Mystique doesn't become less dangerous when she starts answering to Valerie Cooper. She gains a new way to get what she wants, and a new set of restrictions she immediately has…

Mystique doesn't become less dangerous when she starts answering to Valerie Cooper. She gains a new way to get what she wants, and a new set of restrictions she immediately has to work around. She is the architect of the government arrangement. The arrangement gives her people a future beyond another escape from prison followed by another fight with the X-Men. It also means accepting government assignments instead of choosing every target herself. That is a significant compromise for somebody who is used to running the operation. Her leadership is especially revealing when the older veterans arrive. She has no interest in pretending they are a happy family. She makes the consequences of breaking the team's conditions clear, because one member's behavior can put the others at risk. For Mystique, discipline has become a matter of keeping everyone out of prison as much as winning battles. There is still a personal life underneath all that calculation. Rogue's safety can pull her attention away from the assignment. Destiny's warnings reach her in ways a government briefing never could. The relationships she already had don't conveniently disappear because the team's name has changed. Dallas also gives her a moment that deserves remembering. When the X-Men are dismissed as outlaws despite everything they have done, she can acknowledge the truth of their heroism. She doesn't have to like them to recognize what is happening in front of her. By Muir Island, the job has collided horribly with the people she cares about. Her grief over Destiny exposes how little official authority can actually protect her from losing someone. The shapeshifter who can control what everybody sees cannot control the outcome that matters most to her.