Art by Todd Nauck

Name : Monet Yvette Clarisse Maria Therese St. Croix

: Monet Yvette Clarisse Maria Therese St. Croix Code Names : M, Penance

: M, Penance First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #316 (Sep ’94)

Uncanny X-Men #316 (Sep ’94) Powers : Strength, Flight, Telepathy

: Strength, Flight, Telepathy Teams Affiliation: Generation X, X-Corps, X-Factor Investigations, X-Men

About

Perfection, the condition, state, or quality of being as free as possible from all flaws or defects. For many people, life is a pursuit of perfection, the perfect body, the perfect job, the perfect family. Few, if any, will ever actually reach perfection and those who do will be stuck in a vicious struggle because perfection isn’t a moment. Perfection is a state. Perfection needs to be maintained, and the pressure to always meet the standards of perfection are sky high. Monet St. Croix was the perfect mutant, she was beautiful, born of privilege and wealth, and had abilities most could only dream of. Her struggle to maintain that perfection is a fascinating one in the world of X-Men and allowed writers to really dig into what perfect means.

Monet was born the second child of the ambassador of Monaco and was favored over her older brother Marius and her twin sisters Claudette and Nicole. Her mother died under mysterious circumstances but Monet tried to be strong for her family. The Phalanx captured her when they tried to destroy the next generation of mutants (as we covered last week with Blink) but Monet lead the resistance against the invaders. During that crisis she met Banshee and Emma Frost who invited her to join their new school for mutants and Monet accepted.

Art by Joe Madureira, Dan Green, and Steve Buccullato

The other students didn’t warm to Monet at first, and who could blame them? She was stuck up, proud, rude, and often pretty weird. She would shift into trances of deep concentration at the worst moments. The rest of her team were former mall rats, gangbangers, country bumpkins, disfigured messes, and kids from the poor side of town. She was a perfect little princess, it isn’t shocking that the only person she could relate to was headmistress Emma Frost, and even then the powerful personalities often clashed. Still she was an asset to the team when the vampiric trans-dimensional mutant Emplate attacked a new recruit.

When the team returned to their campus they found a mysterious figure there, a mute girl with diamond hard skin. The mutant Gateway referred to her as Penance and the name stuck. They discovered that Emplate had used Penance to feed when no other mutant was around. Her mutation prevented her from dying from his grotesque need to feed on the essence of other mutants. Though apprehensive at first, they welcomed her into the school. The team worked together, learned together, and even began bonding. Monet, now going by M, became less of the self-centered, holier-than-thou, know-it-all she had been and became a real team player. Emplate returned to torment Generation X, and retrieve his meal ticket in Penence, but the kids were able to withstand his attacks and save their friend.

Art by Chris Bachalo

Monet’s trances were getting worse and the prudent Emma Frost brought in the ever loving blue furred Beast as a consultant. Hank analyzed Monet’s action and diagnosed her with autism. We need to take a side-bar here and address that comic writers have historically not been licensed psychologists and their commentary on mental health has been poor. Monet was diagnosed with comic book autism in the same way Legion (or to a lesser extent Moon Knight) was diagnosed with comic book dissociative identity disorder. Still the team accepted her and she was a valuable asset. Then Emplate returned to make things very confusing.

The best way to untangle what we are about to get into is to take it all the way back to the start, back to the death of Monet’s mother. Marius, Monet’s older brother, discovered that he was a mutant. His mutation caused him to become untethered from the dimension that rest of the Earth exists in, unless he fed, mutant life force was preferred but human life force would do in a pinch. He drained the life out of his mother and began to turn into a hideous creature, a creature who would be known as Emplate. Marius left the home and Monet began to develop her mutant abilities. Strength, flight, telepathy, she was practically perfect in every way. Marius, now fully consumed by the Emplate persona, returned to offer his little sister a deal. He told Monet that he ruled his dimension and with her help, he could rule the 616 as well. Stubborn as ever, Monet refused, and Marius did not take her rejection kindly. He transformed her, mutated her even more. Her skin turned red and hardened, her fingers grew long and sharp. She became Penance, trapped in a shell where she had no voice and desperately needed to scream. The young twins, Claudette and Nicole, walked into the aftermath and were horrified to see what their brother had become, unaware that poor Monet was trapped in the grave of a body she inhabited. Using their growing mutant power, the twins banished Emplate and Penance to be detethered from reality. The twins, knowing that perfect Monet was their father’s favorite child, decided to use their mutant abilities to merge, the became a facsimile of Monet, indistinguishable from her in every way.

Art by Terry and Rachel Dodson, and Felix Serrano

After Operation: Zero Tolerance, an explosion caused “Monet” to be split into her component parts, Claudette and Nicole. Penance protected her sisters, becoming the twin’s guardians until Emplate returned (you know from two paragraphs ago). The twins merged with their corrupted brother to become the M-Plate and defeated him, but they were saddened by what had happened to their arrogant older sister. The twins essentially switched places with their sister, now Monet was really truly Monet and Penance was the twins trapped in a fabulous Chris Bachalo design. (For those curious, the twins eventually got out of the Penance shell and lived “normal” kid lives)

Art by Terry and Rachel Dodson, and Felix Serrano

It quickly became apparent that the twins knew their sister well as Monet, the real Monet, didn’t act any less stuck up at she had been presented in the past. She grew closer with her teammates, Synch especially, but always kept people at arm’s length. After the attack by Emma’s sister, the death of Synch, and the subsequent closure of the Massachusetts Academy, Monet joined Banshee’s new group, the X-Corps. When that team folded she briefly joined Xavier’s X-Corp (the “s” makes the groups different) but Monet wandered for a time. That is until she received an invitation from one Jamie Maddrox, with a very intriguing offer.

