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Rogue and Destiny

X-Men Legends
by yo go re

A mutant with powers she could not yet control, Rogue was unofficially adopted by Destiny and Mystique and joined them in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

When Rogue debuted in Avengers Annual #10, she was just another villainess attacking the team. She seemed to be a new hire Mystique brought in to help bust the other members of the Brotherhood out of prison after their attempt to assassinate Senator Robert Kelly, nothing special beyond that. She made a few more appearances in that same basic role, then eventually joined the X-Men looking for help controlling her powers. It was only later, as Rogue's backstory was fleshed out, that we learned she was still technically a teenager during all that. She'd been drawn like an adult, she interacted with Mystique like a colleague (rather than like a parent and child, or even a mentor and protege), she talked about her past like Mystique and Destiny had no idea what it was... all stuff that gets really weird in hindsight when years' worth of writers eventually craft her a full history. But yes, technically, the Rogue who locked lips with Captain America and then beat up the entire Avengers roster was not yet old enough to vote.

When she first appeared, Rogue had two grey streaks in her hair, along her temples - part of what made her look older than she was, perhaps. Right after joining the X-Men, however, artist Paul Smith began drawing her with a single stripe on top of her head. The sculpt on this figure is terrific, giving Rogue a cocky look with one raised eyebrow and a lopsided smirk. Absolutely terrific stuff! But imagine if the set also included a head with the two stripes and a more angry/evil look.

This figure is supposed to represent Rogue's original costume, but it's not quite right. We'll leave aside, for now, the fact that the suit was light green with dark green accents, while this toy shows the opposite; just in terms of sculpt, the outlines on her boots should be higher on the insides than the outsides, her gloves should have traditional cuffs instead of the same style as the boots, and the flap of her jacket should only be on her left side, rather than going all the way around the waist. So it's close, and recognizable as her earliest costume, but it's not 100% accurate. She has fists or gesturing hands, but none ungloved. The upper part of her gloves are separate pieces slipped onto the forearms, so why on earth would you not give us the "loose glove" hand that Retro Collection Rogue had? Including that should be as automatic as giving Batman a batarang. It also would have been appropriate if they'd used the teen body for this figure, or even one that was somewhat petite, but her torso is new, featuring a unique chest that covers the abdomen all the way down to the waist, despite the balljoint join being much higher than that. The lower torso is shaped similar to an existing one, but the shape of the cut-outs for the legs to move make it apparent it's not the same mold.

Moving on to the second half of this two-pack, we finally get the final character needed to complete the Brotherhood, Destiny. When he introduced the character (originally in the unpublished Ms. Marvel #25, eventually months later in Uncanny X-Men #141), Chris Claremont was not allowed to make it clear Destiny was Mystique's lover: Mystique could call her her "dear friend," but that was it. It wasn't even until 1990's UXM #265 that he could sneak the word "leman" past the editors (that being an archaic term meaning "one who is loved unlawfully," usually applied to a mistress but clearly with a slightly different intent here), and a tiny text recap in 1995 finally identified them as specifically lovers.

Destiny's real name is Irene Adler. Yes, that's the name of Sherlock Holmes' girlfriend. Yes, the implication is that she's the same Irene Adler. Yes, that means Sherlock Holmes was real in the Marvel Universe. Yes, the implication is that Mystique was Sherlock Holmes. No, how a woman who was alive in 1891 could still be spry enough to fight superheroes in the modern day is never addressed.

Although Destiny was drawn by Mike Vosburg for the cancelled Ms. Marvel issue, that only showed her in a simple unitard: by the time the issue was eventually printed, the last half of the story was drawn by a different artist; whether that was because only the first half was finished before the book got axed, or because the end needed to be redrawn to match the characters' familiar looks, we couldn't say. So Destiny's familiar look, an eyeless golden mask and a weirdly bulbous hood/headpiece, was the creation of John Byrne. Presumably the intention is to make her look like an ancient Greek oracle, to go along with her mutant ability to see the future. The mask here is golden, of course, but it's also painted with some "reflections" to make it look metallic.

Destiny uses the common body and the same arms, legs, and hands as Rogue, because why shouldn't an adolescent girl and a geriatric woman have the same physical shape? [clearly being a mutant has perks beyond just the flashy powers --ed.] Of course, if she looks this good at 90+, it's hardly surprising she'd want to show off her thighs and chest. Wonder if Helen Mirren would like to be in an X-Men movie? The chest is a new piece, not only because the upper edge of her top is sculpted, but because her cape is more than a piece fit over a standard mold: it actually is the neck, with the hinge joint being molded right into it. It's a welcome surprise she gets that kind of neck, rather than a barbell like Rogue has. The cape prevents her from lifting her arms up, but she can at least reach forward. She doesn't have any accessories, but her weapon of choice was a crossbow, if you happen to have Scarlett handy. (Not that she has a hand shaped to hold it.) There's a dark blue wash on the back of her cape, which feels out of place since the rest of her color is just plain. The same thing happened on Legion and his hospital scrubs; what is it about this shade of blue that makes Hasbro's color design flip out?

This two-pack is an Amazon exclusive, and I've been waiting for the price to drop a bit before I finally bought it. It's nice to finally finish up the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, or maybe Freedom Force, or even just Mystique's little family unit. There were better choices to be made in both the construction and the accessories, but the characters existing at all keeps those complaints from being very major.

-- 01/20/25


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