Issue(s): Marvel Fanfare #40 (Storm story only)
Cover Date: Oct 88
Title: "Deal with the devil!"
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
Craig Hamilton - Penciler
Rick Bryant - Inker
Al Milgrom - Editor

Review/plot:
Four years after the footnote in Uncanny X-Men #185, we have the little conversation between Storm and Mystique where she gives Storm a lead on Rogue's possible location and warns her about the Neutralizer gun. Artwise, we are in a very different place than John Romita Jr. in 1984.

Mystique has Storm meet her in a vaguely S&M style nightclub, and dresses the part while mimicking Storm's appearance.

Storywise, Claremont uses a nice device of running the internal monologues of both Storm and Mystique, so we get to see what each of them is thinking.

But it's hard to get past the art, and the outfits.

It's also worth noting that there's little here that gets us beyond what we already learned in X-Men #185, which is that Mystique tells Storm where Rogue probably ran away to, and warns her that the government has developed the Neutralizer gun. Mystique was also considering letting the government "cure" Rogue, but has decided against it, in part because the weapon was still untested.

The most interesting part of the story is after Storm leaves, and we see Mystique connect with Destiny. Interesting to see them act as lovers...

...moreso than we've seen in the X-Men comic. And to see Mystique take a male form, with this possibly being a nod to Claremont's original plans for Mystique to be Nightcrawler's father and Destiny his mother.

But the other nice thing about writing a continuity insert is that Destiny can accurately predict the future. So it's revealed here that Destiny (and Mystique) knew that if they gave Storm the info on Rogue, Storm would lose her powers. And furthermore, Destiny has knowledge of the events that will occur during Fall of the Mutants.

As a story, there's no story, it's just a scene that would have provided a little more background for X-Men #185. And the art doesn't really help it fit nicely into that period. But it's still an interesting thing to see published.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This story takes place during Uncanny X-Men #185. Mystique says that she's been trying to contact Rogue for "days", which may contradict Storm in UX #185 only noticing that Rogue didn't sleep in her bed "last night", but that may mean that it took Storm days to find Rogue in that issue, or just that Rogue hadn't been returning Mystique's calls prior to running away.

The first story in this issue is an Angel story that takes place during Mephisto vs.... #2, so i've placed that in a separate entry.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? Y

My Reprint: N/A

"But the other nice thing about writing a continuity insert is that Destiny can accurately predict the future. So it's revealed here that Destiny (and Mystique) knew that if they gave Storm the info on Rogue, Storm would lose her powers. And furthermore, Destiny has knowledge of the events that will occur during Fall of the Mutants."
She "predicted" the future here because it was written years after the fact. IIRC, Most of her predictions were always hazy regarding the X-Men. IMO, this insert was a cheap way to add information after the fact.

Well, the story was PLOTTED before X-Men 185, so it's possible Mystique knowing Storm would lose her powers was in the original plot (but obviously the Fall of the Mutants references weren't.)

As explained by Craig Hamilton in Back Issue #96, this story was intended to run in an earlier issue of Marvel Fanfare, but it got delayed because Hamilton was also working on an Aquaman miniseries for DC.

It was confirmed in Back Issue #96 that Mystique and Destiny were revealed to be a couple in this issue, although accompanying statements by Claremont were weirdly circumspect.