Mystique to Dazzler what Kilgrave is to Jessica Jones?

[Sirius Pi]

Ok, so it is really a done deal and agreed upon by all Marvel Fans, hi ho Dazzlers outfit has got to go, anything else (especially anything that resembles this from riches too rags) I did also like the Age of X outfit, or something closer too her avengers teammate Janet Van Dyne (the Wasp) last outfit, something more majestic looking like that style. (:

[Confuzzled]

I can excuse the current look if G Willow Wilson properly explores Ali's PTSD and suffering from a disconnect to her previous identity because it triggers the Mystique shaming/violation.

[ExodusCloak]

So when is Dazzler getting her revenge?

[ChronoRogue]

This era has taken the fun out of interactions with these type of conflicts. Too many villains, do horrible things and get no consequences. Or do very little to work toward redemption. I think Greycrow is one of the few characters who openly got confronted by people he hurt.

The most likely you'd is just a panel of Dazzler staring a Mystique coldly in the first issue then sharing a beer with her by the end of the arc, with all forgiven.

How they've handled villains this era is my least favorite thing and needed more work tbh.

[Kingdom X]

So when is Dazzler getting her revenge?

Wasn't her revenge the focus of one of the final issues of Bendis' run? Ali tricks Mystique and she gets captured by SHIELD or something. Obviously that jail time didn't stick, but I think that's as much of a revenge plot as we're going to get.

[NewMutant]

Literally the only notable thing for Bendis run is Iceman coming out.

[BobbysWorld]

Part of the problem with Mystique is that most writers see her VERY differently, and it leads to them writing her in extremes that are often impossible to fully reconcile. Like some write her as an extremist revolutionary but whose agendas are always rooted in having people and goals she does care about, and she doesn't give a fuck about crossing lines with people she doesn't care about, because like....she doesn't care about them. But then others write her as just Evil Chaos Bringer who's only real love is making people around her miserable. And then all this is compounded by the fact that many, MANY writers are way more comfortable than they should be when throwing around truly heinous acts of abuse and violation in order to up a character's villain credentials....without ever bothering to pay any real attention to what they're writing and the full implications of what they're writing beyond just 'its bad, obviously, which makes sense cuz she's bad and she does bad things and that's it, the end.'

Take for example Carey's version of Mystique. Carey's actually pretty well regarded for his character work and nuanced depictions, and I liked a lot of his stuff, but he's not infallible and he fell into this trap with Mystique too. Not even so much when she was a member of Rogue's squad, where most of her betrayals during Messiah Complex were geared around her trying to get Sinister to help Rogue after what happened with the Hecatomb, which thus still puts Carey's version of Mystique THERE solidly in the first camp of Mystique writer I mentioned, where she was doing awful shit, but she had a clear stated goal for doing it that fits her, as does the fact that she's not interested in putting morality above her endgoals. She didn't hurt the other X-Men, or for instance Bobby, because she was just enjoying it or doing it for fun, Carey even did a fairly good job of credibly showing that on some level she might not actually like what she's doing or regret it....just not enough to not do it.

BUT.....come Manifest Destiny, we get a record skip and suddenly we've got Crazy Train Mystique running off the rails. And in direct contradiction to where Messiah Complex showed a full awareness by both her AND the narrative that the things she was doing were fucked up even if she was doing it because she honestly believed it was necessary to save Rogue.....Carey's work in the Kill or Cure story with Bobby and Mystique, and any writing he did with either character or Rogue after, did the somewhat oblivious gloss over of the actual actions he had Mystique take. For example, Mystique was like, mad that Bobby had gotten under her skin and made her feel even slightly guilty about developing a relationship with him specifically just so when the time came she could use sex with him to infect him with nanosentinels that would depower him and make him useless in the fight against Sinister's Marauders because like, yeah, sure, why not. So she tried to like, kill Bobby to prove she didn't actually give a fuck about him, presumably to herself because literally nobody else cared or ever thought she did anyway, but also she tried to kill him via a poison and various other attempts that were specifically engineered to force him to level up in order to survive like, she was all, I mean I GUESS if you're strong enough to survive what I'm doing to you then you can live and I'll spare you but obviously not because I actually care about you, but because I just would be able to respect that at least and save face with my Thursday Night Villain poker group. Also, not actually totally sure I even can kill you logistically speaking, which is really turning all of this into a lot more work than I thought it'd be, which isn't doing great things for my claims that no I'm not actually obsessed.

