Mystique & Destiny immortalize Be Gay, Do Crimes in ‘X-Men: The Wedding Special #1’

Marvel’s first queerest family is throwing a party, and everyone’s invited! Particularly if it pleases the brides to know you won’t be home during their rapturous re-exchanging of vows. X-Men: The Wedding Special #1 was written by Kieron Gillen, Tini Howard, Tate Brombal, Yoon Ha Lee and Wyatt Kennedy; drawn by Rachael Stott, Phillip Sevy, Emilio Pilliu, Stephen Byrne and Jenn St-Onge; colored by Michael Bartalo, KJ Díaz and Brittany Peer; and lettered by Ariana Maher. 

Anna Peppard: It’s the wedding of the year and you’re invited! Mystique and Destiny have already tied the knot once, but a marriage that had to be secret for most of the century deserves a do-over, so here we are in all our finery to send these diabolically delightful dames off in style. This megasized event deserves megasized coverage so I’m joined in feting these femme fatales by not only my one and only Adam Reck but also the one and only Stephanie Burt!

Adam Reck: Was I surprised to get an invitation to this wedding? I sure was. Was I even more surprised to be seated in the same row as Chris Claremont? Definitely. But when I found my wallet was missing it all made sense. Happy to be here for the wedding event of the year! 

Stephanie Burt: What year is it? What am I doing here? Why don’t the gates work?

Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Adam: I enjoyed the tone of this special. It acknowledges these are villains but allows everyone to have some fun, which they’ve earned after those years of Mystique yelling “GIVE ME BACK MY WIFE!” and the more recent drama around re-discovering Kurt’s parentage. Is the Rogue, Kurt and two moms dynamic a little sappy? Maybe, but it seems called for given the occasion. 

Anna: Most of our readers probably know this, but it perhaps bears repeating–this Wedding Special doubles as Marvel’s Pride Special this year, featuring a collection of stories by LGBTQ+ writers and artists spotlighting various characters woven into the main story about the second marriage of Mystique and Destiny. When I first heard the basic pitch–that the Wedding Special would be the Pride Special–I was skeptical. For a moment, it seemed like one Mystique and Destiny story would be all we were getting this year. But I was relieved to see this is a proper Pride Special, which uses the organizing theme of Mystique and Destiny’s nuptials to tell the usual variety of vignettes starring a variety of characters from across the LGBTQ+ spectrum. And as an organizing theme–I really enjoyed it. It made the Special feel both requisitely diverse and pleasantly cohesive and just, well–special. What are your initial thoughts on this approach to the Pride Special, Stephanie?

Stephanie: Mixed. Or should that be miXed? I like seeing a mutant-focused Pride Special. I like seeing a Pride Special that brings us characters we might recognize, rather than dragging the vault for D-listers one writer once decided to code as gay. I love that somebody remembered to talk to Chris Claremont (interview at the end: it’s one of his best short interviews! I learned stuff!). And I’ve got enough shapeshifting friends who say Mystique’s their favorite mutant that I’m happy to celebrate with them. Also the art’s mostly lovely, from the splash page, where sexy brown-haired Destiny hasn’t chosen yet among her array of gold masks (among them an eyeless gold skull and a beaky plague doctor). Who does she want to pretend to be today?

However however. 1. If you’re going to tell a brace of stories about Mystique and Destiny and their multi-century history, maybe set at least one story in the past and link it to IRL queer history? To lesbian pulps of the 1950s, to Bloomsbury, to WACs and WAVES, or something? It’s a bit of a lost opportunity (Marvel: call me!).

 2. Should we care when, in canon, the story takes place? We’re definitely in the present: one story uses team-ups and tricks (like the mutant power circuit) developed on Krakoa. Wanda’s invited, and not a pariah. Gambit and Rogue are married; Rachel and Betsy are definitely a couple (and a cute one too). Kurt knows Mystique and Destiny are his bio-parents. But none of the Fall of X events seem to have happened; nobody’s trapped in the White Hot Room. Did I miss an editorial note? Or should I relax and remember it’s just a show? 

3. Maybe I’m the wrong audience for this particular–beautifully executed–Pride special, because Mystique and Destiny really are all about being gay and doing crimes, and maybe–like Anole (who’s amazing here) I’m just not that into crimes? 

