Mister Sinister
Mister Sinister is a male comic supervillain who features in Marvel Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Origin
Nathaniel Essex
As a child, he was once in Greenwich Park when he observing the traffic of people there and was amazed at how they followed what he believed to be preordained paths. His fascination with predicting the course of things led him to pursue a career as a scientist, becoming one the greatest minds of his generation. (Uncanny X-Men v2 #2) Later in life, he came to marry Rebecca Milbury and began living with her at Milbury House. The couple would have a son together named Adam but he would pass away when he was 4 years old due to numerous birth defects. His death led to Dr. Essex being driven deeper into his work on genetics. He would become obsessed with Darwin's theory of evolution with Essex wishing to go beyond this principle but came to believe his contemporaries were shackled by too many moral constraints. These views put his membership in the Royal Society at risk and he was regarded to be a dangerous man. During a lecture, he claimed that humanity contained the potential of evolving immensely fast, due to what he called Essex Factors, predicting the emergence of mutants as an evolutionary breakthrough. This was followed by the disclosure of one of his unscrupulous experiments, which resulted in his humiliating ouster from the Royal Society. As he angrily left, Dr. Essex stated that, if becoming a monster was what was required for science to progress, then he would become one. (Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix v1 #1)
Essex eventually met and hired Cootie Tremble and his Marauders, who collected all types of misshapen folk off the streets of London to be victims of Essex’s experiments. The Marauders unexpectedly awaken the immortal mutant known as En Sabah Nur who had been hibernating in his sarcophagus. After awakening, En Sabah Nur came to fore the group of humans to take him to their employer Nathaniel Essex. Essex at the time had just dug up his dead son's body to experiment on him when he was approached by Nur who claimed to be interested in his work. (Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix v1 #1)
As Mister Sinister, he willingly allowed whatever humanity he had to be carved out of him granting him objective clarity and freeing him from human morality. Cyclops and Phoenix battled Mister Sinister, who was confused by their despair. During the fight, Mister Sinister immediately considered Apocalypse to be a madman and that their objectives were not compatible. Intrigued by Cyclops and Phoenix, instead of unleashing a deadly plague as Apocalypse requested, Sinister ultimately betrayed him, infecting him alone with it. As Apocalypse returned to his hibernation, Mister Sinister stated that cruelty for no purpose was ignorance, and ignorance was the greatest enemy of science. Cyclops and Phoenix were transported back to the future, but became Mister Sinister's main interest going forward, something that would eventually result in the birth of Nathan Dayspring, as was Madame Sanctity's true objective. (Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix v1 #4)
In 1895, Essex returned to Milbury House to continue his experiments, reassuming his ordinary and frail human persona. He had lost control of his condition as Sinister and developed a split personality of a more feral 'Mister Sinister'. Following an outing into the streets of London he was found at the scene naked and battered but with no memory of the attack. The mutant shapeshifter Raven Darkhölme, under the disguise of Sherlock Holmes, and her partner, the clairvoyant Irene Adler, approached him to investigate the incidents. Darkhölme lured him by masquerading as a potential victim, and he escaped across the rooftops to his home. Darkhölme and Adler followed him to witness him turn back into his frail sickly form. Essex revealed to them that his condition was deteriorating, but he was determined to survive to see not only the 20th but also the 21st century, when machines were expected to become the dominant beings on the planet. He envisioned four possible routes that could be explored as a solution to the ascension of the artificial intelligence: the potential of mankind itself, the wonders of space beyond the stars, the mystical knowledge beyond the understanding of machine mind, and the Essex-men themselves. Darkhölme and Adler had him arrested and sent away to Bedlam where overnight he was murdered. Adler returned to his home and discovered four broken cloning tanks, each with a playing card suit. A voice recording by Essex declared that going the way of survival of the fittest would allow him to become immortal. (Immortal X-Men v1 #8) Essex had created four separate clones marked with different playing card suits, none of whom had knowledge of the others and each of whom believed themselves the original Essex, with no knowledge of his death in Bedlam. The clone of diamonds continued to operate as Mister Sinister, further pursuing his knowledge of mutant genetics. The clone of clubs resurfaced over a century later in New York City, operating as Doctor Stasis. (X-Men v6 #12) The clone of spades ventured into the stars, becoming a galactic arms dealer specializing in xenogenetics known as Orbis Stellaris. (X-Men: Red v2 #10) The fourth clone however was not of Nathaniel but of his late wife Rebecca. (X-Men v6 #23) The clone of hearts, she became a mystic trader deeply connected to the Astral Plane, dealing in spells, dreams, and gods becoming known as Mother Righteous. (Legion of X v1 #10)
