I already devoted quite a few words to Mister Sinister a few months back, but I felt it was time to do a more thorough analysis of what he has been up to in the Krakoan Era of X-Men comics with Sins of Sinister #1 by Kieron Gillen and Lucas Werneck hitting comic shops this week. The events in that comic will spillover into the rest of the X-Men line as part of the “Sins of Sinister” event that sees Sinister taking over the world (and possibly more than that) reminiscent of the celebrated “Age of Apocalypse” event of the ‘90s.
Despite being one of the better known X-Men villains, Sinister has rarely headlined a major X-Men event. He featured most prominently in the “Inferno” event in the ‘80s, but he has typically been either an ancillary antagonist (“X-Cutioner’s Song” and “Messiah Complex”) or operating completely unseen behind the scenes (“Mutant Massacre”). It really wasn’t until 2019’s House of X and Powers of X from writer Jonathan Hickman and artists Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva respectively that Sinister really came into his own as a top tier X-Men villain. He has been plotting and scheming on how best to make the newest mutant status quo work to his benefit ever since. Now with the “Sins of Sinister” event, he seems poised to succeed. So how did we get here? How did this campy drama queen who loves being the center of attention manage to outmaneuver the most powerful mutants on Earth (and beyond) without anyone noticing? Let’s take a look at the publication timeline and find out!
🚨🚨SPOILERS FOR ALL X-MEN COMICS FROM 2019-PRESENT AHEAD🚨🚨
House of X and Powers of X
Anyone who has been reading X-Men comics starting with House of X and Powers of X should not be surprised that Sinister is about to betray all of mutantkind. All the way back in Powers of X #1, we are shown what turns out to be the ninth life of Moira X. In this life that had progressed an additional one hundred years into the future from where our present timeline resides, we learn that mutantkind is on the verge of extinction with only eight mutant individuals remaining in our solar system. The rest of the mutant species has been wiped out by the ruling Man-Machine Supremacy. How did things get this bad? You guessed it: mutantkind had been betrayed by Sinister. In this lifetime, Sinister had been using his advanced knowledge of genetics to create “Chimera” mutants that had multiple mutant abilities spliced together to create mutant super soldiers to fight against the Man-Machine Supremacy. Sinister, being the horrible piece of garbage that he is, baked in genetic defaults to wipe out later generations of Chimeras in order to gain favor with the Man-Machine Supremacy. They publicly executed him to show their appreciation. Whoopsie!
In Moira’s tenth life (the one our characters currently reside) in Powers of X #4, we see Charles Xavier and Magneto pay a visit to Bar Sinister (Sinister’s island hideout populated by an army of Sinister clones) armed with the knowledge of Moira’s previous lives (or at least the information she was willing to share). This takes place long before the two are supposed to have even been aware of Sinister, so we are already seeing a retcon from Hickman when it comes to X-Men history. Xavier and Magneto are here to make an offer to the lead Sinister: they will provide him with DNA samples of every mutant that they ever locate as long as he will maintain a genetic database for all of mutantkind that they will use in the future once they’ve found a way to resurrect dead mutants. This is where we learn that one of the many Sinisters here has the mutant X gene (in the past, Sinister had always been a human who was obsessed with mutants but was not actually a mutant himself). This mutant Sinister assassinates the current Sinister in charge and agrees to the deal. Xavier promptly wipes Sinister’s memory of this meeting so that Sinister will think he is creating this database of his own accord. Thinking you can manipulate a master manipulator is probably (definitely) not a good idea. Moira is appalled when she learns that this has happened. She knows from her previous lives that Sinister cannot be trusted. On top of that, Sinister is appointed a seat on the Quiet Council of Krakoa in present day. Now he has the authority to make decisions on the governing body of the mutant nation-state. Yikes.
