Reply #4: There's just something about Rogue and Mystique that isn't [View All]

[AP]

quite right. Their powers make them dangerous: the power to touch and to change.

I have a friend who made this argument to me, so I can't take credit for it, and I probably can't do it justice. But if you look at other charcatres, (with storm being the excpetion) the male characters' powers are generally about strenght and creating things, and they do good things with those powers. But Rogue's power come from touching -- it's a femine sort of power, but it causes death. She could go around killing people with a kiss. Yikes. Whereas magneto can bend the bars of a concentration camp in an effort to save his mother, and Wolverine can chill a warm beer with his breath.

Mystique is most dangerous because she can take any form. It's perhaps a subtle statement about women going beyond traditional roles. You'd think that would be a good thing, but it's used to undermine not only the bad guys, but to pull tricks on the good guys, and is almost always agitating when you see it happen.

I'll talk to my friend again and get the full argument. It was very convincing.