Anna: Anole is being entirely sensible and as a fellow t-shirt maker and generally sensible person, I honor him for it. But as a mere spectator existing outside the world of this comic–I’m rooting for the gay crimes. Which relates to the other reason this Special feels special to me. 

I’ve read all of Marvel’s previous Pride Specials, and while there have been great stories in each of them, I’ve generally found the enterprise wanting. I want to be clear about why. I love that these Specials exist. I’m old enough that when I started getting really into Marvel comics, their own visible gay character was Northstar, who wasn’t regularly appearing in any books. I’ll always take imperfect Pride Specials over an absence of Pride Specials, especially since those Specials put money in the pockets of LGBTQ+ creators. But Marvel’s Pride Specials have a history of being quite safe and homonormative, foregrounding monogamous dating and marriage and promoting unequivocally “positive” representations that can, on occasion, strip characters of their complexity and humanity by making everyone a mouthpiece for a unified cause. 

This year’s Special is not that. This crew of creators is able to let the individuality of the characters shine, emphasizing diversity and moral complexity that’s thematized and distilled by the entirely duplicitous, entirely earnest, entirely queer and utterly beautiful relationship between Mystique and Destiny, who never have to stop being themselves to sell the cause.

Stephanie: <applauds>

Anna: We’ll talk about the combustive conclusion in due course, but I’ll start my more substantive discussion of this comic by saying some superlatives about the moment I knew it was gonna be good–the part where the schmaltzy schmoozing of the opening pages gives way to Mystique and Destiny beholding their mysterious gift from Sinister, which comes affixed with a card that reads, “Love is stupid and so are you. Fondest regards, -Nathaniel.” We’re positioned looking up at our brides as they survey the gift we can’t see. Mystique’s gaze is steely, Destiny’s is carnally malevolent, and their hands are firmly entwined, united in their libidinous love of larceny. Mystique’s blouse has come undone to expose her bra, and Destiny’s pose accentuates her bare thigh, but each character’s sexiness fits her character and exists to support their sapphic sexiness rather than that most reductive version of the male gaze too many superhero comics still insist on exclusively serving. Rachael Stott always kills it, but she really killed it here.  

Stephanie: Yes–throughout the issue, when these characters look and act sexy, they’re choosing to do so because they’re so into each other. Mystique has absolutely no moral compass and no consistent unselfish goal except for Destiny, and when Destiny’s on stage, Mystique’s just a different person. Also can someone give Anna some sort of reward for coining the phrase “carnally malevolent”? 

We are Gathered Here Today

Anna: After the introduction of Sinister’s gift, we step back into the leadup to the wedding, told in that series of vignettes I mentioned earlier. We don’t have time to cover each of these in depth, but maybe we could borrow Rachel’s chrono skimming to jump in and out of our favorite ones?

Adam: I was very grateful Tini Howard was invited back to do one last Captain Britain and Rachel story. That it featured TechNet was just icing on the cake. While I do not understand why Saturnyne would have any interest in attending the wedding in the first place, it was great to have one of the original Krakoan architects in the mix for this celebratory issue. Tini did so much world building in her time with Krakoa, especially with Otherworld and the Captain Britain corps, and it was unfortunate that she was not part of the latter half of the era. It’s great to see her here writing about a couple she clearly cares about. It’s also nice to see her paired with Phillip Sevy, who’s been working tirelessly on the X-Men Unlimited Infinity comics for a while now and could use more page time in print. 

Stephanie: What Adam said, though the Otherworld characters so often act out of random, petty, or Magic Says It Must Be So motivations that I didn’t much care why Saturnyne wanted an invite. Half the story’s an old school Excalibur tale anyway, with goofy Claremont/Davis creations fighting a lizard and a giant. That superb story also gave: unfortunately thick, dark inks; beautiful layouts (Rachel and Betsy in bed!); and the feel of a stable, flirtatious, grownup, confirmed, non-evil Sapphic couple. More of those, please.

