Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the six hundred and twenty-seventh week where we examine comic book legends and whether they are true or false.
Click here for Part 1 of this week's legends.
COMIC LEGEND:
Destiny was going to be Rogue's mother, with Mystique being her father
STATUS:
Tentatively, I'm Going With False
Last week, I did a legend about whether Mystique was going to be Rogue's birth mother, and I remarked on Facebook that it was amusing that I ended up doing a legend involving a character's MOTHER just a week too soon for Mother's Day. My pal, Michael H., wrote that I could then do a RELATED legend for this week, then, as he had heard, "I keep reading that at one point, Destiny was going to be Rogue's birth mother, with Mystique (shapeshifted into a man) being the biological father!"
So, the legend would be that DESTINY was originally going to be Rogue's birth mother with Mystique her FATHER (sorry, Destiny, for not making the headline! You're not really famous enough for the headline).
Destiny was the precog member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants who Claremont subtly indicated was Mystique's lover (very subtly, considering that this was an era in comics where you didn't have regular gay characters).
It appears clear that Claremont did, indeed, plan on doing a storyline where Destiny and Mystique would have a kid together, with Mystique the father, but it doesn't seem like Rogue would be that kid, but rather, Nightcrawler. As Scott Lobdell wrote years ago:
It was always Chris’ plan that Mystique and Irene Adler (Destiny) were lovers, and that Mystique at one point had transformed into a man and impregnated Destiny and she gave birth to Nightcrawler. So Mystique and Destiny were actually Nightcrawler’s father and mother.
The likelihood of either A, Mystique growing genitals with sperm that had a DNA-code, or B, Mystique being a guy who was perpetually in the body of a woman, I thought was pretty slim.
(Claremont later argued that Mystique's powers WERE strong enough for her to genetically become a fully functioning male if she so chose).
John Byrne also wrote years ago, " Then Chris decided Kurt’s mother was Destiny — and his father was Mystique. That also went the way of ALL FLASH."
When you couple this with Claremont's quote from last year (that I featured in the aforementioned Comic Book Legends Revealed from last week) that, had he remained on the X-Books in 1991, he would have revealed Mystique to be Rogue's mother, I think it is enough to suggest that while Mystique was at one point destined to be Nightcrawler's father, that was not going to be the case with Rogue.
It's obviously POSSIBLE that Claremont was going to move the origin from Nightcrawler to Rogue, but I don't think there's enough out there to justify that reading of the situation. I think when people mention it, they're just confusing plans for Rogue with the plans Claremont had for Nightcrawler. Claremont DID plan on them BOTH being Mystique's children, but I believe it would have been Mystique as Rogue's mother and Nightcrawler's father.
If someone has a quote from Claremont that says otherwise, please let me know, I'll gladly change the status on this one.
Thanks, Michael, for suggesting this one!
Check out my latest TV Legends Revealed at CBR: Which famous Breaking Bad character was only created because another cast member wasn't available for an episode due to a scheduling conflict?
Check back later on Sunday for Part 3 of this week's legends! And remember, e-mail me at cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com if you have any suggestions for future comic book legends!