Mister Sinister debuted in the title Uncanny X-Men, first being briefly mentioned by Sabretooth during the Mutant Massacre crossover as the leader of the Marauders who had sent them to slaughter the Morlock population.
In the following issue, the X-Men member Psylocke picks up a shadowy mental image of the Marauders’ “Master” from Sabretooth’s mind.
Mister Sinister finally appeared on-panel in issue #221.
The character plays a major role in the Inferno crossover, where it is revealed that Sinister cloned Madelyne Pryor from Jean Grey for the purpose of having her conceive a child with Cyclops, their son Nathan; Sinister also reveals to have manipulated Cyclops’ life since early childhood. After a battle with the X-Men and X-Factor, the villain is apparently destroyed by Cyclops’ optic beam.
Months after Mister Sinister’s apparent death, Claremont pens Classic X-Men #41–42 (December, 1989) detailing the role he played in Cyclops’ life at the orphanage in Nebraska where Scott was raised.
The story features a boy named Nathan who is obsessively fixated on Cyclops…
…and whom Claremont intended to actually be Mister Sinister.
Sadly though Claremont was removed from his beloved X-titles before he could firmly establish his above planned origin; and future writers would go on to reveal Mister Sinister as a Victorian era geneticist obsessed with evolution named Nathaniel Essex who made a pact with the ancient mutant Apocalypse, leading to his signature look and longevity…
…that eventually turned sour, prompting him to work behind the scenes where he manipulated the creation of Cyclops’ son Nathan (who became the time-travelling soldier Cable) to destroy Apocalypse.
A further layer to this origin was added in recent years where we discover the reason he made his initial pact with Apocalypse was to gain knowledge which would enable him to merge with the Dreaming Celestial and use its power to turn hundreds of thousands of people into doppelgangers of himself as part of a plan to bring about “Alpha Day” early whereby the Celestials would return to Earth, eradicate all life, leaving only his perfect clone-race to rebuild the planet and become its dominant species.
And fans had the audacity to accuse Claremont’s initially proposed origin as complicated!?
Okay, so let’s go back and delve a little further into Chris Claremont plans for the character.
In 1995, in interview with Tue Sǿrensen and Ulrik Kristiansen for Seriejournalen.dk Claremont reveals:
“Scott’s boyhood friend (Nathan) in the orphanage was an eight-year old kid he’s always been an eight-year old kid. He ages one year for every 10 of everybody else. So, he’s a 50-year old guy in a 10-year old’s body and boy, is he pissed! That’s why he works with clones. It’s the only way he can deal with the adult world because he is not gonna be an adult for another 50 years, at the earliest! And that’s why he takes a long view of things because he’s going to be around for a 1000 years give or take a few at least!”
So he conceived Mister Sinister as a new villain for the X-Men, after feeling “tired of just going back to Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the same old same old”, further recalling in an interview on Comixfan.com:
“Dave Cockrum and I were over ideas and what we were coming towards was a mysterious young boy – apparently an 11-year-old – at the orphanage where Scott (Cyclops) was raised, who turned out to be the secret master of the place.
In effect what we were setting up was a guy who was aging over a lifespan of roughly a thousand years. Even though he looked like an 11-year-old, he’d actually been alive since the mid-century at this point – he was actually about 50 […] He had all the grown up urges. He’s growing up in his mind but his body isn’t capable of handling it, which makes him quite cranky. And, of course, looking like an 11-year-old, who’d take him seriously in the criminal community? […] So he built himself an agent in a sense, which was Mister Sinister, that was, in effect, the rationale behind Sinister’s rather – for want of a better word – childish or kid-like appearance. The costume… the look… the face… it’s what would scare a child. Even when he was designed, he wasn’t what you’d expect in a guy like that.”
While this addresses his origin for the child-like mutant (Nathan) who is obsessed with Scott, he is appropriately vague in the abovementioned Classic X-Men story with regard to Mister Sinister, such that nothing presented in those issues appeared to get contradicted too much by how later writers went on to develop him.
Or so it would seem at a cursory glance!
But I would posit that while these issues on first glance provide no scenes that directly suggest just what Claremont’s original intent for Mister Sinister was, when considered with scenes he had seeded outside of this particular story the hints have been RIGHT THERE… and yet none of us saw it, but how in the hell could we have MISSED it?
So now it’s just a matter of working out how, if Claremont had remained, his planned origin for Mister Sinister might have played out in-story?
Well we know from Claremont’s interviews young Nate had been secretly running the Nebraskan orphanage for years, and was responsible for Scott being transferred there…
…after his parents were abducted by D’Ken (though why he let Alex be adopted out is a mystery to this day).
In the Comixfan.com interview above Claremont recalls that young Nate “built himself an agent… which was Mister Sinister” as a way to convince the criminal community to take him seriously…
…since despite his being 50 years of age he knew they wouldn’t take orders from somebody in the body of an 11-year old.
With this in mind young Nate had to ensure his agent for interacting with criminals/ supervillains was someone that scared the willies out them.
So Mister Sinister’s presence had to be damn creepy, something perfectly achieved by the alabaster skin, jagged teeth and “Uncanny valley”/ “Frank-N-Furter” get-up!
As for an appropriate name, he chose one with the gravitas of Doctor Doom!
And a form that could physically intimidate even villains like Sabretooth.
But how!
Well Claremont’s X-Men Forever #7 furthers the earlier hint that young Nate “built” Mister Sinister, showing the supervillain’s body among a group stored away that had been constructed from synthetic materials.
This pretty blatantly suggests Claremont intended Mister Sinister to be an android that young Nate had built.
In addition the placement of the red gem on Mister Sinister’s forehead/ sternum seems further inspired by the design of Marvel’s most famous android, the Avenger called Vision whose solar jewel – on his forehead – provided him with the power required to function and manifest a range of energy powers.
A further clue to Mister Sinister being an android occurs during Claremont’s original run in Uncanny X-Men #241 when Madelyne Pryor, in her guise as the Goblyn Queen, demands Jean Grey’s demonically transformed parents bring her his heart, and he boasts that, regrettably, he has no heart. While most would read this to be the boastful claim of a cackling supervillain, I’d suggest in Claremont’s case it was an extremely subtle, veiled reference to the fact he intended him to be a synthezoid, and not an enhanced human.
But hold on a minute, Mister Sinister demonstrated a range what appeared to be psionic powers, including the ability to a) take instant control of the minds of other persons, b) establish mental blocks in the minds of others thereby preventing them from striking against him, and c) to project his mind onto the astral plane!
Well yes he did and I’ll get to this further below, but first recall that at the time Claremont introduced Scott’s boyhood friend (Nathan) in the orphanage, mutants only had a primary mutation, not a secondary unrelated mutation, and psionics do not have a connection to retarded ageing which was obviously the mutant ability Claremont intended for young Nate. And there is evidence to suggest a range of Mister Sinister’s superhuman abilities are derived from other sources. For instance, in X-Factor #39 Louise Simonson maintains Claremont’s idea by having Mister Sinister admit that the job of controlling Scott’s powers in the orphanage were “technically difficult”.
