Raven Darkholme

"You know, people like you are the reason I was afraid to go to school as a child."

- Mystique

Raven Darkholme, also known by her codename Mystique, is a mutant who possesses the ability of shapeshifting, and a member of the Brotherhood of mutants.

X-Men: First Class
Raven first met Charles Xavier when she disguised herself as his mother scrounging for food. When Charles revealed his own power of reading minds, he said she could stay with him and never be hungry again. Raven stayed with Charles when he graduated from Oxford. Raven and Charles Xavier displayed their abilities to a group of government agents, among them the Man in Black and Moira MacTaggert. Gathering a group of other mutants, including Erik Lensherr, Sean Cassidy, Alex Summers, Armando Muñoz, & Henry McCoy, they formed the original team of X-Men. Instrumental in stopping the Cuban Missile Crisis and foiling the Hellfire Club's bid for world domination, the team was eventually split when Lensherr began to believe that humans would never accept mutants and opted to assert rule over them instead of waiting to be interred and executed. Raven, who had become something of a protégé to Lensherr, opted to join him and helped form the Brotherhood of Mutants.

X-Men
Mystique impersonates Henry Gyrich, aide to Senator Kelly, as part of a plan to kidnap Kelly and turn him into a mutant, thereby ending his support of the Mutant Registration Act. However, Magneto's mutation machine causes Senator Kelly to die. During the battle at the Statue of Liberty to stop Magneto from using the device on the UN Summit, she has an extended fight with Wolverine, proving to be too nimble for him to hit. Wolverine wins when she tries to impersonate Storm to distract him. As she cannot mask her scent, he sees through the ruse and stabs her (notably, she is depicted with yellow-green blood). She survives, however, and morphs into the form of a fallen police officer. As a result, she is able to slip past the police that descend on the building. At the end of the film, she is seen on television, impersonating Senator Robert Kelly in order to withdraw his support of the Mutant Registration Act.

X2: X-Men United
Mystique uses her impersonation of Kelly as a means to free Magneto from his plastic prison. She infiltrates William Stryker's office by impersonating Stryker's aide, Lady Deathstrike, gaining details about the prison as well as several of Stryker's plans (most important of which are the plans to "Dark Cerebro"). She frees Magneto by seducing a guard and injecting him with enough iron for Magneto to work with. After helping Magneto escape from prison, she joins Magneto's brief alliance with the X-Men. While camped in an unknown forest area, Mystique attempts to seduce Wolverine in the guise of Jean Grey, but the scar from their previous battle gives her away. She then shifts through several forms (Storm, Rogue, then Stryker), asking him what he really wants. Prior to this, she is approached by Nightcrawler, who asks her why she doesn't use her shapeshifting powers to blend in with normal people, to which Mystique replies, "Because we shouldn't have to." She later impersonates Wolverine in order to gain entry to the Alkali Lake base. The disguise doesn't fool Stryker, but gains her access to the control room. From there she aids in the rescue of several captured mutants and leads the group to Dark Cerebro. She then impersonates Stryker to aid in Magneto's plan to kill every human in the world, though it is ultimately foiled.

X-Men: The Last Stand
Mystique was apprehended by the government after trying breaking into the FDA to get files about the cure for mutation developed at Worthington Labs. It is here that her name is revealed to be Raven Darkhölme.

Magneto comes to save her, but during the attempt she is hit by a cure dart (manufactured using Leech's DNA) while protecting Magneto. As she lies on the ground naked in her normal human form, Magneto regretfully abandons her, stating "you're not one of us anymore." He adds wistfully, "It's such a shame. She was so beautiful."

Bitter over his betrayal, Mystique goes to the government and gives the location of his base. However, when they raid the camp, they find it populated entirely with duplicates of Multiple Man. It is unclear whether or not the cure wore off and Mystique's mutant powers returned, as it is suggested Magneto's did at the end of the film — as was revealed when he may have moved a metallic chess piece without touching it.