But here's the problem. Carey was so focused on writing Mystique as just being so totally wtf and Bobby being like dude what even is your deal, you're being so totally wtf right now, he ended up depicting the conflict as being like okay so here's what's happening here:

Mystique's mad because in the course of seducing one of the X-Men's Big Guns specifically just to infect him with depowering sex robots, she accidentally caught a stray fee-fee, and she doesn't like it cuz she's already got her full lifetime quota of people she actually feels things for, like Destiny, Rogue, and Kurt. That's three whole people she already gives a fuck about, she didn't sign up for caring about FOUR whole people, no, that's too much, one of them's gotta go. So she's trying to kill Bobby to get rid of the tiny weed-like feeling he made sprout up when she literally didn't even ask, she was just FAKING IT, god, what is he, stupid? But also she's not doing a good job at killing him because of the tiny weed feeling being stubborn and rude about not dying just cuz she said no but you gotta. And Carey's like, so Mystique is handling the complex work of Having Feelings That Occasionally Are Not Just Murdering Everybody and Saying Whee with the delicacy and grace she's known for when it comes to her feelings, Bobby's trying to not die because this is definitely the worst break-up of all his break-ups and he's had some shitty break-ups and the stakes have never been higher because omg when other people find out about this he's gonna hear so many "I Told You So's" its just. See this is why you never date your friends' mom, especially if your friends' mom is vengeful, homicidal and considers "So most people think I'm crazy" to be one of her selling points. Its just never a good idea. Anyway, now you're all caught up, Worst Breakup in History is Currently Getting Actively Worser because Mystique's approach to Relationship Regrets is murdering the person she had that relationship with so she never has to think about them again and wham bam no more regrets no more drama, and this is BAD, and she's BAD for this on account of the attempted murder, this is NOT a Dr. Phil approved approach to getting over an ex so kids don't try this at home. And that's what you missed on Glee.

You might think, well all that sounds pretty bad, and Carey's portraying it as bad, so I mean, that's good, right? Well. The problem I had here, and that describes that recurring trope of comic book writers not THINKING about what they're actually writing....is that....throughout the course of this Manifest Destiny/Kill or Cure storyline....the frequent attempted murder is arguably not actually even the worst thing that Mystique does to Bobby? Just treated as such by Carey? I mean not that it ISN'T bad, just that there's a whole other beast in the building that if you're specifically going to focus on HOW Mystique's actions fuck with Bobby's head and impact him and he has to work through all of that. And again, that was LITERALLY the entire point of the story - so let's be real. People try to kill Bobby all the time. Its not that big a deal for him, Mystique literally isn't even the first ex to try it, just the closest to getting it done. But dude's been a superhero since before his balls dropped. He was battling Magneto even before he was battling acne. This is old hat to him. He'll get over it.

What Bobby DOESN'T habitually have to make peace with or just get over and thus SHOULD have been the part of the story to ACTUALLY leave more of an impression on him, was ironically, the one part of the story that Carey presumably just full on didn't even realize he'd written. With this being....the part where Mystique repeatedly raped Bobby first. And no, I'm not being tongue in cheek anymore. That literally happened, because rape by deception is a very real, acknowledged thing, even if in the real world its a lot more rare because real people aren't shapeshifters who can do it very easily. But like, before Mystique actively started trying to kill Bobby, she got close to him again. She knew that Bobby wouldn't want to be anywhere the hell near her after what she'd done in Messiah Complex and wouldn't trust her for a second if she just showed up as herself, and would not let his guard down around her from here on out. So she didn't get close to him as Mystique. She got close to him as his ex-girlfriend Opal Tanaka. 'Reconnected' with him at a party. Started seeing him again for a few weeks AS Opal. Slept with him, AS Opal. Got him to consent to have sex with her AS Opal, knowing full well he wouldn't even ice down so long as she was near him if he even SUSPECTED that the person he was with there WASN'T Opal.