This may suggest his ability to take control of other minds is not derived from his mutancy.
So what if the ruby gem worn by the “Mister Sinister” android does not absorb solar energy to provide the needed power for him to function like the Vision (he lived in the secret high-tech catacombs of the Nebraskan orphanage which was closed off from outside sunlight), but instead absorbed psionic energy from mutants within his vicinity?! Was this perhaps the real reason behind young Nate being intent on keeping Scott around? That is, as Scott’s ability developed young Nate finally had a powerful enough mutant around to fuel the jewel on his android. So did young Nate need Scott in the same way Ahmet Abdol needed his brother Alex?
And did he create the Ruby Quartz glasses because he couldn’t have Scott expelling and wasting all that energy; the ruby quartz keeping it contained so young Nate could then absorb it!? Might this then suggest the gem was also composed of ruby quartz!?
I’ll come to this further down, but first…
Once Scott fled the orphanage, young Nate would need to find a replacement if he were to continue in his guise of Mister Sinister so perhaps expanded its operations to begin procuring mutant babies (between Classic X-Men #41-42 to X-Factor #35 operations had certainly scaled up)…
…all the while intent on getting Scott’s powers back somehow.
So does he continue his development of synthezoids, using them, along with clones, to conduct his activities in the “adult world”; including procuring Jean’s DNA to create Madelyne Pryor, a “brood mare” who would conceive a child with Scott that he could then have transferred to the orphanage to become a substitute to energise his gem given he was likely to never get Professor X’s golden boy back!? He then manipulates the formation of the Marauders to abduct the child and return it to him at the orphanage. However, knowing the infant’s powers won’t fully manifest for some time, (which he’s not overly impatient about as shown in Uncanny X-Men #239 when as baby Nate floats in his stasis chamber he declares that “time, as always, is on my side” given his retarded aging)…
…so he uses Malice in the interim, a mutant of pure psionic energy. But while Malice is disembodied her energy is dispersed, the same problem he faced with Scott’s release of optic blasts. So he convinces her that she requires a host, manipulating her to bond with Lorna Dane, her psionic energy thereby contained and his gem then able to absorb the required amount.
So now the question left is where young Nate procures the “Ruby Gem” that powers his Mister Sinister android?
To determine this, I would posit that we need to look back at just what abilities the gem powering Mister Sinister could be enabling him to manifest.
And so I return again to Uncanny X-Men #241 which not only hints that Mister Sinister is a sythezoid, but perhaps also the origin of where his wide range of other superhuman abilities might be derived from. When Madelyne calls him “devil”, he replies “The devil perhaps I am” and while again this could be read as the boastful claim of a cackling supervillain, after he further boasts to Madelyne that he has no heart, he also states that neither is he about to be bested in his own “sanctum sanctorum”.
I would posit that when Mister Sinister refers to his secret base as his “sanctum sanctorum”, Claremont is dropping a huge hint. That is, in the Marvel Universe this term only tends to be used by sorcerers when referring to the base from which they conduct their mystical activities (e.g. Doctor Strange in Strange Tales #125, Baron Mordo in Strange Tales #132 and even Claremont’s very own Illyana Rasputin in New Mutants #44).
This all appears to be driving the point home that young Nate is akin to another of Claremont’s mutant villains, Selene. Recall Selene was shown over time to be not only a mutant but a powerful sorceress possessing a wide range of superhuman abilities (the extent of which are outlined by Claremont in the scenes below), it never being clearly defined which of these was her mutant ability and which were skills derived from magic or other sources.
I’d therefore suggest this was the same for young Nate, who possessed the genetic mutation of retarded aging, while the wide range of superhuman abilities Mister Sinister showed were skills derived from the ruby gem he wore. And the ruby gem powering young Nate’s “Mister Sinister” android enabled him to access a range of mystical abilities.
As further evidence of this, Uncanny X-Men #241 provides even more hints. That is, in this issue Mister Sinister casts energy at Madelyne which results in her being bound by chains around her legs, arms, waist and neck, and engulfed in flames. He tells her that her struggle is useless, explaining that his defensive systems simply turns her energy back on her, using them to bind her all the more tightly. Even her ally, the demon N’astirh abandons her and teleports himself to safety when he sees Mister Sinister begin cutting loose with his powers.
The only reason a demon of N’astirh’s level would flee would surely be because he realised he was in the presence of a sorcerer more powerful than himself.
But aren’t mystical villains left to the mystical corners of the Marvel Universe (i.e. Doctor Strange) and not the X-titles you ask!
Well, leaving aside the Margali Szardos, Belasco, Kulan Gath, Selene and the Adversary, there is precedent as far back Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s X-Men #12 which introduced Cain Marko who became transformed into Juggernaut, the human avatar of the mystical entity/ demon Cyttorak, by the Ruby Gem of Cyttorak which empowered him with the power of the crimson bands of Cyttorak.
Juggernaut was always an odd concept to introduce into a title about mutants, what with his creator, Cyttorak, being a character more at home in the corner of Doctor Strange. However, I always wondered whether there might have been a plan by Kirby to reveal Cyttorak as somehow connected to the mutant world; after all he did provide Cain with a “psionic helmet” capable of protecting him from any telepathic attack!?
I once theorised back in the 1980s that Cyttorak had recognised the psionic potential of Charles and lured him inside the ancient temple to transform him into his avatar on Earth, but Cain’s bullying bravado prevented this occurring. However, I have since become attached to the alternative idea that Cyttorak foresaw that one day Charles Xavier would become a threat to the mystic dimensions and Juggernaut was created as a protocol against mutant psionic threats! I mean how coincidental is it that his step-brother gets turned into an avatar able to withstand “psionic” power, the very foundation of Charles’s abilities?! Could this mean it would have been revealed there had been previous Juggernauts that had the specific purpose of putting down psionic threats throughout Earth’s history? But no you say, not during the Lee & Kirby run, since Charles seemed to believe mutant powers were caused by all the radiation their parents had been exposed to at the nuclear research centre before he was born (cf. Uncanny X-Men #12)…
…and Beast had a similar theory when he explained his father was an ordinary labourer at an atomic project (cf. Uncanny X-Men #15).
However, was that meant to be the bland origin but as time went on it would be revealed that mutant powers had a much greater history, one that would lead to a huge destiny in the MU (akin to that hinted at by Claremont in Uncanny X-Men Annual #11)?
Could the introduction of Juggernaut have been intended as the first major hint that put into question the Atomic Age as behind the origin of mutant powers? Recall just the issue before the Stranger appears on Earth to study mutants saying his people are greatly interested in their emergence. This issue it is also revealed that there are mutants on other planets; and whereas the Collector has a wider-brief for his collection obsession, the Stranger says his people primarily focus their interest on collecting mutants from planet to planet.
Yet we’ve not really had mutants introduced from other worlds in the MU (except perhaps Warlock from the Technarch). So could the Stranger’s introduction have been the start of an eventual story to reveal a longer history of mutancy, and the Juggernaut was the first example of dimensions beyond ours establishing protocols to defend their realms from the threat of mutants (so in essence Juggernaut was a Sentinel of the mystical dimensions)? Perhaps if Kirby had stayed on this could have been the direction they headed in!? What I like about this is it makes what previously appeared as non-mutant characters like the Stranger and Juggernaut having a legitimate reason for appearing in the title by properly tying them directly into the mutant mythology.