Monet Yvette Clarisse Maria Therese St. Croix became the team psychic for the team of Jamie’s film noir dreams, X-Factor Investigations. Older than the teenage girl she was, Monet became more open with her sexuality, even sleeping with Jamie one night. The problem being Multiple Man was also sleeping with Siryn that night, and the girls did not enjoy being two timed like that. While with X-Factor, Monet say a therapist and admitted that her brothers torment had cut deeper than anyone could imagine. She kept her perfect façade up as a mask, Monet wanted to kill herself because she was so disturbed by what had happened to her.

Art by Renato Arlem, Roy Allan Martinez, and Jose Villarrubia

Jamie wasn’t the only member of X-Factor to become keen on the perfect Monet, as both Darwin and Strong Guy developed crushes on her. During a mission with Guido to protect NYC mayor J. Jonah Jameson, Strong Guy was fatally shot and Monet had to rush him to the hospital. Layla Miller (who knows stuff) used her mutant gift to resurrect him, and overjoyed to have her friend back, Monet agreed to go on a date with him. It went poorly and led the Strong Guy leaving the team. In all of this Monet developed something in her brain, a ticking biological time bomb that went off during the Hell on Earth War (seriously the Strong Guy article covers this way more). Guido, now the King of Hell, first used his power to resurrect Monet and banish her from his sight. She ended up in Las Vegas and bonded with Darwin (and you can read his perspective here), Monet talked about wanting to feel, something, anything. They got drinks and the two hooked up that evening. It was just sex, but it was what they needed in that moment.

Art by Neil Edwards, Jay Leisten, and Matt Milla

Monet joined the all-female X-Men at the Jean Grey School. Her flippant personality clashed with Storm but she was the bruiser that the team needed. After the school was relocated to Limbo, M joined Magneto’s team of proactive X-Men. She formed a bond with fellow teammate Sabertooth, it was aggressive, antagonistic, and just dripping with sexual tension. The Morlock Callisto (obligatory link) called on Monet for help, a sickness was claiming the Morlocks and it was believed to have a connection to the St. Croix family. Emplate had returned and was feeding on Morlocks to draw his lovely sister out. She fought and nearly destroyed him, however the St. Croix kids have a tendency to bond in unordinary ways. Emplate’s curse was passed to his sweet sister, Monet now felt the urge to feed.

Art by Terry and Rachel Dodson

Must Read

Discounting the fact that for half the run the real Monet is mute, Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo’s Generation X is the gold standard of Monet. You should hate her through the entire run but you just can’t. The relationship between Emplate, Penance, and Monet is the driving force of most of the run (greatly helped by Bachalo’s world class character design) and you end the series wanting to know more about everyone involved. This series is poorly collected, only the last arc is on Marvel Unlimited. There are two print collections, Generation X Classic Vol 1 & 2 but they only collect the first 11 issues. This is one that isn’t hard to find in long boxes and tracking down the floppies is one of the only ways to read this great series as of now.

Art by Chris Bachalo

Ranking

Monet is perfect, but flaws make a character better. The convoluted mess between Penance, Monet, and Emplate makes the character difficult for new readers and without a good writer she can come off as a flying brick. Monet isn’t easy to get right, but she is so satisfying when written well. Her story is stronger than fellow X-Factor investigator Strong Guy, but I think she loses to Boom Boom when it comes to relatability. So we have two mutants to look at left, Apocalypse and Goldballs. I think I have laid out the flaws of Apocalypse and I think M can beat them, in the hands of writers that get her (Lobdell, David, and Bunn) she is amazing where even a great writer will struggle with 616 Apocalypse. Still Goldballs has the intangibles that make me giddy when I see him appear on page. Because of that Monet Yvette Clarisse Maria Therese St. Croix ranks as the new number 12 in the Xavier Files.

Monet was requested by /u/killgravemademedoit, /u/BlueMetalWave, and /u/ninjew36 on reddit. On top of that, Nir from the Patreon used his line cutting reward to allow the fine folk at the Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men Imzy page to vote on who they wanted covered. Thanks for the request guys! If you want to cut to the front of the line like Nir, we have a Patreon if you want to support it and get a line cutting reward for just a $1 pledge. Our first goal is only $15 and it gets rid of those ads and makes the hosting for Xavier Files entirely reader supported.

Xavier Files is opening itself up for guest articles. If you have something you would like to pitch send an email to Zachary.Jenkins@Xavierfiles.com and we will be in touch. So far this has generated us hosting an amazing web comic called Bish & Jubez, a eulogy on Harry Leland, and the best new readers guide out there.

Click here if you want to see the full ranked list, with links to every entry in the Xavier Files so far.

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Next week we explode into the greatest X-Men story of all time by talking about the Mastermind of the Dark Phoenix Saga, see you then!

Zachary Jenkins is the head writer and reluctant EiC of Xavier Files. His wife lets him spend to much money on books about mutants. Follow him @Xavierfiles on twitter and tumblr