Marvel just made Sherlock Holmes one of the X-Men

Surely one of the most puzzling things about the Jonathan Hickman era of X-Men, to new readers, was that the name of one of its most pivotal characters is Irene Adler.

Better known by her mutant moniker, Destiny, Krakoa’s fate seemed to revolve around her, the question of whether she could be resurrected, and what dire consequences that resurrection seemed to promise. She was a big deal! And she inexplicably shared a name with a rather famous 130-year-old crime fiction character.

The early 1980s, when Destiny was created, were a simpler time. Superhero comics were still very niche entertainment and Irene Adler was still mostly an obscure reference from one Sherlock Holmes story, not a mainstay of basically every Sherlock Holmes TV or movie franchise. You could get away with naming a character who had nothing to do with Irene Adler after her without too much cognitive dissonance. It took modern comics to complete the referential circle.

With Immortal X-Men #8, what was once implied is now canon: Mystique, Destiny’s shape-shifting wife, was Sherlock Holmes.

What else is happening in the pages of our favorite comics? We’ll tell you. Welcome to Monday Funnies, Polygon’s weekly list of the books that our comics editor enjoyed this past week. It’s part society pages of superhero lives, part reading recommendations, part “look at this cool art.” There may be some spoilers. There may not be enough context. But there will be great comics. (And if you missed the last edition, read this.)

Longtime X-Men readers will know that comics have heavily implied that Mystique was Sherlock Holmes before. When Mystique and Destiny first got together, Mystique was living in London and posing as a renowned (and male) consulting detective, and readers were left to connect the dots.

In this week’s Immortal X-Men, writer Kieron Gillen and artist Michele Bandini draw the line canonically: Mystique was Sherlock Holmes, and her detecting prowess came directly from Destiny’s clairvoyant sight. Elementary.

My hat is off to Al Ewing and Javier Rodríguez for their equally beautiful sequel to Defenders, but it’s double off to Ewing for somehow making Defenders: Beyond a sequel to his Ultimates, his Loki: Agent of Asgard, and even a bit of a coda on his Immortal Hulk. That’s called a flex, folks.

I’m a person who’s been reading virtually every Batman comic in the past 20 years and it’s hard to show me something I haven’t seen before or have seen done better. It’s a personal problem, but it’s probably why I’ve found the Batman: One Bad Day books — jumbo prestige one-shots giving DC’s best current creators a stab at revamping the origin stories of his villains — decent so far, but nothing to write home about.

So it should hold weight when I say that writer Gerry Duggan and artist Matteo Scalera’s Mister Freeze story is an all-timer. It’s no true revamp, just a calculated tightening up on Freeze’s revolutionary Batman: The Animated Series origin, that remembers to also be a story about Batman. And it’s set during the holiday season! The art is just gorgeous, Scalera’s compositions and color work are delicious, and Robin wears this cold-weather outfit with a yellow hooded cape that makes him look the CUTEST.

I’ve been waiting on Doctor Strange: Fall Sunrise, written and drawn by Tradd Moore, since the moment I read that title and artist combination. And Moore did not disappoint.

This is just to say that The Department of Truth, quietly one of my favorite indie series of the past few years, looks like it’s beginning the windup to its finale, if you’ve needed an excuse to get caught up.

A mea culpa: I actually missed Fantastic Four #1 the week it came out and had to read it later. The thing that double sold me on the book wasn’t the solid little one-issue story or the hint at a broader mystery. It was the clear sense that writer Ryan North is bringing the same superhero ethos of Squirrel Girl — that punching and weirdness will happen but many villains are just people who need a little outside help with their problems — to Marvel’s First Family. The FF are often considered as hokey and old-fashioned as Superman, despite the 30-year age gap between them, and if North knows one thing, it’s how to remind the reader that sincerity isn’t boring.