Chosen One of the Day: Quicksilver’s mom in X-Men: Days of Future Past

With X-Men: Dark Phoenix landing in theaters this month, another chapter of the mutant saga is coming to a close. We’ve been treated to time jumps, apocalyptic events, and the introduction of an alternate universe over the course of four films with storylines that focused on younger iterations of beloved enhanced individuals like Jean Grey, Professor X, Beast, and Magneto. We’ve had origins explained and questions answered, but there’s one character from this new batch of films who has yet to truly get her due: Quicksilver’s mom.

Evan Peters introduced the speedy superhero to fans in X-Men: Days of Future Past and the fast-talking kleptomaniac quickly became a fan-favorite. He was a smart ass, a rebel with a surprisingly cool sense of style and an irreverent attitude who managed to piss off both Logan and Charles Xavier. The films teased Quicksilver’s connection with Magneto — his estranged father in the comics — as the two broke out of the Pentagon together before taking on an all-powerful being set upon destroying the world. They got some quality father-son time in, no doubt, but it’s Quicksilver’s other, totally ordinary parent who deserves our respect, and our sympathy.

Ms. Maximoff, as she’s known in the film series, is the most underappreciated kind of hero in the X-Men universe: the single mom.

In X-Men: Days of Future Past, we meet her as Logan and Charles pay her son Peter (Pietro) a visit. They want to rope him into a scheme to free Magneto from his maximum-security holding cell in the Pentagon. Ms. Maximoff doesn’t know this though, so when she opens the door, she immediately assumes they’re cops or feds or some other government agency her son’s managed to annoy. She exasperatedly asks what he’s done this time, before leading them to the basement, where Peter plays videogames among a horde of stolen electronics and junk food.

And from that small scene, we instantly know Ms. Maximoff’s been through it.

Not only did this woman enter some kind of relationship with Magneto — probably believing him to be a charming, well-mannered guy until she realized he wanted to make all non-mutants subservient to his kind — she either left him or was left by him to raise his son, who turned out to be gifted and as much of a douche canoe as his dear old dad.

Guys. Imagine mothering a kid like Quicksilver.

Chasing his naked ass at bath time, trying to get him to sit still in church, enforcing a damn curfew as a teenager, and doing it all on your own, without the aid of powers or, you know, a remote-operated shock-collar? No thanks.

So sure, stan Dark Phoenix and Mystique all you want, but don’t you dare forget to pour one out for Ms. Maximoff, a woman, like so many, doing the hardest work and getting no recognition for it. We see you, girl.