[BobbysWorld]

And whatever Carey THOUGHT he was writing when he wrote this start to Kill or Cure, like I assume he was just thinking about well she's a shapeshifter, shapeshifter's can do this sort of thing, this is just shapeshifter shenanigans not all that relevant to anything outside of sci-fi, since shapeshifters aren't real.....doesn't matter. What he actually WROTE, put ON THE PAGE, was rape. He wrote one character who had previously used a relationship to backstab Bobby now using deception and someone else's literal appearance and history with Bobby in order to violate him all over again, by taking away his ability to consent to having sex with HER, Raven Darkholme, aka the person he was ACTUALLY being intimate with no matter who he THOUGHT he was consenting to be intimate and vulnerable with.

And in the entire rest of the story that's all about Mystique winning their breakup with repeated attempted murder and how Bobby feels about this and his relationship and history with Mystique as a whole, given the context of everything she's done to him and everything she's doing now......the itty bitty minor detail of that context now ADDITIONALLY encompassing multiple counts of sexual violation even after Bobby pretty clearly made a New Year's Resolution to never let his killer ex see him naked again....never actually comes up, gets elaborated on, explored via Bobby's feelings about this, or even acknowledged as the violation that it was in the first place. Its just....a thing that happened, and the real story, the only actual takeaway, is Bobby responding to Mystique's attempts to kill him. (Which again, I'm sure wasn't great for him, but its also something he's repeatedly been shown as fairly numb to and jaded about, because people have literally been attempting it since back when he was still too short to ride most rollercoasters. It doesn't really mean that much to him anymore, especially as he's grown more and more confident about his fairly impressive unkillable stats. If anything, ultimately futile attempts on his life tend to be as much an ego boost for him as they are something that actually makes him feel vulnerable, unlike say.....repeatedly having been violated in a way his powers CAN'T protect him from).

And this, much like everything Mystique did to Ali and nobody but Bendis has been interested in acknowledging in large part because of how poorly Bendis DID manage to invest readers in Ali's feelings about her own violations at Raven's hands, and how.....paint by numbers it was, largely existing as Fucked Up Things Raven Did In This Story listicle items rather than anything centered on Ali's thoughts and feelings about being victim to it all (beyond her fairly generic 'Not Doing So Hot Here Guys' response that I don't discount as being a VALID reaction to show Ali having, and mostly judge on the basis of the story only ever utilizing it as a shallow and superficial reaction that didn't actually give readers any insight to Ali beyond just....she wasn't doing so hot here, guys. Like, did we ever get more than half an issue's internal narration from Ali's POV?)....

Like point being, this is the real problem with Mystique, and especially with her being on the Quiet Council without a single issue delving into how past victims of Sinister, Mystique, Shaw, etc, all feel about these people having been handpicked to sit on their government and have actual, legitimate authority over what happens to them. And personally, I assume the reason writers haven't delved into this is because the Council set-up exists ON PAPER as having been formed the way it was in order to get as much of the mutant race united under Krakoa as possible. Logistically, I can see the argument to be made that most villains and mutant criminals, even fairly minor ones like the MLF or the ones who haven't necessarily done things too bad in their past and COULD benefit from a blank slate start, like....I can see the argument that they would have never given Krakoa a shot or trusted that there might be a place for them there, if the ruling council had been made up of nothing but previously neutral parties and mutant heroes like the X-Men, who literally ALL existing mutant villains have a history of being on the wrong side of. Making Mystique, Exodus, Shaw, etc, a part of the initial framework of Krakoa, giving them a literal seat at the table, was a gesture that legitimized the promise of amnesty and made it more than just pretty-sounding words nobody actually believed were meant...it created a visible new paradigm that got mutants thinking okay this time things actually are different from anything we've tried before.

