Monet St. Croix (Earth-616)

Penance
Name	Monet Yvette Clarisse Maria Therese St. Croix
Current Alias	Penance
Aliases	M, White Queen, Modesty Blaise
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	X-Men; formerly Hellfire Club, Magneto's X-Men, X-Factor Investigations, Generation X, Weapon X-Force, X-Corps, X-Corporation (Paris branch)
Relatives	Louis St. Croix (grandfather); Lenore St. Croix (step-grandmother, deceased); Cartier St. Croix (father); Jamila St. Croix (mother, deceased); Marius St. Croix (older brother); Claudette and Nicole St. Croix (younger sisters); Hollow (genetic template)
Marital Status	Single
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Female
Height	5′7″ (1.7 m)
Weight	125 lbs (56.7 kg)
Eyes	Irises: Red, naturally brown
Hair	Black
Unusual Features	M has spent considerable time merged with her siblings.
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Mutant
Living Status	Deceased
Reality	Earth-616
Place of Birth	Sarajevo, Bosnia
Personal Information
Identity	Secret (Secret also as Penance)
Citizenship	French, Yugoslavian Algerian, Monacan
Occupation	Adventurer; former private investigator, socialite, and student, registered hero
Base of Operations	Krakoa, Pacific Ocean; War Room X, Savage Land; Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, Salem Center, Westchester County, New York; X-Factor Investigations Headquarters, New York City, New York; Detroit, Michigan; Mutant Town, Manhattan, New York City, New York; Massachusetts Academy, Snow Valley, Massachusetts; Monaco; Algeria
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Scott Lobdell, Chris Bachalo
First	Generation X #1 (September, 1994) (As Penance) Generation X #40 (May, 1998) (As Monet)
First	Generation X #1 (September, 1994) (As Penance) Generation X #40 (May, 1998) (As Monet)
Death	House of X #4 (September, 2019)
Death	House of X #4 (September, 2019)

 You just put six holes in a Louis Vuitton shirt and you expect me to 'wait'? For what? The 'fashion police'? 

—M

History

Early Life

Monet St. Croix was the second child of a rich and eccentric father, Ambassador Cartier St. Croix, a Monegasque wealthy former president of several corporations, and his wife, a descendant of Algerian royalty. She was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia. She grew up with an older brother, Marius, and two younger twin sisters, Claudette and Nicole. Monet became her father's favorite child.

Turned into Penance

When his mutant gifts manifested, Marius was overcome by his hunger for the genetic marrow of mutants and killed his mother. Cartier kicked his son out. Marius traveled in different dimensions, growing in power, and returned to offer Monet a place at his side, so that they might conquer dimensions together. Monet scornfully rejected him, however, and fed up with her high-handed attitude towards him, Marius magically trapped her in the form of a mute creature with razor-sharp, diamond-hard red skin; Penance.

Claudette and Nicole walked in on this, and with their sister nowhere to be found, they assumed that Marius had killed her. Claudette opened up a dimensional portal and banished Marius. Before he was pulled away, Marius told Penance that only he could restore her true body, prompting her to jump in with him. As Penance, Monet would become her brother's slave. In order to satisfy his hunger for genetic marrow, he would repeatedly feed on her. Despite not showing it, the experience would scar Monet deeply, leaving her suicidal years after being freed.

Nicole and Claudette, knowing Monet was their father's favourite, used their mutant powers to merge into one body with the appearance of Monet. Everything about the twins' version of Monet was like normal, including her physical body, personality, and powers. Everything would have been perfect if it weren't for Claudette's autism. Since both the twins' personalities were combined, Claudette's autism would sometimes take effect, leaving "Monet" in catatonic states.

Shortly after the formation of the mutant teen team Generation X, Penance was dropped onto the front lawn of the Massachusetts Academy by Gateway, who identified her as Penance. She was brought inside by headmaster Banshee, who discovered her powers as he cut his hands by trying to pick her up. As Penance could not communicate and seemingly didn't understand anything, Banshee placed her in the infirmary as he and Emma Frost attempted to discover her identity. Teen member M, her relation to Penance unknown to the others, told the adults that Penance was perhaps a prisoner of Emplate, as Marius had begun calling himself. "Monet" claimed to have reached this conclusion through logical deduction, rather than her secret past encounter with Emplate and Penance.