So could Cyttorak be an anti-mutant force here…
…and Claremont had picked up on this, and therefore intended the gem that powered the “Mister Sinister” android to be a fragment of the Ruby Gem of Cyttorak, and N’astirh fled his “sanctum sanctorum” upon seeing a demonstration of his powers because he recognised it as the power of the crimson bands of Cyttorak?
Now, as earlier promised, to explain how the source of his wide range of superhuman abilities Mister Sinister demonstrated is the Ruby of Cyttorak, and not his mutant ability…
When first introduced in X-Men #12, the giant glowing ruby which Cain Marko picked up in the ancient temple which he had fled inside to avoid being shot while serving in the Korean War had an inscription that read “Whoever touches this gem shall possess the power of the crimson bands of Cyttorak!”
If the ruby gem which powers the “Mister Sinister” android is a fragment of it, this would seem to suggest his abilities are all applications of the crimson bands of Cyttorak.
How so?
To answer that question we need to go back to the Marvel Universe’s definition of them.
The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak were initially introduced in Stan Lee & Steve Ditko’s Strange Tales, where they were shown as a binding spell that sorcerers used to encase their victim in a circle/ cage of red bands that could not be easily broken out of (e.g. Strange Tales #125, 126, and 128)…
…then Doctor Strange called on them to reveal where his Cloak of Levitation and amulet, the Eye of Agamotto, had been hidden (cf. Strange Tales #143). This alternate use for the crimson bands has never been resolved, and seems inconsistent with its earlier applications.
But might the answer lie by looking more closely at the superhuman abilities Mister Sinister put into application!
In Uncanny X-Men #243, the epilogue to Inferno, Jean begins experiencing a psychic attack after integrating the Pryor clone’s memories, putting up a telekinetic barrier around herself to protect the rest of the team in fear that it might be Madelyne intent to use her powers to cut loose against them.
To break through Jean’s telekinetic barrier so they can help her, Psylocke forms a bond with Cyclops, Wolverine and Storm to psi-shift their astral selves inside her mind.
While they are observing her mindscape, finally getting close to pulling back the veil of Madelyne’s origin, Mister Sinister’s fist shatters through the mindscape and begins shattering one memory shard after another.
While this might not seem connected to Cyttorak’s power at all, recall the Crimson Bands bind because they are unbreakable!
And given they’re unbreakable, this is likely how the power of the Crimson Bands, granted to Cain Marko by Cyttorak’s gem, transform him into an unstoppable physical force (since whatever he motions against effectively “shatters”).
So does this firstly explain how Doctor Strange was able to call on the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak to reveal where his cloak and amulet were in Strange Tales #143? That is, if you extend “unstoppable force” to a person’s willpower, then was Doctor Strange able to find out where his cloak and amulet by calling on the Crimson Bands to empower his will so he could break through the spell concealing them? It would seem “Most likely”!
Now onto how the source of Mister Sinister’s wide range of superhuman abilities are derived entirely from the Ruby of Cyttorak, I would further suggest that when the ANDROID is able to launch what would appear to be a psychic attack on Jean, and start shattering her memories, is not the result of young Nate possessing any mutant telepathic ability, but rather the ruby gem powering Mister Sinister android with the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak which enable the android to “exude waves of force” to break through psionic shields.
I would further posit evidence to support that the psionic powers are not possessed by young Nate, but that he instead requires the “Mister Sinister” android to exert control over the minds of others on his behalf comes in Classic X-Men #41, when another boy at the orphanage, Toby Rails, upon beating up Nate and teasing him, suddenly finds himself in the clutches of Mister Sinister when heading back to his room. Sinister gloats that he “must now be dealt with… as he most richly deserves”, and the following day Rails, not seeming in control of his faculties, makes his way to the orphanage roof and jumps off, falling to his death.
If all of the above hasn’t yet caused you to face fully front true believer, compare the signature energy colour of Mister Sinister’s power, on display during Inferno below (particularly the last panel scene where he releases energy which forms as bonds, tying Cyclops’ hands behind his back from X-Factor #39), with that of the “crimson bands” on display in Strange Tales #124, 126 and 128 above.
So the truth behind Mister Sinister is that he is not a mutant, but rather a synthezoid built by a young mutant; and powered by the Ruby Gem which provide him with a wide range of superhuman abilities derived from the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak.
As for Mister Sinister’s motives cloning Jean Grey; and then manipulating events so this clone would become his “brood mare” and seek out and conceive a child with Scott Summers, might this suggest that Cyttorak wanted control of the Phoenix power. Earlier in Uncanny X-Men #239 “Mister Sinister” claims that young Nathan Christopher Summers will help him win a long-range game. Is this game perhaps with other mutant sorcerers, including Selene, and being run by Cyttorak in a bid for supremacy of the higher dimensions?
And of course just as Claremont suggested, in his Seriejournalen.dk interview with Ulrik Kristiansen and Tue Sǿrenson in 1996, the story of a young boy using the Ruby of Cyttorak to animate superhuman clones and manipulate heroes into battle with them was rejected and suddenly came up a few years later, starting with Avengers West Coast #64 where a young boy, Stevie, found the gem and gained various mystical powers without becoming the Juggernaut.
Post-script: The question remaining is where a child scientific genius with expertise in the fields of cloning and robotics acquired the knowledge to build a highly-advanced android. Could he have inherited his scientific genius from a parent… and if so, which one? By Claremont’s estimates young Nate had been alive since the mid-20th Century so it would need to be one who was old enough to conceive around that time.
Post-post-script: As for those of you that don’t believe Mister Sinister was a synthezoid created by the child genius, Nate, in the State Home for Foundlings, recall the original source of Scott Summers’ optic blast was simply revealed to be due to him absorbing solar energy which was then converted into the concussive force that emitted from his eyes. Then further recall in the flashbacks to Scott’s time in the Nebraskan orphanage that Mister Sinister was preoccupied with Scott gaining control of his optic blast. I would therefore posit that Scott’s optic blast being on all the time was preventing Mister Sinister from being able to control him. How, you ask? Well, if Scott’s optic blast wasn’t under control such as that offered by the ruby quartz glasses Mister Sinister fitted him with, he would be constantly absorbing solar energy around him and if Sinister is a synthezoid akin to Vision, empowered by a type of solar gem, Scott’s mutant ability would be constantly drawing out the energy from Sinister’s gem, thus making him less powerful.
Acknowledgements: Thanks go out once again to fnord12 of the Marvel Comics Chronology and the Ancient One of Alvaro’s Comic Book Message Boards for tracking down some hard to obtain images and last of all Kirby historian, Richard Bensam (of Estoreal) for being a patient sounding board on my Juggernaut as “Cyttorak’s protocol against psionic mutants” idea.
