Sunday, September 21, 2014

M - MONET ST. CROIX.

 

 

Monet St. Croix, also simply known as M, is a former member of Generation X and X-Factor Investigations.She is currently a member of Storm's all female X-Men team.

 

 

 

 

Origin


Monet St. Croix
Monet St. Croix, the second born and most favored child of the wealthy ambassador, Cartier St. Croix, she was raised along with her siblings in a lavish lifestyle in Monaco, where they each grew accustomed to the finer things that money could buy. Like Monet, her three siblings all developed mutant abilities. 

However, the mutant power of her only bother, Marius, manifested into something like that of a vampire, causing him to feed on the bone marrow of other mutants. 

With his own mother as his first victim, Marius St. Croix turned to dark magic and took on the name Emplate

After an inter-dimensional expedition birthed a desire to rule, knowing Monet had impressive mutant powers of her own, the deformed and monstrous Marius offered to share his new power with Monet so that they could rule all realities together. 

Self-involved as any teenager could be, Monet laughed at her brother’s hideous new form and his ludicrous offer.

 Outraged and filled with jealousy of Monet, he trapped her in the red skinned, mute body named Penance. Her younger twin sisters, Nicole and Claudette, walked into the room to check on the strange noises coming from Monet's room only to find Emplate and Penance.

Being no more than eight and fearing that their brother killed their sister, the only one who did not treat them like "freaks", the twin sisters used their own mutant powers to banish Marius by teleporting him into another dimension. 

Knowing that only Emplate could free her, Monet quickly followed him.

 The twins wanted to spare the father the loss of his favorite child so they merged with each other and began to impersonate Monet.

 The twins, or the M Twins as they were later dubbed, were at some point mentored by the Aboriginal mutant Gateway before they were taken by the alien Phalanx, along with a number of other mutants. Still posing as their sister, the two young girls continued to perfectly imitate Monet when they joined their fellow captives as founding members of the mutant youth group Generation X.

 

 

Creation

Monet has one of the most difficult creations since her earlier appearances turned out to be actually her Twin Sisters whom morphed themselves to look like her. 

This version of Monet was created by Scott Lobdell and Joe Madureira and first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #316

The real Monet was trapped in the body of Penance (or Hollow), whom was created by Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo and first appeared in Generation X Issue 1

Monet is finally freed from the Penance form in Generation X Issue 40, making that the first time the real Monet is actually seen as Monet outside her Penance appearance.


Major Story Arcs

Generation X


trapped in Penance's body
Their facade would be challenged during the team's encounter with Emplate which caused headmistress Emma Frost to grow tired of "M"'s secrets.

 Emma Frost tried to use her masterful telepathic abilities to pry into the girls' mind, but they were capable of repelling her intrusions.


After a run in with Bastion and the forces of Operation: Zero Tolerance the twins facade would come to an end. Following a fierce explosion that buried "M" underneath a destroyed building, the twins emerged from underneath the rubble as two separate entities.

 The M-Twins then fell into a coma where their older sister (still trapped in the Penance form) would watch over them as they recovered.


During this time, Emplate reemerged hoping to recapture all three of his sisters. 

 The sound of his voice awakened the twins from their coma and they once again merged into "M" and then also merged with Emplate. The twins then used their telepathic powers to find out how he escaped the dimension they put him in, as well as the true fate of their sister Monet. 

Emplate tried to take control of their gestalt form, but the twins broke free of Emplate after they were caught in another explosion. 

The twins then relayed their story to the rest of Generation X and used their powers to free the real Monet from Penance's body. 

As a result the twins became trapped in Penance's form before being freed shortly after.

Free at Last


Monet Free
Learning that his children were alive and well, Monet's father, ambassador Cartier St. Croix, hurried to the school to see the children he thought he had lost. He quickly pulled the three girls from the school and transferred Monet to an academy in the Swiss mountains.

There she discovered that her headmaster was in fact a vampire and had been feeding on his students. She killed the headmaster of this school and quickly returned to Generation X. 

Soon after, Monet began to date her teammate Everett Thomas, also known as Synch, until he died trying save everyone on the team from a bomb implanted by Adrienne Frost.

 Monet took the loss of his life hardest out of all of the Generation X members. Monet soon started to open up to her fellow teammates until the team realized that their leaders (Banshee and Emma Frost) were no longer reliable mentors.

X-Corps and X-Corporation

She returned home for a while before joining Banshee's militant group known as X-Corps, with former Gen-Xers

Husk and Jubilee, until its closing. 

