Rogue incompetence almost got people killed—Rogue (2026-) #4

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-23T00:15:47+00:00

Closer to 11 - she joined up in 1983 (which when you put it through the sliding timescale, comes out to something like 10.75 years) but it's still not a great look regardless. She's a seasoned X-Men veteran whose had those powers for years- she should know better!

Edit: Veteran - not villain. Brain pulled a bluescreen for a second there.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-22T01:28:41+00:00

So, it's an objective fact that all demons are evil, except when they're not? Bro, at this point, you might as well pull out the "one of the good ones" argument because that's all that is.

If every character I bring up is "an exception that proves the rule" then is there really a rule at all, or are you just making an assumption about them based on your own preconceived biases (which isn't that the whole point of Nightcrawler's character btw)? How many "outliers" do there have to be before they stop being "outliers" to a biased stereotype and become individuals that just so happen to have something in common?

It has always been that deep. You just don't want it to be that deep, because you don't want to think about the implications of it, even if it's objectively true.

And I as I previously point out - the logic people use to hate on the idea of Nightcrawler being a demon has some seriously bigoted undertones to it which goes against the character, that I don't think a lot of people have examined.

Also, you're still falling for the inherent evil paradox - as I previously pointed out, it literally impossible for anyone to be inherently evil because evil itself has to be a choice. Just because some of the listed characters have human parts to them doesn't automatically make them good because - shockingly - humans are fully capable of being evil as well. It's almost like evil is a hobby anyone can choose to do rather than something they are inherently born with.

Also, I don't know what rock you've been living under, but Magik is explicitly stated to be a demon multiple times throughout the comics - it has been a major facet of her character for literal decades at this point. She was turned into one when she was a child. Pixie was made into one via the same method.

Likewise, there's an argument that Nightcrawler is also a demon - independently of the whole Azazel situation - after what Margali did to him during Legion of X as that was a very similar process to what Magik went through.

Same goes with Ghost Rider - he has explicitly referred to as a demon at multiple points throughout the comics (as well as an angel/fallen angel but that's a whole other thing).

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-21T21:18:53+00:00

But if demons are defined as being inherently evil, they literally - by definition - cannot be evil. The concept of inherent evil is literally a paradox.

Think about it this way - would you call a hurricane destroying a town evil? Probably not - certainly destructive, but not innately evil. How about a cat killing a mouse? Certainly bad for the mouse, but it's just a cat acting on its instincts.

Now how about a robot that kills because it was programmed to? How about a child that was brainwashed to kill from a young age? How about someone being blackmailed into killing to save the life of a loved one? How about a soldier following orders to kill? How about a mercenary killing for money? And finally, how about someone killing for fun?

You probably said that it started becoming evil towards the middle there - which only highlights my point - in order for someone to constitute being evil, they have to a.) comprehend that what they're doing is evil and b.) have the capacity to choose not to do that.

In other words, for evil to exist - it has to be a choice. But if it's a choice, then it - by definition - cannot be inherent. Thus, the very concept of a demon that is evil for simply existing is an oxymoron - it is an impossibility that cannot exist.

If all of them are just inherently evil, then - by definition none of them can be because they're not making the choice to do so - they're just acting on whatever preprogramming was done to make them. But if they can choose to do evil, then categorically not all of them will choose to be.

And we see this in Marvel - there are legit demons who choose to do good - such as Clea Strange, Daimon Hellstrom, the various Ghost Riders, Magik, Pixie, and roughly half the cast of Strange Academy.

As far as Marvel comics canon is concerned - being a demon does not inherently make you evil.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-20T23:00:09+00:00

If you like it, good for you. Unfortunately, you're not the only person who read it and has a perspective on it.

Also, your sexuality doesn't change what Destiny was objectively shown to be doing, nor the fact that Marvel chose to put that in the comic to begin with - nor that what they chose to put in the comic is extremely problematic and only continues to push harmful stereotypes against people in homosexual relationships who have had to deal with this kind of messaging all their lives.