Hellions
Sinister’s first big assignment as a member of the Quiet Council is to manage a team of mutants being rehabilitated in order to rejoin Krakoan society in Hellions by Zeb Wells and Stephen Segovia. Unsurprisingly, Sinister is less concerned with the wellbeing of this team than he is with using them to advance his own agenda. That agenda seems to be to keep increasing his mutant genetic database and begin producing Chimeras. The “X of Swords” event creates an opportunity for Sinister to speed up his quest in Hellions #6. He leads his team (or is it just a clone of himself?) into the realm of Amenth under the pretense of wanting to expedite the end of the conflict by assassinating the leadership of Arakko. In actuality, Sinister just wants the opportunity to gather the genetic material from a whole new population of mutants. He succeeds in gathering genetic samples from the equally monstrous Tarn and his Locus Vile, but he does so at great cost to himself (or is it a clone of himself?). Left for dead, the original Sinister back on Krakoa (or is this one the clone?) kills the surviving Hellions to cover his tracks and begins work on creating a Chimera that combines his own DNA with that of Tarn. This plan ultimately fails when Tarn attacks his base of operations with the Locus Vile in Hellions #13-15 (and the Sinister that was left for dead now part of his cadre). Eventually his lab and all of his work is destroyed thanks to Empath who was a mole working on behalf of Emma Frost. Despite this setback, Sinister has clearly made progress on his Chimera project.
X-Men and S.W.O.R.D.
Following the status quo shift of Planet-Size X-Men #1 by Gerry Duggan and Pepe Larraz in which mutantkind successfully colonized Mars and handed it over to the mutant nation of Arakko, the mutants of Krakoa had painted an even larger target on their backs than ever before. In the pages of X-Men by Gerry Duggan and Pepe Larraz, this meant drawing the attention of a faction of the mutant-hating organization Orchis led by a scientist named Doctor Stasis. Little is known about Stasis in the early issues of the series other than he is a brilliant geneticist who has created human-animal hybrids to serve as his personal security detail and soldiers that he refers to as Chimeras. Sounds familiar. Put a pin in that for now.
Another individual paying close attention to the mutants on Mars at the behest of Orchis is longtime X-Men villain Henry Peter Gyrich in the pages of S.W.O.R.D. by Al Ewing and Valerio Schiti. Gyrich is searching for potential allies that are willing to assist Orchis with their goal to crush Krakoa and Arakko. Two individuals in particular appear receptive to him: Abigail Brand (traitor!) and Orbis Stellaris. For the purposes of this piece, Orbis Stellaris is the one of note. We as readers are told very little about this individual. They appear as a giant golden metallic orb, and we are told they are 189 years old in human years. They serve as a representative of the Galactic Rim Collective that resides on the furthest reaches of the galaxy. They seem to be observing what the mutants are doing with keen scientific interest, and they are more than happy to assemble mercenary units to try and cause chaos on Mars/Arakko and collect the data with the blessing of Orchis. When Brand eventually assassinates Gyrich in order to supplant him within Orchis, Orbis Stellaris is more than happy to continue the partnership with Brand. Put a pin in that for now. We will come back to that.
Immortal X-Men, X-Men, and X-Men Red
For as much attention as Sinister has received in the various X-Men titles thus far, Immortal X-Men by Kieron Gillen and Lucas Werneck is where Sinister and his agenda really take center stage. The very first issue of the series opens in Paris in 1919. Sitting on a park bench looking exceptionally dapper is Mister Sinister. Joining him is the mutant precog known as Destiny. After a brief chat, she whispers something into his ear. Sinister immediately has some sort of attack with black liquid pouring from his eyes and mouth. He collapses on the ground repeating the same phrase over and over again until he dies: “You’re a ghost.” Ominous!
