Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

Rob: Welcome to Dear Watchers, a comic book Omniverse podcast where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.
Guido: We are traveling through the storylines before and after that inspired or took inspiration from this week's amazing alternate universe.
Rob: Mhm.
Guido: And your watchers on this journey are me, Guido and me Rob with.
Rob: The good, Rob with a good Cape. I couldn't even say it. I was thinking that's a Clippy Vine that our central character today would say.
Guido: Yeah, all right, I can hear it. If it had come out all at once, a bit more naturally. But all right.
Rob: Nothing he does is natural.
Guido: It's all natural. That's what makes him so charming.
Rob: Well, the gene splicing isn't natural, right? That's what I'm thinking.
Guido: You might argue it is. But anyway.
Rob: Well, Guido. Yes? What sinister secrets can you share that's going on from the Deer Watchers universe?
Guido: Oh, my gosh.
Rob: Any blind items out there?
Guido: I love that. I wish you told me that earlier and I could have constructed the things I wanted to say into blind items, but I can't do that on the spot. So I will just say it's been really fun. We had our recent Elvira episodes. We did her comic book history and trip to the multiverse. Our great interview with David Avaloni. So if you haven't listened to those, please do. That was so much fun. And the responses to them have been enormous and fun.
Rob: And the one and only Elvira, Cassandra Peterson, even retweeted us. So we were very elated about that.
Guido: Yes, definitely. And we continue to get more promotional merchandise with the amazing fan art we've commissioned, especially Elliott Comic Arts drawings. So we have key chains. Now. I uh made a T shirt that I'll be wearing at some cons this summer and around so people can find us. We've been guest recording, so we're going to be on a ten cent takes. Our dear friends, in a few weeks, we're going to be on multiverse of Badness, our other new friends. So much fun out there. We have our own interviews coming. So there's a lot and it's our big anniversary. Almost. We're almost here once a year.
Rob: I can't believe it. They said it wouldn't last. I said it wouldn't last. Wait a second. That was me.
Guido: No, not true. We've been working on what those plans look like, so we'll have a lot to share in the coming weeks. And that's really exciting.
Speaker UNK: But while you wait for that, well.
Rob: Join us on today's episode, why don't you? Because we're going to be discussing three different parts of today's comic world universe's alternate Earth extravaganzas. First up is Origins of the story, discovering what inspired this other reality, exploring Multiversity, diving deeper into our alternate universe, and finally pondering possibilities, examining the impact of what's followed or what's coming up in the future. And with that Dear Watchers, welcome to episode 47. And let's check out what's happening in this super sinister multiverse with today's alternate universe. And today we are going to be discussing what if Mr. Sinister formed the Xmen.
Guido: The cover tells us these are not your father's superheroes. So on Earth nine, five, six, a real brief summary of Earth before we get into a lot of the detail. Later on, Magneto attacks the X Men, who, it turns out, are Sinisters X Men, which consists of Havoc, uh Cyclops, Sabertooth, Soron and Madeleine Pryor. Sinister has formed the Xmen, with Scott as his first recruit and Maddie as the Gene clone. Again in this world. Mhm later in their battle, they encounter Xavier's X Men, and we find out that Cyclops has been kind of under Sinister's brainwashing, and he's worried that's going to change now that Xavier's Xmen and Gene Gray are there who Psycops feels some um connection to. But it turns out that Cyclops is completely embedded in Sinister's brainwashing. So he decides to join the Xmen team as a bit of a mole for Sinister. So the visit to the world actually ends with Scott and Havoc, Scott and Alex joining Xavier's X Men, but secretly.
Rob: Working for Sister while they are done kind uh of ending to this issue.
Guido: And everyone has different costumes. And there's lots of really interesting stuff with Psychops and Sinisters backstory that we'll get into when we get to that section.
Rob: Well, speaking of backstory, Guido, great transition there. What is your backstory with Nathaniel X Ethics, aka Mr. Sinister?
Guido: Well, as our dear Watchers listeners know, I've read X Men for 35 years, and I've read every X Men there is for 35 years. And of course, the stuff that came before. So I know Sinister really well from that, obviously. I also know the Sinister in the animated series. I know the Fox movie franchise set up for Sinister that was coming. I've reread a lot of Sinister since he's a big part of Inferno and a big part of Hawkspox, which are some great events. So I know Sinister really well. How about you?
Rob: Not so well. When I was reading Xmen, he was never a character. That super came up a lot then, as you mentioned, he's on the animated series, but he's kind of a little boring and he's creepy.
Guido: That's what that great voice.
Rob: Yeah, great voice. I love the Sharpies that he has, but he's never does too much compared to the great portrayal of Apocalypse and Magneto on that show. He's just kind of there. And then, of course, he's not really been in the movies where I was then reintroduced to him, although I don't know him nearly as well as you do, is through his current run where he is, let's just say, a lot more colorful, even though he's still in black and white, colorful than he was in the earlier comics and certainly on the animated TV show.