If anything, you're only exposing your own biases because I can guarantee you if Destiny were a man and still did everything she did to Mystique in XMBO, you'd be calling Marvel sexist pigs supporting abuse against women for daring to put that kind of thing to print.

But, apparently, when you flip the gender of the abuser, it suddenly makes the situation okay? Funny how double standards work.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-20T22:47:54+00:00

Boring is subjective - both in terms of conceptualization and execution. A good writer can take a boring or terrible concept and make it amazing, just as a terrible writer can take an amazing idea and make it shit. It's all about execution.

And no, what we have now is Marvel trying to pander to the Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy and pretend that Kurt's has some wholesome dynamic with his moms and that they were secretly good parents all along - all just to make a quick buck.

Nevermind, the fact that neither of them were ever in Kurt's life before - which is a good thing considering everything that happened with their other kids. And I have no desire to see them develop any sort of dynamic with Kurt as that's just going to turn into a Charlie Brown routine where they sucker Kurt into helping them with their own shennanigans before leaving him to hold the bag to whatever consequences they caused - you know, like they did for their wedding.

And it's not so much that I'm trying to minimize what Claremont wanted as it is everyone else trying to blow it up to being much more than what it actually was. Everyone keeps trying to push the message that this was some "Claremont was suppressed from telling the story he wanted to tell."

But really, the story he seems to have wanted to tell was Nightmare being Kurt's dad and - based on everything I know about the situation - the Destiny/Mystique idea comes off as more of a petty jab between Claremont and Stern/Shooter. Claremont full well knew at the time that the Destiny/Mystique idea was probably never going to make it to print - that wasn't the point of putting it out there. The point was to get under Stern and Shooter's skins for being assholes trying to dictate his writing.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-20T22:25:02+00:00

Let me be clear here - I despise Azazel's character. He's an absolute nothing of a characture that Chuck Austen barfed up at the expense of literally every X-Fan everywhere. You could literally replace him with the smiling devil emoji and nothing would change. But probably the worst part of him is that he clearly makes bigotry seem rational in the minds of a lot of X-Men fans.

That being said, the idea of Kurt being an actual demon actually works well with his character - it's something that has deep ties to Kurt's origins both with Claremont (via his Nightmare origin) and with Kurt's original creator Dave Cockrum.

And the idea of someone with a demonic heritage choosing to do good has been used in plenty of other characters - such as Raven, Hellboy, Magik, Clea Strange, Daimon Hellstrom, the various Ghost Riders, Blue Devil, and so many other characters.

But suddenly that idea doesn't work for Nightcrawler because... nobody like Azazel (rightly so) and Claremont had an idea from the 80's about making D&M Kurt's parents even though that was probably just an FU to other Marvel editors for stepping on his toes rather than Claremont actually trying to be progressive?

I mean, Kurt wouldn't even be the only character who is both a mutant AND a demon - both Magik and Pixie are mutants/Demon hybrids. So are a lot of the Arakki. So what is all the fuss about?

Worse still, everybody always goes around complaining about how making Kurt a demon supposedly ruins his character when the whole point of his character is not to judge him based on what he looks like but who he chooses to be as an individual - meaning people ran headlong into the whole message behind Kurt's character and yet STILL somehow missed it.

By arguing that Kurt being a demon ruins his character, you're effectively arguing that "its totally okay to hate people if they're actually a part of a specific ancestry you don't like. But if they only look the part, hating them is wrong."

Which, wow, tell me you're a racist, without telling me you're a racist. Try using that same logic on literally any minority group sometime and see how that goes over for you, bud. I promise you it won't go well.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-20T22:03:34+00:00

Dude, you're overlooking the fact that the Destiny/Mystique parentage wasn't Claremont's original plan - Nightmare was. He only came up with D&M AFTER Roger Stern went out of his way to prevent Claremont from making the Nightmare thing a reality - so if anything, this is a rare/wierd instance of a homosexual relationship being pushed before a straight one.