We then flash forward to present day where Sinister (very much alive) is essentially narrating what is going to happen before it actually happens. Sinister isn’t a precog last I checked, so this seems odd. How is he doing this? We get the answer at the end of the issue. Sinister has what could be described as a cloning farm in which he has multiple clones of Moira X in large containment tanks. Moira’s mutant ability is that her death triggers the destruction of the entire universe which then begins anew when she is reincarnated. What Sinister has essentially done is create a bunch of save points by creating multiple clones of Moira and artificially aging them up so that their mutant abilities kick in almost immediately. If Sinister goes through a period of time where things don’t go as he wishes, he can find a Moira clone that coincides with the point in time when he believes things went wrong, kill that clone, and basically reset the universe to that point in time with all of his memories intact to try something else and alter the future in his favor. This is a horrifying power for a man with no moral compass whatsoever to hold. Later in Immortal X-Men #3, Destiny becomes alarmed when her precognitive abilities reveal multiple potential futures that end abruptly. Normally a potential future she sees winds on indefinitely, but the ones she sees now are all finite. They’ll progress to a specific point in time and then completely cease to exist. The one thing all of these futures seem to have in common is that Sinister features prominently. Destiny, being the clever person that she is, figures out that Sinister is manipulating the universe by using Moira clones. She elects to keep this knowledge close to the vest so as not to tip him off.
Meanwhile in the pages of X-Men #11, Cyclops and Doctor Stasis are squaring up to go mano a mano. After a sufficiently vicious fight, Cyclops uses his optic blasts to shatter Doctor Stasis’s helmet. Doctor Stasis is revealed to be an interesting new variation of Mister Sinister. Whereas every previous incarnation of Sinister has had a red diamond on his forehead, this one has a clubs symbol like from a deck of playing cards. Very curious. Do Sinisters come in four suits? I suspect we will soon find out. Doctor Stasis escapes capture, but now Cyclops has knowledge worth sharing with the Quiet Council. Specifically, he shares this information psychically with Emma.
Back in Immortal X-Men #4, Emma is delighted to be able to share this latest development with the rest of the Quiet Council and humiliate Sinister in the process. Sinister reacts exactly how you would expect: by making a big scene and fleeing while using a myriad of preposterous genetically engineered gimmicks to try and escape. Before any resolution to the situation could occur, Sinister is abducted by some Eternals as a prelude to the “A.X.E. Judgment Day” event. I’m not sure if anything came out of that event that will directly impact “Sins of Sinister,” but it does seem noteworthy that Sinister himself was never judged in that event when virtually every character in Marvel continuity was. My personal prediction is that only the original Sinister was judged, and the one we’ve been following since the ‘80s ain’t the original. We shall see.
Once “A.X.E. Judgment Day” ends, we’re treated to an interesting flashback story in Immortal X-Men #8. The issue opens in 1943 with Mystique infiltrating a military base in New Mexico where experiments are being conducted on mutant children. Destiny is already present and explains Sinister is running the program as part of his goal to catalog as much mutant DNA as possible (meaning he was doing this long before his meeting with Xavier and Magneto in Powers of X #4), but there is more to it than that. Sinister is attempting to hide his DNA signature within specific mutant lineages including Xavier’s own that would allow him to take over their bodies with a psychic broadcast in the event of his death. This is something Sinister had tried way back in X-Men: Legacy #212-214 by Mike Carey and Scot Eaton. As Destiny mentions in her mini recap of those issues using her precognitive abilities, it doesn’t end well for Sinister.
From there we flash even further back in time to London in 1895. At this point in time, Mystique and Destiny are using their abilities to make themselves private investigators (the implication being they are the inspiration for Sherlock and Watson). They begin looking into the recent beating and near murder of a man named Dr. Nathaniel Essex. We learn that Essex is a brilliant biologist studying a new gene mutation he has discovered and dubbed “Essex Factors.” These genes give people extraordinary abilities. Essex refers to anyone with these abilities as “Essex-Men.” I’m starting to think this guy might be a bit of a narcissist. After interviewing Essex, the two set out to try and find his mysterious attacker. They succeed in locating him only to discover that the white-skinned monster that has been terrorizing London is Essex’s alter ego, Mister Sinister.
