Immortal X-Men #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
IMMORTAL X-MEN #8
“Part 8: The Curious Case of Dr Essex and Mr Sinister”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Michele Bandini
Colourist: Davie Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller, Jay Bowen & Kieron Gillen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1: An ageing photo of Irene and Raven in Victorian times.
PAGE 2. Data page – a quote supposedly from Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). “Fate is the word cowards use to describe the things they’re too weak to change.”
It comes from X-Men Legacy #214, in which Mr Sinister attempted to take over Professor X’s body, in a scheme which is referred to later in the issue. Sinister claims that, because of his tinkering with Xavier’s DNA, Xavier is fated to become his new body; Xavier defeats him, delivering the line and attributing it to Nietzsche. In fact, I can’t find any reference to this quote on Google that isn’t either referring to the X-Men Legacy issue, or including it in a list of inspirational quotes that seems to postdate the Legacy issue. (The inspirational version has it as “things we’re too weak to change.”)
Here, of course, the quote takes on a context of referring to Destiny, whose very name is an ironic contradiction of the fact that she devotes her life to trying to use her foreknowledge of the future to alter it.
PAGE 3-5. 1943. Mystique breaks into Alamagordo.
Alamagordo. Alamagordo is a city in New Mexico, but the local air force base was also the site of the world’s first nuclear test, in 1945. X-Men #12 (1965) establishes that Professor X’s father worked there, the original idea being to imply that Professor X had become one of the first mutants as a result of his father’s exposure to radiation.
Since that no longer works under the sliding timeline, various Fabian Nicieza stories in the 1990s retconned Alamagordo into having hidden secrets and being a site of early mutant experimentation. We’ll come back to some of the details of that.
“It’s strange to think that even when we were together, we were so often apart.” Mystique – whose spotlight issue this is – is acknowledging that even though she and Destiny have been a couple since the 19th century, they spent long stretches doing their own thing, presumably thanks to Destiny’s determination to follow up something that she believed could steer destiny. This seems like an attempt to square the idea that they were a couple of a century with the large number of stories that show Mystique active solo (for example, in Wolverine’s back story).
PAGES 6-8. 1943: Mystique confronts Destiny.
Mystique is appalled to learn that Destiny has become involved in eugenic experimentation on mutant children. Destiny seems to agree that this is all very bad, and would presumably argue that she isn’t morally culpable because it was going to happen anyway; at the same time, she insists that the work Mr Sinister is carrying out will ultimately benefit all mutants. Presumably, that’s because it enables Mr Sinister to perform his part of the resurrection system – which will ultimately lead to Destiny being resurrected on Krakoa.
Amanda Mueller, the Black Womb, is a recurring villain from the aforementioned Fabian Nicieza stories. Destiny’s involvement in her projects was previously established in X-Men Forever #4 (2001), which isn’t on Unlimited yet. In that story, she’s still hanging around late enough to show Juggernaut’s father around when he starts working at the project. Mystique was also breaking in to find out what the hell Destiny was up to in that story as well.
Mueller was already established to be linked to Mr Sinister.
“He’s going to hide his DNA in certain individuals…” This is the plot of X-Men Legacy #214. Obviously, the Shaw and Xavier families need no introduction in this series. Marko is the Juggernaut’s family; his father was established at working in Alamagordo back in 1965. The Ryking family were also involved in the Alamagordo project in Nicieza’s stories; their son Carter Ryking (Hazard) showed up in X-Men #12 (1992) but never really took root. The Sullivan family isn’t ringing any obvious bells.
PAGE 9. Recap and credits. The title is a reference to The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894).
PAGE 10. 1895. Mystique and Destiny in Victorian London.
Obviously, the idea here is that Mystique was Sherlock Holmes, who isn’t going to be named outright; and that Destiny was the brains of the operation. Destiny is named after Irene Adler, a character from the short story “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891), where she’s a criminal admired by Holmes for her intellect; a lot of fanfic tries to reinterpret her as a love interest.
Destiny is presumably joking when she says that she can’t read the newspapers, because she’s normally been shown as de facto able to perceive the world around her simply by having visions of the very near future. But perhaps those visions aren’t specific enough to let her read text.
PAGE 11. Data page: a newspaper clipping about Essex’s attack.
We find out later that Sinister is the “attacker”, but has a split personality at this point.