As the team left the infirmary, Penance awoke with one thought on her mind: survival. Tearing apart her (in her mind) cell and escaping, she was free. Hearing the alarms of a breach, the team rushed to the infirmary and saw the extensive damage she caused during her escape. The team split up to find her before she could cause further damage to the Academy. Team member Chamber, feeling a bond with Penance due to his own mutilated body, left the group to search for her alone. Feeling that another deformed soul would seek him out, he waited for her arrival. After Penance fought her way past the rest of the team (Husk, Synch, Jubilee, and M), she approached Chamber, who spoke to her telepathically in an attempt to convince her that he knew how she felt and eventually succeeded in calming her down into staying with the team.

During her stay at the Academy, she would rarely interact with her peers, due to her animalistic nature and fear of being captured again. Fortunately, perhaps due to her time with the feral mutant Wolverine, Jubilee became a friend to her. Trusting the students at the academy more and more, Penance began to go on missions with the others.Generation X #8. In a subsequent mission, presumably, to cover up their relation, Emplate refers to her as "Yvette" and the others grew somewhat weary of Penance.

Freed from Penance's Body

Finally, M revealed that she was a combination of Claudette and Nicole, and told the others the truth about Penance, and that they felt horrible about impersonating their sister. To "make things right," the twins, now split apart, merge once more into the form of Monet and swapped places with Penance, freeing the real Monet at last, with the merged twins taking over as Penance's body. Monet, free at last, continued to operate under the twins' codename of M, while the twins retain the identity of Penance. Both remained a part of the Generation X team, while still trying to cure the still mute Penance.

The real Monet as a student of the Massachusetts Academy

While all four St. Croix children possessed some form of power, Monet had a plethora of her own, including self-propelled flight, superhuman strength and reflexes, and telepathy to name a few. In addition to her powers, "Monet" tended to have a sizable attitude and a large chip on her shoulder, to the say the least. She quickly clashed with many of her Generation X teammates and often earned their irritation with her condescending attitude and occasional arrogance. Her rival, Jubilee, often teased that her only power was simply to be "perfect." While the real Monet did not share these initial interactions with her teammates, she quickly fell into the same pattern of behaviour after being freed from Penance, including the rivalry with Jubilee.

In truth, Monet had survived an incredible series of ordeals, including enslavement at the hands of her brother Emplate. As a result, M became self-reliant and outwardly harsh and defensive to make up for her fear and insecurity. The only person she allowed to see her vulnerabilities was her teammate Synch, with whom she started a brief romantic relationship.

M was one of the most devastated of the Generation X team members when Synch sacrificed his own life to stop an exploding bomb that had been placed at the academy by Emma Frost's cruel sister, Adrienne. Soon after Synch's death, the team rapidly began to fall apart, even as Monet began to open up by acting a little more human and vulnerable around her fellow teammates. Following the bomb incident, Monet began to observe Emma Frost acting strangely villainous, causing the entire team to question her leadership abilities, particularly when combined with Banshee's relapse into alcoholism following the death of his lover, Moira MacTaggert.

X-Corps & X-Corporation

As a member of Banshee's X-Corps

The team soon parted ways, and Monet declared that she was going home. Monet would instead join Banshee's new venture, X-Corps, with fellow former Generation X members Husk and Jubilee, in order to look out for their former teacher, who was still suffering from the death of Moira. However, X-Corps was soon destroyed by Mystique, and M joined the X-Corporation's European branch located in Paris. Monet helped the X-Men battle Black Tom Cassidy and the Juggernaut before returning to her duties at X-Corporation Europe.

When a train crashed in the Channel Tunnel, Monet and her X-Corporation team went to investigate and help. They quickly discovered something strange, however. The train had in fact been carrying two sentinel super-soldiers, Weapons XII and XIII. Weapon XII began attacking them. With the power to kill and take control over anyone he touched, the X-Corporation team was no match for him. Professor X and the X-Men intervened, and were able to subdue him with help from Weapon XIII, now calling himself Fantomex.

X-Factor Investigations

Following the events of M-Day, Monet then opted to join the motley crew of X-Factor Investigations, a private detective agency run by Multiple Man. Monet then, later on, completed her first mission on the team; by telepathically tricking the famous actor, Jack Vaughn, to confess to the murder of Gloria Santiago's sister.

