Mystique is now officially cancelled with issue #24, so we're in the home straight now.

Despite my repeated calls for Marvel to axe half the line, this is one that I'm actually going to miss.  Mystique has delivered good quality, intelligent action stories with solid storytelling.  I like it a lot.  See, I don't ask for much.  Just tell me a story, and do it well.

That said, I can't really blame Marvel for pulling the plug on this book, or Emma Frost for that matter - sales have not been spectacular.  It would be nice to think that this was completely unconnected with the old industry adage that female solo books never sell unless the protagonist gets her tits out on every second page.  After all, Emma Frost was trying to be an odd sort of teen romance book with telepathy, which is hardly going to appeal to the average X-Men reader.  But Mystique should have sold.  It really should.

Issue #21 is one of those issues that would make rather more sense if it wasn't labelled as part 2 of 5, since it's really a bit of a diversion from the plot.  Mystique has been cut loose by Xavier, which means that (if you remember the original premise of this book) the US government can detect her again.  More worryingly, Fantomex knows what she's up to, so he's got to be bought off.  Cue largely irrelevant mission for Fantomex.

It's another caper story, in other words, designed to give Mystique something to do while the other characters' subplots are ticking over.  But that's what this book does well, and this is no exception.  There's some nice character moments (Mystique's concern for Shortpack, Fantomex's ridiculously geeky mission), and the art's as good as ever.  The final page looks fantastic.

Dammit, when I said I wanted half the line to be axed, I didn't mean this one!

Rating: A-

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