Saucy Jack is one of the names for Jack the Ripper, coming from a postcard sent to the Central News Agency in 1885, purportedly from the killer – though it may or may not have been a hoax. The Jack the Ripper killings took place in 1888, though some murders in the following years have also been attributed to the killer. By the time of this story, the killings had been over for years on any view.
PAGES 12-13. 1895: Mystique and Destiny meet Nathaniel Essex.
Sinister’s wife died, and he had himself transformed by Apocalypse in order to remove his emotions and become more objective, in the Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix miniseries (1996). His term “Essex Factors”, to describe the mutant gene, also comes from that book.
PAGES 14-17. 1895: Mystique confronts Mr Sinister.
The idea that Mystique’s clothes are part of her body isn’t new (though traditionally, she defaults to her costume when knocked unconscious).
The Jekyll & Hyde angle with Mr Sinister is new, but makes sense as a way of squaring the repressed scientist of Further Adventures with the hyper-camp villain from Gillen’s take. On this view, Apocalypse didn’t remove the emotional side of Sinister, but split it off into a deranged personality.
PAGES 18-20. 1895: Essex explains himself.
“An ancient Essex-Man came to me…” Apocalypse, in Further Adventures. The bit about Apocalypse giving him great power is true. The part about trying to escape him is somewhat true: Sinister rapidly decided that Apocalypse was a lunatic and started trying to subvert his schemes. Apocalypse interpreted that as a laudable show of strength, warned him not to do it again, and then just left, declaring that he’d be back some day.
The timeline here is a little odd. In terms of narrative logic, this seems to be intended to fill the gap between Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix and the time travel arc in Gambit vol 3 #13-14, by which point Essex is a doctor in New York. But that story is set in 1891. If you really want to take the dates literally, I suppose it’s possible that he comes back again.
Charles Babbage. Essex is anticipating the rise of artificial intelligence, which (along with posthumanity) is one of the core threats of the Krakoan era. So, from the perspective of most of the Quiet Council, Victorian Essex was actually right. It’s not clear at this stage how Destiny feels about this, but she seems at least motivated to keep him around in some form, even if she rationalises it as giving him another chance.
“The Byron daughter.” Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), sometimes credited as the first computer programmer, who worked with Babbage on his Difference Engine. Her father was the poet Byron. For some reason Essex refers to them here as active (“she is a genius, as is he, but the machines they are birthing…”). However, they were both long dead by the 1890s.
“We must be on the same side.” Irene flatly rejects the idea at this point, but in a flashback in issue #1 she approaches him in 1919 and tells him that “I think we need to be on the same side.”
PAGES 21-22. 1895: The death of Essex.
Well, this is all very mysterious.
Considering that this is Mystique’s spotlight issue, she’s somewhat marginalised by being kept out of the loop of what Destiny’s really thinking. But obviously that’s part of the point – Mystique gets things done but she’s not really party to all of the schemes.
PAGES 23-24. 1895: Destiny in Essex’s basement.
Sinister has apparently created four clones of himself, one with each of the suit symbols. (The diamond symbol was given to the original Sinister by Apocalypse in Further Adventures.) The suggestion seems to be that the familiar Sinister is the one with the diamond; the club Sinister is Dr Stasis, who insists that he’s the real one and is at least no less real than the others; and there are two other Sinister variants that we haven’t met yet.
PAGE 25. Trailers.
“But that story is set in 1891. If you really want to take the dates literally, I suppose it’s possible that he comes back again.”
The problem is that Essex takes Courier’s powers in that story, and he doesn’t seem to have them in this one.
Sinister said that the other two clones were focused on space and magic.The preview for X-Men Red 10 reads “a sinister hand deals the Ace of Spades”. So, the spades sinister is the space one- probably Orbis Stellaris.
Then the hearts sinister is the magic one. But who can that be? Maybe Mother Righteous? I assumed she was some sort of demon but maybe she’s a Sinister disguised by a spell of illusion. (Although that does raise the question of why a Sinister would want “thanks”.) If not Mother Righteous, who could it be?
He was Baron Mordo all along.
Michael says: Then the hearts sinister is the magic one. But who can that be? Maybe Mother Righteous? I assumed she was some sort of demon but maybe she’s a Sinister disguised by a spell of illusion. (Although that does raise the question of why a Sinister would want “thanks”.) If not Mother Righteous, who could it be?