And in doing so, it could be argued, having known infamous villains like Mystique centered in the newly formed Krakoan nation, with ALL mutants knowing exactly how fucked up the history was between various X-Men on the QC and Mystique and Sinister, etc, and thus sending a clear message 'well if they're willing to give THEM a chance to matter, maybe I really can have the same there too'....this political move is arguably wholly responsible for getting thousands of minor mutant villains and criminals to give Krakoa a shot and be better off for it, with a lot of these minor villains or ones whose villainny had been born of desperation or being wronged, like, ACTUALLY deserving a chance at a fresh start even if Mystique and Sinister and others on the Council DON'T. Because I definitely can and do recognize that giving Mystique and others a seat at the table was never about 'do they deserve it' but rather 'does this serve the interests of what we're trying to do with this country.'

But the thing that bugs me about the writers shying away from just writing THAT story, is that like....if I and other readers can understand it on that level, see the argument to be made for necessity whether or not we fully agree with it....then X-Men who have dedicated their entire lives to SACRIFICING their lives and wants and personal dreams in order to protect other mutants or build a better world or safer place for them....like, they can surely understand it too. WITHOUT THIS HAVING TO MEAN THEY LIKE IT OR HAVE NO THOUGHTS ABOUT IT. Like, there isn't a single X-Man who isn't very familiar with being expected to work alongside people who have PERSONALLY screwed them over and done them wrong, in the interests of beating a common enemy, protecting someone both parties care about, etc. They do this shit ALL the time.

Like, these characters can balance hating the guts of someone who has hurt them personally with accepting that them occupying a certain role is in tangible ways to other peoples' benefit right now. X-Men all excel at multitasking. Why, I've heard some of them can even pat their heads and rub their stomachs at the same time. So the truly obnoxious thing about writers just....not ever having X-Men MENTION they hate having people who have actually violated and abused them on their own country's RULING COUNCIL....is because not only is it just not believable that Ali and Bobby and others are fine with 'hey so my abuser/kidnapper/rapist is now my senator because the man who taught me/has known me since I was a child gave them the job over me and all these other friends and trusted teammates of mine who've been killing themselves and sacrificing their happiness for over a decade in the name of doing what's right and being an actual good person as opposed to a rapist with strong political cachet.'

Nah, the bigger problem is because it doesn't feel like these acknowledgments are being shied away from in service to the overall story. It FEELS like they're being avoided - even among characters and in scenes where it doesn't make SENSE for it to be avoided or never brought up - because most of the writers are afraid they just can't pull off the kinda story that requires heroes we're invested in to bluntly say 'we hate that this person has a voice in how our new country is run because of what shitty things they've done to us and our loved ones, remind me again: WHY do we have to put up with this, WHY is this supposedly for the best or a necessary evil'......and Xavier or other Quiet Council members to respond back by ACTUALLY MAKING A VALID ARGUMENT that these X-Men accept and can live with. Even if it still doesn't mean they have to like it and they demand Krakoa implement a constitutional right to sit in on QC meetings and loudly shout out reminders of the QC villains' greatest hits every time they offer a proposal, just to make sure nobody's forgetting just what kind of person just made that proposal and asked for support.

[ExodusCloak]

This era has taken the fun out of interactions with these type of conflicts. Too many villains, do horrible things and get no consequences. Or do very little to work toward redemption. I think Greycrow is one of the few characters who openly got confronted by people he hurt.

The most likely you'd is just a panel of Dazzler staring a Mystique coldly in the first issue then sharing a beer with her by the end of the arc, with all forgiven.

How they've handled villains this era is my least favorite thing and needed more work tbh.

She could always Kidnap Irene, let the Blob grop her in while sedated and hooked up to Total Parenteral Nutrition and cocaine. I wonder who did the PICC line for Mystique.

[Chris0013]

This era has taken the fun out of interactions with these type of conflicts. Too many villains, do horrible things and get no consequences. Or do very little to work toward redemption. I think Greycrow is one of the few characters who openly got confronted by people he hurt.

The most likely you'd is just a panel of Dazzler staring a Mystique coldly in the first issue then sharing a beer with her by the end of the arc, with all forgiven.

How they've handled villains this era is my least favorite thing and needed more work tbh.

I do think they laid some groundwork for Greycrow's redemption before all of this. there was a story in an anthology series a few years back that had him working as a cook in a diner in the desert with Nightcrawler kind of stalking him and it implied he found God.

Edit: X-Men: Divided We Stand #1