She then joined the Xavier sponsored international mutant group X-Corporation with Multiple Man and Siryn. The X-Corporation functioned as an extension of the X-Men in Westchester, providing mutants all over the world with someone to turn to. Monet’s involvement with the X-Corporation came to an end during M-Day, when about 90% of Earth’s mutant population were depowered. 

Anti-mutant groups quickly seized the chance to attack the few mutants left, and the headquarters of X-Corporation Europe was blown up by some terrorists. 

As a result, the X-Men chose to shut down the organization entirely; after all, it had already lost its purpose with there being next to no mutants left to contact. 

Jamie Madrox had left the X-Corporation earlier on to start his own detective agency, X-Factor Investigations, together with some of his former teammates. 

When the Paris office was closed, he invited Monet, Siryn and the de-powered Rictor to join them, and they all accepted, though for different reasons.

 

 

X-Factor

 Monet catches Rictor

Monet later joined up with X-Factor Investigations , a private detective agency run by Multiple Man in Mutant Town, New York. Monet also recently appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair. M is first seen catching Rictor from falling after a evil dupe pushed him off a ledge. She then goes to Madrox and Siryn to read the mind of a woman who won't talk. She read the woman mind and tell Madrox she will handle it. She finds the airplane the man who committed the murder and telepathically create a illusion where the man tells the passengers what he did. Team relations become more complicated when a drunken Jamie Madrox creates duplicates that, without him knowing so, sleep with both teammates Siryn and M in one night. Both women seem enamored with Jamie following their late night tryst, however, when Jamie confesses Monet immediately throws him out of a window. Monet then begins to continually slam Jamie against a wall in order to find the dupe that she slept with, causing frightened clones of Jaimie to emerge without a single confession. Without resolve, Siryn and M begin to ignore each other, but the young Layla Miller demands that they mend the issues between them. Monet quickly opts to go on a shopping trip to Paris for the two, and they subsequently become close and more comfortable with each other.

Monet Joins X-Factor
While the two are in a restaurant, a gang outside attempts to set a building that houses mutants on fire. M and Siryn quickly rush to defend the building, but M becomes infuriated when a bullet bounces off of her chest and shatters her Fabergé egg. The scuffle is brought to the attention of the local police, and the two decide to surrender themselves rather than creating a media frenzy with mutants yet again in the wrong. In jail, a man from the earlier riot walks by, bragging about burning the building and the lives he took. M breaks a bar from the cage and throws it at the man, stoically infuriated with his remarks. We soon see that M eventually crucified the man with bars from her cell before she and Siryn escape from the prison. Soon after, the pair return to the building, to find a little girl named Nicole sitting on a doorstep. The girl reveals that she is now an orphan due to the fire. This reminds M of her own younger sisters and she immediately grabs Nicole, telling Siryn that she is taking her with them back to the United States.
With new found respect for one an other, M and Siryn decide to team up again after Jamie asks them to attend to a clients job involving a custody battle involving two young twins who sing for the downfall of mutants. The two women go to see one of the children's concerts and after a couple of jokes, they quickly make their way back stage. Once there, Siryn is nearly shot in the head but the bullet grazes her skull, knocking her unconscious. M begins shouting at the sniper, but is snuck up on and is knocked unconscious when a chloroform filled rag is placed over her mouth. We next see the two locked up in a cabin with M being chained to the floor, while Siryn is gagged and bound to a chair. Their kidnappers are revealed to be Clay and Solo. Solo's suit refracts light which enabled him to sneak up on Monet.

M and Siryn
With much effort, M finally breaks free of her chains, and when she knocks down the door of the cabin, Monet and Siryn find themselves in the middle of a desert like place. The two waste little time flying back in order to find the kids, with M, simply taking the elevator that they are currently in, along with their parents. M drops off the elevator on top of a rocky stand where a camp has been set up by the children's grandparents. However, it is soon revealed that this was all a ploy by the Isolationist to simply keep the two women, especially Monet, away from the team. When the two cannot contact any of their team members, M quickly flies back to their base, and catches the Isolationist, about to crush Rictor with a car. However, he throws the vehicle at M and quickly leaves the area.
During the Messiah Complex, M was rarely seen but eventually took part in the final battle on Muir Island.
Soon after this event, a generous Monet decided to buy all the women of X-Factor iPhones, but when Wolfsbane revealed she was leaving the team, M crushed it, promising her Layla's if Wolfsbane ever comes back. It is ironic to note, that while Monet purchased an iPhone for Layla, she seems convinced that the girl will not return. Later she is seen talking to Siryn about her pregnancy and suggests an abortion, although Siryn dismisses the idea immediately. M also states that she and Siryn are now best friends, considering that Wolfsbane has left, M would be the best thing she's got.
After Rictor is kidnapped by Arcade, Monet's superhuman hearing is the only thing that is able to help track down X-Factor's captured teammate. When she finds him, she's electrocuted with apparently enough electricity to kill twenty grown men, and is knocked out. With her hair the only physical indication of her electrocution, a still rattled Monet confuses her teammates' names with those of other X-Men but still manages to use the head of one of Arcade's robotic henchmen to find the source of its control. Unfortunately, when the team arrives at his hideout, Arcade had already escaped and had set a bomb, that upon detonation would cause Mutant Town to implode.

