Mystique

**Mystique** (born **Raven Darkholme**) is a mutant with the ability to shapeshift into anyone.

## Personality

In the original timeline, Mystique was a cold, ruthless and evil woman who would kill without a second thought.[1] This was a result of her being cruelly experimented on.[2] She is very beautiful, seductive and aggressive whenever she disguises herself as someone else. She likes to mess with people's minds or keep her victims company like Senator Kelly and Wolverine while impersonating Henry Gyrich and Jean Grey.

Mystique had an extremely low opinion of humans in the original timeline, at least once angrily referring to them as "homo sapiens"; this came from their treatment towards both her personally and mutants in general. She stated that she was afraid to go to school as a child and despised hiding her true appearance to attempt to fit in. Her torture and experimentation following her assassination of Bolivar Trask only hardened her beliefs towards humans. When once asked why she didn't constantly use her abilities to blend in, she replied that she shouldn't have to.

In spite of the tough life she had led, she did possess a sense of humour, which she often expressed when with Magneto. During her imprisonment, she also took enjoyment in using her abilities to annoy her human captors, such as impersonating Magneto when an interrogator asked her where he was.

In her childhood, Raven was very solitary, often hiding her true appearance for fear of judgement. When she first met Charles, she was happy that she found a place to live. In *First Class*, Mystique is shown to never once wavered to the dark side.[3]

Mystique hates it when people try to dictate how she should live her life, as shown when grew bitter at Charles for insisting that she hide her appearance. For this reason, she felt very alone inside. When she met Hank, she at first thought that she had finally found someone who understood her, but when Hank had developed a serum to counter their abilities, she started seeing him as no different than anyone else. When Erik encouraged her to be proud of her abilities and not be afraid of judgement, she had finally found what she was looking for: acceptance.[3] This drove her closer to Erik and further from Charles.[2]

Mystique also appears to value her friendships dearly and appears to be devoted to helping other mutants. Before leaving with Magneto, she kissed Charles on the forehead, showing that she still cares for him. Though she felt guilty for abandoning her brother, she believed that this was the only way to help her fellow mutants.[3]

In 1973, Mystique seems to have adopted an aggressive and violent streak in her personality as a result of her training under Magneto. Though she still had compassion and altruism, demonstrated when she saved Havokand other mutants from Stryker and later when she sheds a few tears after learning that many of her other friends were experimented on and killed. With this knowledge, she planned on killing Trask to avenge her friends.[2]

Mystique also hates being betrayed, as shown when in *X-Men: The Last Stand*, she was angry that Magneto abandoned her after she was turned into a human.[4] In *X-Men: Days of Future Past*, she developed a new hatred towards Magneto after he attempted to kill her, shown when she threatened him with a knife.[2]

After her injuries, she started to feel torn between her love for her brother, and her hatred for Trask. When Charles insisted that she *has* to come home, she sees that he hasn't changed at all and as a result, ignores him completely.[2] This, along with Magneto's betrayal, made Raven feel isolated again as she now felt that no one understood her anymore.[4]

She finally reached a breaking point at the White House when she had a gun pointed at Trask. When Charles makes one last plea with her, she reasons that Erik's actions have already turned humanity against mutants. But when Charles states that she has a chance to show another way, she becomes hesitant. Charles then admits that trying to control her is what brought them to this point and leaves the decision in her hands with complete faith in her. Mystique now knows that Charles finally understands what caused them to become estranged. With this knowledge, she ponders deeply on her next move, knowing that she must decide carefully. After a long silence, she finally realizes her mistake and spares Trask. This not only saves all mutants, but it changes her for the better. Though still on her own, she no longer seems to possess malevolent intentions and seems to have forged a new, better path for herself.[2][5]

Despite being seen as a heroic figure and role model in the mutant world, Mystique was still guilt-ridden over trying to kill Trask and brushes off any praise to her as a hero, seen in her first interaction with Nightcrawler.[5]

All her life, Mystique yearned for a place to belong and to be accepted for who she was. Her parents on at least one occasion attempted to kill her, which eventually made her run away from them and making her birth family a very sensitive subject for her to talk about. Though initially happy to have a home after she first met Charles, she hated hiding her true appearance in public; it wasn't until meeting Erik that she had finally met someone who truly accepted her for who she was. She was shown to be extremely close and loyal to those who gave her such acceptance; although she was angry with Magneto when he attempted to kill her in 1973, she was still willing to believe his motives when he assured her that he would never lie to her and never had done prior to that moment. When Charles freely admitted to her that he had controlled her and refused to intervene at a critical moment, this gives her some closure and partially fixes their relationship.