Adam: Overall the vignettes were a nice variety of art styles, paired with comedy and romance in the writing, perfect for this kind of a special. I enjoyed Brombal and Pilliu making Logan be a Wolverine and the X-Men-style teacher again for a few pages, and Kennedy and St-Onge’s Rogue and Gambit piece was adorable. The Lee and Byrne (no not that Lee and Byrne) story having Loki posing as Emma posing as a wedding counselor seemed a stretch, but it was in keeping with the other stories.

Stephanie: (buries head in hands) I loved the story with Logan and his students, even though it felt so much like WatXM that I think my continuity gland gave out. More Anole, please, with his Gen Z-esque moralizing. And more Pixie. Also make her gay.

Adam: I was also happy to see that they gave Chris Claremont an abridged interview as part of his invite to talk about sneaking Mystique and Destiny past the Comics Code Authority. Given that this doubles as a Pride Special, it makes sense that he wasn’t asked to write one of the shorts, but it’s totally appropriate that he’s given his due for making the relationship between these characters happen. 

Stephanie: What would we learn if Chris Claremont did write one of the Pride Special stories? What would he have to tell us? Does it have an Earth number?

Anna: I’m glad you mentioned Claremont’s interview. I don’t always trust Papa Chris’s retrospective interviews about his older work (or his recent or current work, for that matter), since he sometimes bends the truth or maybe just earnestly misremembers. But I found myself unexpectedly touched by his interview here. The fact he always intended Mystique and Destiny to be read as a couple is evident on the page for anyone whose eyes are queerly calibrated enough to see it. And hearing him talk about that intentionality reminded me why so many of us continue to treasure his classic comics, which gave us so much subtextual queer representation at a time when the Comics Code and certain editors-in-chief and a homophobic culture at large wouldn’t let us have anything else.

Stephanie: As one of the Olds, I’m cheering too. Pull quote: “They’ve been together for fifty years and (A) no one noticed and (B) nothing bad has happened.” Meaning that nobody or nothing could get in the way of their love.

Anna: In a related vein–I generally liked the integration of straight (or “straight”) characters here? I’m mentioning this specifically as a contrast to how they’ve often been integrated in previous Pride Specials. Past Specials have often used straight characters as teaching moments. They would be well-meaning but ignorant stand-ins for presumably well-meaning straight readers who need to be educated about things like pronouns and identity and what it means to be queer. Alternatively, straight characters would simply be absent, which is understandable (Pride Specials aren’t about them). But that choice can send a segregationist message that’s unfortunately underscored by the fact that in any given year, some of Marvel’s LGBTQ+ characters (and some LGBTQ+ creators) barely appear anywhere besides the Pride Specials.

Stephanie: This. Logan does teach (or “teach”) his students that things aren’t black and white, real people have mixed destinies and messy track records, good and evil isn’t what you are, it’s what you do… lessons about how to live in the world, for anyone, rather than lessons about tolerance or acceptance or coexistence. Irene and Raven just blithely harm so many people that if you make them sympathetic at the center of a story you’ve pretty much ruled out heavy-handed moralism: you can do complex and subtle stories about mixed motives, or goofy-ass chaos. And Logan lends himself to both. Speaking of Logan and the word “both”…

Anna: Here, those straight (or “straight”) characters aren’t just present to be taught lessons or help “sell” LGBTQ+ characters to straight readers through their allyship. Instead, we see how these ostensibly straight characters are fundamentally intertwined with queer families and lovers. Amid (unconvincing) denials from a certain incoming X-Office editor that Logan was ever part of a throuple on Krakoa, we see Mr. Howlett seeking out the advice of LGBTQ+ students to buy a wedding present for his ex—i.e. the bisexual woman getting married to a woman by the devilishly handsome son who is also Logan’s best friend whom the brides made together. And we see Rogue, a woman happily married to a man, honoring her two mothers in touching moments of intimacy that speak to the ways they’ve indelibly shaped her life (for good and bad but definitely some good). We often say the X-Men are a family. They’re definitely that here, but it’s explicitly a queer family. And I loved that. 

Did you have other favorite vignettes or moments, Stephanie?  

Stephanie: Betsy and Rachel in bed: let’s see more of them (not more of their bodies; more stories with them). Anole protesting the wedding on the grounds that Mystique is evil, actually. The whole last act, the rest of the bread in the sandwich structure, the end of the Gillen/Stott/Bartolo joint, for sure (see below). A delightfully uncontrolled, untraumatized Pixie. Genuine fencing lore (foil is art, saber is theater, epée is truth) in Yoon Ha Lee’s Emma-and-Loki script. An assortment of quotable lines. “Do you not think it galls me that a pair of petty villains forged a bond that transcends death?”