Secret Invasion

Monet, along with the rest of X-Factor, recently did their part against the Skrull invasion of Earth during the Marvel event, Secret Invasion. The team clashed with She-Hulk and her partner Jazinda, who were after a Skrull posing as Longshot unbeknownst to the team. While X-Factor tried to protect "Longshot" (who was accompanied the former X-Man Darwin), Monet and She-Hulk's attitudes clashed and the two physically battled, hurling insults at each other before eventually combining forces. Darwin's powers unwittingly revealed the Skrull's guise and X-Factor and She-Hulk took him into custody. After the team allowed Darwin to stay with them, he developed a crush on Monet, which may have stemmed from his adoration of her Vanity Fair spread.

Cortex and Beyond


Possessed by Cortex, Monet seduces Darwin
When Darwin was captured by the Karma Project, the real Longshot showed up to assist the team in rescuing him. Monet was immediately attracted to Longshot, although it was unclear whether this was a result of his powers, or if she was really interested in him. St. Croix and Darwin recently teamed up to guard a depowered mutant named Lenore after a series of depowered mutant killings were reported. The entity responsible for the killings, Cortex, possessed Monet, pitting her against her teammates. Thanks to the combined efforts of Darwin and the rest of the team she was freed. Soon enough Madrox and the team would relocate back to New York except for Siryn and Monet. After losing the baby Terry wanted to return to her ancestral home of Cassidy Keep and Monet went with her. She would, however, return to New York as well claiming that Terry just got getting worse and she was running out of ideas. Not too long after she was approached by Val Cooper who informed Monet that her father had been kidnapped.

Second Coming


Dealing with Mordo
Strong Guy accompanied Monet to South America to rescue her father. Monet went alone to search for her kidnapped parent before being captured by a mysterious figure. There Monet's energy was drained by a dying Baron Mordo, whose cancer was slowly killing him. When Bastion's troops began tracking down and targeting the members of X-Factor, Mordo had to team-up with Strong Guy as they facility they were in was being attacked by several missiles. As the cave they were in was about to explode, Monet awoke from her weakened state to make a deal with Mordo: teleport them to the rest of X-Factor and she will allow Mordo to drain more of her energy until he is back to health.
The trio teleported to the rest of X-Factor, who were also under attack. Monet telepathically broke Stephen Lang free of Bastion's spell long enough to direct the attacking Sentinels away from the team.
The team gathers at its headquarters in New York. Monet discusses with Strong Guy, Darwin and her father the reasons to honor her part of the agreement with Baron Mordo. They make her aware of the implications of that deal. They express their discontentment with it. However, Monet still wants to do, what is right because her word is everything to her even when it comes to a villain. During this whole time Guido and Monet are growing stronger.
They are interrupted by Layla Miller. In her opinion, Baron Mordo should end up like the elderly Doctor Doom that she had encountered back when she was in the future. Monet instructs her to be out of her way. Monet insists on meeting life on her own terms. She carries on with the resurrection of Baron Mordo. As expected Baron Mordo drains her energy off. He battles the team and leaves her hurt laying on the floor.