Guido: Great.
Rob: Yes. So with that, let's travel back to some Ye old Victorian times. Well, we're actually not quite going all the way back there, but back to some origins of the story. Uh.
Guido: Right now on this very show, you're going to get the answer to all your questions. Our amazing story begins a few years ago.
Rob: Yes, uh and even more so than Sinister's origin story. It's a little bit more Scott Summer's origin story that we're going to be talking about, and that's classic Xmen number 41 and classic Xmen number 42. Those are from December 1989. And those stories are Little Boy Lost and When Dreams Are Dust.
Guido: And so these two issues, it's the backup stories. Of course, in these issues, the main story is a reprint. Both are written by Chris Claremont. Both are penciled by Mike Collins. Both are inked by Joe Rubenstein. Issue 41 is colored by Glynne Oliver. 42, Gregory Wright issue 41, lettered by Mark Heiseler. Issue 42, lettered by Joe Rosen. Both edited by Bob Harris. We read these because these are actually only a few months after Sinister has debuted. So it's pretty early on in Sinister's debut, Claremont starts constructing what he intended to be his big Sinister story that got retooled a bit, and these two issues bring him into, as you said, Scott Summer's origin. So that's why we read them, because they'll also be important in terms of where the divergence in the what if occurs.
Rob: And I was reading on Wikipedia, I don't know how much this is true or how much you can add to this Gito, but I was reading that one of the reasons Chris created him was Chris was just a little over Magneto and Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. It's like we've done that for so long. We need a new villain. And this was his kind of new contribution to the franchise.
Guido: Well, Carbon created so many characters, so of course it makes sense. And this is a very different character, which is why, as we'll talk about later, he's so iconic, even though he actually only has a relatively small number of appearances, probably large for a villain, but small in the larger scheme of things. But they're really important appearances. They're really iconic appearances. And yeah, he's really a different looking character and a different acting character a little bit in the beginning. More so now. So in these two issues, we're back at the orphanage, which we already knew that Scott and Alex were in an orphanage. We find out that they're in this home for Foundlings, the state home for Foundlings.
Rob: Yes. What they even say is an antiquated name for this place.
Guido: Right. Which is giving you a hint. Yeah. And it's giving you lots of hints. So what happens in the story, of course, is there's this doctor who's trying to take care of Scott to get them adopted. Over the course of the two issues, we know Sinister has some connection to this orphanage. At this point, it's not really clear why you can kind of tell that Sinister is supposed to be this other boy, Nate. We learn that he's sort of an evil influence on Scott, and then it turns out he was also supposed to be the hospital administrator, which is less clear in these two issues.
Rob: I wasn't sure if that was supposed.
Guido: To be the case. And over the course of it, what it means is that Sinister has been manipulating Scott, so in the end, he wants he ends up possibly killing the two people who are going to adopt Cyclops and either brainwashing or maybe killing and cloning the doctor who's taking care of Scott ultimately so that Scott stays there and doesn't get adopted, which of course then leads him to end up with Xavier uh at some point. So what do you think of reading this, knowing the moderate amount you know about these characters.
Rob: So I really enjoyed this a lot. It got me as a horror fan because the whole thing has a real horror vibe. But I don't know if you agree it has a really weird tone throughout and just the way Claremont's writing. I don't know if this is true of all his writing, but some of it is just very writerly.
Guido: Well, that is always true. Of course, the classic Xmen backups are darker and more adult. I think it's why they're so remembered there's an omnibus of them. They, I guess just gave an opportunity to writers, usually Claremont, though other people did some really famous ones to explore in Canon, in continuity. But these little facets that are different, and I think that makes them darker. And this one, I can see what you're saying because first of all, there is a boy that kills himself. So content warning if you're going to read these issues is there is an actual suicide and it doesn't feel totally manipulated by Sinister, even though Sinister as a boy Nate is a bit of a jerk. This kid feels like he's killing himself.
Rob: For different reasons, but Sinister as Sinister then does. And this is boy who's bullying Scott and Nate and Sinister as himself does encounter this bully. So there's something happening here, but I think what you're getting at too, and it's the same thing with the very final panels of this whole run. There's a lot of ambiguity there.
Guido: Yeah. Yes, definitely. And you can tell he's sowing seeds. It's what Claremont does really well, the other thing I think is ambiguous that I wonder if it adds to the horror movie tone. And definitely I know that I can. I don't think I project a lot of queer coding into things, but I certainly can read it. But there is definitely an element of queerness to Sinister and to the boy that Sinister is, and his relationship to Scott, to the point where the other kid actually accuses them of being gay in some of the bullying. They're alone on Scott's bed, and this kidnate whose Sinister is constantly sort of taking care of him, the doctor who's treating them actually sort of notices this relationship, and then Sissy gets thrown around a bit. I think they probably wouldn't let Claremont name it as something having to do with sexuality, but I definitely think it's at play here, which just adds to the environment that we're in of sort of terror.
