Mystique

A decade earlier, Irvin had cosplayed Mystique as shes portrayed in the X-Men film franchise.  But a long-time cosplay goal of his was to cosplay Mystique specifically from X-Men Evolution - his favorite character from his favorite childhood TV show!

Before the pandemic, Irvin had a long-standing tradition of cosplaying X-Men Evolution characters at AwesomeCon; when he decided to make his return to the convention after a five-year break, he finally felt ready to tackle the costume (and walking around in the stilettos!).

Luckily, Mystique in the TV show wears a blue bodysuit underneath the white dress, so Irvin did the same - he only had to paint his face blue, since he cheated by using blue gloves.  The dress had to be altered from a much more ordinary one, first by making the high slits on both sides, then by gluing on the ornamental skulls at the waist.  For the arms, white legwarmers were readily available.

Of course, the trickiest part was the thigh-high stiletto boots.  Irvin ordered a set on Amazon, and as soon as he put them on, it felt perilously wobbly... Irvin is used to excursions in high heels, but all of those heels were much chunkier and felt much more solid.  The stilettos involved a lot more delicate teetering from place to place.

One of the reasons Irvin loved Mystique so much on that show is how epicly dramatic she is.  Irvin took every opportunity throughout the day to recite her iconic quote from the Season 1 episode "Turn of the Rogue," as seen to the left.

You X-Men are nothing but puppets for Charles Xavier, and I am a sharp blade cutting your strings just so I can watch you fall! 

Irvin never quite had anyone to push off a cliff to punctuate the ending, but he did get to at least push Jean Grey a couple times.

At the con, there was a plethora of X-Men for Irvin to pose with and get pictures opposing.  He ran into a pair of Storms and several fabulous Rogues.  But his best scene partner was his friend Jillian as Jean Grey (the specific X-Men Evolution version), who was down for telekinetic battles all through the day (as seen on the left).

Irvin ended up participating in a cosplay fashion show as Mystique, and Jillian joined him at the last minute.  In about thirty seconds time, they planned an entire skit, where Mystique would recite the line, and then Jean would push her around with telekinesis.  They did just that, and Irvin committed to the bit, dramatically falling backwards on the stage (stilettos and all!).  That seemed the impress the audience more than any of the costumes!