There are few X-Men villains as wily as the shapeshifting assassin known as Mystique. Whether it be in command of a team like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (or as it was called when they were doing government work, the Freedom Force) or on her own, there are very few villains who have Mystique's skill at sowing chaos and death. Unlike a lot of other popular X-Men villains, Mystique hasn't spent a lot of time as a hero and when she does, she always has her own motives behind it. Mystique is always playing an angle.
Mystique has been around for a very long time and not everything about her makes a lot of sense. This list is going to look at some of those things.
10 Her Relationship With Wolverine
Wolverine and Mystique have a very complicated relationship. They battled each other numerous times and have a bitter hatred for one another, yet they've also had romantics entanglements as well. While their romantic relationships have always been more physical than anything else, it's still kind of weird.
Mystique hates Wolverine and went so far as to team up with Norman Osborn's Dark X-Men in order to get a chance to kill Wolverine, so the fact that she'd sleep with him on more than one occasion makes very little sense.
9 Freedom Force
The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was the first villainous team that the X-Men ever faced. The second incarnation of the team was led by Mystique and consisted of entirely new members like Avalache, Pyro, Destiny, Stonewall, Super Sabre, and Blob. The team would be approached by the government to work for them and became the Freedom Force.
What doesn't make sense about the whole thing is that Mystique knows better than to trust the US government when it comes to mutants. The government was basically using her and her team for their own purposes and Mystique is too smart to allow that sort of thing to happen just for the little bit of good she can get out of the whole thing.
8 Leaving Sabretooth
Back during the Cold War, Mystique was posing as a deceased German secret agent named Leni Zauber. She and Sabretooth were tasked with assassinating an East German scientist. After completing the mission, the two hid out together and had an affair.
Here's the nonsensical part of the whole thing- Mystique faked her death in order to leave Sabretooth. Why would a shapeshifter need to fake her death at all? Just change shape and leave.
7 She's A Billionaire... Sometimes
Mystique has been alive for over a hundred years and has amassed a lot of resources. She has used many different aliases over the years and one of them is B. Byron Biggs. In this guise, she's a billionaire who owns all kinds of real estate all over the world.
So, if she's a billionaire, why does she care so much about being an assassin and a mutant villain? Mystique isn't out to take over the world or anything like that and she doesn't care that much about human-mutant relations. Why doesn't she just chill out as Biggs or if she doesn't like that identity very much, kill him off and leave everything to another identity?
6 Her Relationship With Rogue
Mystique and Rogue have a complicated relationship, to say the least. Mystique and Destiny had adopted the girl and when she was old enough, brought her into the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Eventually, Rogue would see the error of her villainous ways and join the X-Men.
Mystique would show up and talk about how much she loved Rogue and wanted the best for her, but she would do it in the worst ways possible, including trying to seduce Gambit and betraying Rogue on multiple occasions, even shooting her. That's a weird way to love someone.
5 A Future Version Of Her Assassinated Her Son... Which She Tried To Stop
Mystique and Sabretooth's affair yielded the pair a child- Graydon Creed. Craydon was a regular human and began an anti-mutant hate group and would run for Congress on a pro-humans platform. Mystique would learn he was going to be assassinated and knowing it would be very bad for mutants, stopped the assassination.
However, the assassin was her from the future. For some reason, in the future, she does something that she tried to stop herself from doing.
4 Why Does She Seduce Everyone?
One of the hallmarks of a lot of Mystique's plans is her seducing people. Now, this is something that a shapeshifter would be able to do with no problem whatsoever but it also feels like something a shapeshifter wouldn't need to do at all, especially one as crafty and intelligent as Mystique.
Mystique can transform into anyone. It would be much easier for her to turn into someone her target trusted to get whatever she wanted instead of taking a chance with the whole seduction thing, which has a chance of failure.
3 She Was Secretly Married To Xavier... Why?
Professor X was killed by a Dark Phoenix possessed Cyclops in Avengers Vs X-Men. Eventually, his will would be read and it would contain a revelation- Mystique and Xavier had gotten married in secret. That's not that strange- Xavier is and always has been super shady and it's not even out of character for Mystique. The weird thing is she never took advantage of the relationship at all. Mystique is all about using every advantage she has to get her way and for her not to do anything with this is strange.
Of course, this little tidbit was from Bendis's mediocre time on the X-Men books, so it was pretty much just a retcon to fit in with what he was doing and makes no sense otherwise. That's called a Bendisism.
2 She Came Up With A Cure To The Legacy Virus
After learning some terrible things about her dead girlfriend Destiny, Mystique went crazy for a while. She reformed the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and tried to assassinate Senator Kelly again. She also kidnapped Moira MacTaggert and impersonated her. She used MacTaggert's research on the Legacy Virus to come up with a way to modify it and use it against humans.
While that's pretty improbable, she was also able to somehow come up with a cure for the virus by reading Moira's research. Now, Mystique has some knowledge of pathogens and such, but Moira MacTaggert is one of the top mutant biologists in the world and she failed for years to come up with a cure, but Mystique does it while she's crazy? Yeah, no.
1 Her Current Situation On Krakoa
Years ago, Destiny told Mystique about the mutant nation of Krakoa and how they would have a way to reunite the two of them. Destiny told her that if they refused to reunite them, Mystique had to destroy everyone and everything that kept them apart.
Mystique has been doing the work of the Quiet Council in exchange for them bringing back Destiny and they've refused. She's let them hold it over her head and so far has not done anything about it. While it's obvious that she's going to, the fact that she's allowed herself to be used knowing what she knew is extremely out of character for her.