Monet St. Croix (Earth-616)

Penance
Name	Monet Yvette Clarisse Maria Therese St. Croix
Current Alias	Penance
Aliases	M, White Queen, Modesty Blaise, Supergirl-Meets-Veronica-Lodge
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	Alive
Reality	Earth-616
Place of Birth	Sarajevo, Bosnia
Personal Information
Identity	Secret (Secret also as Penance)
Citizenship	French, Yugoslavian Algerian, Monacan, Krakoan
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)

 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 Jamila St. Croix, 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 referred 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, merged 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 retained 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 sizeable 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

Monet with the X-Factor Investigations Team

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 Rachel.

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".

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 about where her soul went to after she died. Annoyed by the singer, she approached him and explained that there was 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 needed 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. The traumatic experiences helped her form a kinship with the also recently brain-dead and 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. 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 withdraw 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 to find their adversary, where the first Arkea piece latched onto baby Shogo, an alarm went off alerting Monet, 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 at Mach 3 in order to reach Dubai 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. 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 he sacrificed himself against the Dark Riders trying to save his new friends. A devastated Monet sat beside his body after he was gunned down.

Monet falls under hard times as a member of Magneto's X-Men

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 turned out to have been Callisto who contacted Monet, but concealed the reason why when she saw Sabretooth, who she attacked for his part in the Mutant 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 the Inhumans and the X-Men, M and Sabretooth became part of the mutants who guarded over the Inhumans captive 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

Hard times continue as Monet is lost to Emplate

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 de-sync the school from the outside world, eliminating the possibility of outside interference or anyone being able to contact help.

M-Plate engaged in a brief fight with the vampiric Jubilee until she ripped off the latter's amulet & tossed her into the sunlight to burn. Quentin Quire sacrificed his piece of Phoenix shard to restore Jubilee's powers & cure her vampirism. Bling! then came up with a plan to turn M-Plate's ability against her after recalling that she absorbed 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 finally freed by Deathstrike and joined the team to bring down the Church. Initially, she & Victor were awkward around each other which Domino & Deadpool teased them about, believing they had feelings for each other. They finally addressed their fallout where Victor apologized for leaving her during her curse but Monet didn't blame him. A giant heart shined behind them as Victor prepared to tell her something, but he was interrupted by Omega Red before he could. The battle continued in which Weapon X-Force was successful in killing Stryker.

As the battle continued into the depths of Hell & back, Sabretooth was killed by a power-boosted Mentallo as the final sacrifice in resurrecting Stryker which devastated Monet. Deathstrike killed Mentallo in retaliation and Sabretooth killed Stryker for good once he reentered Hell, opting to use his sacrifice to revive his son. Graydon Creed was reborn and Mystique confirmed that Sabretooth was responsible but Monet sadly asked what happened to Sabretooth.

Life on Krakoa

Monet, after her resurrection in House of X

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 could come to fruition. The team was spotted as they neared their destination, and subsequently blown up in retaliation by the Orchis Forge.

Archangel and Husk were killed, but the survivors continued onward. Monet stayed behind with Marvel Girl to help keep everyone mentally synced with their telepathy. Though Mother Mold was successfully destroyed, the team was killed one by one. When the ship was invaded by Orchis soldiers, Monet sent Jean away in an escape pod and stayed behind to fight where she displayed the ability to transform into Penance. Despite fighting valiantly, she was killed at the hands of the army.

The team was later resurrected by a group of mutants known as “the Five” (Eva Bell, Proteus, Hope Summers, Elixir, and Goldballs). Merging their powers, the Five were able make new husk bodies of the deceased mutants, restoring their powers, consciousness, and memories as they were at the time of their deaths. They were later acclaimed as heroes of Krakoa. Monet was later seen in a village with the X-students and younger mutants, reprimanding Nicole and Claudette for trying their Penance forms.

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 ageing 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 United Arab Emirates.

Telepathy: M has the ability to read minds, 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 with the impersonated M, and the real Monet had no similar condition.
• 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 contradictions. 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