Let’s dreamcast the X-Men before they appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 19: Margot Robbie attends the 26th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on January 19, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. 721313 (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Turner)

6. Margot Robbie as Mystique

Whether it’s because she’s been played by powerhouses like Rebecca Romijn and Jennifer Lawrence or because her full-body blue prosthetic-CGI look has become an iconic marker for the series, the X-Men movies have shown the shapeshifter Mystique a lot of love. She’s been both one of the series’ most beloved heroes…as well as one of its most memorable villains.

And yet Mystique remains a character who’s hard to pin down. She has motives on top of motives, and is one of the most influential figures in the X-Men rogues gallery. And there’s perhaps no one who plays a better impossible-not-to-sympathize-with villain than Margot Robbie. Just try to imagine her in the blue paint, flashing one of those sadistic Harley Quinn grins as she throws deviously planned monkey wrenches into the X-Men’s missions.

Mystique also has a pretty strong connection with Rogue, for whom she was a foster mother…and by that I mean, she recruited Rogue to be a child soldier and manipulated her into doing her bidding, as a good daughter should. Mystique can be scary.

Which just makes Margot Robbie all the better a match.