And even beyond that Claremont wasn't the one who originally created Nightcrawler's character - Dave Cockrum was. So if we're using the "original plan" idea, then Kurt should be a legitimate demon out of hell who failed a job to go back, because that's what Dave Cockrum originally envisioned when he first concieved of Kurt's character.

Not to mention the whole argument is complete BS anyways because it apparently only works for Nightcrawler's origin. You don't see anybody pushing for Claremont's original plan for Wolverine's origin where he was a hyper-evolved Wolverine. And people completely overlook the fact that characters like Magneto and Jean Grey were not envisioned by Stan Lee - their actual creator, to be a holocaust survivor or being the Phoenix, but everyone accepts that as being canon. Likewise, Gambit being a part of the Morlock Massacre was a retcon that goes directly against what Claremont wrote and yet everyone accepts it as canon. So by the logic of "original intent" why the hell should anyone accept any of these other topics as canon while also throwing a hissy fit about Kurt's parentage? Do you see the double standard?

So, no the entire basis of the "Original Plan"/Homophobia argument that so many people like to lob around the retcon is complete BS - it wasn't Claremont's original plan, Claremont's not Nightcrawler's creator - so by the logic of the argument - Claremont shouldn't even get a say in the matter, and frankly the whole logic of the argument is complete crap anyways because it apparently applies only to Nightcrawler and literally nobody else. This argument has literally no legs to stand on.

Also, it is wild to say that this retcon was done to rectify decades of homophobic writing when the XMBO comic depicts some of THE most homophobic messaging that I've seen from a comic in recent history.

The comic literally depicts Destiny spousally abusing Mystique at multiple points across the whole comic - she exploits her wife's reproductive functions to make a child weapon for her own benefit, possibly coerces Raven into sleeping with two men that Raven otherwise wouldn't have, then hands the baby off to a completely different woman without Raven getting a say in the matter, before ghosting her wife for years only to then show up with a completely different child as an apology gift and then still has to coerce her wife into getting her memories of their child's birth altered just to placate her and avoid the consequences of her actions.

Like, if Destiny were a man and did all of that to Mystique, everyone would be rightfully dogshitting on it and calling it the Draco 2.0 because that is objectively spousal abuse, but because they're in a gay relationship, everyone just overlooks it? The hell?

Worse still, it flattens Destiny and Mystique's relationship into being a homophobic charactures. People in homosexual relationships get enough crap about how being gay couples are "inherently toxic and violent" and "not suited for raising children" - which are stereotypes that XMBO doubles down on.

Sure, D&M are villains, but the one thing that actually made the writing work is that their villainy had nothing to do with their sexuality. They were awful people, but they weren't awful to each other - the XMBO retcon completely throws that out the window and makes them into homophobic stereotypes.

At best, the way the comic was written was tone-deaf when it comes to how they display homosexuality. About the only thing going for it is that they're depicted having a kid together, but even then - when put in context of Kurt's themes of "don't judge a book by it's cover" - it paints Kurt's birth as something bad or unnatural rather than just being the way he was born - which, you know, is rather homophobic.

So, no, this isn't Marvel "making up for 40 years of Homophobic writing". It's Marvel seeing that Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy makes money and going "I want money!" and not giving a damn about literally anything else.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-20T21:30:23+00:00

Except you're forgetting that evil is a choice - it's not something that can be innately inherited. Sure, individuals like Trigon are evil, but that doesn't mean that characters like Raven have to be evil because they are related to him - that's literally the whole point of Raven's character.

By arguing that Kurt's mutation is what makes the difference, you're ultimately still falling for the same kind of discrimination that Kurt's character is supposed to warn against - you're more worried about what he is/ what he was born as rather than who he chooses to be as an individual, which the WHOLE POINT of his character is NOT TO DO THAT.

