So have you guys heard that Uncanny X-Men 600, the long-awaited final issue of Bendis’s X-Men run, has been pushed back from May to October?  Man, was I crushed to hear that news.  I just want an ending!  Just the night prior, I’d been telling my husband how much I was looking forward to (hopefully) letting myself love the X-Men again.  It’s been a hard three years, you guys!  I can only hope the next creative team can help deliver us from mediocrity.

In the meanwhile, perhaps it’s the good feeling of knowing Bendis’ run is nearing it send, or maybe it’s Kris Anka’s consistently gorgeous and expressive artwork, or maybe it’s the satisfaction that comes from the rare occasions when Bendis actually wraps up a plotline… but after my first reading, this felt like a pretty good issue, in that it had a beginning, middle, and end, along with a fun reveal or two.  (Cover unrelated, however, as Emma Frost does not appear in this issue.  I love it when this happens to Bendis titles, since I’ve heard it’s when his stories run longer than he intended, as if he’s simply a humble artist at the mercy of his muse.)  It opens with Cyclops confronting Mystique in a standard scene wherein Bendis has someone explore the wildly inconsistent characterization of his own writing as if it was all done with some sort of intent:

Cyclops: “Raven… you are a mutant of exceptional ability.  You might be one of the best.”
Mystique: “Might?”
Cyclops: “But one minute you’re setting up a nightmare mutant utopia in Madripoor.  The next you’re attacking your own people.  (What you did to Dazzler…)  You were one of Xavier’s soldiers, just like me… and now?  Honestly… I’m talking to you, Raven… mutant to mutant.  What are you doing?  What do you want?”

Yes!  This is what it means to be a comic writer!  Just have a brilliant character like Mystique flail around like some stupid action-movie villain, accumulating money and power with no clear motivation or apparent end goal, then have someone have a nice rational sit-down with her and ask, “What are you doing?  What do you want?”  It’s a fair question Brian Michael Bendis.

But we don’t get an answer, of course.  It turns out that Cyclops is actually Dazzler in disguise, since Mystique kidnapped her, took her identity as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s mutant liaison, and kept her in a drugged-up coma for a while, and now Dazzler is out for payback.  She goes aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier to inform Maria Hill of her intent and get whatever current intel they have on Mystique’s whereabouts; Bendis continues to insist on making poor Maria Hill talk like an idiot every chance he gets, from telling the rest of the helicarrier bridge crew, “Everyone go potty.  I’ll call you back in when I need you,” to telling Dazzler “I’d be out-of-my-skin pissed if she took my place in the world,” and when Dazzler negotiates for clean records for the X-Men’s new mutant recruits in exchange for custody of Mystique, she replies, “You bring me that terrorist, I’ll give you that and I’ll buy you all ice cream, too.”  So, yeah, business as usual, I guess.

So Mystique clues in to Dazzler’s disguise by referencing the affair she and Cyclops never really had, and the Stepford Cuckoos are managing to hold Mystique in place telepathically, despite Mystique “using anti-psychic nano-technology that we don’t know anything about yet” (hahaha what).  Mystique taunts Dazzler for not doing anything interesting with her life until Mystique took it from her, then succumbs to the kind of uncharacteristic dialogue that results from plain ol’ lazy writing right before Dazzler zaps her out of a high-rise window.  Buuuuut instead of letting her plummet to her death, Magik teleports down and rescues her, Mystique (apparently sincerely?!) admits that Dazzler is a better woman than she is, and Dazzler tells her she’s trying to teach these kids “something someone should have taught you.”  Dazzler goes back to singing, Maria Hill re-recruits Dazzler to S.H.I.E.L.D., and the young X-Men wonder where the rule is that says they have to be X-Men, and maybe they can be something else.  TO BE CONCLUDED… IN UNCANNY X-MEN #600 AT SOME UNDETERMINED POINT IN THE FUTURE!

So… what happened to Mystique, you may ask?  Good question!  I assume she’s in S.H.I.E.L.D. prison?  I guess Brian Michael Bendis said everything he wanted to say about her character?  I think this issue felt like a good issue because Bendis was asking the same questions I am — what does Mystique want? What are the young X-Men going to do with themselves now that Cyclops has dissolved the team? — but upon further analysis, he doesn’t actually get around to providing any answers.  Right when we think Mystique is about to have a moment of character development (I mean, her face was obscured in shadow, you guys!  Twice!), the scene just skips to her asking who Cyclops really is, then moves right along to the next comedy/action bit.  So aside from Dazzler once referring to Mystique as “that sad, scared little girl hiding behind all her masks,” this story isn’t actually about Mystique at all, which it really should have been.  Still… I guess it was nice to have Dazzler in the spotlight for a little while.