It seems that Essex transforms into Sinister due to gifts bestowed upon him by Apocalypse (as revealed in The Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix by Peter Milligan and John Paul Leon way back in 1996). The implication here is that Dr. Essex and Mister Sinister is the basis for Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde, so that’s fun. Essex reveals to Destiny and Mystique that he believes wars of unimaginable death and destruction await in the twentieth century (he called that one), but the twenty-first century will bring even worse horrors in the form of artificial intelligence (or “the gears of clockwork minds” as he puts it in nineteenth century speech). Essex predicts that a war between mutants and machines is inevitable, and he intends to be on the side of the mutants. Again, he is nailing these predictions. Destiny and Mystique view him as a lunatic and have him committed to an asylum for his troubles. While there, someone visits him in his cell. Whoever this person is, it causes Essex to have some sort of seizure while first saying “red and black, red and black, red and black” repeatedly before morphing into “you’re a ghost” repeatedly and dying (much like he did in Paris in 1919). The issue ends with Destiny exploring Essex’s home and finding a hidden area where four large tanks are held. Above each one is a diamond, a club, a heart, and a spade, and all four tanks have been broken open and emptied. Uh oh.
Meanwhile in X-Men Red #8-10, a strike team led by Cable has ventured out to the edges of the galaxy to deal with Orbis Stellaris while a second group stays back on Mars to deal with Brand. Here we learn that the almost godlike beings known as the Progenitors are actually creations of Orbis Stellaris, and they are the ones responsible for corrupting Vulcan. After a pitched battle, Orbis Stellaris is defeated by Cable doing a really big punch. As we all know, that is the main weakness for giant metallic orbs. Cable and his cohorts don’t stick around to see what happened to Orbis Stellaris afterwards. This was a mistake as the orb opens up to reveal that Mister Sinister resides inside. However, this isn’t just any Mister Sinister. This one has a spade on his forehead. For those keeping track at home, we now have three different Sinisters accounted for: Diamond Sinister is the one we’ve known about since the ‘80s, Club Sinister is Doctor Stasis, and Spade Sinister is Orbis Stellaris. Only Heart Sinister remains hidden.
Back in Immortal X-Men #9-10, Diamond Sinister is preparing to execute his master plan. I mean execute quite literally. He wants to assassinate the other members of the Quiet Council starting with Hope. It should be easy enough. Just shield himself from psychic attacks, waltz on in, and shoot her. Unfortunately, he did not properly account for Destiny’s precognitive abilities. As soon as he shows up, Destiny tells Exodus that Sinister plans to kill Hope, and Exodus kills Sinister. Sinister did plan for failure; however, and he installed a failsafe that triggers the death of a Moira clone in the event of his own death. This triggers the annihilation of the universe, and Sinister is returned to the moment just prior to his assassination attempt armed with the knowledge of what went wrong the previous time. It turns out Sinister might not be the brilliant strategist he thinks he is because he dies A LOT. Per his own notes, he dies at least nine times trying to pull this off. Embarrassing. Eventually he does put together a successful plan using the cloned brains of Charles Xavier to incapacitate and kill Hope, Xavier, Emma, and Exodus all in one fell swoop. He then immediately flees the scene. The surviving members of the Quiet Council use Synch to emulate Hope’s powers in order to resurrect Hope, then Hope resurrects Xavier, Emma, and Exodus. With the Quiet Council restored, they begin the pursuit of Sinister. Despite his many tricks and traps to try and stave off capture, he is eventually taken prisoner. As punishment for his crimes, he is dropped into Krakoa’s pit of exile to dwell in purgatory for all of eternity. It’s a fitting punishment for a monstrous person. As the issue concludes, Xavier stands alone in his quarters and removes his Cerebro helmet. Emblazoned on his forehead is a large red diamond.
Uh oh! It would seem that all of this was part of Sinister’s plan. How did he corrupt Xavier this time? Who else has also been corrupted? And what does Sinister have planned with the most powerful telepath on the planet under his control? I can promise that it will not be anything good, but the only way to know for sure is to pick up an issue of Sins of Sinister #1 when it goes on sale tomorrow.