Since its inception, Mystique has been an action book, and the action sequences and inventive uses of Mystique's powers for those sequences have been what kept me coming back, moreso than any of the okay-but-not-spectacular plots. There is one aspect of the story, however, that has always drawn me in, and that's the double agent threat presented by The Quiet Man, and the mystery of The Quiet Man's identity. This story promises to explore that question at long last, which piqued my interest in the book once again, and as a bonus, the story is wrapped around some terrific action sequences by McKeever, Garcia and Fernandez.
There are some spectacular action sequences in this issue, and you've really got to credit the whole creative team for them. Mystique's high flying kick early on is certainly down to the execution by Garcia and Fernandez, as are the big Hydra-Mystique brawl in the middle or the shapeshift fakeout later on, and the visuals there are terrific, calling to mind some of the cool shapeshift/fight scenes in X2. However, thinking up these sequences so that they have more punch is down to McKeever, and the aforementioned fakeout in particular just has some fun, snappy dialogue to go with the action.
Yep, I did mention Hydra, and that's another thing I liked about this issue. Hydra is a generic villain organization now, not really the threat they were when SHIELD took them on during the Steranko years, but I still have a fondness for the organization and their snappy green uniforms. It was a lot of fun seeing Mystique infiltrate the bad guys, and just as I enjoyed seeing these guys pop up on the fringes of Kirkman's Captain America, I like to see that they're still around. McKeever uses them well here, plugging them in where other terrorist organizations would have worked but making it feel like they've got a history that Mystique and Shepard might have.
In fact, the real strength of this issue aside from the action sequences is in the interaction between Mystique and Shepard. Much as I love Shortpack, Mystique's field handler for Xavier (and he gets a neat little sequence here with a miniature obstacle course), Shepard has a roguish charm that makes him a better match for Mystique. The way these two interact, sniping at one another with a clear affection underlying it, is a lot of fun to watch, probably at it's best when Mystique puts a scare into Shepard during the infiltration.
There's more action in this issue of Mystique than in any given six issues of most other Marvel comics. There's also a really interesting relationship between a pair of morally gray characters and the culmination of a mystery that's been building since the early days of the book. I'm dying to see the next issue of Mystique and find out the identity of The Quiet Man, which is probably as involved as I've been in the book since the very beginning.