Well, there is that old, discredited fan theory that S’ym + Nastirh = Sinister (“Symnastirh”).
More seriously, it’s hard to see a candidate other than Mother Righteous. We’ve already had Miss Sinister, so it’s not too much of a leap.
Or maybe there’ll be some kind of twist with Madelyne Pryor in the “Dark Web” storyline? She’s a creation of Sinister and already associated with magic, so maybe the heart Sinister usurped her body in similar fashion to the way the “original” diamond Sinister tried to do to Claudine Renko?
@Michael: I think you mean the solicit for X-Men Red 10, we don’t have a preview for that issue yet. I agree with you though, I’ve speculated here that Orbis Stellaris is an Essex variant for some time. The clues fit: originally from Earth, an expertise in cloning, has criminal intent.
Where are you getting space and magic from? Is this from Essex’s conversation with Adler? I’m not sure about Mother Righteous. On one hand, she certainly fits as a Essex variant who ventured into the astral plane. On the other hand, she has red skin instead of white and ‘Righteous’ doesn’t fit with Sinister, Stasis, Stellaris.
My theory for Mother Righteous has always been that she is a mutant devil figure who manifested once Nightcrawler’s new religion gained enough followers. The human Abrahamic religions have Mephisto as their devil figure, the mutant Spark religion has Mother Righteous. That said, I’m open to her being a Essex variant as well.
My theory for the Essex of Hearts was Gambit, who’s long been connected to Essex. He was abandoned as a baby due to his ‘burning red eyes and pale white skin’, only to be adopted by the Thieves’ Guild. He might be the one Essex variant who overcame his genetic predisposition for evil and became good.
@GN-Essex mentions four paths in his discussion with Destiny- humans, mutants, “science of the stars” and “science-tamed superstition”. Stasis and Sinister are humans and mutants. Stellaris is probably “science of the stars”. So the last one is “science-tamed superstition”, or in other words, magic.
With the general vagueness of Sinister’s powers over the years, and the fact that he’s a clone of a clone of a clone of…And the fact that there’s also a Miss Sinister, and the multiple bodies where ONE is a mutant, I really don’t think we needed a Jekyll & Hyde element as well. Also disappointing then if the other card suits are just more clones. I was hoping the other 3 somehow came about when he first became Sinister, unknown to him even then. Would have made their claim(s) to be the real deal more interesting.
I don’t think there’s a candidate other than Righteous, so if it’s a reveal, it’s her. She has a mask, too, which can imply that there’s something about her identity to hide.
Importantly, and why I do think it’s Righteous even though I can’t really figure out what the heck is going on in the book, is that Sinister means “on the left side” — and Righteous, of course, would be the other side. It also follows the two name convention — Mr. Sinister, Dr. Stasis, Mother Righteous, Orbis Stellaris.
Disappointing spotlight for Mystique who does nothing but ride shotgun while Destiny does all the driving, with no additional insights gained into the character. This one and Emma’s issue rank at the bottom for me so far in what has otherwise been a sterling series.
I really loved this issue and everything that it filled in from the past and set up for the future… a dense read that develops significantly the primary story Gillen is telling us. However, as a “Mystique spotlight” issue, it doesn’t work, for the reasons MoonstarD states above.
I think the best way to look at it is that each issue is only a character spotlight when it suits the larger story. It won’t be the case every time. Gillen’s even said he’ll outright drop the rotating narrator convention if there’s an issue he can’t find a way to make it work.
@Mathias X: A mask that does cover her forehead… okay, you’ve got me pretty convinced Mother Righteous is a Sinister. Her chest window is even in a vague heart shape. Though I’m bit surprised the character who talks like Dick Van Dyke in “Mary Poppins” might be an actual Londoner.
I do wonder how the timeline for Sinister in World War II fits together. It’s been established Essex was working with Josef Mengele, and in our universe, those started in 1943. Meanwhile the Alamagordo flashback is also set in 1943. Though I supposed that’s not really an issue for a man who clones himself.
To be fair to the issue I think the lack of Mystique insight is intentional.
When Raven’s with Destiny she’s basically just her muscle, having very little of her own agency.
It fits with what we’ve seen from the Destiny pov.
It might be love, but it’s not an equal partnership.
