Death of Wolverine Logan Legacy #6 Review-Mystique

Mystique and Wolverine: Two nearly ageless mutants who seemed doomed to dance together in unending conflict; or so it seemed until Wolverine died recently.  As with the other issues in the Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy mini-series, we see a mutant with close connections to Wolverine and how Logan’s death is affecting her.

Logan Legacy #6 Mystique Cover

Mystique, as anyone who has read X-Men comics or seen the various X-Men movies knows, is a blue-skinned mutant with the ability to change her appearance to mimic other people.  As she has control over her own body and cells, she can heal herself fairly well, and is ageless.  She is also the mother of Wolverine’s buddy Nightcrawler, and the adopted mother of the X-Men’s Rogue.  The partner she raised Rogue with though, was another mutant named Destiny who was able to foresee the future.  Hmmm…an immortal mutant paired with someone who could see into the future?  That plot device sets up a lot of possibilities for plotting and conniving to put themselves into positions of power.

Logan Legacy #6 Mystique Credits Page

Which is largely what this comic book is about.  Most of this issue is flashback, with Mystique recalling events in Madripoor back in the 1970s (which, if we go by real-world time, and not just the elastic version of “Marvel Time,” clearly puts these events as prior to Wolverine joining the X-Men). The basic storyline, without giving away major spoilers, has Mystique and Destiny  trying to gain political, commercial, and military control over Madripoor.  Wolverine, as a man with a lot of history in Madripoor (and this history is, interestingly, mentioned as a specific plot point also in the related Death of Wolverine: Weapon X Program mini-series) of course intervenes and messes up our loving super-villain’s nefarious plot.

Logan Legacy #6 Mystique, art by Andy Clarke

This story is really more about Mystique and Destiny and their relationship (and how Logan is a constant irritant to them), than about a typical super-villain scheme.  We see the emotional and “human” side of Raven “Mystique” Darkholme, and how she is grounded by her love of Destiny.  We also see an interesting piece at the end involving a secret at a SHIELD facility, (a part of the story that takes place in the modern day, post-Logan), that sets up part of the mystery of the Logan Legacy begun in issue #1 of this series.

This was a very well-written story by writer James Tynion IV, who recently moved over from working on Batman over at DC Comics.  The cover art by Alex Garner is fantastic, and has an almost Alex Ross type look to it.  One of this reviewer’s pet peeves though, is when we get a great-looking piece of art on the cover by one artist, in this case Garner, but inside we see pencils by a different artist.  The inside art is by Andy Clarke, and there is nothing wrong with his work (though it seemed that Logan’s face was a little off), but based on the great look of the cover, the inside was a bit disappointing.

Still, this is a good book and is highly recommended for anyone interested in Mystique, and/or Mystique and Destiny’s relationship.