The wedding bells are ringing… and the iconic X-Men antiheroes Mystique and Destiny are finally getting married in the pages of X-Men: The Wedding Special #1. A special edition of this year’s Marvel’s Voices: Pride, the Wedding Special will be Marvel’s first woman-to-woman marriage shown on panel, and a new cover by the talented Luciano Vecchio celebrates the queerness of Marvel while paying homage to a classic Spider-Man story.
Mystique and Destiny have been alive, and in love, for over a century. While the fierce couple has undoubtedly married privately over their long life together, the Wedding Special will finally see their union celebrated by friends and family.
Luciano Vecchio‘s cover for X-Men: The Wedding Special – which is written by beloved queer writers like Kieron Gillen and Tini Howard with art from Jenn St. Onge, Phillip Sevy, and more – revives Vecchio’s instantly iconic “Be gay, do crime” fan art of Raven and Irene, while paying homage to the wedding of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson.
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X-Men: The Wedding Special #1 |
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Release Date: |
May 29th, 2024 |
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Writers: |
Kieron Gillen, Tate Brombal, Tini Howard, Wyatt Kennedy, M. Louis, Yoon Ha Lee |
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Artists: |
Emilio Pilliu, Jenn St. Onge, Phillip Sevy, Rachael Stott |
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Cover Artist: |
Jan Bazaldua |
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Variant Covers: |
Luciano Vecchio, Jessica Fong, Russell Dauterman |
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WEDDING EXTRAVAGANZA! Mystique and Destiny are one of the most beloved — and longest-running — gay couples in history. Somewhere in their 100+ years together, the pair married, but we’ve never seen the event on the page. This year MARVEL’S VOICES: PRIDE makes history with Marvel’s first woman-to-woman wedding in a story by superstar X-Men scribe Kieron Gillen! And with a couple as complex as these two, you know there’s a lot more to the story. We promise party crashing! Villainy! Romance! |
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Destiny And Mystique’s Wedding Will Be A Celebration Of Queer Love
The X-Men: Wedding Special is coming at the perfect time for Mystique and Destiny, as the dangerous couple brings their historic run during the beloved Krakoan Era to a close. What the future holds for Raven and Irene is unclear, but Destiny’s precognitive abilities play a major role in the X-Men’s ongoing war against Orchis and Enigma. Mystique has not been seen since X-Men Blue: Origins – where it was revealed that Nightcrawler is the biological child of Irene and Raven – but her reappearance will surely cause an explosion of drama, emotions, and reconciliation.
Luciano Vecchio’s cover for The Wedding Special features Destiny and Mystique front and center, each donning gorgeous wedding gowns and wielding their classic weaponry, a crossbow for Irene and a handgun for Raven. Surrounding Mystique and Destiny are a who’s who of fabulous queer Marvel royalty, divided between Avengers and X-Men, seemingly charging into a battle against one another. On one side are the Avengers Hercules, Wiccan, America Chavez, and Rūna the Valkyrie, while on the other side are the X-Heroes Rachel Summers, Escapade, Rictor, and Iceman, a wonderful display of Marvel’s queer diversity.
The X-Men Wedding Will Be A Lot Different Than Spider-Man’s
Vecchio’s variant cover is a lovely homage to John Romita Sr.’s 1987 The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21, down to the font used, which featured the hotly-anticipated marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. While MJ and Peter’s marriage had a bit of drama leading up to it, the actual ceremony went down without a hitch. Marvel’s solicit for X-Men: The Wedding Special teases a lot of drama, wedding crashing, and villainy, promising that the wedding of Destiny and Mystique will not go as smoothly.
The marriage of Destiny and Mystique is more about these two beloved characters finally tying the knot publically, but about acknowledging and celebrating the pride Marvel has for their queer characters and creators, a sentiment that Luciano Vecchio perfectly captures in this gorgeous variant cover.
X-Men: The Wedding Special #1 from Marvel Comics debuts on May 29th, 2024.
Source: Luciano Vecchio
