Mystique makes her move!
Originally Published January 2001
We begin with Senator Kelly doing what Senator Kelly does, which is making a stump speech about the threat of mutants.
The speech is seen by notable mutants like Magneto (the current sovereign of Genosha,) Moira "MacTaggart," X-Force, Generation X, and of course, our favourites, the X-Men themselves, where Beast echoes the sentiments of many a scholar by poking some holes in the mutant metaphor.
Perhaps the figure most interested in what this Massachusetts legislator and presumptive candidate has to say is Mystique, watching from a seedy motel in Glasgow, who gives the TV the Elvis treatment in response to Kelly's remarks.
Not far away in the waters of the North Atlantic, the newly-telegenic Brotherhood commandeers a yacht, whose passengers, all members of the gentry, have been infected with a new strain of the Legacy Virus designed to affect people without the X-Gene.
I didn't know you could just flip a switch in a virus like that.
For good measure, the Brotherhood sinks the yacht. It just seems the appropriately Evil thing to do.
In Westchester, Future Last X-Man Bishop is working out with various Current Current X-Men when his pleasant, casual Sentinel scenario is interrupted by a most unwelcome figure.
The distraction by Fitzroy causes the Sentinels to unal*ve the rest of the team. But don't worry, they were all just simulacra.
Bishop, for his part is annoyed that his personal arch-nemesis -- who is dead, thank you very much -- was inserted into this unrelated scenario. Because you know bad guys are famous for waiting their turn at bat.
Over coffee in the common room, Bishop laments that Fitzroy is the crook that got away -- I guess dying counts as escaping justice, sure.
But speaking of Bishop's background in law enforcement (for certain definitions of "law" and "enforcement,") the Professor has need of his particular skills as a potential detective. In that case I would recommend he look elsewhere because we've known Bishop for ten years now and he's never successfully detected shit.
The target: Mystique. Intel suggests she's going to mount another attempt on Senator Kelly's life, but that all seems a tad obvious, so it falls to Bishop to look into it and see what else might be going on.
Elsewhere, Logan finds Rogue in rough shape.
Following her contact with the Skrull Z'Cann, Rogue's powers have gone loopy, causing her to manifest the powers of everyone she's ever touched. She's been blue like Nightcrawler, steely like Colossus, stormy like Storm, pervy like Gambit, and so on and so forth.
She and Wolverine bond over the recurring hurts caused by the bone claws -- much like in the movie!
On Muir Isle, "Moira" returns home, but Wolfsbane catches the scent of the Evil Mutants she's been palling around with. She chomps Tooth, then scampers away before they can deal with her.
As Rogue and Logan meditate, Rogue catches a telepathic flash that sends her into a spiral of flared-up powers.
Bishop, who happened to be nearby, assists by helping to drain Rogue of her various energies.
Later in the infirmary, Rogue is on the mend, even if she still has a combo platter of powers. She notes that the telepathic voice she heard was Mystique's. They now know she's on Muir Island and planning something big. It's go time.
Simultaneously, in Warshington, Kelly is giving yet another speech, with Cable embedded in his security force and Gambit and Beast standing by.
When the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants arrives at the speech, Rogue realizes they're too late...
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Further Thoughts:
So, Mystique is at it again. She's cooked up yet another scheme to assassinate Senator Kelly, and she may even succeed. If this all sounds weirdly familiar, well, I'd be concerned if it didn't: Raven first trained her sights on Kelly back in 1980's Uncanny X-Men #141, a story that quickly passed into the canon of legendary X-Men stories that seems to keep coming back to us. We saw Mystique target Kelly in the X-Men's cartoon, we saw it in their movie, sort of. It's just what she does.
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| Also, is Mystique Moira here, or...? |
One interesting aspect of the 2000 Claremont X-Men run had been how it kept the past at a remove. The X-Men think mostly about their recent history rather than dredging up deep lore. They've fought a score of villains -- the Neo, the Goth, the Crimson Pirates, and on and on -- they've never seen before, for their own reasons. It hasn't made for the greatest comic stories ever told, but nobody could have accused the creators of resting on their laurels and just trying to play the hits.
But now -- as alluded in several recent issues -- Mystique is At It Again, looking to finish what she started 20 years (or is it 9 or 10?) earlier. Is it simply a convenient retread, Mystique playing out the plot of a favourite age-old comic, in recursive reference to a recent semi-adaptation of that comic on screen? Or is it, as Blob says, unfinished business, something that will finally be tied off once and for all and help kick the X-Men's story past this particular refrain?
We'll see, but it actually doesn't matter to my enjoyment of the issue what the answer is. In the same way originality doesn't guarantee brilliance, going back to safe, familiar ground doesn't automatically merit dismissal. I liked this comic, it was like comfort food, and not just because it had Mystique Doing What Mystique Does. Yes, the X-Men are wrapped up in a familiar plot, but there's also a layer of substance with examinations of the characters, their powers, their relationships to their bodies and their pasts and the world -- stuff that it's easy to overlook and take for granted but is really the key component that makes the X-Men Comics what they are. Bishop fretting over his long lost enemy, Rogue despairing over her lack of control over her powers, near-constant talk of what it actually means to have mutants in the world -- this is the good stuff, and it's stuff that's missing when the X-Men are just scrambling to fight the baddies of the week.
While recent issues drawn by Leinil F. Yu and Andy Kubert felt like they were on the edge of the future, artistically, Salvador Larroca makes this issue feel classicist, a lot like a good old fashioned superhero comic in the most welcome of ways. Perhaps ironically given my saying that, the crisp linework, even pacing and light touch of coloring actually make it feel more like a Marvel comic from nowadays than any recent artist. The story is shaped like itself, which is a huge part of what the artist is responsible for in making a comic.
As we near the denouement of this Chris Claremont stretch, we're seeing a bit more conversation with the X-Men history of which Claremont himself was the key builder, both in terms of what the story is about and how it's told. Maybe that's a sign of defeat, that the new stuff wasn't landing, or a sign of getting his footing a bit late, or just something that was inevitable either way. Whether it's a reversion to type or a return to form, all I can say is that I enjoyed this issue as much as any I've seen in a long while. As outwardly innocuous as it was, I even liked thinking about it, and I hope the rest of the story sticks the landing.
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