Afterward, Monet broke down and cried in Jamie's arms after empathizing with the victim, but quickly threatened to break him in half if he ever revealed her moment of "weakness". A comment made to Rictor implied that she no longer wished to go by the name "M".

Monet & Guido battle it out in the Savage Land

However, in a therapy session with Doc Samson, Monet stated that she hid behind the "M" persona so that others would not see how vulnerable she had become due to the lengthy amount of time she was held captive by her brother.

Monet also had a brief romantic fling with Madrox. The tryst did not end well because Madrox was unsure whether he or his duplicate had slept with Monet while he or his duplicate slept with Siryn at the same time.

Cartier St. Croix was later kidnapped by Baron Mordo, who was suffering from cancer. Mordo used Cartier to catch Monet, because he needed her life energy to heal himself. Monet tricked Mordo by using her telepathy, and he went away.

Monet was later dying from a serious brain injury inflicted when she fought Pluto where he mercilessly beat her to near death until Wolfsbane's son intervened and killed Pluto. Later in a fight with Strong Guy, M died due to the brain injury but was subsequently resurrected by Guido when he became Lord of Hell.

Afterward, Monet found Darwin in Las Vegas. They had drinks at a bar, and he questioned her where her soul went to after she died. Annoyed by the singer, she approached him and explained that there is no Heaven, but only nothingness or Hell. Darwin finally admitted his feeling towards her only to be rejected. As Darwin left the bar, Monet aggressively cornered him and told him that she needs to feel something after her experience with death. The two ended up having sex. Darwin knew that Monet was not mentally prepared for a relationship, but was happy to be there.

X-Men

After the Hell on Earth incident that ended X-Factor, Monet found herself at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning as a sort of retreat from the life of superheroing and to wind down from her recent death and rebirth. Of which in said respect formed a kinship with the also recently brain-dead and now depowered Karima. During a quick and quiet little jog in the woods both she and Karima were attacked by a whole new Deathstrike/Ana Cortes backed by her hired guns, but in an impressive telekinetic display, they single-handedly averted their attackers.

Monet with the X-Men

After getting a better look at and into the mind of their assailant, Deathstrike had to withdrawal in the event that her new form still wasn't ready for combat. Monet, initially tempted to follow in pursuit, had her attention turned towards a wounded Karima, injured during the firefight, needing M to rush her back to the school where she officially joined with Storm's new X-Men team.

While on a scouting job in Budapest; where the first Arkea piece latched onto baby Shogo, to find their adversary after an alarm went off alerting Rachel and the others to the reactivation of their believed to be dead enemy. Having been booted back up by a new Sisterhood of Mutants, which initially had been organized under Yuriko/Ana but then seceded leadership under the parasitic disease in exchange for upgrades.

Monet tore out of Budapest, Hungary at Mach 3 flight in order to reach Dubai, UAE where the new Body Shop and the lair of the Sisterhood was; only to have a brief scuffle with and eventually be subdued by a now repowered Enchantress. Deathstrike's alien possessed Tech assistant had recently sent out a type of distress beacon that reactivated numerous non-functioning Sentinels to do battle with the X-Men.

Magneto's X-Men

In the wake of the M-Pox crisis, Monet joined Magneto's team of X-Men, with the goal of protecting mutantkind at any cost. It seemed she developed an odd relationship with Sabretooth, whom she frequently teased. They went on a mission together to find and protect Elixir due to the Dark Riders assassinating mutant healers, further dooming their kind to the M-Pox. They made it to Elixir in time but failed to protect him when he sacrificed himself against the Dark Riders trying saving his new friends. A devastated Monet sat beside his body after he was gunned down.

Later, she was contacted by a mysterious source who needed her help. She took Sabretooth with her as the two waited to meet the person pleading their help. It turns out to have been Callisto who contacted Monet, but her reason is paused when she sees Sabretooth, who she attacked for his part in the Morlock massacre. Monet separated the two and demanded Callisto put her vendetta against Creed aside and explain why they're there. It turned out there remained a mysterious illness and series of abductions that befell the Morlocks,

Emplate, Monet's brother, was responsible for the attacks. She confronted him, planning to fight and distract him long enough for him to fade away to his own dimension again. However, he managed to merge with Monet at the last second, cursing her with his hunger. Knowing she wished to hide her curse, Emplate warned her that he would only cooperate if she fed him. Sabretooth promised to keep her secret and offered to let her feed on him.