In 1899, Apocalypse came to re-emerge from his hibernation chamber at the dawn of the new century. Back in London, Sinister attended to his master’s return and provided him with experimental data and knowledge on human evolution. Apocalypse looked to test his servant for further signs of disloyalty though Essex would claim that he had largely profited from his benefactor. It was then that Sinister was tasked with creating a deadly techno-organic pathogen with the resultant virus far exceeding Apocalypse's specifications. However, Sinister came to infect Apocalypse with it in an attempt to free himself from his En Sabah Nur's control. However, Apocalypse had foreseen this act of betrayal and believed his own body would adapt to it. En Sabah Nur though weakened had managed to persevere and gain control of the techno-organic virus which he permanently incorporated into his own body thus becoming stronger as a result. In response, Sinister fled before his former master knowing that they would now be forever at odds with Essex looking to find a means to truly destroy the Eternal One. (Cable Annual v1 #1)
As Milbury, he approached Courier and rendered her unconscious where she lost control of her shapeshifting abilities. This fascinated Sinister who looked to study her and took Courier to his laboratory. (Gambit v3 #13)
By 1909, Essex had established himself in Westchester at the Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane. With Creed as his loyal orderly, they tracked down Logan and arranged for him to be institutionalized at Ravencroft. Essex lobotomized Logan and managed to gather more samples for his work before the man escaped him once more. Essex and Creed thought Logan responsible for the nearby Knickerbocker Knifer murders, but it was actually Essex’s associate, Doctor Claudia Russell, a werewolf. Essex got his consolation prize and dissected Claudia instead, but her disappearance roused the suspicions of Jonas Ravencroft, and Essex had to move on before he fell under more scrutiny. (Ruins of Ravencroft: Sabretooth v1 #1) Mister Sinister continued to seek out mutant bloodlines that might be of use to him. In 1915, Essex made contact with Jacob Shaw, second son of the prestigious Shaw family in London. While Esau Shaw inherited the family estate and was offered a position in the Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle, Jacob appeared left out in the cold. Sinister chose to unlock the ambitious Jacob’s latent mutation for mass-shifting and shape-changing, finding a willing partner in his endeavors. Jacob murdered his brother and rose high in the world, owing his success to Essex, who remained patiently ready to collect. (X-Men: Hellfire Club v1 #3) He came to showcase his Cronus Device to Jacob Shaw who feared for his own son as being a subject to Essex's experiment and secretly stole some of the research data in order to develop a countermeasure to protect his child in the future. (X-Men: Legacy v1 #213)
Sinister came to wander the globe from Abyssinia to Siam in search for those possessing the 'Essex Factor'. However, he only came to find congenital idiots and cripples but then heard rumours of a mystic named Grigory Rasptin. This led to him travelling to Czarist Russia who was in reality a Mutant where his abilities allowed him to survive numerous attempts on his life. The man had attributed these to a power God had given him and in that time he met a brother and sister who similarly had abilities. It was then that Essex approached them where after defeating the three he revealed that he intended for them to be the basis for a new race of superhumans that possessed the Essex Factor. Thus, a deal was struck between Rasputin and Sinister where they worked together on this plan. Grigory was told to mate with many healthy women and especially those that were Mutants where he took Elena as a mate and impregnated her. Her offspring came to be bearers of the Mutant gene that passed down through their descendants over the years with Essex monitoring this bloodline. (X-Men: Colossus Bloodline v1 #3)
By 1919, Essex was already acquainted with a young mutant precog named Irene Adler. In Paris, in a park, on an otherwise beautiful day, she told him secrets that shook him to his core. (Immortal X-Men v1 #1) In the late 1920s, a young scientist in London named Herbert Wyndham dreamed of doing what Sinister had already accomplished: unlocking the genetic code of human DNA. Wyndham would one day become the god-like genetic manipulator known as the High Evolutionary, but in the 20s he was still a mortal man, seeking entry at Oxford and working in the new field of genetics alongside his mentor at the university, one Dr. Essex. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #380) As Essex, he came to be considered a mentor to the young gifted Herbert Wyndham. (X-Men v2 #99) According to one source, Sinister may have cycled back around and posed as Wyndham’s assistant years later as well, always keeping track of him and the potential of his work with evolution. (Excalibur v3 #14)
Later on, Sinister came to be associated with the Nazi party, gaining access to a replenishing supply of test subjects at Auschwitz and the other concentration camps. His political influence and telepathic abilities acquired by this point allowed Sinister free reign of the camps to pick and choose whom he liked from the prisoners. Some believed he was secretly ferrying subjects to freedom, and Essex cultivated this rumor among the lambs he brought to slaughter. But young Max Eisenhardt trusted his instincts and became a sonder-kommando to stay clear of Essex’s eye. He knew he had been right when he found the horribly mutated bodies of his friends who volunteered in the remains for the crematoria. (Excalibur v3 #7) Gabrielle Haller also had encounters with the mad doctor nicknamed 'Nosferatu' at the camps. (Excalibur v3 #14) As he wandered the battlefields, Essex recruited an American soldier named John Greycrow as an assistant, a mutant who survived his own firing squad. In 1944, Essex made another valuable find when the Sub-Mariner attacked a Nazi ship he was aboard. Namor was injured by Master Man and Sinister acquired a sample of the Atlantean mutant’s blood. Dubbed Experiment N2, Sinister cloned an augmented version of Namor with new powers to absorb and redirect moisture. Expecting to face the Invaders one day, Essex prepared N2 to defeat both Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch. When they eventually found his laboratory, N2 did exactly that before facing the third Invader, Captain America. Mister Sinister had dismissed the super-soldier and made no special preparations for him. The Captain’s perseverance and the triumph of the human spirit proved to be too much for Sinister’s cold, clinical science, and Experiment N2 was beaten and disposed of. (Weapon X v2 #14) The Nazis eventually fell, and Sinister moved on as he always did. He left some of his work behind, however, where it was discovered in a liberated camp by American military scientist Truett Hudson, who made extensive study of Nathan Essex’s journal in the years to come. (Weapon X v2 #23)
Sinister
After the debut of the X-Men, Mister Sinister came to secretly hire the services of Kraven the Hunter who was tasked to obtain DNA samples from the members of the team. (X-Men/Spider-Man v1 #1)
The duplicate wished to kill the true Madrox to ensure his continued independence and sought Sinister's help in doing so. Sinister then sent his new goons, the Nasty Boys, to aid the duplicate by fighting X-Factor. Eventually, the duplicate was reabsorbed by the original Madrox, and subsumed into him. Meanwhile, unknown to Shaffran, Sinister took his appearance and revealed his deeds to X-Factor. Sinister's real intentions were preserving Alex Summers a.k.a. Havok, the field leader of X-Factor. Shaffram later confronted Sinister in an attempt to eliminate him but ended up killing himself when his bullet ricocheted off of Sinister's armor. (X-Factor v1 #75)
The coveted Summers genetic matrix was a sham and both clone and original of his prized union seemed to be dead. Apocalypse being temporarily dead again was hardly a consolation. Even worse, the unlocked genetic matrix seemingly unleashed the Legacy Virus, a plague on mutantkind engineered by Stryfe in the event of his downfall. Sinister’s geneticist, Gordon Lefferts, was but the first to fall ill and die thanks to the Legacy Virus. Faced with unexpected consequences and an uncertain future, Mister Sinister decided to be honest. In the guise of Mike Milbury, Sinister had been a remote neighbor to Philip and Deborah Summers in Alaska for many years, keeping tabs on the Summers bloodline. Scott Summers visited his grandparents in an effort to explain the final fate of Nathan Christopher, and Milbury revealed himself to Scott. Face-to-face for the first time since Inferno, Mister Sinister allowed Cyclops to blast him again with his optic beam to prove his previous death had been a sham. Once that was out of Scott’s system, Essex detailed how he had been duped by Stryfe into unleashing the Legacy Virus on Earth. Sinister was open about his concerns as, selfishly speaking, mutants suddenly dropping dead would not factor well into his own plans. He even briefly stood side-by-side with Cyclops against the Dark Riders, leaving with a warning to the Riders that Summers should not be killed under any circumstances. (X-Men v2 #23)
Sinister’s concerns over the Legacy Virus had him working parallel to the X-Men’s own interests, and they crossed paths. In Los Angeles, Essex operated as Milbury again when he took a blood sample from the infected mutant Infectia right under the X-Men’s collective noses. Infectia had been in the area looking for treatment from Gordon Lefferts, and the X-Men tracked down the geneticist’s laboratory. Mister Sinister was there collecting Lefferts’ data, as well as an interesting find named Threnody. A mutant girl with a form of 'death empathy', Threnody was uniquely sensitive to other mutants infected by the Legacy Virus. Sinister convinced a reluctant Beast that he was better suited to care for Threnody at the moment and could use her talent to greater efficiency because of his lack of scruples and morality. (X-Men v2 #27) Sinister did indeed help stabilize Threnody’s mind, using cybernetic neuro-locks to give her control over her power buildup. He put her in charge of data collection and analysis for his tesseracting Forever Laboratory. She later aided the X-Men in destroying some of his research, but nothing he seemed greatly concerned about. (X-Men v2 #34) Perhaps he should have been. For while Mister Sinister himself was absent from the laboratory, a clone of Sinister was hosting a unique dinner in tesseract space, linked to the lab by an interspatial umbilical field. Sinister's 'guests' were clones of Xavier, Magneto, Moira MacTaggert, Hank McCoy, and Amanda Mueller, a trick he occasionally pulled to engineer conversations that might lead to interesting revelations. However, the X-Men's intrusion and encounter with Threnody damaged the umbilical field, causing the dinner party's pocket of interspace to become untethered. While Sinister and the other guests tried to stop their clone degregation or preserve the spatial pocket, Amanda had realized early on what she was. As a jest, she gave Sinister secretly engineered data from Black Womb about a potential for homo sapiens and homo superior, dubbed homo unitus, knowing he would be unable to use it. Mister Sinister's clone tried to transmit the homo unitus data back through the lab's failing interspatial link, but he died without knowing whether the data packet made it back to Sinister Prime and the Forever Laboratory's system. (X-Men: Legends v1 #10)
Cable’s son Tyler emerged as Genesis, trying to declare himself the next heir to Apocalypse. As a result, he saw Sinister as a potential rival and attempted to manipulate Essex. The greatly aged Faye Livingstone was detached from reality and cared for in an assisted living facility where Essex still visited her from time to time. Genesis learned of this and believed he had discovered an Achilles’ heel for Sinister. He kidnapped Faye and used Apocalypse’s machinery to restore her to the age when she knew Nathan Essex. It was a test to see if he could provoke sympathy or genuine emotion from Mister Sinister, a trait both men saw as a weakness. Genesis also drew Jean Grey and Beast into the mix, using Jean’s telepathy to link their minds so Faye and Essex could communicate. Faye had a kind mental reunion with Nathan but told him she never married or had children to prevent him from harvesting her genetic potential, and died peacefully in his arms. Sinister gave no sign he cared, and Genesis retreated to face Sinister another day. Hank McCoy, on the other hand, saw something in Sinister’s eyes, though he knew the man would never admit it. (X-Men '95 v1 #1)
In his guise as Essex, he reconnected with one of his student who had become the High Evolutionary. He accompanied him to his space station where he had devised a machine that was able to control biological evolution on a global scale. The High Evolutionary had used it to nullify a part of the Mutant genome that provided them their extraordinary abilities. This was because he believed that Mutants too much strife and chaos to the Earth where the only way to stop this was to remove their powers. During this time, Essex managed to sabotage the High Evolutionary's armour allowing him to render him incapable of moving and allowing him to take control of the space station for his own purposes. (X-Men v2 #99)
As Mister Sinister predicted the imminent rise of Apocalypse, he was overly worried for Cable's potential to be the warrior he had engineered to destroy Apocalypse. Sinister then approached Cable and told him about his inheritance and his duty to overcome Apocalypse. He masquerade his Marauders as Apocalypse's goons to test and train Cable for his approaching encounter with Apocalypse. (Cable Annual v1 #1999)
Sinister then travelled to San Francisco where he managed to make his way into the giant Dreaming Celestial. (Uncanny X-Men v2 #1)
In an effort to recreate the Terrigen Mist, Karnak secretly approached Mr. Sinister and pleaded with him to work on the project with him even offering his own son as a test subject. He would later decide to end the agreement when Essex came close to completion of the task. (Secret Warriors v2 #11)
He established a genetic database in secret on the Desolation Islands when one of his minions had stolen samples to sell on the black market. After learning of this, he approached the site where the sale was happening and intended to get his revenge when he was attacked by Avengers undercover along with Laura Kennedy who had come to stop the sale of genetic samples of Logan. (Hunt for Wolverine: Adamantium Agenda v1 #3)
House of X
During a session of the Quiet Council, Mister Sinister proposed that they stack the odds in Krakoa's favour by dispatching a team to claim the Arraki swords before their swordbreakers could acquire them. Such a move could possibly lead to Arakko's disqualification from the upcoming tournament thus allowing the Krakoan champions to win without having to fight. Ultimately, the Council agreed to the covert mission and ended up assigning Mister Sinister to the assignment to head his team of Hellions into Otherworld though he tried to avoid being sent on the mission. Faced with the Council's proclamation, Mister Sinister had no choice but to lead the Hellions on this mission but created a clone of himself with one of them being sent on this assignment. This ensured that if killed that Essex himself would survive regardless of the outcome of the mission. Entering Otherworld through Avalon, the team then made their way towards Arakko territory on their covert mission. (Hellions v1 #5) They managed to survive through numerous hostile landscapes before arriving at Arakko where the journey led to the loss of Havok's eye. However, upon arriving, they were greeted by Tarn and his Locus Vile where they revealed that the Swordbreakers of Arakko had already departed for the tournament. Thus, the Hellions mission was a failure though in reality Mister Sinister had only arrived to gather genetic samples of the Arakki for his collection. The Locus Vile attacked and began to massacre the Hellions who were forced to retreat with Sinister being killed by Tarn who wished to study him. This saw Psylocke, Havok, Scalphunter and Empath returning back to Krakoa. However, upon arrival, they were attacked by the real Mister Sinister who killed them and took the genetic samples whereupon he made it appear that he was the only survivor of the expedition. (Hellions v1 #6) He then approached the Quiet Council and reported the loss of the Hellions but was unaware that the Resurrection Protocols had managed to restore them. The team then gathered before him with no memories of their death but suspected that Sinister had some part in the matter. Almost everyone was restored except for Orphan-Maker who required a special armour otherwise his X-Gene mutation would run rampant and out of control. Nanny detailed that the equipment to make it was taken by the Right and thus Sinister authorised a mission to recover her laboratory. (Hellions v1 #7)
Overview
Personality and attributes
After being rejected by his wife, Essex decided to abandon his name and instead use the word Rebecca had used to describe him which was 'sinister' leading to him taking the name Mister Sinister. (Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix v1 #3) Due to his pale features, some in the past had referred to him as the White Devil. (Gambit v3 #12) This also led to him being called the Pale Man. (X-Men: Colossus Bloodline v1 #2)
He was said to had planned his own death as coldly and logically as he had planned everything else. (X-Men: Legacy v1 #213)
Many of his experiments required field testing against unpredictable opponents which Sinister used against intruders that broke into his facilities. He would use such occasions to observe not only his creations but also study the capabilities of the intruders. (Wolverines v1 #5)
As Essex, he was a mentor to Herbert Wyndham though he believed the young geneticist to me a misguided scientist more obsessed with his test subjects rather than the experiment itself. (X-Men v2 #99)
Powers and abilities
Originally, Nathaniel Essex was an ordinary human being with no inherent powers in him. By adulthood though, he became a prominent scientist who was interested in the theories of evolution. (Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix v1 #1)
After committing himself to En Sabah Nur, Essex came to have his body transformed by Apocalypse's advanced science and technology. This resulted in Essex becoming a superhuman immortal being as a result of the enhancements made to his body. (Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix v1 #3)
From studying Courier, he gained a malleable morphological structure and thus could shapeshift his appearance. Not only could be change his appearance but he could mould his form allowing him to attack others by encasing them within the substance of his body. (Gambit v3 #14) From a study of the Phalanx, he came to be able to distribute his intellect across his clones that shared a hive mind among one another. (Uncanny X-Men v2 #4)
He came to be regarded as among the most powerful telepaths on Earth. (X-Men v2 #202) Essex was able to mask his presence from being detected by other telepaths and capable of also extending these defenses to others around him as well. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #389)
Among his creations included:
- Genetic Collection Drone : using a small hand-held box, Mister Sinister could deploy a swarm of insectile machines that were the GCDs which could gather DNA from all life in a local area in a short span of time for his collection. (Hellions v1 #6)
- Cronus Device : a machine that was able to transfer his mind, memories and physical matrix over those that he had seeded with his genetic code. It was designed to cycle through the candidates and to activate its hidden programming in case he was ever killed. (X-Men: Legacy v1 #213)
- Experiment N2 : a clone of Namor the Submariner after Essex had encountered the Atlantean in 1944 when he worked for Nazi Germany. Impressed at his strength, Sinister created N2 from a blood sample obtained on the battlefield. In addition to Namor's powers, N2 had added abilities such as the power to drain water from others and gaining strength from them in the process. Furthermore, the clone was able to manipulate water capable of firing it as a blast. (Weapon X v2 #14)
- Xraven : a pale skinned genetic creation created from the DNA of Kraven the Hunter, the original X-Men and a sample of the Carnage symbiote that had its sentience removed from it. Xraven possessed all the memories and abilities of the original X-men whilst retaining the physical prowess of Kraven. (X-Men/Spider-Man v1 #4)
- Children :
- Unhumans : these were twisted experimental subjects that came from the study of the Inhuman Terrigenesis process with him believing that they would be obsolete once he perfected the recreation of Terrigen Crystals. (Secret Warriors v2 #11)
- Chimera : Mutants grown from genetic samples of take from separate pure X-Gene bearers. Second generation Chimeras were made from the DNA of two separate Mutants though this resulted in an unpredictable combined power set. Later third generation Chimeras had the amalgamated DNA of up to five Mutants. This later would progress to the creation of a fourth generation that would have the power of Omega-level Mutants. (Powers of X v1 #1)
- Sinister Strain : a copy of himself along with additional features implanted in a DNA sample that could be put inside a body. This operated as a sleeper personality in a person until triggered where they developed traits similar to Mister Sinister yet retained their own personality. At first, they would work in alignment with the original Mister Sinister but overtime their host personality would have them achieve their goals through different means and deviate from their creator. The name for this was mentioned in Nightcrawlers v1 #1 (2023).
- Moira Engine : a machine that used the cloned bodies of the Mutant Moira-X who had the power to reset the timeline. This allowed him the means to avoid all mistakes by killing the clone Moira and sending his knowledge back to his earlier self. (Sins of Sinister v1 #1)
Among Sinister's equipment included a storage facility holding a library of genetic material that contained his research over his long life. Due to it holding DNA samples, it contained information from people that could be used to clone individuals. Through the cloning chambers, he was able to grow new bodies for his servants so that they could serve him. The cloning baths were designed in pairs so that a subject cloned would be done so alongside a matrix-partner. (X-Men v2 #34) He later developed Creation Engines that could be used to produce an entire species from his own DNA with these not having the need for females as reproduction was handled artificially. (Uncanny X-Men v2 #14)
Essex kept a database both of physical samples and digital ones of people from around the planet. These included one for superhumans and another protected for X-Gene bearing Mutants. (Hunt for Wolverine: Adamantium Agenda v1 #4)
He had access to a pocket dimensional tesseract chamber that allowed him to appear anywhere. (X-Men v2 #34)
A vehicle at his disposal was the Sonic Sinister that was a private scramjet which was partly controlled by an A.I. called Clive. (Hellions v1 #7)
Deep underground, he constructed a large city known as Sinister London that was based on Victorian England that was populated by clones of himself. (Uncanny X-Men v2 #14) Another one of his strongholds was situated in the mountains in Finland with this being known as the Fortress Sinister. (Wolverines v1 #5)
Notes
- Mister Sinister was created by Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri where he made his first appearance in Uncanny X-Men v1 #221 (September, 1987).
- In an interview on CBR, Kieron Gillen noted, "I really don't want to say much about Sinister, because in the second issue we're really going to do all that. I think of all of the big, iconic X-Men villains, he's the trickiest one to describe. We never really got a satisfying answer to the question of what has Sinister been up to all these years, so we're going to answer that question. We're going to reveal what he's been after and the reasons for it. After we show you what he's been up to, we'll establish a new status quo by showing you what he's doing now. We really want to elevate Sinister and turn him in a great, weird and interesting character. You got some hints of that in the first issue with the enormous Sinister World's Fair cliffhanger. In the next issue, we'll explore that World's Fair and Sinister will tell us what he's been up to all these years. He's a guy who likes monologues, so we're lucky he's charismatic enough to pull it off. He's kept these secrets all these years, and now he's finally got a chance to talk. We're having a lot of fun with that."
Alternate Versions
- In Dead Man Logan v1 #11 (2019), an alternate version of Mister Sinister was shown to inhabit the world of the Wastelands located on Earth-807128. This version was said to had brought a proposal to the Red Skull about a collective supervillain uprising to eliminate the world's heroes. Despite coming up with the idea, no one credited Essex when the plan succeeded and he was not awarded territory unlike other villains. In the 50 years that followed, Mr. Sinister grew to be corpulent and obese where he was confined to a wheelchair and operated from Hammer Falls where he re-instituted the Weapon X program under his control. He was responsible for taking the deceased Sabretooth and resurrecting him as an operative. Essex then created an army of Sabretooth clones but they suffered from degeneration with Mr. Sinister looking to find a solution. He decided to hunt down Old Man Logan from this reality thinking that the solution lay in his genetics thus he sent Sabretooth for the task.
- In Spider-Verse v3 #3 (2020), an alternate version of Mister Sinister was shown to inhabit the world designated as Earth-14512. Nathan Essex was a scientist who headed the Weapon Six program where he was a colleague of Ben Parker and Peni Parker's father. This was until their work caused Weapon Six to be exposed and its funding being dried out but Essex came to find support from other sources. He then began to use his red diamond implants to weaponise criminals as deniable assets with him doing this to Kraven.
In other media
Television
- In X-Men, Mister Sinister appeared as a regular antagonist in the 1990 animated television series where he was voiced by actor Christopher Britton.
- In Wolverine and the X-Men, Mister Sinister appeared as an antagonist in several episodes of the animated television series where he was voiced by actor Clancy Brown.
Films
- In X-Men: Apocalypse, references were made to Mister Sinister in the live-action film during the movie's post-credit sequence. An employee from a company named Essex Corp was shown entering into the ruined Weapon X facility to collect DNA samples. He found vials of Wolverine's blood that he placed inside a briefcase before departing the Alkali Lake base.
- In Deadpool 2, a reference was made to Mister Sinister in the live-action film. A care home for Mutant children was shown for those without parents with it being named the Essex House for Mutant Rehabilitation. Despite appearances, the staff were shown to hold anti-Mutant sentiment with the headmaster believing his charges to be sinful evil creatures. Thus, they were often beaten and abused within the confines of the home.
Video games
- In X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, Mister Sinister appeared as a boss character in the setting of the video game where he was voiced by actor Daniel Riordan.
Appearances
- Uncanny X-Men v1: (1987)
- X-Factor v1:
- X-Men v2:
- X-Men: Legacy v1:
- Uncanny X-Men v2:
- Wolverine: Origins:
- Wolverines v1:
- Monsters Unleashed:
- Secret Warriors v2:
- Hunt for Wolverine: Adamantium Agenda v1:
- Powers of X v1:
- Dead Man Logan v1:
- Powers of X v1:
- X-Men v5:
- Fallen Angels v2:
- X of Swords: Creation v1: (2020)
- Hellions v1: (2020)
- Immortal X-Men v1:
- Sins of Sinister v1: (2023)
External Links
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