Mystique concludes the "Maker's Mark" two-parter, as Brian Vaughan winds down in preparation for the handover to Sean McKeever.

Last issue, Mystique and Forge tracked down missing mutant boy Spencer Bronson, only to discover that Spencer is actually an evil mind-control mutant.  Rather conveniently for the plot, Spencer can only control men (although in fairness, it's better than just making Mystique conveniently immune).  So he makes Forge fight Mystique, and that's your story.

So it's fairly basic stuff, but handled quite nicely, and with decent art from Manuel Garcia.  As usual with this series, while the plot is pretty straightforward, Vaughan layers some more subtleties on top.  Mystique tries various other personas to break Forge's mind control before resorting to telling him that she loves him - which, of course, she subsequently denies.  Yes, it's a rather hokey plot, but it works because the history of the characters makes it genuinely ambiguous as to whether there's any truth to it.  And nobody gets particularly worked up about why Forge responded to that, which lets it keep some degree of subtlety.

There's also a nice sequence with Mystique blithely explaining the whole thing away as a classic example of a decent mutant child twisted by nasty human parents.  There's no evidence to support that interpretation whatsoever, but the scene works because Vaughan leaves it unclear whether she's just being bloodyminded to annoy Forge, or whether she might actually mean it.

Good little series, Mystique.  It's nothing groundbreaking, but it just tells a good story.

Rating: B+

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