In the last installment of Mutant Generations, I showed how one family (specifically one propagated by two humans) can yield many high powered descendants. In the case of Raven Darkholme, the shape shifting mutant known as Mystique, this has been shown to not always be the case. She has actually proven that two powerful mutants don’t always guarantee a mutant offspring.
Mystique first had a son with (who she thought) was a baron in Germany. The “baron” turned out to be the biblical mutant Azazel who possessed the ability to project fire, control dark magic and control his own progeny. When this child came out with blue fur, two fingers per hand and a long tail she threw it over the falls. This child survived to be raised by the Szardos family (a family of magic wielders) and grew up to become Kurt Wagner, the teleporting X-man Nightcrawler. As he grew older he also developed the abilities to blend into shadows, stick to surfaces, and control his tail as a prehensile appendage. Nightcrawler also has many half-siblings from Azazel including the living Darkforce portal Abyss and the bio-energy conducting Kiwi Black. It’s worth mentioning that, since she is Mystique’s adopted daughter, Rogue and Nightcrawler consider themselves siblings despite Rogue not being a blood relation.
In an alternate dimension, Kurt and Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, had a daughter named Talia Josephine Wagner. “TJ”, as she is known, possesses her father’s fur, fingers, and tail as well as his teleporting and shadow blending abilities. Additionally, she also gained the power to possess somebody for up to 12 hours as a result of her mother’s chaos and hex abilities (or possibly her grandfather’s possession power). She eventually grew to become the time-hopping Exiles named Nocturne until she was forced to stay in Earth-616. She and this reality’s Nightcrawler began to build a stronger father/daughter relationship, before his untimely death during Second Coming.
On the other hand, when Mystique coupled with Sabretooth, an equally powerful mutant in his own animalistic right, the result was quite different. In this instance, the pairing of two fairly potent mutants gave the world the mutant hating Graydon Creed, a baseline human with no potential for mutant abilties. In a reaction to his lineage, which was not confirmed until he was much older, he became the founder of the anti-mutant organization the Friends of Humanity and much later (after his death and resurrection) he became part of Bastion’s inner circle.Just proof that genetics are not everything, and that the insanity gene passes just as easy (if not easier) then the mutant gene. Perhaps in the future mutants looking to have mutant offspring should also look into a psych profile as well as a genetic profile.