Anna: Anole’s protest of the wedding also serves a metatextual purpose. Queer villain tropes are a problem when queerness is used to signal villainy–in other words, when we’re encouraged to view a character as evil because their appearance or behavior signal stereotypical gender or sexual deviance. Anole’s protest lampshades this trope. But queer villains can also be powerful. They represent resistance to the status quo that heroic/straight characters are ultimately responsible for maintaining. This comic is a great example of splitting the difference, defying the trope without sacrificing queer rebellion. Mystique and Destiny are not evil because they’re queer. Instead, they’re queer women who are sometimes evil and selfish and deeply duplicitous but are all those things in part because that’s simply the nature of their epic romance, which is beautiful both despite and because of their badness. 

Adam: Anole being the only person in the room willing to acknowledge they’re going to the wedding of a pair of avowed terrorists is a pretty good bit. I also laughed when his buds reminded him Northstar is a big old jerk.

Stephanie: Where’s Northstar anyway? If this story’s really taking place at some vague remove from the Fall of X storyline so that we don’t have to worry about who’s available, may I also ask for the whereabouts of a certain University of Chicago graduate and her forever best friend with a sword? Why is this wedding happening right now? Or, again, should I not care? Maybe I shouldn’t care! 

Anna: I also enjoyed how many of the stories thematized the multiplicity of identity and/or subversions of identity. This all felt very queer and gave us the gift of Loki being half-Emma for half a panel and taunting the White Queen by saying, “I recognize love when I see it–do you?”–accompanied by an image that’s either Jean as Dark Phoenix or Emma impersonating Dark Phoenix but in any case underscores, once again, the queerness underpinning even the ostensibly straight sexytimes among our merry mutants. 

Stephanie: That exchange saved the Emma Frost couples counseling story for me, for sure, because it reminded us (a) that Mystique and Destiny have something almost nobody else in the Marvel Universe has–time-tested, and clearly unbreakable, and queer, on-page, romantic love–and (b) that the Emma/Scott/Jean affair, way back in the Morrison run, came across (to me) as super-queer, even lightly, allegorically trans, despite the ostensibly cishet status of all three characters involved. “I know something about your husband that you don’t know, and it gives us a psychic bond that you don’t have, even though he loves you; also monogamy messes up everything.” But here I go, divagating away from our central villainous couple to heroes again.

Something Old, Something New

Anna: Speaking of subversions–let’s talk about the twist! We conclude the comic by circling back to where we started, with Mystique standing at the altar awaiting Destiny–who appears to be running late. 

Adam: Not unlike the Kitty and Colossus wedding in X-Men Gold #30, we are given what appears to be a twist where Destiny hesitates during the vows. The punchline that they have a Mystique stand-in so the real Mystique could go pull a heist was very funny to me, and reinforced everything that we love about these two. They were still allowed to do something villainous (albeit silly) on their big day.

Stephanie: (cheers) And Gillen has given us wheels within wheels–a page and a half of action sequences between (spoiler alert) Destiny’s line, “This isn’t the woman I love,” and Destiny’s next line, “I can’t marry her because she’s a programmed clone we’ve used to distract everyone.” Not to rain on any more continuity parades, but who did the programming? Do Destiny or Mystique have that level of tech skills? I can think of at least one mutant who’s got mad programming skills and really belongs at a queer wedding (trails off)…

Anna: The twist would have been fun anyway, but it’s extra fun that after stealing an unidentified object from the Scarlet Witch’s abode, Mystique doesn’t simply escape, but rather returns to the wedding, smashing back into the former Avengers Mansion through a plate glass window. And while I know changing clothes isn’t a big deal for a shapeshifter, I can’t get enough of the fact that in order to make this dramatic entrance, Mystique changes back into the top half of her wedding suit, now accessorized with a frilly tiered skirt and the thigh-high boots that usually go with her skull dress. Then they proceed to get remarried, part of which includes the shared vow to always and forever continue to spit on the law. And then they kiss. And then they keep running. (I’m not crying, *you’re* crying.)

