The mutants of theX-Mencan come in all shapes in sizes, but the femme fatale Mystique takes that idea to a whole new level. As a shapeshifter, Mystique has always been able to assume the form of others to aid her as a spy, assassin, and saboteur. And with her shapeshifting mutant powers, Raven Darkholmes has one of the most unique physiologies in the Marvel Universe.
While the X-Men movies only broached the subject of her powers broadly, the Mystique of the comic book Marvel Universe proved capable of using her body in all varieties of ways and showed that "shapeshifting" is a pretty broad category that can come with a host of powers beyond just looking like another person, and her entire biology alters itself for almost whatever task she needs. Now, we're taking a closer look at some of the weirdest aspects of Mystique's biology in comics and film.
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The first thing to understand about Mystique's physiology is that she does not purely need to be imitating somebody in order to assume a different shape. Although she usually does just take the appearance of another person to infiltrate super teams and government organizations through the art of impersonation, she can often fall into tough spots where she needs to get creative with her powers.
Mystique is capable of forming extra limbs, increasing her muscle mass, and even forming a second face on the back of her head to act as a lookout. She clarifies when she does this, it's essentially a battle form that is not easy to maintain for extended periods of time. Still, it turns Mystique into a veritable juggernaut capable of wielding four assault rifles at once and maintaining a 360-degree field of vision.
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Over the years Mystique's ability to take on such unconventional shapes has increased, and she's even managed to manifest physical adaptations that allow her body to change into even more drastic shapes. She can sprout wings to glide or even fly, or fins and gills so she can navigate underwater environments quite literally like a fish. The more control she gains over her body the greater her ability to adapt to increasingly extreme environments, and she's never fully been pushed to her limits, even if these applications are painful to maintain for long stretches.
When she imitates mutants or other characters with physical abilities, she can imitate physical manifestations like Nightcrawler's tail, Colossus' shiny metal skin, or Wolverine's claws. However, these traits don't come with any function they might provide their original counterparts.
When Rebecca Romijn's Mystique debuted on-screen in 2000's X-Men, she had a distinct look that saw her blue-skinned body covered in reptilian scales when she wasn't in her base form. Throughout the X-Men's cinematic universe, these scales remained a hallmark of her appearance, even though they didn't really have a precedent in comics.
After X-Men premiered, Fabian Nicieza and Kevin Maguire's miniseries X-Men Forever gave her a dramatic new appearance that featured her cinematic scales. After being used as a conduit for cosmic energy, she developed scales all over her body. Although she maintained that look for the remainder of the series, she did not have them in any of her subsequent appearances. It's not clear if she still has the scales and is simply concealing them with her shapeshifting powers or if the scales went away naturally.
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With Mystique's body in such a constant state of flux, it's not surprising that her mind is in flux either. Mystique's mind proves extremely difficult for telepaths to read or manipulate. The grey matter of her brain shifts from moment to moment, which gives her a psychic signature that is tremendously difficult to maintain a lock on. Even when she's volunteered to open her mind to others they have a hard time doing so, and the ability can be a curse as well as a gift.
One of the more cursed aspects of such a mental state is that Mystique suffers from a condition similar to bipolar disorder. The constant flux of her mind causes mood swings and shifts in personality that create a unique psychosis, and the psychic ninja Psylocke once performed surgery on her with her psi-sword to fix the issue.
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As another strange part of her powerset, Mystique can move the position of her organs around the inside of her body. On more than one occasion Mystique has shifted the location of her brain inside her body so that she does not suffer a fatality from headshots. This can be done either as a protective measure when she needs to ensure her own survival or for the purposes of deception to truly sell the fiction of her death.
Such an ability extends to all her other organs, and she's been known to move them around inside her torso or into her limbs in order to decrease the efficacy of aiming at center mass against her. While it might seem strange to consider breathing through lungs crammed into wrists or digesting your meal somewhere in your shoulders, but that's the particular brand of strange Mystique lives with every day.
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X-Men Anatomy: The 5 Weirdest Things About Mystique's Body | CBR - CBR - Comic Book Resources
Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith
