{"id":8994,"date":"2023-04-28T23:14:54","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T22:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8994"},"modified":"2023-04-28T23:14:54","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T22:14:54","slug":"sins-of-sinister-dominion-1-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8994","title":{"rendered":"Sins of Sinister: Dominion #1 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>SINS OF SINISTER: DOMINION #1<\/strong>
\n“Sins of Sinister, part 11: \u221e Deadly Sins”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Kieron Gillen<\/strong>
\nArtists: Paco Medina & Lucas Werneck<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Bryan Valenza<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Mr Sinister in prayer – the present-day version, not the far-future one.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.\u00a0<\/strong>The Storm System, 1000 years in the future.<\/em><\/p>\n

This establishing shot joins the action at page 11 of\u00a0Nightcrawlers<\/em> #3. As Vox Ignis explained in that story, the Spirits of Vengeance (who left Earth early on) have possessed Galactus, fuelled by his rage at what Sinister has done to the universe.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.\u00a0<\/strong>Sinister and Moira talk.<\/em><\/p>\n

So far as these characters are concerned, we’re picking up from\u00a0Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants<\/em> #3, which ended with Sinister shooting Jon Ironfire through the head. Moira’s absence was noted by Sinister in that issue, but it wasn’t clear that he was in radio contact with her. (There’s no contradiction, though, because Sinister doesn’t know where she is.)<\/p>\n

The dead characters lying on the ground around Ironfire are Bloodroot<\/strong> (the red one),\u00a0Old Oda<\/strong> (the bird) and\u00a0Genas Mind-Flayer<\/strong> (the furry guy in the hood). Not that it really matters at this stage.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“Any luck in changing Ironfire’s mind about that?”<\/strong> Sinister was indeed arguing vigorously in\u00a0SatBoM\u00a0<\/em>#3 for access to the lab.<\/p>\n

“Emma’s fashionably<\/strong> dead.” <\/strong>Killed by Storm in\u00a0SatBoM<\/em> #3.<\/p>\n

“Destiny’s message.”<\/b> Received by Sinister in\u00a0Immoral X-Men<\/em> #3.<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.\u00a0<\/strong>Juggernaut impacts the planet.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is Sinister’s perspective on the scene that we already saw in\u00a0Nightcrawlers<\/em> #3. In that issue, we saw that it (nearly) lowered the force field around the Worldfarm, allowing Mother Righteous to finish the job and get in. Here, we see that it lowers the forcefield around Sinister’s stolen lab, containing the Moira clones.<\/p>\n

PAGES 5-6.\u00a0<\/strong>Ironfire fights Sinister.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I need to upload my data.”<\/strong> For anyone joining us late, Sinister’s whole scheme with the Moira clones is that each time he gives up and resets the timeline, he sends back a record of what happened, so that he knows what to repeat and what to avoid in the next timeline.<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.\u00a0<\/strong>The Beast makes his way to the Worldfarm.<\/em><\/p>\n

The<\/strong>\u00a0Beast <\/strong>was shown in\u00a0Immoral X-Men<\/em> #3 as essentially a lackey of Emma Frost – but perhaps he was just cowering in her presence, since everyone seems to be accepting him here as having some degree of authority. At any rate, he’s clearly moved in to fill the void.<\/p>\n

“Mother Empress.”<\/strong> Emma Frost. This might just be the Stepford Cuckoo clones’ term for Emma, since the original Cuckoos were cloned from her.<\/p>\n

“We fight for our very existence.”<\/strong> The Beast is actually right – Sinister and Moira are both proposing to wipe out the timeline.<\/p>\n

PAGE 9-11. <\/strong>Professor X learns what’s happening, and takes command.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is apparently the prime Professor X (through a series of resurrections, obviously); the “lotus-eaters” we saw in\u00a0Immoral X-Men<\/em> #3 are presumably some of his followers. He seems to be engaged in some sort of demented programme of imposing “serenity” by force, consistent with this Professor’s approach of forcing his dream on people. The monks all have Sinister diamonds on their foreheads, so presumably they’re helping to power him up somewhere.<\/p>\n

Of course, Professor X knows perfectly well what the significance of Moira clones would be, because he’s been aware of her timeline-reset powers all along.<\/p>\n

“Nothing can stop an idea.”<\/strong> Referencing the maxim “Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come”, which seems to have started life as a loose paraphrase of Victor Hugo. (What he actually said was more along the lines of “You can resist invading armies, but you can’t resist an invasion of ideas.”)<\/p>\n

PAGES 12-14.\u00a0<\/strong>Sinister and Ironfire react to Professor X’s attack.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I did have an Omega psychic…”<\/strong> Rasputin IV, who he betrayed in\u00a0Immoral X-Men<\/em> #3. She’s a chimera whose powers include Quentin Quire psychic abilities.<\/p>\n

“Regrets. I’ve had a few.”<\/strong> Sinister is quoting \u00a0“My Way.”<\/p>\n

“I should look the part.”<\/strong> Ironfire is using his powers to make a helmet that resembles the late Magneto’s.<\/p>\n

“Magneto’s old trick.”<\/strong> Magneto’s helmet was often attributed with shielding him from telepathy, which was generally supposed to be something to do with hidden circuitry or something like that. In this version it seems to be attributed to a shielding property of the metal itself, which Ironfire can mimic with his powers.<\/p>\n

“Lifted from Juggernaut, of course.”<\/strong> Juggernaut’s helmet had the same trick. Both are basically fixes for the obvious problem of “why doesn’t Professor X just think everyone into submission in the first panel”.<\/p>\n

“I wish we had more time to become acquainted.”<\/strong> It seems like we’ll be seeing more of Ironfire in the present day in\u00a0X-Men: Red<\/em> once it resumes.<\/p>\n

“With my Moira engine, he’ll be unstoppable.”<\/strong> Presumably because Xavier will be able to try out alternative timelines in the same way that Sinister planned to. Not that it did him any good, of course. But Sinister’s ego doesn’t allow for the plan failing.<\/p>\n

PAGES 15-16.\u00a0<\/strong>Ironfire fights Professor X.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Erik?”<\/strong> Professor X senses a connection with Magneto, probably just the use of the same metal. Ironfire quickly disavows being the same person.<\/p>\n

“He was right.”<\/strong> Referencing the old “Magneto was right” slogan from the Grant Morrison era. But right about what? As he was dying in\u00a0X-Men: Red<\/em> #7, Magneto did express worries about what would happen to Charles now that he didn’t have Magneto or Moira to watch him, and whether he would make some disastrous decision to martyr everyone. (“He is a good man, Ororo. We must be wary of good men. For what will they not do to show how good they are?”)<\/p>\n

PAGES 17-20.<\/strong>\u00a0Sinister confronts Moira.<\/em><\/p>\n

“You turned yourself into a machine.”<\/strong> In\u00a0X Lives of Wolverine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“Why is Mother Righteous bleeding over my nice, clean floor?”<\/strong> This is the aftermath of\u00a0Nightcrawlers<\/em> #3, which plays out much as Moira describes. What she doesn’t tell Sinister is that Righteous’s plan was to use the Moira’s to send information back to herself instead. Nightcrawlers<\/em> #3 ended with Moira holding the device that Righteous was going to use for that purpose, but as we see later on, she’s used it herself in the interim.<\/p>\n

“If I don’t send anything back, it’ll just happen again.”<\/strong> This is a rather deterministic view of things – are there no random elements that could play out differently along the way? But if Sinister’s correct in dismissing that, then presumably he’s right. Unless perhaps the next timeline’s Sinister realises that he didn’t get any data back from this timeline, and that affects his course of action somehow.<\/p>\n

PAGE 21.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page. Basically, Sinister changes plans at the last minute and sees one last opportunity to hijack all the Sinisterised mutants and kill them in order to absorb their knowledge and create a Dominion so that he can ascend to a higher state of existence – the thing that all of the Sinister copies have been trying to achieve throughout this timeline, and indeed in the mainstream Earth too.<\/p>\n

PAGES 22-24.\u00a0<\/strong>Sinister puts his plan into action.<\/em><\/p>\n

Page 24 is a montage of characters dying. We see, in particular, Wagnerine and her baby from\u00a0Nightcrawlers<\/em>. Note that they\u00a0don’t<\/em> seem to be dying, which might be because Mother Righteous was able to purge Sinister’s control gene from Wagnerine and her fellow Nightcrawler chimeras. Exodus is shown top right. Sebastian Shaw, as a Hell lord, is doing just fine in the bottom right.<\/p>\n

PAGES 25-26.\u00a0<\/strong>Sinister finds his ascent blocked by another Dominion.<\/em><\/p>\n

The idea seems to be that since a Dominion has been defined (by Jonathan Hickman’s stories) as something that exists outside space and time, anything that will ever become a Dominion in any timeline is already there. It’s not\u00a0entirely<\/em> obvious why the existence of another Dominion should prevent this Sinister from ascending, though – we know there are meant to be multiple dominions. Rather, this Dominion seems to be actively blocking Sinister’s ascent – it says that it’s harvesting the power that he stole from the dead mutants, and it returns him to the Worldfarm with the sole information that somebody else became a Dominion first.<\/p>\n

PAGES 27-29.<\/strong>\u00a0The timeline resets.<\/em><\/p>\n

“A Sinister Dominion is already outside time and space.”<\/strong> Note, the other Dominion didn’t\u00a0say<\/em> it was a Sinister. As far as we can see, he’s just assuming that. At any rate, for Sinister, there’s no point in any of this if he can’t ascend. He more or less lets Ironfire behead him.<\/p>\n