## Powers, Abilities, & Weaknesses

### Powers

**Shape-Shifting** - Mystique can alter the formation of her cells at will, allowing her to look and sound like an exact duplicate of any living being, including height, weight, and built. Her control and versatility is so refined, she can even perform partial morphing, such as only duplicate a person's voice, retina pattern or fingerprint to bypass security systems. She can also make herself look exactly like a person who is physically bigger or shorter than herself. Her abilities allow her to alter the color and texture of her body, allowing her to mimic artificial materials, such as clothing.

* **Decelerated Aging** - Her metamorphic powers and low-level healing factor have retarded the degenerative effects of her ageing process, allowing her to biologically stay as a teenager or young adult while being 40-60 years old.
* **Regenerative Healing Factor** - While not at a superhuman rate like Wolverine's, Mystique is still able to heal much faster and more efficiently than a normal human. When Wolverine stabbed her with his claws in *X-Men*, she soon recovered enough to shape-shift into a guard to assist in her escape.
* **Superhuman Agility** - As a part of her mutation, Mystique possesses extreme flexibility and agility. She was able to move her handcuffed arms from behind her back to her front, unlock clamps on her hands or strangle someone by using only her foot. She also kept her extreme agility, despite her limping due to a fresh bullet wound in her leg.

### Abilities

* **Master Acrobat** - Mystique has supernatural bodily awareness and control. This allows her to perform all kinds of leaps and spinning jumps/kicks with incredible precision. She can also slide over the floor at high speed and was even able to climb a pipe while being upside down with just her arms.
* **Expert Hand-to-Hand Combatant** - Mystique is an extremely skilled hand-to-hand combatant, able to take out multiple guards with superb efficiency. Her dexterity and body control allow her to move with acrobatic precision to avoid getting shot while quickly taking out multiple armed soldiers. While fighting Wolverine, she used her agility to dodge most of his moves, knocking him down multiple times. Even at close range, she was able to easily dodge his strikes and simultaneously landing multiple strikes on her foe. Seemingly the only reason she could not beat Wolverine was his healing ability. She seemingly learned her combat skill from Azazel when she joined the Brotherhood.
* **Expert Infiltrator** - Using her gift and planning Mystique can infiltrate anywhere. She has infiltrated the X-Men, The White House, military camps and much more.
* **Multilingual** - Mystique is fluent in several languages - her native English, as well as German, French, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
* **Skilled Leader** - Mystique has shown to be a very capable leader. She was able to effectively lead the X-Men in the battle against Apocalypse.

### Weaknesses

* **Appearance Limitation** - Mystique can maintain the form of a person in terms of height and build indefinitely, but the longer that she maintains that form, the greater the strain she feels. If she stays in a particular form for a long time or for too long, her eyes briefly turn yellow, potentially revealing her identity.
* **Inability to Change Body Scent** - Although she can change her appearance, but she can't change her body scent. During her fight against Wolverine, Mystique attempted to fool him by sneaking up on him while disguised as his teammate Storm. However, Wolverine's acute nose recognized Mystique's scent, catching her completely off guard to win.
* **Inability to Mimic Personalities and Memories** - Mystique can not copy memories of the person she turns into. She can only partially imitate someone's personality and attitude, allowing perceptive enemies to see through her disguises.
* **Limited Healing Factor** - Depending on the severity of the wound, it may take longer to heal and even leave behind a scar as she retained them from Wolverine's claws by the time of *X2: X-Men United*. In *X-Men: Days of Future Past*, Mystique had to seek medical care for a serious wound caused by Magneto after he shot her and made the bullet travel along her leg.
* **Inability to Mimic Powers and Abilities** - Mystique cannot copy other another person's skills and/or superficial capacities. When she fought Wolverine in *X-Men*, she assumed his form and fought him claw to claw. While sturdy, they ultimately proved inferior to Wolverine's claws as he soon hacked them off as they were made of flesh and not adamantium. Also in *X-Men: Apocalypse* when she assumed Psylocke's form, she sliced Apocalypse's throat, but automatically heals, it turns out her sword was fake.
* **Mutant Gene Detector** - Trask built a handheld device that was able to detect those who possess the X-Gene, it detected Mystique when she was disguised in the room.

## TMNT X Pokemon

Mystique is often used to sneak inside and gain information. During missions, she works with Shizuku and Nora Valkyrie.

