Review by Karl Verhoven
Nathanial Essex first came to prominence in the 1800s, generating technology well beyond his era, and eventually producing such an array of clones that there’s no certainty about the original any longer, although several have believed themselves the genuine article. In the 2019 X-Men reboot the serpent of Mr. Sinister was invited into the fold, and true to his personality, he subverted the entire affair.
This was primarily written by Keiron Gillen in Immortal X-Men, pertinent chapters strangely absent here, just as material here would have been more efficiently recapped there. Sins of Sinister begins with corrupted members of the Quiet Council and continues into a trio of tales set ten years into a world corrupted by Mr. Sinister. Lucas Weneck’s story pages for the introduction shine, as do action pin-up pages of how the future plays out supplied by numerous guest artists.
What follows looks at a wildly disparate group of characters, with Nightcrawler and Storm the primary X-Men involved, and Al Ewing and Si Spurrier joining Gillen for a work of stunning widescreen ambition that almost manages to deliver. What prevents total satisfaction is the knowledge of a better ending being that Sinister’s world prevails, but commercial priorities would never let things end that way.
While Sinister controls most mutants in the future he’s created, a few remain free, and in alternating chapters we follow their efforts to undo that world. Gillen concentrates on Sinister himself, a character whose possibilities he obviously finds fascinating, and supplies some wonderfully arch dialogue. “I need someone I can trust”, complains Sinister at one point, destroying one of his clones, “and I can’t trust myself”. That’s the divine essence of what he’s created by turning so many others into versions of himself.
Three sections each jump further into the future with the writers trying to outdo each other creatively. It’s wildly imaginative, what the X-Men ought to be, yet so often aren’t, their abilities reshaping the universe. It’s phenomenally brought to life by three artists at the top of their game. Paco Medina takes on the future ten years ahead, Andrea Di Vito delivers a century of progress and Alessandro Vitti looks a millennium ahead, his art and characters grittier.
Everything keeps escalating, growing in size and involving the powerhouses of the Marvel universe. It’s audacious, exciting and creative, constantly surprising, and among the best X-Men stories of recent memory. As noted, given this runs to eleven chapters, some extended, would it really have killed Marvel to include Gillen’s epilogue? On the other hand, after an initial burst of creativity the X-Men universe reboot stalled, but Sins of Sinister is potential fulfilled.