Protecting Jameson
As soon as Mordo exits the building, Monet explains the situation to the team. She had allowed him to regain some strength but telepathically had implanted new false memories into him. Baron Mordo believes he has recovered from his illness but the reality is that he is still suffering from it. Monet shows the side effects produced by the battle. She collapses and fells down into the ground. At last minute, she is saved by Layla Miller who seems to have a previous recollection of the entire circumstances of this event.
Sometime later Monet question's Layla as to why she was with Dr. Doom. The conversation became physical and when Layla grabbed Monet's arm with the glove she received from Doom, Monet instantly passed out. Days a majority of X-Factor went to Vegas leaving Monet to hold down the fort. A client by the name of Ms. Blanc showed up asking for Monet's help specifically. Ms. Blanc asked for Monet to remove fake memories that had been planted in her head at the command of a man named General Ryan. Turns out Ms. Blanc was really a member of a Black OPS program called SCARS, and her name was really Ballistique.
X-Factor is later hired by J. Jonah Jameson to protect him, because his friend General Ryan had been killed (unbeknownst killed by Ballistique). Also unknown to everyone Ballistique had regrouped the SCARS Squad and they set out to kill Jameson. And they attacked him at a rally, X-Factor protected him but SCARS took down Guido, Monet in tears rushed him to the hospital and then returned to the rally. Monet and Jaime then question Jameson, he reveals the truth to them.
Monet heads back the the office to give Shatterstar and Rictor a picture of a man that is involved and who may be SCARS next target. When she arrives at the office the guys and Monet agree they are going after SCARS without waiting for Jaime and Terry to join.
Rahne and Longshot join them, Shatterstar teleports them to a barn where the SCARS have kidnapped a doctor responsible for their memory swipes, and they have also kidnapped Black Cat. Monet fought with Ballistique and then entered her mind to stop her. Monet buried Ballistique's consciousness and put her into a permanent coma. Monet contemplated letting Ballistique burn in a fire, but she in the end let Shatterstar carry her away from the fire.

Powers and Abilities


Monet St. Croix is a mutant with a wide variety of mutant powers which represent a near-perfect human being. Her powers include superhuman strength enabling her to lift 10 tons, superhuman speed, agility, endurance, reflexes, coordination, and balance; self-propelled flight; nigh-invulnerability; night vision and enhanced hearing; an enhanced healing factor and the ability to read minds and perceive mutant auras. Monet also appears to have telekinesis seen in X-Factor #218.
St. Croix also possesses a great degree of intellect, is highly educated, has formidable hand-to-hand combat skills, and is capable of using computers and electronic devices with ease.

Alternate Earths

Age of Apocalypse (Earth-295)

Monet, known as Know-It-All, appeared in the alternate reality known as Age of Apocalypse as a member of the Generation Next team, led by Colossus and Shadowcat. She used her mutant powers to fuse with the mainframe computer, appearing everywhere in computer screens around their headquarters. When Magneto needed to locate a mutant with chrono-temporal powers, Know-It-All used her abilities to search through Apocalypse's files, risking herself to be located by Shadow King, locating the best match in Illyana Rasputin, who was being held at the Seattle Core.
During the rescue mission, Know-It-All kept Colossus and Shadowcat updated. After the fall of Apocalypse, it is not known what happened to Monet. As for her siblings, the twins were apart of Apocalypse's elite task force along with Emplate and they fell into a permanent catatonic state when Emplate died in battle, however, it is theorized that the twins could have been returned to Monet, although, none of them have been seen since the downfall of Apocalypse.
Know-It-All had a heightened intelligence was able to communicate with computers and other mechanical systems, using them to search through online databases for information.

X-Men: The End

Monet was a crucial part of the final battle, knocking a giant out with one hit. She is also seen using telekinetic abilities. Whether or not she has them now is unknown.

Other Media

Generation X TV Movie


Amarilis as M
In the low-budget telefilm ''Generation X'', M cannot fly or use telepathy, however, she thinks that she is perfect because of her superhuman intelligence, and incredible physical strength and aspects. She was portrayed by Amarilis. She was a member of the Generation X who fought the mad scientist who wants to have psychic powers. Like the other members of the team, she was also mentored by Banshee and Emma Frost in the Xavier Institute.
She was introduced to new recruits Jubilee and Skin. Though, her arrogance became uncomfortable for the two especially to Jubilee which happened to be her roommate. When the team was granted a day outside the institute, the team found riot which caused them to be imprisoned. Emma then appeared to save them by fooling the police with her mental powers. Back to the Institute, Emma scolded them and announced that Mondo will be expelled. But the team including M announced that they will leave if he would be expelled. Skin was then stuck in a mental dimension together with Tresh. To save him from the mad scientist, Emma opened a mental gate that would let them enter. The team, faced Tresh. M pushed him and opened a fire chamber. Tresh then carried her and threw her on the fire, yet, Banshee was able to catch and save her from death.
Fuente: comicvine

 

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