Real Name: Monet Yvette Clarisse Maria Therese St. CroixAfter Monet’s brother Marius killed their mother, Monet refused to help him pursue other mutants for food. Using some arcane methods discovered in another dimension, Marius trapped Monet in the red-skinned form that would become known as Penance and absconded with her. Her sisters then merged in order to replace Monet and defend against Marius, and it was this “M” that initially joined Generation X.
Shortly after the formation of Gen X, Gateway rescued Monet (in the Penance form) from Emplate and brought her to the Massachussetts Academy. She initially thought Gen X were her enemies, and nearly killed Banshee and Husk, but Chamber talked her into calming down. At this point, “Penance” was so atrophied from Emplate’s feedings that her entire body had hardened, including her eardrums and vocal chords, leaving her deaf and mute. As she began to eat more, her features softened, though her claws were still razor-sharp and she was still unable to hear or speak (these deficiencies seem to be part of the Penance form). Monet seems to have used her formidable intellect to quickly learn to read lips, as she soon began to understand her “teammates.”
When M I was split back into the twins, and they merged with Emplate to form M-Plate, they found out from Emplate’s mind what had happened to their sister Monet, namely, that she was turned into Penance. Following M-Plate’s dissociation (thanks to Dirt Nap), the twins re-merged into M I and used their powers to switch places with their big sister, leaving Monet in her original body and the twins trapped in the mute form of Penance II.
Recently, M II was pulled from the school by her father, and sent to a private school in Switzerland. However, the headmaster turned out to be a vampire, and M was forced to fight and destroy him. Upon returning, she began a relationship with Synch, which was short-lived, as Everett was killed by Adrienne Frost a few weeks later. Monet was much less social and spoiled after that, but tended to erupt in emotional outbursts.
Following the dissolution of the Massachussetts Academy, Monet returned home to Algeria to visit her family. Shortly, thereafter, however, she heard of Banshee's X-Corps and joined the team, along with her old classmates Husk and Jubilee. While she might have believed in Banshee's vision, she and the others were really there to investigate the X-Corps and see if anything dangerous was going on.
After Mystique’s betrayal of Banshee and the subsequent disbanding of the X-Corps, M assisted the X-Men in their rescue of Juggernaut from Black Tom, and then joined the Paris branch of the new X-Corporation. She was involved in the Weapon Plus ambush in the Chunnel, and watched in shock as Fantomex killed the Weapon XII-possessed Darkstar.
After M-Day, M re-appeared as a member of Jamie Madrox's X-Factor Investigations. Exactly why she joined is unclear, but she was back to her old abrasive self. This time, however, she picked on Rictor and Layla Miller. Strangely, she ended up in bed one night with one of Jamie's dupes, and that seems to have endeared him to her quite a bit...until Jamie told her that another dupe had been in Siryn's bed that same night...
166