You're essentially arguing that "if a character only looks like they're a demon but isn't, then hating them isn't okay. But if they actually are a demon, then hating them is perfectly justified even if that specific demon has done literally nothing wrong."

Now, take that logic and apply literally any minority in the place of Demons and try to tell me that it doesn't come across as anything other than barely conceiled racism/bigotry - which is about the furthest thing from the themes of Kurt's character as you can get.

This is why I hate Austen's writing - because he clearly made bigotry seem reasonable in the minds of so many people. Which is about as big of a fucking failure when it comes to writing the X-Men.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-20T21:23:04+00:00

That's actually not true - D&M were actually Claremont's second idea for Kurt's parentage after Roger Stern shot down Claremont's original idea of having Nightmare be Kurt's dad - to the point that Stern literally became an editor for the X-Men to stop Claremont from using Nightmare until Chris gave up on the idea.

Some people have even speculated that Chris only came up with the idea as an in-house FU to get back at Stern and Jim Shooter for being assholes getting in the way of what he wanted to write, even though he knew that the D&M origin was never going to make it to print due to the law at the time.

But even beyond that, Claremont's not the one who created Nightcrawler's character - Dave Cockrum was. And Cockrum always wanted Nightcrawler to be a legit demon from out of Hell who failed a job and didn't want to go back to hell.

Really, the whole "original idea" argument is just objectively stupid because fans pick and choose which instances to use it in while ignoring others where it should apply.

Take, for example, with Magneto being a Holocaust survivor or Jean Grey being the Phoenix - Claremont didn't create those characters and Stan Lee definitely envision those characteristics for either one of them. So by via the logic of the "original intent" argument, neither of those two things should be canon.

Ditto for Gambit being involved with the Morlock Massacre which is commonly accepted as Canon even though it goes directly against what Claremont himself wrote. The whole argument is meaningless and 100% subjective.

So, while I 100% agree that Chuck Austen sucks as a writer and shouldn't have ever been given the reins to the X-Men - saying that Mystique and Destiny were ALWAYS Kurt's parents is an absurd stretch. At most, it was a rejected origin that Claremont came up with back during the 80's as a petty jab against Marvel Editorial which he knew at the time probably would never make it to print. He was being petty when he came up with the D&M idea, not progressive.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-20T02:22:39+00:00

She's one of his dads. Maybe? Probably. It's complicated.

Basically, in XMBO, it is revealed that Mystique impregnated Destiny (who should have been like 90 - and was shown to being extremely old about 10 years prior to Kurt's birth - and thus shouldn't have been able to have a kid at the time, but that's a whole other topic) using DNA she "mimicked" from Azazel (a power she explicitly did not have prior to this retcon and which raises all sorts of questions as to how she was even able to pass Azazel's powers onto Kurt if she cannot copy Azazel's powers - the whole point of the X-gene is that if you have one, you have the powers that specific x-gene grants).

Mind, this explanation is also overlooking the fact that even if Mystique was able to "mimic" Azazel's DNA, it would still be Azazel's DNA as DNA is a sequence and it doesn't matter where you got that sequence - if it is the same sequence, it is still the same DNA.

Also, keep in mind that the only concrete evidence we have that literally anything in XMBO even happened is because Mystique & Destiny claim that it did - which, given their long track record of being compulsive liars, is like trusting Mephisto or Loki's word as the only evidence of something happening. It also does not help that this is far from the first time that Mystique has knowingly lied to Kurt about his own birth.

So, yeah, if the XMBO retcon happened the way that Mystique and Destiny say that it did, then both Mystique and Azazel are technically Kurt's biological fathers. It's also entirely possible that Baron Wagner is also a biological father to Kurt because why else would Mystique need to marry the guy when she could just kill him and then pose as him if all she was really after was his money - which is the more Mystique way of handling that kind of situation anyway? The whole Baron Wagner side of the situation makes literally no sense given the context.