During a war between Inhumans and the X-Men, M and Sabretooth became part of the mutants who guarded over the Inhumans sent to captivity in Limbo. But Monet had grown more malicious under Emplate's influence and began killing the Inhumans in cold-blood, blaming them for the Terrigen Mist and the death of Madrox. Sabretooth tried to stop her assault on the Inhumans, but in the end, let her kill the last one to keep her secret. He ran away with M, wanting to help her contain Emplate's possession and find a cure.

M-Plate

At some point, Victor left Monet, and she set up base in an abandoned subway car beneath Central Park, where D.O.A. brought her Morlocks to feed on but Emplate argued they needed more than just Morlocks to sustain them. M silenced him by crushing his tongue in her hand, saying she was coming up with a long-term solution. M-Plate attacked the Xavier Institute in an attempt to feed on the students, having mapped out a perfect plan. She ordered D.O.A. to use his power to desynch the school from the outside world, eliminating the possibility of outside interference or anyone being able to contact help.

Monet's friends and former teammates, Husk, Chamber, and Jubilee all confronted her, but she continued her attack on everyone and almost succeeded in killing Jubilee by ripping off her Lightbender Amulet and tossing her into the sunlight. She bursts into flames but was saved by Quentin Quire sacrificing his Phoenix shard to cure her vampirism and restore her mutant powers.

Bling then came up with a plan to turn M-Plate's ability against her. Earlier, M-Plate succeeded in absorbing Hindsight's ability to see the past of whomever he touched. Bling yelled for everyone to grab M-plate, which flooded Monet's mind with memories of her past. She began to lose composure and regained herself enough for Emplate to be expelled from her body. Marius weakly faded away to his own dimension and Monet was taken to the infirmary, though she insisted she was fine and only needed a manicure and a blowout.

Weapon X-Force

Monet & Victor in Weapon X-Force

At some point, Monet fell under the mind-control of Mentallo and joined the cult known as The Church of Human Potential which was lead by a cyborg-enhanced Reverend William Stryker. Her first order of business was to lure Weapon X-Force to Aspen, Colorado so she could share the gift with Sabretooth. She was freed with Deathstrike's help & subsequently joined Weapon X-Force to bring down the Church. She & Victor were awkward around one another for a while which earned them the ridicule of Domino & Deadpool, who believed they had feelings for each other. They finally got a chance to talk when Victor apologized for leaving her when she was possessed by Emplate but Monet held no ill feelings toward him given how evil she'd become. As a giant heart formed behind them, Victor wanted to tell her something, but was interrupted by Omega Red before he could.

They continued their battle against the cult, which they successfully managed to bring down but not without great loss. Sabretooth was killed by a power-boosted Mentallo as the final sacrifice in Stryker's resurrection, which devastated Monet. Deathstrike killed Mentallo in retaliation and Sabretooth killed Stryker once he reentered Hell, opting to use his sacrifice to revive his son instead. Graydon was reborn with Mystique telling everyone that Sabretooth was responsible, but Monet sadly asked what happened to Sabretooth.

House of X

Monet joins Cyclops' Squad to destroy Mother Mold

She was living on the sovereign nation state of Krakoa for mutants, created by Charles Xavier, Magneto and Moira X. Monet joined Cyclops' team on a mission to destroy Mother Mold before the creation of Nimrod can come to fruition. While Husk & Angel were confused at some of Cyclops' methods, Monet understood right away, being one of the more pragmatic members. The team was spotted as they neared their destination, and subsequently blown up in retaliation.

The explosion killed Archangel and Husk, but the survivors continued on to destroy Mothermold. Monet stayed behind with Jean to help keep everyone mentally synced with their telepathy. Though Mothermold was successfully destroyed, the team is killed one by one in the process, leaving Monet, Cyclops, and Jean. When the ship was invaded by Orchis, Monet got Jean into an escape pod and stayed behind to fight where she displayed the ability to transform into Penance and use all of its powers. While she fought valiantly, she was killed at the hands of the army.

Attributes

Power Grid

Powers

Monet St. Croix is a mutant with a wide variety of mutant powers at superhuman levels and representing a near-perfect human being.

Superhuman Physiology: All of Monet's physical skills are greater than the natural physical limits of even the finest human athlete. Her mental capabilities are similarly enhanced, being beyond that of most average humans.

