X-Men Blue: Origins #1 - "Lament in Blue"

[laughing_tree]

Oh, and: Mystique. Mystique like you’ve never seen her. Mystique on a jagged path that will lead to something profound. -- Si Spurrier

What we didn't want to do was to say, "No, that's all lies," and throw it away and pretend it was never there in the first place. We've worked with it in a very clever way to sensitively dance between the raindrops and present something which doesn't take anything away, but does add a great deal. -- Si Spurrier

Comments

[fra080389]

Why do you have complex characters with complex background and psychology and having intense and controversial relationships when you can just go to "I always loved you, I just forgot about it" and having the mother of all the retcons with an easy forgiveness and guilt-erasure? BUT EHY, they worked SO HARD on this, they didn't want to say "they were all lies", so they said "they were all lies but even she believed to it"... well, that makes all the difference, how revolutionary. /s

[laughing_tree]

Complex is not how I would describe the original setup of "lady so evil she tossed her baby over a waterfall to save herself." I don't think much of value was lost.

[cainofdreaming]

Well, at least Charles got to do the bad, bad thing. That's always nice.

[starwolf_oakley]

"Charles did a bad, bad thing."
"Again?"
"Yes, but done as a request."
"Oh. Well, that's a little different."

[cainofdreaming]

Different and

[super_fly]

Professor X can have a little moral event horizon crossing, as a treat

[kirayoshi1]

Kitty Pryde warned us all those years ago. Now and forever, PROFESSOR XAVIER IS A JERK!

[deh_tommy]

Bloody heck, did they relaunch Uncanny Spider-Man already? There wasn’t even any delay between issues!

[john_wyatt]

It's goofy - this one-shot (Blue) happens between scenes in Uncanny Spidey. They go off-panel, Blue happens, and in Uncanny, Kurt and Raven come back on-panel and make a reference to Blue, and the main story of Uncanny continues

[knight_moves]

Not to go all Youtube grifter, but is this born out of anything other than a desire that Mystique be a cool girlboss antihero instead of a villainess that's frequently cruel and amoral?

[nyadnar17]

I feel like Mystique has always gotten a pass no matter what she does. This story is just the latest version of that.

[icon_uk]

She's getting the Emma Frost treatment in some respects.

[cyberghostface]

I’m for restoring Claremont’s original idea about the two being parents given he was turned down for homophobic reasons but yeah I think a lot of the other stuff is unnecessary. Mystique was already a complex character and we saw that she was willing to sacrifice herself to save Kurt to atone for what she did before.

[blues32]

Why is she blaming Xavier? He flat out warned her that her mind would craft a story around it on its own and she said, "Do it, damn you."

[draganoche]

Mystique admitted in the connected Uncanny Spider-man that things like truth or reality don't matter to her, only how she feels.

She wants to blame Xavier, so he's to blame.

[sabertoothlotus]

truth or reality don't matter to her, only how she feels.

So she's a MAGA Republican? I mean, I know she's a terrorist, but I didn't realize she was THAT kind of evil...

[windleopard2]

It's always the ones you least expect.

[nyadnar17]

I legit hate that Mystique and Destiny get all this sympathy/empathy from the writers.

"Oh but they are in love!"

fucking great. Good for them.

Don't get me wrong I think Mystique is a great villain but hot damn am I tired of writers pretending everything is cool because she is capable of feeling love.

[shakalooloo]

Well, that and she was played by Jennifer Lawrence in those movies and is now perceived as 'not that bad' by the average person on the street.

[bravest_spinja]

While trying to make Mystique the field commander/third way of the franchise was clearly them trying to justify keeping JLaw on hand, I don't think it truly took, and the general audience's perception of her "Such as it is", is still the more antagonistic but queer coded activist take.

[bravest_spinja]

Heck, Lawrence still has to share her meme with Rebecca Romjin.

[shakalooloo]

She didn't get quite so much screentime without blueface.

[shakalooloo]

I'm still utterly bemused by Marvel using the AXIS morality-shift to make Sabertooth a good guy rather than Mystique.

[cainofdreaming]

Exiles Sabes probably influenced that decision. Marvel had already had some success with a morally positive Sabretooth, so trying it for regular version might have seemed like a good idea.

[icon_uk]

Sabretooth is not a complex character, he craves violence and conflict. So a moral inversaion for him has a predictable outcome.

Mystique has had so many shifts and changes of her nature and aims (Beyond "Being with Mystique at any cost", that it would be pretty much impossible to predict what a moral inversion would do to her

[deh_tommy]

”The Punisher? You’re not exactly good or bad, so who’s side are you on now?”