## Trivia

* Rebecca Romijn was actually naked when playing Mystique, with only layers of blue paint and a few very small costume pieces covering her up. When Jennifer Lawrence plays Mystique in *X-Men: First Class*, she developed a serious allergy caused by the body paint, and a specialist doctor had be to be called in, to the set, to tend to her after her skin broke out in rashes and boils. Fortunately for Lawrence, Mystique was wearing clothes often in First Class. Later in *X-Men: Days of Future Past*, Mystique returned to her nudist appearance, like that in the first three films, but this time, Jennifer Lawrence was given a blue suit up to her shoulders to reduce the 7 hours makeup procedure.
* In the first film, Rebecca Romijn wore colored contacts to make her eyes yellow. In the second and third films, her eyes were changed digitally.
* In the comics, Mystique and Azazel are Nightcrawler's parents, though no indication has been made as to whether this is true in the film series. They did, however, join the Brotherhood of Mutants at the end of *X-Men: First Class*, but Azazel was revealed to have been killed in the decade between the events of *First Class* and *X-Men: Days of Future Past*.
	+ Interestingly, in a blooper reel of *X-Men: Apocalypse*, Jennifer Lawrence described Nightcrawler as her "illegitimate son with Azazel".
* In the original ending for *X-Men: Days of Future Past*, Mystique was going to side with Charles after giving up her intentions to kill Trask as she returns back to Charles' mansion, where her gunshot wound is tended to by Hank, in addition to that she would appear in the altered future (with Rebecca Romijn considered to reprise her role) teaching a biology class with Hank and then in the past, it explains why Mystique knew of and rescued Logan (under the guise of Stryker). However, this was changed to Mystique escaping after giving up her intentions and then making her own agenda by shape-shifting into Stryker by retrieving a drowned Logan from the Potomac River after the producers felt that the ending was too unpredictable, thus her appearance in the altered future was not shot, but the ending was trimmed for pacing reasons.
* Mystique was the one who originally came up with Lehnsherr's code name, Magneto.
* Raven seems to display an attraction to Wolverine, despite the fact that he stabbed her in the first movie, and later rejected her in the sequel.
* Before Jennifer Lawrence was cast, Amber Heard was rumored to play Mystique.
* Jeri Ryan was running for the role of Mystique, before Rebecca Romijn got to play the character.
* Wolverine and William Stryker are the only people in the movies to see through Mystique's disguises without the tell-tale yellow eyes, the former using his sense of smell, and the latter when she imitated Wolverine, stating that he knows his own creations and that Mystique wasn't one of them. Although in *X2: X-Men United*, she manages to trick them for a short time by impersonating Jean Grey and Wolverine, till they realized she's an imposter.
* In the movies, Mystique is portrayed as a nudist and appears naked throughout the course of the original trilogy. In *X-Men: First Class* it is shown that even as a child she was a nudist until she was convinced to wear clothing by Charles Xavier; later on, however, she was persuaded by Magneto not to, as he called her an "exquisite creature." In reality, this was done because the filmmakers wanted Mystique to be as sexually appealing to male audiences as possible while being able to retain a PG-13 rating since she had blue, scaly skin. Rebecca Romijn was actually naked when playing Mystique, with only layers of blue paint and a few very small costume pieces covering her up.
	+ The other reason for Mystique's nudism supposedly lies in clothing limiting her ability to shape shift. However, in First Class, she is seen shapeshifting whilst wearing clothing on two separate occasions, with her clothes seemingly changing as she does. It is yet to be explained how this occurred or whether she was in fact naked and creating the appearance of clothing with her abilities (as in the comics).
* Mystique is bisexual in the comics, this has not been explored in the movies although she has often flirted with Magneto and Wolverine in the films.
* In the comics, Mystique has blue skin instead of the scaly appearance she has in the films.
* A scene from *Days of Future Past* featuring Mystique was featured in the credits of *The Amazing Spider-Man 2*.
* Mystique appears in every film except *X-Men Origins: Wolverine*, *The Wolverine,* *Deadpool*,*Logan*and *Deadpool 2*.
* In the extended *Rogue Cut* of *X-Men: Days of Future Past*, before going to Washington, Mystique visits the X-Mansion and meets Hank McCoy. Raven says she decided to come back. But next morning, she disguises herself as Charles, goes to Cerebro's room and destroys the Cerebro helmet so Charles wouldn't be able to track her down.
* In the comics, Mystique and her wife Destiny are the foster parents of Rogue.
* Both Russell and Mystique had men travel from the future to try and stop them from making their first kill.