Warning! Mild spoilers for Avengers Forever #13 ahead!
During a conversation with the Wolverine of an alternate future in Avengers Forever #13, the shape-shifter Mystique drops a bombshell, revealing the previously unknown reason behind her long-standing hatred for Logan. Of course, the two have certainly fought on opposite sides many times in the years since readers first saw them clash in Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s “Days of Future Past” storyline in Uncanny X-Men. However, being on rival teams is not a sufficient reason on its own for such intense personal enmity.
As revealed in Jason Aaron and Aaron Kuder’s Avengers Forever #13, Mystique hates Wolverine because she believes that the two of them are essentially the same, and yet somehow only Mystique has been labeled as a villain. Logan, on the other hand, has long been branded as a hero, and thus enjoyed the karmic benefits of that designation. “Somehow the world always serves you lemonade,” Raven tells Logan, “while I’m left holding the lemons.” It’s a fascinating lens through which Raven views the parallel lives the two characters have experienced.
Wolverine & Mystique Have A Lot In Common
The shared history between Raven and Logan has been much expanded upon by various comics writers and artists over the years. Jason Aaron and Ron Garney’s “Get Mystique” arc in Wolverine #62-65 establishes that Mystique first met Wolverine in 1921. The story also explores some of the reasons why Logan has come to loathe Mystique, but Aaron didn’t explain why Raven should hate him in return. Now, however, fans finally know.
Wolverine and Mystique are both mutants, both extremely long-lived, and both uncompromising in the way they approach the world around them. Each of them has committed morally questionable acts over the years, up to and including murder. Aaron’s “Get Mystique” depicts the two briefly becoming partners in crime (and passionate lovers) during the Roaring Twenties, until each betrays the other, perhaps because they both believe they have no choice. Considering all those parallels, Raven’s complaint about the unequal rewards that they’ve each been handed by life seems entirely rational.
There Is One Crucial Difference Between Mystique and Wolverine
Despite their similarities, however, the “Get Mystique” arc also makes explicit the key difference between Logan and Mystique. Though both have performed morally reprehensible acts in the past, Wolverine regrets his crimes, and he spends every day trying to atone for them. Raven, on the other hand, has only continued to murder and to terrorize, all the way up to the present day. She’s committed heinous misdeeds just as Wolverine has, but she feels no guilt, and has demonstrated time and again that she has no desire to change her ways. She and Wolverine may be similar, but in the end, they are not the same.
Ultimately, Mystique is in some ways correct to observe that she gets the metaphorical lemons instead of the lemonade. What she fails to take into account, however, is that while both she and Wolverine have evil in their past, she has nothing in her present that matches Logan’s many good deeds. So it seems entirely fair that Wolverine has reaped rewards from life that Mystique has not, even if she will always hate him for it.
Avengers Forever #13 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.
