Mystique will do Anything for love!
In this Article:
People will do anything for love.
Love is the only reason that Mystique is even considering helping Charles Xavier and Magneto on missions to make a safe world for Mutants a reality, even if it means dying herself. With the abilities of The Five making rebirth a possibility for all dead Mutants, Mystique only has one goal – resurrecting her dead wife, Destiny.
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This issue begins with a beautiful scene by artist Matteo Buffagni with warm colors by Sunny Gho as Mystique and Destiny sit on a hillside and watch a sunset together. Destiny asks Mystique to listen carefully to what she’s going to say, even if it doesn’t sound very believable. Knowing Jonathan Hickman, this is in medias res (the middle of the story).
Mystique’s HoX/PoX Story is Revealed
Cutting back the modern day, readers see that Orchis, the organization that the X-Men were fighting against in the latter issues of House of X are still in operation and that they’re working on plans that might finally put the Mutant menace to rest with the help of the Omega Sentinel and former Mutant ally, Karima.
Hickman continues to plant the seeds of Mutant destruction by reminding readers that Orchis are still a grave threat as they’ve made a new base on the Moon and after a Courier delivers a piece of technology to Dr. Gregor, a prime scientist of the group, we see that destroying the Mother Mold may not have stopped humans from creating Nimrod after all.
What this issue does best is bounce around various periods of time, from the distant past to the present and finally the time in between the destruction of the Mother Mold and its immediate aftermath. We get to see the side mission that Mystique was given during House of X #4.
I had wondered what Mystique meant when she said she was turned around while on the Mother Mold base, but it’s revealed that Charles and Magneto had her plant a Krakoa seed on the station for future infiltration. In exchange for her service, Charles and Erik would get The Five to resurrect Irene.
We see Mystique getting dropped out of the airlock from another angle and Buffagni draws a beautiful scene with Mystique slowly dying in the vacuum of space, crying a single tear and knowing that she’d soon be reunited with the love of her life. It starts off far away before pulling in closer and closer to a face of loving peace.
But Mystique has a history of disobeying orders, so soon after she returns to life, the Mutant leaders ask her to be very sure she completed her mission and then readers get an awesome scene of Mystique sneaking into the Orchis base through the newly made gate.
Mystique, the Courier
Buffagni and Gho do an amazing job of revealing that Mystique was the aforementioned Courier by having those panels she appeared in washed in black and white with her appearing fully in blue. It draws the readers eyes in and makes us want to go back and look at those previous panels to see that we haven’t been deceived and it makes for an interesting find.
Mystique does her job as always, even relaying the potential for a new Nimrod and when Magneto asks why didn’t she take care of the problem, she snarks about the Mutant laws against killing humans. This is an excellent way to both show more petulance on her part and a hint of fear knowing what happened to Sabretooth in the beginning of the series.
Of course, Mystique expects her reward at the end of things, but Charles and Erik deny her again. She is understandably pissed off, having given her life and risked it again just to please two men that she hates because they’re the only ones that can order the revival of the ONE person that she actually cares for in her life.
At the same time, Charles and Magneto might actually value what Destiny or even Blindfold has to offer, but Moira has ordered them to NEVER revive any Mutants with precognitive abilities. This is more than likely due to her knowing that Destiny will ruin her own overall plans, but she never counted on Mystique or Destiny’s range of future sight.
Coming back to the beginning of the book, Destiny makes vague allusions to the formation of Krakoa and the potential finality of it as a home for Mutants. She also tells Mystique that there will come a time to revive her, but if they refuse, then it’s up to Mystique to burn it to the ground and we all know that she can and will.