Rob: I was kind of surprised that it was said so explicitly, because when it first comes up immediately, as a clear reader, I was like, oh, this is going to be some subtext going on here. And then the bully just is making fun of them for being gay, even though they're not. But then as it gets going, and then Nate has that almost single white female kind of element of he doesn't.
Guido: Want Scott The Bad Seed.
Rob: The Bad Seed, totally. And there's that element of it. It's like, I'm keeping you here at the orphanage because I don't want to be alone. Of course, we then find out that he is sinister, but even if that he wasn't sinister, there is that kind of element to it.
Guido: Yeah. So I don't have much else to say. Solid art, nothing too remarkable. You get the really important splash page reveal of Sinister sitting on a chair in a laboratory, which is actually how he debuts as a character. Well, he debuts on his face, but every issue with Sinister feels like it needs that splash page, but otherwise really solid. Two uh backups that even though Clermont didn't carry the seeds of this story forth, they've been picked up in other ways, including a lot of what we read today. And they're really fun to revisit.
Rob: Yeah, I really like this. And the last thing I'll say before we move uh on is definitely if you're a fan of horror, I would revisit this. I was getting the omenfields where in that movie, too, someone jumps to their death, and that's also, of course, about an evil little boy. And then I was getting also from reading this that this felt like what the failed new mutant movie uh kind of should have had this vibe to it.
Guido: Yeah. I was actually thinking about that movie, too, because I think there's some Sinister set up in there, or Essex Technologies. Yeah. So I would definitely have that in mind, too, though.
Rob: Well, that kept saying, oh, it's going to be a horror movie. And then you watch it and it was like, this really isn't even a horror uh movie. Feel like when you read this, it's got that Gothic creepiness, and then, as you said, the people that are going to adopt him, Sinister just kills in a plane crash. And so it's got that darkness. That's really interesting. Well, let's talk about our next comic, which is X Factor number 39. That's from April 1989. And it's called Ashes to Ashes.
Guido: So this is written by Louise Simonson, penciled by Walt Simonson, inked by Al Milgram, colored by Greg Wright, lettered by Joe Rosen, edited by Bob Harris and Mark Grewenwald. This is toward the end of Inferno, huge mega, huge crossover uh of this time and this sort of wrapping up pieces of that story with Sinister before you get into the core of the story with the possessed Madeleine Pryor and such. And we read this because Sinister and Cyclops have a few showdowns and start to allude to some of that backstory that would become really important. Now, of interesting note is this issue uh actually occurs before those classic X Men backups. So it's a few months before, of course, it's April of that year. Those are December of that year. But we read chronologically this reveal takes place. So this could be some of the seeds that Claremont picked up. Of course, Claremont is editing all or driving all of the Xbox. He's not editing them. He's driving all of the X books. So Weezy and Chris would surely have been aligned in their storytelling throughout Inferno and beyond. So what did you think of this? You've probably never read Inferno.
Rob: No, I have not.
Guido: Which you'll have to when we get because we'll get to like, you know, what if Wolverine became Lord of the Vampires, which is actually based on Inferno, so you'll have to read it at some point. Yes.
Rob: And I know a little bit with the Goblin Queen and Madeleine Pryor. I know, like, teeny bits, but I thought this was fun. I think it's a really great companion piece, and I think it is a lot more of a normal comic, just in the way that Louise Simonson writes. It is not that kind of weird esoteric dialogue that Claremont is using a lot and Claremont or lots of caption boxes with internal thoughts and things like that, and you're jumping back and forth between caption boxes and people's internal thoughts. This is a lot more straightforward. So I couldn't help but think it's a little bit of a let down, but it's a really great companion to those other issues.
Guido: Yeah, I love it. I love Inferno. There are pieces of Inferno that don't work. I love it. I love the art, Walt style here, even though it's very Walt Simonson. It's very similar to Mark Sylvester, who did the character design for Sinister and did a lot of the Inferno art and all of that design with Malice and the Wolverine pointed hair that she has. And when Rogue is possessed, she has it. And then, of course, the extraordinary havoc being stripped down to almost nothing, his costume just getting zapped away. So he's basically naked. Really so fun visually and in the pacing. The stuff that's related to what we're talking about today, I think is really cool, especially when you read these things together, because there's the explicit stuff. So Cyclops keeps sort of remembering that Sinister is somehow familiar to him and what's happening is familiar to him and he feels a familiarity. And in fact, Sinister talks about him being a Sissy and saying, you were always a Sissy. Which is the word that's used in classic X Men when the boys are accused of being gay. So it's really cool the way that this is set up with that. Of course, the reveal is that he was running the orphanage. He kidnapped Scott and started experimenting on him. This is what triggered the powers. He also then grew Madeleine in order to continue his plan of trying to get a child with their genetic potential. And then he got Alex adopted right away so that Alex would be out of the picture and he could focus on Scott. So it's a cool reveal way of retconning uh Sinister into the Scott backstory.
