Destiny (Irene Adler)

Destiny (Irene Adler) is a Marvel Comics fictional character, known as an adversary of the X-Men. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist/co-writer John Byrne, the character first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #141 (January 1981). She died in issue #255.

Although blind, Destiny was a mutant precognitive able to accurately predict future events. She filled several diaries with the future history of mankind, the search for which was a main storyline in the 2000s series X-Treme X-Men, years after Destiny died.

As far back as 1981, Claremont had intended Destiny to be the lover of Brotherhood of Mutants teammate Mystique and had originally intended for Destiny and Mystique to be Nightcrawler's biological parents, with Mystique taking the form of a man for the conception. , but Marvel editors did not allow gay or bisexual characters at that time. She was simply referred to as the only member of the new Brotherhood that Mystique saw as a friend, all the other members being male. Some twenty years later, it was confirmed that the two were lovers.

Fictional character biography
Irene Adler was born in Salzburg, Austria. Mystique was working as a consulting detective when Destiny sought her help in understanding the precognitive visions recorded in her diaries. During this time the two fell in love. Background details suggest that this meeting took place around 1900.

She was more accurate in predicting near-future events concerning her present environment. But in a period of 12 months during her adolescence, Irene had produced 13 volumes of prophecies concerning the late 20th and early 21st centuries. When that period ended, Irene was left physically blind and haunted by disturbing images of uncertain meaning. She enlisted Raven's services in pursuit of two goals: the deciphering of her recorded prophecies and a mission to prevent the most terrifying of them from ever being fulfilled.

The two women would soon become lifelong friends and lovers. But they both discovered that their set goals were difficult to achieve. Their abilities would easily allow them to achieve personal success but to shape the future was stated to be "next to impossible" as it would require "social engineering."

Together, the two raised adopted daughter Rogue in their home in fictional Caldecott County, Mississippi. They remained together until Destiny's death.

In 1946, a Dr. Nathan Milbury (apparently Sinister in disguise) was involved with Project: Black Womb, a secret government project headed by Amanda Mueller & aided by Alexander Ryking (father of Carter Ryking), Brian Xavier (Professor X's father), Kurt Marko (father of Cain Marko), and Irene Adler. In X-Men Legacy, Charles is searching to find out more about this project and its influence on his (and Juggernaut's) life. From recent issues, it appears at least Kurt Marko believed their research would result in immortality.

Brotherhood
Mystique and Destiny formed the second Brotherhood of Mutants, a group of ideologically-motivated terrorists. She attempted to assassinate Senator Robert Kelly with a crossbow, but was thwarted by the X-Men and taken into custody. She was rescued from Ryker's Island along with the rest of the Brotherhood, but ended up battling the Avengers and Spider-Woman and was recaptured. She predicted Rogue's disappearance from Mystique's custody. She observed, but did not participate in, one of the Brotherhood's last skirmishes with the X-Men.

Freedom Force
Eventually, the members of Mystique's Brotherhood went to work for the United States government as Freedom Force in exchange for a pardon and protection from anti-mutant sentiment. She apprehended Magneto alongside Freedom Force in that group's first mission for the United States government. She assisted Freedom Force in taking the Avengers into custody at the Vault. She participated in Freedom Force's attempted arrest of the X-Men, during which she "foresaw" the death of the X-Men during the "Fall of the Mutants."

While on a mission with Freedom Force to Muir Island to stop the Reavers, Destiny was killed by Legion, who was being influenced at the time by the Shadow King. Shortly before her death, she predicted that Mystique would become romantically involved with Forge, and although the pair loathed each other at the time, they did develop a brief relationship while both were members of X-Factor. Mystique scatters Destiny's ashes at sea.

Mystique later protects a young mutant named Trevor Chase who addressed her as "Auntie Raven" strongly implying that Chase was Destiny's grandson. It is not certain whether Chase's mother was born before Mystique and Destiny became lovers or whether, like Mystique, Destiny had a child during the course of their relationship.

The Books of Truth
Years later after her death it was revealed that when Destiny's mutant power kicked in she collected on several diaries prophecies of the future that in the wrong hands possessed the greatest threat to humanity ever known. For years guarded by Destiny's companion Mystique, some books came to the possession of Professor Charles Xavier, however a team of X-Men, fearing that absolute knowledge of the future would lead their mentor to a temptation the world could not afford, exiled themselves from their home and teammates in order to hunt down the remaining Books of Truth, in the hope that they can locate the prophecies before Xavier or someone worse does.

These team of X-Treme X-Men spent some time searching for Destiny's diaries, and found the rest of them yet these became useless when a prediction in one of them was prevented from taking place. However, after the event known as House of M, the diaries have recently been sought out again by Mister Sinister, who believes that one of the books contain information on the eventual fate of mutant-kind in the wake of Decimation. For that mission he used the Acolytes to obtain Destiny's Diaries. Exodus and his Acolytes attacked the Xavier Institute only to find forgeries of the books. The real diaries were actually hidden in Michigan by Emma Frost, however at the end all the books were destroyed by Gambit before the Marauders or the X-Men could read them.

Power and abilities
Destiny was a mutant that had the ability of psionic precognition, to see future probabilities and interpret them to best select or manipulate what was likely to happen. This allowed her to compensate for her blindness by seeing where objects in her path would be. The accuracy of Destiny's ability to foresee the future decreases in direct proportion to the distance ahead in time.

She carried a small crossbow with her that she used offensively, and had good aim because she "saw" where it would land in her precognitive visions.

Age of Apocalypse
Destiny appeared in the Apocalypse ruled reality, the Age of Apocalypse. She had retired in the paradise of Avalon and was convinced by the X-Men that Bishop's claims were true. She was one of the three who entered the M'Kraan crystal as they "no longer" had counterparts.

Millennial Visions
Destiny appears as a member of the Brotherhood on Earth-1043

Television

 * Destiny appeared in the X-Men Evolution animated series voiced by Ellen Kennedy. In the series she is not part of the Brotherhood and never wore a costume, but is Mystique's best friend and took care of Rogue before she joined the X-Men.

Video games

 * More recently, Destiny appeared as an NPC in X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse voiced by Marsha Clark. She is depicted as a former Brotherhood member who quit and relocated to Avalon in the Savage Land after having a vision Apocalypse would attack, Beast will die, and Angel would betray the X-Men.