I loved this issue for the positives already mentioned here. But I wanted to highlight Bandini’s art. The backgrounds are a little sparse, but the characters – the facial expressions – are great. The smiles Mystique and Destiny give each other – whether it’s Irene greeting Raven in Alamagordo or Mystique teasing Destiny back in London.
I don’t know if I’ve seen Mystique drawn so genuinely happy before. It’s cute.
Another thing – Gillen draws so much attention to the Carey storyline (Sins of the Father, was it?) that it would be weird if it wasn’t setting something up. Maybe this mysterious Sullivan will be important. Or maybe Miss Sinister will be back – she comes from that arc, after all, and she’s, um, possessed by Sinister’s genes, after all. But she’s independent from him, which breaks the 4 card suits pattern in a way.
Then again the diamond Sinisters were killing each other anyway, so maybe that’s not important after all.
I’m hardly well versed on Sinister, but I am fairly certain that at one point in HoXPoX’s flashbacks we saw him being obliterated and substituted by one of his own clones which claimed to be the mutant version of Sinister.
No idea of how or if that fits with anything else.
I wonder if the “Sullivan” line mentioned resulted in Annie Sullivan, Jean Grey’s friend who died and triggered her telepathy? That was the memory Madelyn Pryor used to prove to Sinister she was real.
Uncanny X-Ben, the odd thing is that’s pretty much the opposite of how Claremont wrote them. In those books, I always got the feeling that Mystique was the one laying out the course of action while Destiny was providing support. Maybe it’s how their relationship evolved over time, maybe it’s because Irene stepped back as she got older.
I suppose that Destiny’s longevity is part of her secondary mutation? I think the Marvel Handbook mentioned the possibility, but I don’t think it’s ever been definitively stated.
I am disappointed that it doesn’t look like any of the Sinister card suits uses Claremont’s original idea of having Sinister be physically a kid whose mutation prevented him from growing up. “Magic comes at a cost, and that is why I look like I’m thirteen” or something like that.
While Immortal is going through the Quiet Council, I really think the line could be reorganized to have all of the QC get their own book, or had a book about them to get better into their thought processes. To fit some of the older series in this, Apocalypse had Excalibur, Sinister had Hellions, Emma has Marauders, Storm and Magneto have/had X-men Red. Give us a Destiny/Mystique led book and give Claremont first rights of refusal for it; I think he deserves a shot at writing Marvel’s first lesbian couple that he wanted to in the 80s but couldn’t because of the times.
Luis-Xavier and Magneto contacted Sinister against Moira’s advice. Xavier and Magneto discovered that Sinister (this was the diamond version with what we now know) had created a colony. The “prime” Sinister (but only of the diamonds we now know) told Xavier that he had no interest in helping mutants. That Sinister was killed by one of the clones who said he had the X-gene and would be very interested in helping Xavier with his plans (which part was to collect a sample of the DNA for every mutant). At this point, Xavier mindwipes this Sinister, telling him he will be driven to create a catalogue for the DNA of every mutant, but he won’t remember why he is obsessed to pursue this goal. Sometime after this point, that “prime” Sinister is killed by another Sinister who, realizing that his mind has been tampered with by Xavier, replaces the Sinister that Xavier mindwiped. This means that the Sinisters had been aware of Xavier and Magneto’s plans for Krakoa the entire time, unbeknownst by Xavier.
Hickman most likely had plans for this revelation, and maybe something will still come of this plotpoint, but it seems like this has mostly been forgotten since Hickman left.
I will say that I enjoyed seeing Mystique playing second fiddle to Destiny. To me it shows that Destiny is the one and only person Mystique respects enough to let that happen. It would have been nice to get a little more insight on Raven on the issue, but I enjoyed this dynamic at least.
“had created a colony”.
– Which he then does again with the Celestial thing.
“told Xavier that he had no interest in helping mutants”.
– Yet his origin is all about mutants, and this issue has him talking about ‘Essex-men’ and Darwin, and in Origin II he’s looking for mutants. All decades before he meets Xavier.
Dave-It’s true that Hickman’s ret-cons don’t always make sense in light of prior continuity. I think the issue with Hickman’s portrayal of “prime” Sinister (and this doesn’t work with later revelations like Origin II) was that Claremont’s original usage of Sinister seemed to point towards him favouring a human victory in the looming human/mutant war. This does work with his eventual origin as antagonistic towards (and fearful of) Apocalypse. It seemed that Claremont was positioning Sinister’s goal as to turn mutants into weapons under the control of different world governments (“merchandise”) rather than wanting to see mutants succeed in becoming the dominant species (ala Apocalypse). In that sense, Sinister was deeply interested in mutants but would not care about helping the mutant cause.