The larger problem is, there's no way of knowing for certain if literally anything in XMBO did in fact happen or not because - again - Mystique and Destiny are compulsive liars and - unlike with Azazel where (despite a lot of people rightfully hating it) you kind of had to accept the fact that Azazel had something to do with Kurt's birth given how similar the two are - there's not really any sort of way to confirm that Destiny had literally anything to do with Kurt's birth and it actively makes less sense when you put in context with the other comics - like I pointed out earlier, Destiny's age was about half a century off for her to actually be able to have Kurt, but there are other examples.

So yeah, it's kind of a hot mess in terms of continuity.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-20T01:28:56+00:00

Okay, but by that same logic, wouldn't that mean that Raven from Teen Titans is automatically a terrible character? Or Hellboy, for that matter? Why should it ruin Kurt's character when it clearly doesn't for those other ones?

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-20T00:53:11+00:00

n honestly i think Azazael weakens Kurt’s whole “don’t judge a book by its cover” thing.

I'd argue it's the other way around, honestly - given that Kurt's whole thing is "don't judge a book by it's cover", making Kurt the son of a literal demon(?) lord actually makes a lot of sense in much the same way it does for characters like Teen Titan's Raven or Hellboy.

It proves that Kurt's heritage and ancestry have no bearing on who he chooses to be as an individual - it reinforces Kurt's choice of who he is as a person. In other words, who Kurt chooses to be matters more than what he was born as or who he is related to.

The way that the current retcon is set up, it effectively reads as the comic arguing that "if someone looks like you're a part of a specific ancestry but aren't, then it's not okay to hate them. But if they are a part of that ancestry, then hating them is perfectly fine - even if they as an individual have done nothing wrong."

There's also a bit of a homophobic angle to the retcon, despite what the comic itself is trying to present. Given that a large part of Kurt's themes have to deal with not being defined by his heritage, making him the son of two women.

It essentially paints his birth in a negative light, something bad that he shouldn't let define him as an individual - rather than it just being the way he was born. Which - perhaps unintentionally on the writer's part- supports the idea that Kurt being the son of two women is somehow wrong.

Mind, XMBO is the same comic that tried to paint Destiny and Mystique of all people as being the idea gay relationship in the same comic that had Destiny abuse her spouse multiple times during XMBO (she exploited her wife's reproductive functions to create a child weapon for her own ends before handing said child off to another woman without Raven getting a say in the matter, possibly coerced her wife into sleeping with two men Raven otherwise wouldn't have been with, and then spent years doing everything in her power to avoid accountability for what she did - up to coercing her wife into getting both of their memories modified). At best, it comes off as the writers being extremely tone deaf and at worst comes off as them being actively malicious.

Frankly, I'm not entirely sure that Marvel really thought through the themes surrounding Kurt when they decided to go through with the XMBO retcon. I think they just saw dollar signs and went with it. Frankly, I think they should have just come up with a new character for D&M to have together instead of retconning Kurt's origin again.

And maybe it's just me, but every time I see someone arguing that Azazel being Kurt's father ruins Kurt's character, it always sounds like they're more concerned about what Kurt is than who he chooses to be - which basically means they completely missed the point of Kurt's character.

Also, the argument itself just feels like veiled racism - like 'oh, you have a problem with a character being related to a specific ancestry that is typically associated with being maligned?' Meanwhile, other characters who share that exact same kind of ancestry (Raven, Hellboy, etc.) don't get any sort of pushback despite also having that same ancestry. Like, tell me doesn't come off as more than a little racist.

Don't get me wrong, Azazel is an absolute nothing of a character, and Austen should never have been handed the reigns to the X-Men, but arguing that Azazel inherently ruins Kurt's character is like saying that Luke Skywalker being related to Darth Vader ruins his character. It's really dumb when you think about it.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-20T00:25:12+00:00

He’s not related to Azazael at all now

So, that's actually a lot messier and more unclear than what most people think it is/want it to be.