Stephanie: We’re all crying. And we’re not even crying “STOP, THIEF!” Except Anole. Who probably isn’t crying. Rereading this beast of a special makes me love it more (especially the Gillen/Stott frame tale).

Adam: One thing I do have an issue with is the cover’s bold all-caps promise to tell the “NEVER-BEFORE-TOLD” story of Mystique and Destiny’s original wedding, which turns out not to be a story per se, but a single panel that shows them being wed on the cliffs of Muir Island two weeks before Destiny is killed in Uncanny X-Men #255 by a brand new character “Torsofaceperson” who artist Rachel Stott confirmed on twitter is definitely not Armin Zola OR the random mutant who breaks through a wall in Astonishing X-Men #6.

Anna: I love you for many reasons, Adam, but your tireless investigative skills are definitely one of them.  I also agree that the flashback to the first wedding  is underwhelming. I’m willing to forgive it, though, because this comic is working so hard to fix so many things that were broken, including both the bland, righteous morality of too many Pride Specials and the long history of Mystique and Destiny’s romance and marriage that was kept subtextual for so long. 

Stephanie: JUSTICE FOR TORSOFACEPERSON! And yes to everything above. Also Torsofaceperson does the officiating, not the killing. The killing got done by Legion. Off-panel. In an issue (I just re-read it) that sets Mystique up as an agent of vengeance, exacting–on all writers, all straight characters, all allies of the status quo, and all plotlines–retribution for the omnipresent trope of Bury Your Gays.

Anna: Parting thoughts for the happy couple as they depart for parts unknown?

Adam: While I don’t want to end this celebration on a sour note, it may be worth noting that neither Mystique nor Destiny are currently featured in any of the casts for the new From the Ashes era. I’m sure this is far from the last we’ll see of either character. But still.

Anna: I almost typed the phrase “fitting sendoff” then was like, oh god, I hope not…

Stephanie: My favorite thing about Mystique, besides her love for Destiny? Any character anywhere, at any time, can turn out to have been Mystique. So I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her. I do think she’ll pop up without warning when we see her next. Out of the blue, so to speak. 

Anna: Whatever happens next–I love that Mystique and Destiny’s love is canonically older than the whole dang superhero genre, and that their marriage and queer family retroactively defy death and bigotry and time itself. While the end of the Krakoa era means these characters are no longer practically immortal, their undeniable, uncompromising presence on the page means they’re functionally immortal–and so is their queerness. Amid all the latest existential threats to LGBTQ+ lives and happiness, there’s hope to be found in this passionate, deliberate, reckless assertion of presence. Sure it’s just a funnybook. But everything’s a story before it’s real. 

Happy Pride, everyone <3

X-Traneous Thoughts

• The inclusion of Luciano Vecchio’s Iceman Infinity Comic the same week as ROPOX #5  is a nice reminder that he has leveled up significantly as an artist in the last year. Comparing the two side by side was a real testament to the work he’s done to up his game. 
• While I (Adam here) understand the necessity of including Peter David’s cruise ship story from X-Factor Annual #6, I still have such a hard time with that because of the deeply weird inclusion of the couple quoting the Beatles’ “Ob-La-Dee, Ob-La-Da”, which in my mind neither would ever do. (Stephanie here: What if Ringo Starr was actually Mystique?)
• The panel of Mystique and Destiny’s first wedding contains a pretty major continuity error, as Destiny is pictured as her younger resurrected self instead of the older, gray haired woman she would have been. 
• What did Mystique steal? Would love to know. (Stephanie here: it’s clearly a thing in a box! One of Wanda’s “artifacts of incredible power”! Please let someone–ideally Kieron Gillen, or Leah Williams–do a callback to this issue next year and identify its particular awesomeness!)
• Kurt’s a buffoon in this but I’ll allow it; it’s not his day and it’s not out of character for him to be blinded by love or the pursuit of the same (romantic or familial). 
• Don’t remember Paras AKA Indra? That’s because he hasn’t really had a story beat since Mike Carey’s X-Men Legacy in 2010. Nice to see that after walking away from a marriage arranged by his father years ago, he’s figuring out what he wants.