• Superhuman Strength

• Superhuman Speed

• Superhuman Endurance

• Supernaturally Dense Tissue

• Superhuman Reflexes

• Accelerated Healing Factor: Despite her incredible resistance to harm, it is possible for Monet to be injured. However, M possesses a regenerative quality allowing her to heal and quickly recover from near-fatal wounds. The effect also has the added benefit of making her more resistant to toxins, disease and possibly the aging process.

• Enhanced Senses: M's senses are so advanced that she possesses telescopic and night vision, as well as superhuman hearing,

• Superhuman Intuitive Ability: M can process information quickly, giving her vast knowledge and intelligence, an accelerated learning aptitude, a knack for quickly analyzing multiple information and operating machinery, eidetic memory, the ability to read at superhuman speeds, and incredible deductive and reasoning skills.

Flight: Monet is able to fly through the air through sheer act of will. While her top speed is not currently known, it is at least 500 MPH. She caught up with — and leisurely maintained the speed of — a passenger plane carrying a suspect while inducing a psychic illusion. Recently she reached flight speeds up to Mach 3 as she flew all the way from Hungary to the UAE.

Telepathy: M has the ability to read minds and project her thoughts into the minds of others and defensively mask her mind against telepathic intrusion. Monet has also been shown to be capable of other basic telepathic abilities such as illusion casting and memory wiping.

Telekinesis: M has recently displayed the ability to affect matter on a questionable scale projecting thought waves as concussive force.

Mutant Aura Perception: Nicole and Claudette (as Monet) were capable of perceiving the auras of mutants, allowing her/them to distinguish them from normal humans. She/They chose to suppress this ability for fear it would lead her/them down the same path as her/their mutant-feeding brother, Emplate. It may be that the real Monet also possesses this ability.

Gestalt Form: Monet and her siblings can combine into various forms, each with varying appearances and powers.

Abilities

Genius Intelligence: Monet has a genius level intellect. She has perfect memory, superhuman intuitive skills and is capable of using computers and electronic devices with ease.

Multilingual: Monet is capable of speaking English and French fluently.

Hand-to-Hand Combat: Monet is a formidable hand-to-hand combatant.

Notes

• Monet is a citizen of France, Yugoslavia, and Algeria, with passports from all three countries.
• Like her mother, Monet is a Muslim.
• Monet was initially thought to be autistic, but it was later revealed it was only Claudette's autism emerging on the impersonated M, and the real Monet had no similar limitations.
• Monet took ballet at a young age.

Trivia

• Scott Lobdell, the creator of M and Penance, never intended for there to be a "real" M - only the St. Croix twins.
• Monet revealed to Doctor Samson that she has suicidal thoughts every day of her life due to the trauma that she suffered at the hands of her brother Marius.
• In early appearances, Monet had a much darker skin color than how she is usually portrayed now.
  This is referenced in response to from the letters page in X-Factor Vol 3 4:

  "Monet's skin tone, and what it should be, set off a flurry of researching into her history. And boy, it was confusing and rife with contracdictions. Bottom line, although Monet has very dark skin, we're not entirely sure she's African-anything. Nevertheless, we're likely darkening her skin a bit."

• Though Monet's baseline strength is higher than that of her teammate, Strong Guy, her strength stat (4) is still two points underneath his own (6). This has caused a substantial amount of controversy over the legitimacy of both their statistics.
• Some fans have theorized that Monet's powers are completely psionic in nature, not physical, meaning her strength and durability was always a form of tactile telekinesis, similar to DC's Kon-El/Superboy. This "new" telekinetic ability may be an example of Monet merely turning her TK outwards for the first time, instead of inwards. This theory remains * untested and unconfirmed, however.
• During Uncanny X-Men, Monet developed a close but rocky relationship with Sabretooth that writer Cullen Bunn described as a torturous love.
• Jonathan Hickman listed Monet as one of his top 5 favorite mutants.

See Also

• 318 appearance(s) of Monet St. Croix (Earth-616)
• 11 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Monet St. Croix (Earth-616)
• 23 minor appearance(s) of Monet St. Croix (Earth-616)
• 19 mention(s) of Monet St. Croix (Earth-616)
• 9 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Monet St. Croix (Earth-616)
• 402 image(s) of Monet St. Croix (Earth-616)
• 28 quotation(s) by or about Monet St. Croix (Earth-616)

Links and References

uncannyxmen.net Spotlight On... M