Character traits
Mystique is seen as Magneto's second in command especially during the first two films. She is seen as exceedingly knowledgeable being able to program and work whole computer system's. She is seen also as Magneto's fighter and has beaten up Wolverine on many an occasion and can get past groups of over 50 soldiers without a weapon. She is Magneto's most useful and loyal servant, being an extremely successful assassin and probably the best hand to hand combatant in the X-Men film 'verse. However by the third film, her loyalty to Magneto changes drastically when he gives her up after she is shot with the cure and left powerless.

Notably, Dr. Hank McCoy mention to Mystique that since she is a shape-shifter, she is able to alter and rejuvenate her body's cells and thereby retain a youthful appearance.

Relationships

 * Erik Lehnsherr - Former Boss and Lover
 * Sabretooth - Former Teammate
 * Toad - Former Teammate
 * John Allerdyce - Former Teammate
 * Wolverine - Enemy
 * Ororo Munroe - Enemy
 * Scott Summers - Enemy
 * Charles Xavier - Foster Brother turned Enemy
 * Robert Kelly - Enemy
 * Beast - Former love interest
 * Nightcrawler - Son (video game)
 * John Wraith - Husband (video game)

Powers
Mystique could manipulate her biological make up and skin cells to take on the appearance of other humans, animals, or even objects (she once disguised herself as a replica of the Statue of Liberty).

Abilities
She was an expert in espionage and fighting. She was also extremely flexible, able to move her handcuffed arms from behind her to her front, and unlock clamps on her hands with her feet.

Weaknesses
She did not copy any abilities or skills from the person. For example, when she fought Wolverine, she assumed his form and fought him claw to claw, only to have her claws hacked off (they were made of flesh).

Behind the scenes

 * In the first film, Rebecca Romijn wore colored contacts to make her eyes yellow. In the second and third films, her eyes were changed digitally.

Quotes
Nightcrawler: "Then why not stay in disguise all the time? You know? Look like everyone else.

Mystique: "Because we shouldn't have to."

Wolverine: "What do you want?"

Mystique (Shapeshifting into Storm, Rogue, Jean and William Stryker) : "The real question is? What do you want, or do you not know."

"Mutant and proud."

Appearances/Actresses

 * Canon (4 films)
 * X-Men: First Class - Jennifer Lawrence, Morgan Lily and Rebecca Romijn
 * X-Men (First appearance) - Rebecca Romijn
 * X2: X-Men United - Rebecca Romijn
 * X-Men: The Last Stand - Rebecca Romijn

Trivia

 * In the movies, Mystique is portrayed as a nudist and appears naked throughout the course of the original trilogy. In X-Men: First Class it is shown that even as a child she was a nudist until she was convinced to wear clothing by Charles Xavier; later on, however, she was persuaded by Magneto not to, as he called her an "exquisite creature." In reality, this was done because the filmmakers wanted Mystique to be as sexually appealing to male audiences as possible, while being able to retain a PG-13 rating since she had blue, scaly skin. Rebecca Romijn was actually naked when playing Mystique, with only layers of blue paint and a few very small costume pieces covering her up.
 * The films do not suggest that Mystique is Nightcrawler's mother, even though they had a brief conversation in X2.
 * Mystique is bisexual in the comics, this has not been explored in the movies although she has often flirted with Magneto and Wolverine in the films.
 * Mystique was the one who originally came up with Lehnsherr's codename, Magneto.
 * Raven seems to display an attraction to Wolverine, despite the fact that he stabbed her in the first movie and rejected her in the second.
 * Wolverine and William Stryker are the only people in the movies to see through Mystique's disguise without the tell-tale yellow eyes. Wolverine does so in the first movie by using his sense of smell, and Stryker in the second when she imitates Wolverine, stating that he knows his own creations and that Mystique wasn't one of them.
 * In the comics Mystique has blue skin instead of the scaly appearance she has in the films.
 * Though not considered to be canon, the X-Men Origins: Wolverine videogame reveals that it is in fact John Wraith rather than Azazel who is Nightcrawler's father.

Gallery
Images in chronological order of the film timeline:

Videos
Video:X-Men_First_Class_Mystique_Trailer