Raven Darkholme, codename Mystique, has been a supervillain, founding her own Brotherhood of Mutants and assassinating several important people involved in mutant affairs. Mystique herself is a mutant, a shapeshifter whose natural appearance includes blue skin and yellow eyes.
Actress Rebecca Romijn portrayed Mystique in all three of the X-Men films. In the upcoming 2011 superhero film, X-Men: First Class, Jennifer Lawrence will play the role of a younger Mystique.
Powers and Abilities
Mystique is a mutant shapeshifter with the ability to psionically shift the formation of her biological cells at will to change her appearance and thereby assume the form of other humans. She can also alter her voice to duplicate exactly that of another person. Originally, it was clearly stated that Mystique's powers were limited to appearances only; she could not assume the powers of the people she morphed into or alter her body to adapt to different situations. In addition, she cannot change her overall body mass when taking on the appearance of a person larger or smaller than she is.
Her body is not limited to purely organic appearances. She has the ability to create the appearance of clothes out of her own body. Mystique is shown in at least one instance transforming a metallic part of her costume into a functioning blaster pistol. Whether this is a function of her powers or of the costume piece itself is unclear. She can transform part of her body into a separated, clear and hard substance that appears to be glass, as she does when she appears to be wearing glasses.
As a shape-shifter, Mystique is able to constantly alter and rejuvenate her body's cells and thereby retain her youthful appearance despite being older than she looks. She can even compress nearly two-dimensional like a sheet of paper to glide on air currents, similar to Mister Fantastic, which she uses to survive an explosion. She has moved her vital organs out of place in order to survive a gunshot to her torso. She is also now able to hold a shape when knocked unconscious.
Damage to her biological tissue is known to heal at a relatively fast rate and she can form a resistance to poisons upon contracting them. Recently she has stated that her body mass is not fixed and can change when she does. While she retains her advanced powers, she now appears in her old form without scales. Her powers grant her immunity to diseases, enhanced agility, and agelessness.
In the films, Mystique has the ability to duplicate retinal patterns (as shown in the first film) and hand prints (as shown in the second). In the third film, she was shown to seemingly alter her mass by taking the form of a child. In addition to her mutant powers, Mystique is extremely nimble and flexible, able to slip out of restraints with ease and use her feet as dexterously as her hands. Her transformation is shown as skin pigments overlapping a part of the body as a scaly domino-like effect takes over the body.
Mystique is a cunning strategist in terrorist and commando operations, and adept at martial arts and information technology. She has a talent for finding, stealing, and understanding cutting edge weaponry. She is a talented actress. She has some natural resistance to telepathic intrusion and wears devices to prevent her mind from being read by telepathy. Furthermore, with over a century's experience in posing as other people she has picked up the uncanny skill of being able to identify people posing as others based on body language and changes in behavioral cues.