PAGE 30.<\/strong> Back in the present, the next timeline begins.<\/em><\/p>\n

The first three panels are reprinted from the opening of\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> #10. The dialogue repeats up to the point where Sinister asks “Information?” This time, the computer reports that there’s one previous timeline with a thousand years of data. In the original version, the computer tells him that it’s the first iteration, and Sinister makes a joke that “I really hope this works… I really could do without being trapped helplessly in the Pit forever.” Irony!<\/p>\n

PAGES 31-32. <\/strong>Sinister receives Moira’s message from the future.<\/em><\/p>\n

All Sinister apparently gets to learn about the future is the fact that he can never ascend to Dominion status, because another Sinister (at least as he believes) has got there already.<\/p>\n

“I found my way to the lab and watched the end of your rival’s scheme.”<\/strong>\u00a0Nightcrawlers<\/em> #3. Moira gives a basically accurate recap of the finale of that issue, and goes on to explain that she took control of Mother Righteous’s mythic virus.<\/p>\n

PAGES 33-34.\u00a0<\/strong>The Moiras are destroyed and Rasputin IV appears.<\/em><\/p>\n

Somehow or other, Righteous’s virus disables the Moira clones’ powers, allowing them to be safely destroyed without further rebooting the timeline. (We established in\u00a0X Lives of Wolverine<\/em> that this works.)<\/p>\n

Rasputin IV<\/strong> made a deal with Mother Righteous at the end of\u00a0Immoral X-Men<\/em> #3. Apparently, her data has somehow been sent back in time so that she can be reconstituted by Sinister’s machines. She seems to be accusing Sinister of wiping out mutantkind in the Sins of Sinister timeline as seen earlier in this issue, so her knowledge of that must come from Moira.<\/p>\n

PAGE 35.\u00a0<\/strong>Mother Righteous receives the information from her future self.<\/em><\/p>\n

Evidently, whatever Moira did, it didn’t fundamentally thwart Mother Righteous’s plan of sending a thousand years of knowledge back to the present for her own use. Mother Righteous has won, but nobody else knows.<\/p>\n

PAGES 36-37.\u00a0<\/strong>Rasputin IV hands Sinister over to the rest of the Quiet Council.<\/em><\/p>\n

As in\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> #9, Kate Pryde takes control in the absence of Professor X, Hope, Exodus and Emma. That could be more significant than it first seems, given where this is going.<\/p>\n

PAGES 38-40. <\/strong>Sinister is banished to the Pit.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a reprise of the scene in\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> #10 where Sinister was banished to the Pit as part of his cover, leaving the Sinisterised Quiet Council to start carrying out his schemes. This time, Sinister is genuinely trying to warn everyone that Dr Stasis, Mother Righteous or Orbis Stellaris becomes a cosmic god, but of course nobody is listening – with the possible exception of Destiny. Sinister makes sure to reference her repeated claims that they need to work together. When pressed, Destiny claims that Sinister is trying to throw suspicion on her, but admits that she has\u00a0some<\/em> idea of what he’s talking about.<\/p>\n

PAGES 41-42.\u00a0<\/strong>Rasputin IV introduces the Quiet Council to Mother Righteous.<\/em><\/p>\n

Unfortunately Rasputin IV has gone from Sinister’s heroic dupe to Mother Righteous’s. Righteous has met some of the cast of Legion of X <\/em>before, but she isn’t known to any of the Quiet Council – except for Sebastian Shaw, who was discussing a deal with her at the end of\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> #6. He pretends here not to recognise her. She also approached Nightcrawler at the end of\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #10, but he was much more mutated in that story, implying that the arc takes place\u00a0after<\/em> “Sins of Sinister”, despite being published first.<\/p>\n

She gives a basically accurate account of Sinister’s scheme, which Destiny is able to verify. Righteous then gives a broadly truthful account of the general nature of the Sins of Sinister timeline (which Rasputin can confirm), and claims credit for thwarting Sinister (which is at best a half-truth).<\/p>\n

Righteous’s comments to Nightcrawler allude to the Nightcrawler chimeras that she had as followers – the Nightkin – but she doesn’t explain it directly.<\/p>\n

PAGES 43-45.\u00a0<\/strong>The compromised Quiet Council members exile themselves in the Pit.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I don’t trust her, but we do owe her.”<\/strong> Interestingly, Shaw is the only character here with significant established dealings with Righteous, and while he doesn’t admit to that, he is the only character to expressly question her.<\/p>\n

Mother Righteous’s power gives her control over people who offer her thanks – so by manoeuring herself into a position where the government of Krakoa is offering her the gratitude of the nation, she’s doing rather well.<\/p>\n

PAGES 46-47.<\/strong> Crossover checklist and trailers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. SINS OF SINISTER: DOMINION #1 “Sins of Sinister, part 11: \u221e Deadly Sins” Writer: Kieron Gillen Artists: Paco Medina & Lucas Werneck Colour artist: Bryan Valenza Letterer: Clayton Cowles Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8996,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8994\/revisions\/8996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}