“Same side as usual: my side.”

[shakalooloo]

I dunno, maybe gaining an appreciation for the value of human life at a minimum? :P

[scorntx]

"Being with Mystique at any cost"
In fairness, next to Destiny, Mystique's second greatest love probably is herself.
(and even the second bit could be a toss-up.)

[cyberghostface]

That’s how I feel about Harley and Ivy some of the time. It’s a case of inmates (shippers) running the asylum, I’ll give G. Willow Wilson credit for showing Ivy’s monstrous side though.

[alan2099]

"Sure they've killed lots of innocent people, but they're lesbians! They means they have to be good people!"

[chalicother]

I really underestimated the amount of Destiny and Mystique shippers.
I thought the majority were just on Scansdaily.

At least Ivy and Harley had the relationship on screen and in multiple comics that made them have more of a bond.

Compared to this...where we need to add more pathos to Mystique to forget how horrible she can be.

[cyberghostface]

To be fair Mystique and Destiny were always meant to be a couple it was just one of those things where Claremont couldn’t make it explicit.

[chalicother]

Oops, my bad. Let be more clearer. I am not the best writer. What I meant was the idea of that Mystique and Destiny because of their love, aren't really horrible people who have done horrible things that we shouldn't judge them by.

What I meant to saw was more that there are people who ignore the villainous actions of Mystique and Destiny are way more bigger group than I thought.

I

[laughing_tree]

This comic absolutely still paints them as horrible people. Destiny manipulates Mystique into having a child as part of her typical long game chess, and Mystique's so pissed when she finds out she literally starts strangling her. The reason they go to Xavier for the memory snip is because Mystique now hates Destiny so much she can't get over it. It's a long way from an idealized relationship.

[laughing_tree]

The issue as a whole portrays everything a long way from being cool. For one, it’s probably the most explicitly toxic version of their relationship ever depicted, where the two have to periodically go their separate ways because they have such incongruent personalities that whenever they’re together too long they end up fucking each other over. To the point where they even have to resort to mind wipe themselves here as the only way to salvage their relationship. And it acknowledges that what they did to Nightcrawler — abandoning him to a lonely, painful existence so his adult self can be a tool against a future threat — is still monstrous.

[deh_tommy]

As bad as The Draco was, if nothing else I can respect Si Spurrier for trying to weld the original story to the retcon instead of just dismissing it all as falsehoods like others would have done (including him, coughBlackKnightcough).

I feel bad for that German baron dude Mystique married. So if Mystique never had a thing with Azazel, why did she kill him now?

[obsidianwolf]

She refers to a tedious affair with him partially at Destiny's urging so more than likely they had enough of a relationship to give him the illusion that he could have fathered a child with her.

ETA As to why she hates him so much probably her self serving memory it's his fault not Irene and her choices.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I mean, is it the writers' desire? Or the writers trying to find a way to enact what the fans want as best as they're able?

[obsidianwolf]

I'm honestly at the point where shifting character personalities and back stories are just things I expect. IN the post Super Hero life action movie scuccess years retcons are the norm.

I'm more bothered by yet more power creep for Mystique. Her being able to manipulate her DNA to this level now bugs me.

[shakalooloo]

Is this really worse than growing a second head or wings? At least in this case she manipulates her DNA to gain something that humans already have.

[obsidianwolf]

Power creep for her has been a long time problem with mystique and unlike a lot of past incidents this one is actually happening before the movie synergy power up she got that on panel was said to boost her abilities. This one was happening decades ago.

But then power creep is a big problem in all the X-books as writers are either unwilling or unable to stick to established limits.

[deh_tommy]

To be fair, I think the issue is she somehow duplicated Azazel, someone who is explicitly not human and who doesn’t have an X-gene.

[obsidianwolf]

So when did they retcon Azazel not to have an x-gene. I thought it was that he was born to an ancient subspecies of mutants and then became a demon later after they were banished to the brimstone dimension?

[deh_tommy]

Well that’s just what I read anyway, I haven’t been following this development too much. I’m sorry if I spread misinformation.

[icon_uk]

Azazel is always been a mutant, just one who claimed to have been a demon as well (though he wasn't).

[obsidianwolf]

But didn't he have actual demonic powers when he was a Pirate attacking Heaven just before Nightcrawler came back courtesy of hte Bamf's?

You know I don't think the writers at marvel keep track of if he's just a mutant, a demon or some mix of the two like Magik