Sunday, November 27, 2011

Mystique:The Bisexual Shapeshifter


Mystique by Brian K. Vaughn
Ultimate Collection
Mystique (Raven), the sexy mutant shapechanger from Marvel's X-Men has a long standing relationship with another woman, the oracle-telepath Destiny. However, for many years, there was a blanket ban on any obvious GLBTQ characters at Marvel, so various authors and artists had to sneak her bisexuality in (her creator states that she always was Destiny's lover). More recently, it has become an official canon (as much as an comic character has a single canon).


Destiny (Irene) also probably counts, but she tends to be a background character, while Mystique is vey prominent throughout the X-Men storylines.

Most of her male love affairs lacked in emotional depth and were for the purpose of producing children. While she is definitely bisexual, the fact that she can shapeshift into anyone (or anything, apparently), makes her gender identity extremely ambiguous.




Notable points in canon:
  • She met Destiny in the 1930s (apparently her shapechanging counters the whole 'mutants die young' thing) and remained in a mostly unseen but committed relationship with her.
  • She raised Rogue with Destiny as an adoptive family
  • Destiny dies, leading to non-platonic grief and despair (as Destiny died before Mystique was properly 'out', she doesn't appear to have a current female lover).


Notable comic issues:
Unfortunately, Mystique's sexuality remains ambiguous through most of the comics, and never gets much plot time, but there are several issues that refer to her attraction to women, and her loving Destiny.
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