Filed under: Claremont's X-Men, The House that Jack Kirby Built | Tagged: Adversary, Ahmet Abdol, Alex Summers, Alpha Day, amulet, Ancient One, Apocalypse, Avengers West Coast #64, Baron Mordo, Beast, Belasco, Betsy Braddock, Bolivar Trask, Cable, Cain Marko, Charles Xavier, Chris Claremont, Classic X-Men #41, Classic X-Men #42, Cloak of Levitation, Comixfan.com, Corsair, Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, Cyclops, Cyttorak, D'Ken, Dave Cockrum, Demonicus, Doctor Doom, Doctor Strange, Dormammu, Dreaming Celestial, En Sabah Nur, Eternals, Eye of Agamotto, Frank N. Furter, Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, Goblyn Queen, Hank McCoy, Havok, Hellfire Club, Henry McCoy, Illyana Rasputin, Inferno, Jack Kirby, Jean Grey, John Byrne, Juggernaut, Katherine Summers, Korean War, Kulan Gath, Limbo, Living Pharaoh, Lorna Dane, Louise Simonson, Madelyne Pryor, Magik, Magma, Malice, Marauders, Marc Silvestri, Margali Szardos, Michael Collins, Mister Sinister, Morlock Massacre, Morlocks, Mutant Massacre, N'astirh, Nathan Christopher Summers, Nathan Summers, Nathaniel Essex, Nebraska, New Mutants, Nova Roma, Ororo, orphanage in Nebraska, Phoenix, Polaris, psionic helmet, Psylocke, Rachel Grey, Robyn Hanover, Ruby of Cyttorak, Ruby Quartz, Sabretooth, Sage, Sanctum Sanctorum, Scott Summers, Selene, Sentinels, Seriejournalen.dk, Solar Jewel, Stan Lee, State Home for Foundlings, Steve Ditko, Storm, Strange Tales, suicide, synthezoid, Technarch, Temple of Cyttorak, Terry Shoemaker, The Collector, The Stranger, Toby Rails, Tue Sǿrensen, Ulrik Kristiansen, Uncanny valley, uncanny x men, Uncanny X-Men #11, Uncanny X-Men #12, Uncanny X-Men #13, Uncanny X-Men #15, Uncanny X-Men #221, Uncanny X-Men #239, Uncanny X-Men #243, Uncanny X-Men Annual #11, Uncanny X-Men v2 #1, Vision, Walt Simonson, Warlock, Wolverine, X-Factor #35, X-Factor #39, X-Men, X-Men Forever #7, young Nate |
"How Would You Fix...?" 
Following discussion at the Gentlemen’s that our young Nathan here would be the son of Henry Pym and his first, allegedly late wife Maria Trovaya, his capabilities towards android building and genetics would plausibly come from his father and his maternal grandfather the Hungarian genetist Dr. Janos Trovaya, who just might be a certain Victorian English gentleman by the same first name sporting a fake identity in the post-war Europe, after his association with the Nazis and all. You have to admit, in those Classic X-Men issues the young Nathan has the looks of his alleged father.
Thusly, Ultron’s is like he is towards his “father” because of wanting to be a real boy, just like his insufferable brother, who steals people’s android designs. Also, young Nathan Trovaya is a mutant with psionic powers because his scientist father’s exposure to science (the classic) BUT the reason why he won’t grow up is because of the genetical residue of his father’s usage of Pym particles has messed up his body’s natural growing-up mechanism.
You may say that Pym’s fatherhood of Nathan is unfittable even on the Marvel’s sliding timescale, and that’s a fair caveat… UNLESS the time stream has been fractured by the upcoming Ant-Man film and Marvel’s incomprehensive decision to oust Henry Pym, a founding member of the Avengers(!), to the supporting role of a previous generation scientist and the M’Kraan is blinking like hell. This all would be Perfect preparation for the lusted after Sony/Marvel Studios X-Men/Avengers movie franchises fusing into a single Marvel Cinematic Universe in a crossover film having the Mister Sinister as a/the Villain SHOULD THE STUPID IDIOTS NOT HAVE ALTERED ULTRON’S ORIGIN to be all about Robert Do… I mean, Tony Stark. As all things turn crystal, I do hope Marvel now realizes the amount of the stupid stupidity they have amassed with their disregard of Pym, the Avenger personified.
But your version is okay too,I guess. 😉
@Teemu: While I like the implication one important point you’re forgetting is that Hank Pym while creating robots did not demonstrate capabilities towards building androids. The Vision was “adapted” by Ultron, not Hank. So young Nate couldn’t have inherited android building capabilities from Hank, because Hank didn’t have those capabilities back then.
And Janos was later revealed as the first name of Mister Sinister’s Marauder, Riptide, not an identity of the leader himself.
And you’ve also just missed the start of my argument above! Claremont can’t have intended young Nathan to be a mutant with psionic powers because he intended his mutant power to be retarded ageing. Young Nate didn’t demonstrate psionic powers in Classic X-Men #41-2, only his “Mister Sinister” android appeared to, which I’m proposing was due to the power of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak from his ruby gem.
Ha, I did not expect myself to defend a cooked-up-in-a-minute humor theory… but the other pointers are such that can help but be addressed:
When Ultron-I wakes up in a flashback in Avengers #57, Hank Pym states: “Only my experiments with the dormant Dragon Man made it possible… a crude, yet workable robot… a faltering step on the path to synthetic life!” Likewise, when they examine Vision, Hawkeye remarks to Pym that Vision’s build of a human being with synthetic organs is like “your synthozoid”. So, Hank Pym very obviously had not only interests but also at least sketchy blueprints for building an android.
Usually you don’t genetically inherit such capabilities, and in this case I believe Nathan, knowing who his father was (albeit having been ditched to a Nebraska orphanage without Pym even knowing of him), was following closely the work of his father, inspired of it even. Similarly, seeing how Pym recognizes his idea being used on Vision, Ultron probably used Pym’s earlier work to an extent. Apparently forehead-gems and sternum-lozenges are the most efficient method for empowering an android.
* * *
Regarding the Janos connection, that was fully coincidental one. Maria Trovaya’s father just happened to have that name but it wasn’t inspiration of any sort for my theory which was totally based on the Vision/Sinister similarity.
Mister Sinister must’ve been a mildly amused of the coincidence when Janos Questad timidly showed up at the Marauder auditions. “Okay… Janos. Let’s see what you can do.”
Yes but Roy mucked up in Avengers #57, just like he did in a lot of his work in the 1960s. While Hank experiments with the dormant Dragon Man he did not build the Vision, it was created by Ultron after he’d fled Hank’s laboratory and upgraded itself. And Ultron didn’t necessarily build Vision either, he got hold of the original Human Torch android from the Mad Thinker and made modifications to it to create the Vision. Ultron didn’t build it from scratch. So while Hank and Hawkeye might say this, it’s just plain wrong when Roy contradicts himself with what’s shown with the Vision as creation of Ultron to infiltrate and destroy his “father’s” team. Hank might have had interests in, and knowledge of, synthezoids but did not create the Vision.
And there’s since been no evidence or revelations of Hank creating synthezoids before Ultron.