It also ties in to Sinister’s actions during Moira’s Life Nine where he sabotages Krakoa and defects to the man/machine supremacy side. This seems in line with prior characterization of Sinister, where he may care more about seeing the eventual endpoint of post-humanity rather than natural evolution (Essex wasn’t a mutant, but was basically a post-human after Apocalypse’s experiments).
@Michael: Yeah, that makes sense. Si Spurrier said on Gillen’s podcast that the MR character went through many, many different names before he settled on the current one. Her being an Essex variant could be why.
@Omar Karindu: The problem with Pryor and Renko is that they’re both creations of Mister Sinister (Diamond Essex). Pyror was Sinister’s failed attempt to clone Jean Grey’s Omega-level psychic abilities. Renko was a body-hopping experiment that was quasi-successful. The Heart Essex we’re looking for is one who was created in parallel to Mister Sinister, not as a result of his schemes.
Here’s how I see the Essex variants so far:
Diamond > Mister Sinister > genetic experiments on mutants > mutant chimeras
Club > Doctor Stasis > genetic experiments on animals > animal chimeras
Spade > Orbis Stellaris > genetic experiments on aliens
Heart > Mother Righteous? Gambit? > ?
One other point about Sinister in HoXPoX – when Xavier’s summons to all the baddies goes out, Krakoan Sinister is shown standing over a pile of Sinister bodies, including what appear to be Gillen’s Sinister from UXM v2 and Sinister-Classic.
I always thought the female Sinister should be called “Sister Sinister.”
Is Mother Righteous another Sinister? The clues are there (Righteous as opposed to Sinister, the covered face). I’ve heard the theory that she’s the “Sinister of the Astral Plane.” That’s possible. Maybe she’s a Sinister of magic? Between her monkey’s paw-like actions with demands of thanks and her merging Banshee with a Ghost Rider-esque spirit, that’s the way I’m leaning. If Apocalypse comes back, that could make for a fun showdown.
@Sam: Claremont’s Kid Sinister would have been hiding behind an illusion of Regular Sinister, so it’s not impossible that one of the other Essexes (Esseces?) is doing likewise. But while it would be a fun reference, it’s way too late to restore the reason behind it, which is that a guy who looks like a black-armoured disco vampire and calls himself “Mr Sinister” is exactly what a child would think is a good supervillain design.
So…
Heart > Mother Righteous > spiritual/magical/astral chimeras?
I’ve been reading through the original Power Man and Iron Fist series, and there’s a character very much like Claremont’s original concept for Mister Sinister. Captain Hero, who himself is a riff on Captain Marvel. He’s a child who has absolute control over all the molecules of his body, which he uses to become an adult “superhero”, but still with the mind of a child. This was 1984-85, a couple of years before Sinister. There’s differences, like Sinister was supposed to be stuck as a child, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that was the inspiration.
It’s crazy how this multiple Sinister idea echoes what is happening with Dr Vegapunk in One Piece.
@Si: That character was later retconned to be the Super-Skrull.
Matt C: I wonder if the “Sullivan” line mentioned resulted in Annie Sullivan, Jean Grey’s friend who died and triggered her telepathy?
No. Jean’s friend was named Annie Richardson.
I always thought the female Sinister should be called “Sister Sinister.”
Hmm. That’s too good a name to waste on that character, really.
Annie Sullivan is a different character. She had the power to enable communication by touch as well as increase another person’s knowledge.
Was this person Annie helped named Helen Keller, by any chance?
Yes. Annie Sullivan’s X-gene status is unconfirmed, but I have my suspicions.
This is extremely puerile to focus on, but how come Sinister gets to run around with his bum out and there are no strategically placed shadows or pieces of debris to cover him? That’s not how Marvel usually does bums.
@Karl_H
Makes sense. I think the current Banshee/Ghost Rider could be a good example of an “Astral/magical chimera”.
Two entities, one of them seemingly a version of a spirit, smooshed together on the Astral Plane as a result of a bargain with Mother Righteous.