Mister Sinister's dark origins are rooted in the untimely death of his estranged wife Rebecca. But Sinister's once-dead wife is back, and the couple have even seemingly reconciled. The decidedly unusual relationship drama unfolds in the upcoming Fall of X prequel, X-Men: Before the Fall - The Sinister Four #1.
A preview of the one-shot -- written by Kieron Gillen and drawn by Paco Medina -- shows Sinister preparing for a romantic dinner with his one-time love. Rebecca, though, is no longer the woman to whom he was once married. No, his date is with none other than Mother Righteous. Mother Righteous -- the so-called Clone of Hearts -- is one of three clones created by the original Sinister.
While two of those clones are copies of Nathaniel Essex, Mother Righteous instead is a clone of Rebecca. And the version of Sinister now again courting her, in fact, is also one of Essex's clones. Specifically, he's known as the Clone of Clubs, aka anti-mutant Orchis collaborator Doctor Stasis. The other clone -- the Clone of Spades -- is now known to be the galaxy-faring Orbis Stellaris. The Clone of Diamonds has always been Sinister himself.
Mister Sinister's Disturbing Relationship With His Dead Wife
Sinister -- that is, Stasis -- has engaged in this kind of activity before. In Gerry Duggan and Joshua Cassara's recent X-Men #23, Statis partakes in a more macabre version of dinner hour. Creating clones of not only Rebecca but his late son Adam, Sinister tries to enjoy dinner with his resurrected family. The grotesque nightly ritual doesn't evoke pleasant memories, though. So Sinister kills them as soon as dinner is over.
In that same issue, Mother Righteous interrupts, disgusted with Sinister at his vile, selfish usage of her own DNA. She even issues him a warning: "Make no attempt to have a future with me." From Marvel's preview and solicitation, though, she just might have softened her stance.
The original Nathaniel Essex met and married Rebecca in 19th-century London. The premature death of their son Adam, coupled with Rebecca's own illness, shaped Sinister's life as a geneticist. Essex's twisted experimentation turned Rebecca against him, who later died shortly following the stillbirth of their second child. "You disgust me," Rebecca tells him on her deathbed. "To me, you are utterly and contemptibly ... sinister." The tragedy unfolded in 1996's The Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix by Peter Milligan and John Paul Leon, and ushered in Sinister's twisted future.
X-Men: Before the Fall - The Sinister Four #1 purports to focus on the four versions of Sinister. The quartet are all conspiring to carry out their own twisted version of Sinister's aspirations for genetic evolution. The issue is one of several precursors to Marvel's upcoming X-Men event, Fall of X.
X-Men: Before the Fall - The Sinister Four #1 goes on sale July 5.
Source: Marvel