Except for the bit about Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, because that bit is off, to an extent at least. That is not the gem you’re looking for.
We start our journey with Ahmet Abdol, the Egyptologist, who after losing Havok as his power source goes on to have the Ruby Scarab, “ an artifact that was originally created to battle the Elementals, around 3500 B.C.” The Elementals, “Perhaps not gods exactly but what else could a mortal being call them”, then send N’Kantu, the Living Mummy to recover the Ruby. (Supernatural Thrillers #8-9)
The Elementals will btw return to pester Carol Danvers in Claremont-written Ms. Marvel 11-13 in a three-way battle with Deathbird. “The battle had been no-holds-barred, no quarter asked, none given…”
Soon enough afterwards the Ruby Scarab peccadillo N’Kantu the Living Mummy starts hanging out with one Ulysses Bloodstone (creation of Len Wein like many great things are), of whom Wikipedia knows to tell:
“In the Hyborian Age, a meteorite landed on Earth in Northern Vanaheim on the European continent, circa 8250 B.C. It was controlled by an entity called the Hellfire Helix, who wanted to take over the world. To that end, it sent its agent, Ullux’l Kwan Tae Syn, to get the meteorite and find a host for it. However, a local human hunter/gatherer found the rock, and fought Ullux’l Kwan Tae Syn. In the fight, the meteor was smashed, a part of it (also called the Bloodgem) was imbedded in the human’s chest, and the explosion killed the human’s tribe. The human vowed revenge on Ullux’l Kwan Tae Syn. Because of the gem in his chest, he became immortal, and later became known as Ulysses Bloodstone.”
Ulysses becomes a monster hunter/mercenary, and presumably father’s many children during the millenia besides Elsa and Cullen Bloodstone of whom we know and who genetically inherited some of their father’s abilities, on which we quote Wikipedia:
“The mystic Bloodstone fragment embedded in Bloodstone’s chest emanates magical energy which increases his physical strength, speed, stamina, agility, reflexes, and senses to superhuman levels. The Bloodstone also provides vast regenerative capabilities that enable him to rapidly regenerate damaged or destroyed bodily tissue with much greater speed and efficiency than an ordinary human. The more extensive the injury, the longer it takes for him to fully heal. Bloodstone’s healing ability is sufficiently developed to regrow severed limbs, which he has done at least once. On this occasion, Bloodstone enters a state of self-induced hibernation which lasts about 10 years. Aside from his greatly enhanced healing, the Bloodgem renders Bloodstone virtually immortal in the sense that he is immune to the effects of aging and to all known diseases. Bloodstone’s life is dependent upon the presence of the fragment. As a result, Bloodstone doesn’t require food, water, or air to survive. However, if he is forcefully separated from the gem, he will die.
Aside from his physical attributes, the Bloodstone provides him certain psionic abilities. He possesses a kind of invisible third eye on his forehead that allows him to see human auras, which allows him to see people even in total darkness, and the ability to travel onto the astral plane. Bloodstone also possesses some degree of telekinesis, the limits of which aren’t known.“
Immunity to aging, vast regenerative capacities, psionic abilities, ability to travel to the astral plane… sounds familiar? Yes. It’s practically certain that the ageless kid Nathan is a son of Ulysses Bloodstone, who has obtained a fragment of the Vanaheim Bloodgem and uses it to not only power up his Mister Sinister android but also to psionically control it and use his inherited powers through the Bloodgem on the android.
So, his Scott Summers obsession, then? I would posit that there is a reason why Havok and the Ruby Scarab had the similar effect on the Living Pharaoh:
1) the origin story of the Ruby Scarab where warrior Daan and wizard Garret join their souls to vapor arcane to great the Scarab fails to mention that the gemmy bit in it is a fragment of the Vanaheim meteor, and
2) There’s something of the Vanaheim meteor in Havok too.
Now, there are extra-terresial “Elementals” coming after a red gem, and suddenly they’re coincidentally hanging around Deathbird the Shi’ar and the said Shi’ars just coincidentally attack on a plane carrying Christopher and Anne Summers with their kids and there’s coincidentally an egyptologist obsessing about both Havok and the gem AND coincidentally Nathan Sinister neé Bloodstone obsessing over Cyclops? Yeah I don’t buy it.
I say: there was an element, an essence, in the Bloodgem that Ulysses Bloodstone passed on to his very firstborn child back in the ancient days, and our Summerses are of direct descending line of the firstborns. Sinister has had enough time to learn all of the firsthand knowledge from someone who is of his acquaintance and was in Egypt around 3000s BC and do the necessary calculations. Sadly, as he finally found the firstborn line he learned the essence has damped down a lot during the millennia and the Summers boys, while being the veritable batteries of cosmic energies, can but emit pitiful rays of it. The third one, Gabriel, who has been honed up by the Shi’ar (not unlike Carol Danvers was by the Brood) and with having absorbed all the post-Decimation mutant energy going around shows more of what’s it all about, but Scott as the firstborn holder of the actual essence is the real deal no matter how many “brothers” carrying the residue of the Bloodstone essence he has. “Brothers? You said brothers, in plural.” ”I meant Alex, your brother.” Indeed.
Luckily, all Mister Sinister has to do is to secure the essence forward into a vessel that’s been sloshed over in the Cosmic Power of Life Incarnate kind that would plausibly liven up the dampened essence to all its glory. Preferably redheaded one, considering.
Mutant Energy is such a fun thing, really. Some store it, like our Summers brothers. Some feed specifically on it, like Mister Sinister. Some can have a wider appetite besides… like the Hyborian-era mutant vampire witch Selene. Ah, remember Selene? The way she used to sport her black thong ensemble with a red gem on a choker/as a brooch, pushing around her minion lap, hah, dog Friedrich von Roehm, a jeweler by his civilian trade. Didn’t we first meet her on the UNCANNY in issue #183, on a shabby bar, looking forward to having Cyttorak-powered Cain Marko… which prospects she immediately dropped upon stumbling on a far far greater prize: Rachel Summers, the firstborn of Scott Summers from another timeline.
By the looks of it, I’d say Selene’s red gem is yet another fragment of the Vanaheim meteor and, like those other ones of its kind, a sort of handy detector indeed to be used by an energy vampire, giving the wearer a vagueish understanding where remarkable energies and/or the various residues of the Vanaheim essence are sloshing around to be consumed. I would even haphazard to say that both the Vanaheim meteor and the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak are manifestations of something even greater, something that space folks like, say, Shi’ar would be interested on going after even if it showed up in a vastly damped form. Something explicitly in total control of all kinds of energies, of… Power. Something you’d have to be a Mad Titan really to put it on a Gauntlet.
So, it’s a good thing that Corsair pushed Scott out of the plane leaving the Shi’ar with scraps, and it’s a GOOD thing Scott had the sensibility to pass it on before merging up with Apocalypse.
@Teemu: As for your suggestion of the Ruby Scarab, it enabled the user with the powers of flight and teleportation, something the “Mister Sinister” android did not demonstrate during Claremont’s run. If Claremont had intended it to be this gem, he would likely have had the android show these capabilities also.
And as to the Bloodstone, “Mister Sinister” did not demonstrate “vast regenerative capabilities” in any of Claremont’s stories. Remember here I am talking about Claremont’s original intentions, not those of later writers.
And if you’re suggesting young Nate’s retarded ageing was due to his possessing a fragment of the Bloodstone, go back and read the excerpt of Claremont’s interview above that he intended the retarded ageing to be the result of young Nate’s mutant ability, not caused by an external power source.
It was also not revealed by this stage that Ulysses was even capable of fathering children. You’re raising concepts, including Gabriel Summers, that came way after Claremont left the titles and were not within his plan. Again this post is attempting to suggest what Claremont intended, not use concepts created by later writers that were obviously not part of his plan.
And the Scarab of the Bloodstone had never previously been in plots in the X-titles whereas the Ruby of Cyttorak had been a part of the X-mythos from pretty much the beginning. So I’m suggesting Claremont was digging into the rich history left behind by Lee & Kirby to tie it all together. And the Ruby of Cyttorak was not from space, it was placed upon Earth by the extradimensional entity, Cyttorak.
Well, the whole thing was supposed to be a mere suggestion/question about using the Bloodgem instead, with it having a previous history of sternum-powering up folks in partially similar fashion that Mister Sinister professes and there explicitly are fragments that could go around. But then things started suggesting another things and I chose to do the fun bit myself and what I finally got to post was that.
But, as an academic exercise I’d like to address some pointers.
Retarded ageing could very well be THE (only) mutant power of Nathan, somewhat inherited from his alleged father Ulysses Bloodstone. The other powers are usable only for Mister Sinister android, because of having the gem fragment in his sternum. There may be a latent knack in Nathan himself for that stuff, but it can be only activated through in possession of a gem fragment and Nathan has chosen to do all that through his android. Ulysses Bloodstone was the chosen champion of Hellfire Helix and his gem fragment was the “one perfect piece”. With the other fragments the powers are much more limited at best or completely missing, like flying or teleportation. Unless Mister Sinister teleported himself away in the Inferno finale at the moment of Cyclops blasting and substituted a stooge. If he didn’t he’d have to use some pretty damn vast regenerative capabilities to survive from that one. Do we know if Claremont had chosen then to never again use Mister Sinister if he had been allowed to continue as the writer? Because the character is awesome.
About the lacking X-mythos roots, as you quoted himself over there, the point of creation Mister Sinister was to bring in a new villain and not go back to “same old same old”. With Claremont that is of course a sliding concept, but: if he had chosen to bring in something completely different against the All-New All-Different X-Men, what could be more beautiful than something based heavily on something that was created by Len Wein and first published in 1975, the year of Giant Size X-Men 1?
About the post-Claremont concepts, I let myself be fooled a bit there with his later X-Men Forever stuff being there on the show, which was made much later on while aware of other writers’ later contributions. Of course, I didn’t go on it myself so much to evaluate Claremont’s original plans but rather to imagine what could have been. Gabriel Summers though is in no way essential to my proposed scenario, and was brought up only because he kind of nicely fits in it, which perhaps strengthens the scenario.
Like you said, Ruby Scarab, the Living Mummy etc. have no place in the actual X-mythos (though, the beauty of Marvel Universe is that it’s one massive mythos really), but Claremont is known to have his characters from Power Man & Iron Fist, Ms. Marvel, Dr. Strange even to make their way into it. The obscure Elementals, the Ruby Scarab and even a cameo from the Living Mummy did show up in Claremont’s Ms. Marvel, and his Marvel Team-Up #69 with Havok and Polaris vs. the Living Monolith has Polaris throwing the line “Living Pharaoh or Living Mummy, lover, it’s all the same to me”, even if she shouldn’t technically know the Mummy, so it looks like there was some great affection towards the character, and where there’s the Mummy the Scarab isn’t far away. In mid-70’s Claremont did a lot of stuff for the “monster” segment of Marvel so I would hazard he was pretty aware of the stuff going on there in general in the very least, Ulysses Bloodstone included, and as said some found its way to his other work. Things could have been complicated by the appearance of Scarlet Scarab character in Thor in 1982.
So, yeah, I’m not actually proposing any of this would have been Claremont’s plan, especially as the Vanaheim meteor essence is a massive ass-pull really. I would love to present a question about it all into his face, though, point blank and out of nowhere, and just watch his face. 😉
I’m pretty proud about the Living Mummy being inexplicably drawn towards Ulysses Bloodstone after having been hanging around the Ruby Scarab, though, and you have to admit the Hellfire Club coal fork looks damn fine on Selene’s red gem of alleged Hellfire Helix origin, while there is a fire Elemental calling himself Hellfire going after another alleged fragment.
While I am attracted to the Ruby Scarab, given it was used by Claremont in Ms. Marvel, again there’s still the problem of the “Mister Sinister” android not demonstrating the powers of flight and teleportation during Claremont’s run. These were abilities the Elementals put to significant use, and would have been extremely helpful abilities when the android faced off against the X-Men and X-Factor but not a skerrick. The powers the android demonstrated in Classic X-Men and Inferno were more consistent with the Crimson Bands, and it is a power that was more tied to the X-mythos (from Kirby’s run which is even more canon than Claremont:)
“Luckily, all Mister Sinister has to do is to secure the essence forward into a vessel that’s been sloshed over in the Cosmic Power of Life Incarnate kind that would plausibly liven up the dampened essence to all its glory. Preferably redheaded one, considering.”
To elaborate, the essence is secured into the child born out of such goings-on, which means Nathan Christopher on Earth-616. The whole sentence came out as pretty incomprehensible, but I just had to work an allusion to a Phoenix-powered vessel of Holy Blood Holy Grail/The Da Vinci Code kind.
Many monarchies on the Earth have based their succession of crown on the primogeniture as a vague genetic memory kind of remembrance about the ancient knowledge of the Bloodgem essence some of their ancestors once had which now has mostly disappeared over the millenia. Or it has been usurped, we know how it is with the kings.
What I love is the notion of Cain Marko becoming the anti-mutant protocol, or “Sentinel”, of the mystic realms and the elder gods. We do remember that Homo superior came to be due to the scientific meddling of the Celestials, so naturally I would like to impose my proposed (comment section at the “Origin of Gateway” fix) dichotomy of technology&science vs. raw natural magic, or Celestials vs. Elder Gods.
I said: “Humans have that Celestial-given potential for developing superpowers, but evolution is also a raw natural power, making humans the fall-betweeners like always in these cosmic battles.” To device it a bit further, maybe the mutant kind is in fact the balancing combination in between, and, in a way, really the point of the whole of it. And as such they are hated and feared by both absolute ends of the scale, what with balance in a way destroying both of them, and so both ends seek champions to address the mutant threat. The Technology end has the Sentinels, among others, and the Mystic Realms draft Juggernaut, among others, for theirs.