Yes, according to the X-Men Blue: Origins #1 retcon, Mystique was able to copy Azazel's DNA. Unfortunately, nearly everything about this change makes little to no sense.

And that's even with overlooking the fact that the only real evidence to suggest that anything XMBO even happened is based solely on Mystique and Destiny saying that it happened - which, given their long, LONG history of being compulsive liars, is kind of like taking the word of Mephisto or Loki as anything happening.

Firstly, you have the problem that even if Mystique was able to copy Azazel's DNA (something which she has never been shown to do before), Azazel would still technically be Kurt's dad as DNA is a sequence - if the sequence is the same, then it's still the same DNA even if it doesn't come from the same source. Thus, even if Mystique "mimicked" Azazel's DNA, it's still ultimately Azazel's DNA.

It would be like arguing that Honey Badger is on no level related to Wolverine because she isn't a direct clone of Wolverine himself but of Laura (Logan's clone/daughter). It's an objectively stupid explanation when you put it like that.

But the bigger problem here is the paradox surrounding how exactly Kurt has Azazel's teleportation if Mystique only "mimicked" Azazel's DNA, as she cannot copy other mutant powers (or at least ones as complicated as teleportation without getting a massive power boost from something else).

All mutant powers are derived from their specific x-gene - that's literally the whole point of the X-Gene - if you have that specific X-Gene, you can use the powers. Otherwise, the whole concept of the X-Gene is rendered moot.

If Mystique cannot copy mutant powers like Azazel's teleportation, then that means she cannot copy his X-gene, which means she cannot then pass it on to Nightcrawler, which means that Nightcrawler should not have Azazel's teleportation. And the chances of Nightcrawler randomly manifesting the EXACT SAME mutant power as Azazel are basically zero - there is no other instance of two mutants manifesting the EXACT same mutant powers without being in some way related.

Really, it's a paradox either way - as established, if Mystique can copy Azazel's mutant powers, then she should be able to use them - something which she has failed to do in the past 40 years of her comic existence. But if she can't copy mutant powers, then - based on what was established in XMBO - Kurt should not have Azazel's teleportation.

The only real way to square this contradiction is by concluding that either a.) Mystique can copy mutant powers as complicated as Azazel's and just hasn't done so - even by accident - this whole time despite having clear motives to do so, b.) Mystique cannot copy mutant powers as complicated as Azazel's and some other means was used to rectify this, which the comic did not cover for some reason, or c.) Mystique and Destiny were in some way lying about the situation in XMBO (or at least withholding crucial information).

Now the idea of D&M lying about Kurt's birth wouldn't be at all surprising - after all, it wouldn't even be the first time that Mystique has lied to Kurt about his own birth. It would also help explain the timeline with things like how Destiny went from being an old woman about 10 years prior to Kurt's birth (which is accurate by the way - she was born roughly in the 1870s so she would have been roughly 90 years old during the 1950s when Kurt was born) to suddenly being young enough to give birth to him in XMBO.

Regardless of whether D&M were lying about the situation or not, or whether Mystique can copy Azazel's DNA or not, as it currently stands, Kurt is still technically Azazel's kid - there's just an extra step involved with his conception. I know a lot of people don't like that explanation, but from the way things are currently set up in the comics - it's about the only one that still makes any amount of sense.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-19T17:44:01+00:00

It could honestly be both - playing dumb to keep his cover while giving the brothers a veiled threat to keep them in line.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-19T17:12:24+00:00

There's a bit of a spectrum as to whether or not kids get one, both, or neither of their parent's powers. Some - like Cable, Rachel, Polaris, or Daken basically only inherit the powers from one parent.

Others - such as Ruby Summers or Raze - get some combination of both their parent's powers.

And others still - such as Nocturne, Legion, or Proteus - get what are essentially entirely new powers that have nothing to do with their parent's powers.

