Like many and many a wee!fangirl of the 80s, I cut my comics teeth on Claremont's first X-Men run. Say what you will about its flaws, it had verve and heart and appealing characters and adventures! in! space! (My all-time favorite issue of any comic, anywhere, remains Uncanny 150, the double-sized issue that marked the beginning of Magneto's reform, and I've never forgiven what's happened to him afterwards.) Even though I essentially stopped reading comics for about a decade after I turned 14, it always pained me to notice that the X-titles had become the epitome of the industry's marketing excesses and aesthetic imbecilism in the 1990s. Maybe things have improved, but the books are still really not aimed at grown-up readers, even those willing to enjoy a good honest tale of explosions and a little character development. Although I enjoyed X2 quite a bit, not even Joss Whedon could lure me into spending my limited comics budget of reading time and money on a core X-title.
Mystique, however, is blessedly disconnected from the Great Dismal Swamp that is X-continuity. It's such an obvious premise the only wonder is that it wasn't done before: in a La Femme Nikita-esque scenario, Xavier rescues mutant-rights terrorist Mystique from execution and promises to shelter her from the authorities so long as she undertakes missions that are too politically sensitive (read: morally dubious) for the X-Men themselves to handle. This lays the basis for a series of loosely interconnected missions all over the world while Mystique considers the place she wants in the new mutant order.
Mystique, who never really achieved her potential in the X-titles, is a great protagonist. She's cynical, ruthless, unrepentant, and absolutely unwilling to buy any bullshit about her situation or that of mutants in general. Always remembering that she's a Marvel hero, in fact, she's amazingly amoral and adult (toned down slightly for the series, but not so much as you might expect--there's only one false move on this point in the TPB, and I'm really hoping they don't soften her up later in the series). The writer (Vaughan) doesn't shy away from reminding us that she's middle-aged, at the very least, though of course that's easier to do when the middle-aged character can still look young and hot. She also hasn't given up on her ideological commitments, revelling in kicking the asses of mutant-haters, and it's easy to go along with her. Seen through her eyes, Xavier is a far shadier, more hypocritical figure than he must appear in his own books, and it's an intriguing take. The other supporting characters so far--her "support staff," Forge and a new character, Shortpack--are still a little on the dull side, but I'm willing to at least give the latter a chance (I can't remember a time when Forge wasn't boring, honestly).
Drop Dead Gorgeous focuses on capers in exotic settings, infiltrations, and last-minute twists: it's good solid spy-thriller plotting and it's well-used in classic fashion to illuminate Mystique's character. New subplots start to click into place just where they ought to be to keep the action fresh in the future. The art, however, is sadly pedestrian. It does manage to stay just this side of grow-the-fuck-up T&A, but it illustrates the story rather than adding much to it. Given Mystique's character and the situations she's in, the art really needs a more subtle, nuanced approach to get across what's going on in her head. This book cries out for noirish atmosphere, and I hope this eventually dawns on Marvel.
If you still quietly resonate with the basic scenario of the X-Men world but just can't bring yourself to buy the variant-cover edition du jour, if you enjoy thrillers featuring kick-ass chicks with stompy boots, you'll probably like Mystique. I understand the book's sales are unimpressive, so buying the trade (which is really the better format for this kind of story anyway) would probably be helpful to its continued survival. Unless, you know, you'd rather read another title about muscly cybermen with wacky powers doing the exact same thing they're doing in all the other books.
Posted by Sarah T. at July 15, 2004 12:35 PM | TrackBack