Using a shard of the Gem of Cyttorak for his android does make a lot of sense in all cases for someone like Nathan, who had been interested in various Xavier’s students since well before the X-Men, because he is likely to have learned of it since the very beginning should he have been following the going-ons of the X-gang. Should the science/mystic dichotomy apply, he kind of looks being one of the Science gang with all his cloning, androids and stuff, but in a way is a double agent really, or someone using both ends for his own means. Usurping the very mystical Gem he’s looking into abyss, which is a thing you can’t do without abyss looking back at you and being changed a bit in the process perhaps.
Should there be the three dimensions of dichotomies, science/raw magic, order/chaos and good/evil, each perpendicular to two others, it’s kind of not hard to understand how things in Marvel Universe could be controlled by the tesseracty Cosmic Cube.
I thought that the whole ETERNALS cosmology, with its evolutionary aspect, just didn’t fit well over the Marvel Universe. I thought it weakened the Eternals concept by sticking it into a context that already had plenty of hidden races and evolutionary oddities, and it hurt the Marvel Universe by imposing a cosmology on it that didn’t fit terribly well. I still think it doesn’t fit all that well, and the occasional linking of Marvel’s mutants to some sort of Celestial meddling weakens that aspect of the Marvel U. too – they should be mutants, pure and simple, not the side-effect of some genetic tampering by space gods who were up to something else entirely – doing that reduces them from a simple, clear, emotionally-compelling concept to a murky, complicated afterthought.
But just wait until you see what I’ve got in mind for expanding on the Sentinaut idea, in my fix for what I believe Kirby had planned for the X-Men, which ties Luficer, the Savage Land, Juggernaut and the Stranger more cohesively to the mutant theme.
Rather than an anndroid or synthizoid, I’d suggest that Sinister is a crown creation using genetic information from various mutants- such as Peter Rasputin’s armored form (which he clearly resembles to the point that the toy versions use the same parts for both characters!).
Being a master of genetics, Nathan included parts of Jean Grey’s biology- which gives Sinister his psionic powers and allows the “Sinister” body to be controlled remotely by the boy from a distance.
Like most of the Marauders, the body of Sinister is cloned/grown in a vat. The gem idea is still valid as a power source.
The invulnerability to psionic attack stems from Sinister having no mind of his own- the body would be a blank slate without the boy’s projected influence.
This might also explain Malice- she might be an experiment wherein Nathan cloned himself and then killed the body while it’s consiousness was elsewhere- leaving that entity a disembodied creature.
Pardon the spelling errors- typing from my phone is a drag. It should say “Sinister is a grown creation”
I’ve been enjoying your comments on the Chronology Project. How are you, mate? I have been submerged in The Fantastic Four: The Great American Novel site. I rather imagine you have read this one; I have to say the whole story has opened to me in a different light. I still have never read past FF #63, until you get to 1986! Well, one Essentials volume, the end of Thomas’ first run/ Conway. I am always mind-blown reading your continuity fixes. Without a doubt, I spend more time reading ABOUT comics than reading them, past couple of years. Brief for now…
Great as always Mr. Summers. I always enjoy reading your, uh, “fixes” and always find them very intriguing.
I always favored the Mr Sinister actually being an aged little boy concept because it’s infinitely more interesting than him being a cliched, evil geneticist. I feel him being a boy just gives the whole concept more substance right off the bat. However, I had always heard Claremont intended the Mr Sinister visage to be a psychic projection of Nathan……but I guess this is changed seeing as, as you included above, that Mr Sinister obviously has some sort of robotic body in the “X-Men Forever” series which was penned by Claremont himself.
I was about to write my theory but I see Jason Abbadon above, beat me to it. I had thought it is more logical if the Mr Sinister proxy is just a body made of combined genetics of different mutants.
Right off the bat, he looks like Colossus, his pale skin and red eyes could be acquired from any number of mutants. Based upon his battle with X-Men and X-Factor, his super strength and invulnerability could be the product of again, any number of mutants. His psychic abilities were extremely formidable so it stands he had might of obtained that from Xavier himself, his telekinesis could be from Jean…as for him saying his HQ was his “sanctum sanctoruum’ a description usually used by magic wielders, and the fact he bounds Cyclops in something that resembles the crimson bands of Cytorrak…..could he maybe have taken genetic abilities from the Scarlet Witch??
I mean, I recall Wanda using a similar looking spell to bind people during the story arc with Kulan Gath in Uncanny issues 190 and 191. He also at one point is apparently able to turn Longshots luck against him with a projectile blast……possible some sort of Hex ability??Also, it is probably over speculating as it was just probably the perspective of Walt Simonson who provided the art for the book, but Sinister’s energy blasts vary in color and he apparently transfers his whole psyche when Rogue touches him…..I would assume if he was a synthoid that Rogues powers wouldn’t have had an effect, I am not sure of that though.
Finally, when Cyclops “kills” Sinister at the end of Inferno you can see what looks like a human like skeleton, I am not sure what Visions biology is like exactly but I imagine synthoids have some sort of wires or mechanical parts. This is all just conjecture though as you see to have a way more infinite knowledge of the Marvel Universe as a whole, so I defer to your expertise.
Again, I love all these “fixes” you do. I really hope you get around to the “X-traitor” story line that was flubbed. Or maybe even a better resolution to what became of Magik at the end of Inferno as instead of her having an explanation to the bloodstones she was in posession of or her full descent to the Darkchylde persona, Simonson just kind of wrote her out of the series…just a suggestion.
Thanks for commenting on my blog:) I did try emailing you but it bounced.
You’ll understand why I’m more enamored of my origin for Mister Sinister as an android powered by a crimson gem;-)
If interested to know what’s coming down the pipeline you can see my Call-Out here (and feel free to comment if you’d like to take a crack at one as I’m always up for guest contributors:) https://fanfix.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/call-out
Re: your comments about Illyana Rasputin, Claremont cast her alongside Jean Grey, as his most tragic character.
In the end, Jean had to grapple with her own dark side, released by the corruptible influence of her vast power, ultimately succeeding long enough to sacrifice herself for the greater good.
Unlike Jean, Illyana, as presented in his Magik series, was ultimately setup to fail in any effort to overcome her dark side.
Her soul was corrupted beyond her ability to repair it, so much so that any attempts to do so are tainted and simply further the corruption.
All she could do was hold out as long as possible, doing as much good as possible in the meantime.
In the end, while that series in and of itself merely filled in some gaps, it positioned Illyana to become one of the most fascinating and tragic characters of Claremont’s tenure, one who is unable to do good without further corrupting her own soul.
Out of all the New Mutants, she was beautifully contrasted against his reforming Magneto, too.
He firstly rendered her experience of childhood abuse through metaphor.
That is, she could figuratively battle the figurative demons of her past by literally battling literal demons!
This layer of indirection opened up vast storytelling opportunities.
A reader uninterested in the subtext got to enjoy kinetic, visually arresting battle scenes, while the more clued-in audience got the rich story of a young person who had survived terrible things and who believed herself to be irredeemably, intrinsically evil struggled to move on from her past and re-narrativise herself as a hero.
So, this is the story I think Claremont really wanted to tell – how do we deal with our past, and integrate it, and rise to its challenge instead of being defined by our traumas?