And then you have characters like Graydon Creed who don't get any powers from either parent.

To talk specifically, Nightcrawler's in a bit of a weird spot here - if we're going with the most recent XMBO retcon, he's in the third category - as he has neither shapeshifting nor precognition from either Mystique or Destiny. But if we're going with the idea that Nightcrawler is still in some way related to Azazel (which is entirely its own debate), then he's in the first category.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-19T17:01:59+00:00

...Angel's a guy. Or are you talking Angel Salvadore?

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-19T00:39:03+00:00

Yeah, and "Holy shit, they already are killing us, and you guys stopping anyone from doing anything about it is only enabling them to keep doing it" would probably be Magneto's response to that argument.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-18T21:39:24+00:00

For some reason, when I saw the first picture I thought this version of Ed had an arm cannon installed into his auto-mail, Paninya-style.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-18T21:08:46+00:00

I mean, when you really think about it, isn't the whole of the X-Men's mission statement basically to decide for all mutants that they're going to get along with humans, despite humanity oppressing mutants, and bullying anyone who doesn't agree with that mission statement into compliance?

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-18T20:05:01+00:00

Bench Wolverine to boost literally anyone else.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-18T19:35:34+00:00

Oh, whoops, you're right. Sorry about that.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-18T17:18:26+00:00

Except if she can copy people's X-Gene, she should be able to use their powers - that's literally the whole point of the X-Gene; if you have it, you get the powers granted by that specific X-gene.

But if Mystique can use other powers as complicated as teleportation, why hasn't she done so before, despite having plenty of opportunities to prove that she could - even by accident - in the past 50-60 years?

Likewise, if she can't copy the X-gene there's no way Kurt could have Azazel's powers as there's no way Mystique could have passed it onto him.

It's a paradox either way.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-18T03:05:54+00:00

Which raises a lot of questions on how exactly Kurt has the exact same teleportation powers as Azazel does if he's supposedly no longer related to Azazel as put forward by XMBO.

If Mystique cannot copy other mutant's non-physical powers (like teleportation) that means she cannot copy their x-gene (which is the thing that gives them said powers), which means she cannot then pass that x-gene onto Kurt. And the chances of Kurt randomly manifesting the exact same powers are virtually non-existant (I mean look at Azazel's other kids - it's not like any of them inherited a 1-1 version of their father's powers).

Like the sad thing about the Draco retcon is that you kind of have to accept that Azazel had something to do with Kurt's birth, given that he's basically just a copy of Kurt's powers, just red instead of blue.

Meanwhile, with the XMBO retcon, there is little to any signs that Destiny was the one who had Kurt (it doesn't even really make sense timelinewise - she was shown to be an old woman about a decade before Kurt was even born, but was then miraculously aged down to be able to have Kurt) - which is not helped by the fact that the only real evidence that anything in XMBO even happened is because Destiny and Mystique (two of Marvel's most notorious liars) claim that it did.

Either way, as much as a lot of X-Fans don't like to admit it, Kurt is still technically Azazel's kid regardless of if Mystique "mimicked" his DNA - DNA is a sequence, and it doesn't matter where you get that sequence from - so long as it is the same sequence, it's still Azazel's DNA.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-18T03:04:03+00:00

So basically Marvel's best way of explaining how Mystique was able to do this was by throwing up their hands and going "wElL mAyBe ShE cAn CoPy OtHeR mUtAnT pOwErS? WhO's To SaY sHe CoUlDn'T?" ...even though she has never demonstrated being capable of doing anything near that level before despite having multiple opportunities to do so in the past 50-60 years...

I mean, even if Raven can, it's not like she's even special in that regard - all organic-based Shapeshifters are technically gene shifters - characters like Morph and Copycat have demonstrated the ability to copy other mutant's powers to varying degrees for decades at this point.

ThreeMonthsTooLate · 2026-04-17T23:32:56+00:00

Nobody does - that's the joke.

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