to be moved to the front of the line. The mission failed, and only the Nimrod containing the mind of Alia's husband was destroyed. Magneto and Professor X then forbade Destiny's resurrection. Mystique remembered a promise Destiny had once made, to burn Krakoa down if such a thing ever happened.

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• 7. Critical Reception

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  Shoshana Kessock of Tor.com called Mystique "one of the most impactful mutant villains in the comics." Peter Eckhardt of CBR.com wrote that "The shape-shifting Mystique is one of the X-Men's most compelling characters." He added that she is driven chiefly by self-interest and is capable enough to get what she wants through espionage, combat, or manipulation. Richard Chachiwski of Screen Rant noted that she has also been portrayed as an unlikely antiheroine in later years.

  IGN argued that not every great villain has to conquer the world. Some are simply great at manipulating events to their liking, and IGN called Mystique "absolutely one of the greatest female villains ever created." In 2009 the site ranked her 18th on its list of the greatest comic book villains of all time.

  Princess Weekes of The Mary Sue pointed to a gap between page and screen. She wrote that Mystique is known for pragmatism, spy-craft, intelligence, queerness, and a complex family history, but that in adaptation all of it gets "chiseled down to spy-craft and that's it." Weekes praised Rebecca Romijn for elevating the basic bones of the role into a masterclass.

  Queerness is the thread that many critics pull. Jude Dry of IndieWire wrote that Mystique has been canonically bisexual since 1981. She noted that the ancient power known as the Shadow King calls Destiny Mystique's "leman," an archaic word for lover, which was likely a ruse to slip past the comic censors of the time. Matthew Kang of MovieWeb called her an "allegory for the LGBTQ+ experience" and noted that she declares herself "mutant and proud." Samantha Puc of Newsarama named her relationship with Destiny one of the "most iconic LGBTQIA+ comics romances." The staff of ComicsBeat wrote that the pair have been written as lovers from the beginning.

  Not every verdict is warm. Sara Century of Syfy argued that since Destiny's death Mystique has often been written as a hypersexualized seducer of men, which distracts from the rest of her character. In Century's view, her stories have distanced her from the discussion of her queerness, and most stories still describe her bond with Destiny as close friendship.

  The ranking lists run through the 2010s and 2020s. BuzzFeed placed her 20th among X-Men members in 2014 and 9th among important LGBTQ+ Marvel and DC heroes in 2021. Entertainment Weekly put her 14th in 2015. In 2019, both Screen Rant and CBR.com ranked her 9th among powerful female villains. In 2022, Screen Rant ranked her 3rd among the best X-Men characters created by Chris Claremont. That year CBR.com placed her 3rd among Marvel's best infiltrators and ranked Mystique and Destiny 5th among Marvel's best married couples. The A.V. Club put her 62nd among 100 best Marvel characters, and Newsarama ranked her 10th among X-Men villains.

  Sales figures show how much attention her solo books drew. According to Diamond Comic Distributors, Mystique #1 in 2003 was the 25th best-selling comic book of April that year. X-Men: Black - Mystique #1 in 2018 was 42nd in October and 400th for the year.

  Mike Fugere of CBR.com called X-Men: Black - Mystique #1 a "great villain spotlight," praising its inner monologue and the line work of artist Marco Failla. Peyton Hinckle of ComicsVerse scored the issue 91%. Hinckle saw a thief who treats crime as an art form, and a hint of morals in her willingness to release a captured young mutant, undercut by the slaughter of an office building full of people.

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• 8. Other Worlds, Other Screens

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  In the Age of Apocalypse timeline, Mystique guards the refuge of Avalon and charges refugees a heavy tariff, taking all their valuables, to ferry them there. Guilt eventually pushes her to work with her son Nightcrawler against Apocalypse. In the House of M reality she is an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in its elite Red Guard, and she is involved with Wolverine, the unit's leader.

  The Ultimate Marvel version is the former lover of Charles Xavier. Xavier dumped her for the young Emma Frost during their stay in the Savage Land with Magneto. The resentment makes her loyal to Magneto. A possible future version in All-New X-Men #27 is the mother of Raze, a child conceived with Wolverine, who later kills her and takes her appearance to rule Madripoor. In the Infinity Wars storyline, the Infinity Gems fuse her with Lady Deathstrike into Deathstrique.

  In Twentieth Century Fox's X-Men films, Mystique appears in seven of them. Rebecca Romijn played the first version in X-Men in 2000, in X2, and in X-Men: The Last Stand. This Mystique is a member of Magneto's Brotherhood until she is subjected to a mutant cure and ousted. She later sells him out. Jennifer Lawrence played a younger version in X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, and Dark Phoenix, with Morgan Lily as the child. This version is the childhood friend of Charles Xavier and a founding member of the X-Men, and she is eventually and inadvertently killed by Jean Grey while trying to save her from the Phoenix Force. Romijn also cameoed in First Class.

  On television, Randall Carpenter voiced her in the first two seasons of X-Men: The Animated Series, and Jennifer Dale took over for the rest of the run. That version leads the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and works with Apocalypse, Mister Sinister, and Magneto. In X-Men: Evolution, Colleen Wheeler voiced a Mystique who worked undercover as Principal Raven Darkholme of Bayville High School. Later she went rogue under the alias Risty Wilde, voiced by Nicole Oliver, and became Apocalypse's Horseman of Pestilence in the finale titled "Ascension." Tamara Bernier voiced her in Wolverine and the X-Men, where she lives on Genosha and has romantic history with Wolverine. Lena Headey voiced her as a member of Doctor Doom's Lethal Legion in an episode of The Super Hero Squad Show.

  In games, she is a boss in the 1992 X-Men title and a playable character in X-Men: Mutant Academy and its sequel. Julianne Grossman voiced her in X-Men: Next Dimension, and Grey DeLisle voiced her in X-Men Legends and X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse. Laura Bailey voiced her playable version in Lego Marvel Super Heroes. She is also playable in Marvel Strike Force and Fortnite Battle Royale, and she appears in Marvel Snap.

  Romijn is set to reprise the role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Avengers: Doomsday in 2026. Mystique is also listed to appear in Marvel's Wolverine.

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