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When writer/artist Declan Shalvey took on fan-favorite X-Men character Mystique for her recent miniseries, he had a couple of very specific aims in mind to restore her to where she needed to be in his eyes.

Talking during C2E2 2025’s Marvel Matters panel, Shalvey admitted that traditionally his approach would be to “take a toy out of the box [and] put a toy back in the box and not break it” when it comes to superheroes, he took another tack entirely when it came to the five-issue series he wrote and drew in 2024.

“My goal was, I want you to know less about her,” he said about the project, which saw the character on the run from Nick Fury as she set out to protect mutantkind by any means necessary after the fall of Krakoa. It wasn’t just an attempt to bring the character closer to her name, but closer to her roots as an unrepentant antagonist for the X-Men (and the original Ms. Marvel, for those with long memories!) way back in the 1980s.

“There are too many anti-heroes,” Shalvey argued — something certainly true about the X-Men in general -- and so, he wanted to end the series with Mystique unmistakably back in a villainous role for the first time in at least three decades.

“These characters have been around for so long, they need infusion,” he said about working with such long-lived characters, suggesting that creators need to give characters “a fresh kick in the veins” to keep them worth reading. And if that means that you offer them up for a dramatic fall from grace… well, sometimes that’s just what has to be done, isn’t it?

Mystique 's collected edition is now available for pre-order. 

Did you miss a C2E2 Main Stage panel? Don't worry, we're filming it all thanks to our partners at CGC x JSA -  our official authenticator & grading partner. Here is the C2E2 2025 panel livestream & VOD release schedule.