This was Magneto’s story too.
And it’s not one that Louise Simonson understood or was interested in.
Just as she rolled back Magneto to a cartoony shade of villainy in her run on New Mutants, she consistently undermined the progress Illyana had made at defining herself as anything other than a rape survivor, culminating in this arc, where her entire character is erased in the name of “restoring her innocence”.
This is not how recovery happens, and it is not how human stories work, things Claremont understood!
Can you imagine if someone had pitched a plot where the X-Men travelled back in time to rescue Magneto from Auschwitz so that he’d never have become a villain?
It’s too tacky to even contemplate. But that’s what happened in the New Mutants chapter of Inferno by Louise Simonson, the assassination of one of Claremont’s finest characters, Illyana Rasputin.
Oh, lol, the e-mail likely didn’t work because I didn’t put my real one…I will include my real one if you want.
While your disposition on Sinister being an android is amazing, and is probably more in line with what Claremont originally had planned, I just always thought it would be possible he was some sort genetic synthesis of a bunch of mutants. During the Inferno arc he just appears to be able to counter every mutants power, like some sort of unstoppable, super mutant.
I am aware of the allegory of Ilyana and abuse and the quite literal, aforementioned allusion to her “battling her demons”, I also understand that Raven from DC comics had some influence on Magiks creation…..my question was rather where do you think she would have gone if Claremont would have continued on New Mutants??
It seemed like a lot of the New Mutants fates were always heavily foreshadowed, or flat out hinted at during Claremonts tenure. Like the possibility of Sunspot turning into a potential mutant supremacist in the top seat of the Hellfire Club, or Doug Ramseys infection of the TO virus, I mean, subsequent writers tried to handle these seeded plots at one time or another with things like “Reignfire” or “Douglock”, but, I don’t believe anybody ever tried to explain what the bloodstones Belasco gave to Ilyana were or what they did, or if she was just unavoidably destined to be demon sorceress she was supposed to be, but , I guess you kind of answered the latter. I get that a lot of her story had real life emphasis but her story was still tragic and had and endgame–as most of the characters did when Claremont wrote the book–not like now when all the X-Men characters are just two dimensional super heroes.
Thanks for the reply.
Perhaps include the correct one in the required field for your next comment (and also if you’d like to attempt any from the list in my Call-Out:)
I’m ecstatic you find my disposition on Sinister being an android amazing as I’m never entirely certain with my posts as I haven’t been getting comments as regularly as in my earlier posts, despite my fixes being much better IMHO over the last eighteen months.
Making Mister Sinister a sort of genetic mutant chimera sounds more complicated than Milligan and Gillen’s efforts so I think android agent powered by gem is much more streamlined.
As you’ll note from my post the reason he just appears to be able to counter every mutant’s power, as you note “like some sort of UNSTOPPABLE, super mutant” is due to the gem empowering him with the Crimson Bands.
Re: where Illyana would have gone if Claremont would have continued on New Mutants, I’d suggest Inferno would have turned out quite differently with her facing off against the N’Garai (his Elder Gods) breaching Limbo and using it as the stepping stone to once again conquering Earth. Claremont had planned his epic Return of the Elder Gods with Satana in the late 1970s which was aborted, and it was not long afterward that Illyana first appeared and was kidnapped by Belasco their high priest.
The bloodstones Belasco gave to Illyana were intended to manipulate her into using them to open wide a gateway from Limbo to Earth. Claremont’s obvious endgame planning is what kept me invested and coming back.
Don’t sell yourself short, as a big fan of the Claremont era of X-books I have always wanted to see where he wanted to go with book…it would have undoubtedly been a completely different landscape from what the early-mid 90s, cartoon influenced X-Men comics became. I can totally imagine a lot of ideas you theorize in your “Gateways Origin” and “Dane Curse” blogs being completely viable and probably very in tune with where he would have gone. You have a really good eye for detail.
I also enjoy how you always tie things back to the larger Marvel Universe. There is so many villains in the Marvel U and most of them always scheme so small or simplistically, especially when they know full well there is cosmic beings and abstracts within their universe. It is way more interesting if some villains attempt to conspire with gods to obtain a higher level of power, like how you tied the Shadow King the vibranium mounds and the N’Garai…… Good stuff.
The flaw I find with Sinister being an android during Inferno is that, like I mentioned before, he is drawn to have a human skeleton when Cyclops “unleashes” on him–I would imagine Claremont worked closely with the Simonsons during the arc too seeing as how they were close friends–I would have imagined that Claremont would have delineated details like that specifically to Walt or Louise.
Another problem is that the bands of Cytorrak spell looks different then what Sinister binds Cyclops with. The construct Sinister holds Cyclops with looks more similar to the magic manifestation signature the Dire Wraiths had when John Romita Jr. was the artist way back in 187. I am not saying he has any relation to that alien race, but I think its just kind of a “go to the well” way to draw a magic spell being used. There is almost no question that Mr. Sinister was originally meant to have some sort of magical ability, but I am not sure if it has anything to do with Cytorrak. The Crimson bands are usually just giant, maroon rings or bands that wrap around someone. Sinister just seems to shoot energy blasts or varying colors a lot of the time. Also, when Rogue touches him he appears able to transfer his conscious (and shapeshift??), it just seems weird Cytorrak would give an android such a wide array of mental abilities.
I don’t mean to be contentious in any regard, I would be completely content if your theory was what actually came to fruition. I just like to talk about this stuff, lol.
CYCLOPS. Seems familiar. Very familiar.
http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Mindless_Ones
Powers
The Mindless Ones have superhuman strength to an unknown degree. They fire beams of force from their single eye.
RED BEAMS OF FORCE FROM THEIR EYE? Not lasers, not heat beams, PUNCH ENERGY. Superhero or point man of a mystical invasion force given the powers of a mindless pawn.
Created by Plokta as a way of slowing the expanding empires of rivals, the Mindless Ones were virtually unstoppable engines of destruction; when a rival was deemed to be becoming too powerful, Plokta would let the Mindless Ones loose in the rival’s realm, tying up the rival’s resources trying to contain them.[2] When Dormammu was expanding his Dark Dimension by breaking down barriers between it and other realms, one of his new acquisitions contained Mindless Ones, who rampaged through the Dark Dimension until Dormammu managed to drive them back into a small region which he then enclosed with a magical shield to keep them out of his domain and fighting among themselves.
http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Plokta_(Earth-616)
HISTORY
Plokta is a disembodied entity who hails from the Dark Domain.[citation needed] He possesses the ability to warp the perceptions of a target individual, granting them their fondest desires. Such a gift comes with a price however, for each person who accepts Plokta’s generosity must also forfeit their soul.
Oh and the Ruby Glasses contain the energy of the RED PUNCH FORCE… why? Because the ruby gems are part of Cyttorak’s power base. Juggernaut is powered by the Ruby Gem of Cyttorak, why would Cyttorak want his power used against him?
So although Plokta created “The Mindless Ones” for busting down realm barriers, the real power source comes from Cyttorak and that power can be blocked by ruby gems infused with a tiny bit of Cyttorak’s power.