Rob: Yeah. And even Nate, the little boy that he's pretending uh to be, is younger than Scott and blond hair, so he's becoming like an Alex substitute of Alex.
Guido: Yeah, that's clever. So you could imagine Nate did that on Sinister did that on purpose uh.
Rob: To represent his name is Nate, too.
Guido: Well, Nathan, we don't know that he goes by name. I doubt he does.
Rob: And this issue is kind of also a mirror image um of those two Claremont issues because the Claremont ones have really no superhero wisdoms happening. Scott never um uses his powers. There's a lot of talking and walking down hallways and things like that. This one is just one battle. The entire issue is a battle. So it's kind of the inverse. And it's got all these people, everyone's doing, using their specific powers. In fact, at the end, the big climax is that all of the X Men are using their powers at once on Sinister, except for Scott. And then he finally wakes up and blasts Sinister into nothing but bone. So it's got like nonstop action and.
Guido: He wakes up because Alex is pretending to be really sassy and making fun of the women he loves. And he's like, there are some great poses in there where Alex is fulfilling his himbo status in the world.
Rob: I know people have talked about some of Scott's psychological, some of his problems or issues. Do you think, like, these issues his issues, not the comics issues, but do you think these comics issues kind of set that up, that tortured uh little boy element that might have been playing out even now?
Guido: I don't know what you're talking about.
Rob: I just know that Scott has been. Well, he's so rigid. He's so like rule following as a character. Do you think that some of this idea of him almost being in this home for boys and being subjected uh to these rules, kind of being in a prison, that kind of helped shape his character in that way?
Guido: I guess it's possible. I mean, I think it's more the moral code stuff that comes out in the classic X Men backups. The doctor actually remarks on she helps actually develop in him the sense of being a hero. So I think he develops his moral Compass, but I guess the rigidity of him could come from. I mean, certainly he has a lot of trauma in his life, his adopted parents dying in a plane crash that he's thrown from and has to save his brother from. And then the onset of his powers is pretty traumatic also, as most mutant power onsets are, but took away his vision, his ability to see without glasses over the world. So, yeah, I think he has a lot of trauma. Maybe there's a relationship there. I haven't psychoanalyzed Scott.
Rob: Well, let us jump into the next part of this saga with exploring Multiversity.
Guido: I am your guide through these vast new realities. Follow me and ponder the question what if?
Rob: And today we've performed some scientific experiments to slice and dice and create a new multiverse. And in this multiverse, we are discussing What If? Volume two, number 74, from June 1995. And this is what if Mr. Sinister formed the Xmen, though the title of this story is Sinister Perspectives.
Guido: So this issue is written by Simon Furman, pencil by Nathaniel Palante, inked by Mike Halv, lettered by Steve Dutro, colored by Marine Evans, edited by Mark McLaren. So this is Simon Furman, who we've read before. He wrote a lot of volume two of What If or a good number relative. Most people didn't write a whole lot of it. They would come in for uh issues. Simon Furman wrote a bunch. This is in the final, maybe third of the run of volume two of What If? They started doing a lot of X Men stories. X Men has always been the big seller was the big seller definitely at this moment in the mid ninety s. And so they're doing a lot of X Men stories around this era of what if. And as with most of the volume, to What Ifs that we've uh explored, there's not a lot of background information on where they came from. So I guess before we get into what we thought of the issue, I do want to clarify because I think the question is actually a little wrong. Do you agree?
Rob: Yes, because it's a little confusing because there's kind of two X Men here. But Sinister has always had his Marauders, so it's almost just like they're the Marauders, right?
Guido: Well, I like that they spend a lot of time explaining that his X Men are called X Men because of the ex gene. Xavier's X Men are called the X Men because of his name. And then in the end, when Scott goes and joins Xavier's X Men, though, as a mole, Xavier says we'll be the X Men now for two reasons, the gene and my name. So they spent a lot of time trying to explain that away. But I was actually thinking more that what's unique is the point of divergence in this world. So in Earth Nine Five six, because Sinister goes on this really long winded backstory with Sabertooth, which is forced exposition, of course, to explain that actually the point of divergence here is that he doesn't kill the two people who are going to adopt Scott. He lets them live, but has them reject him so that Scott turns more to Nate. And that's how Nate Sinister ends up constructing this lifelong brainwashing of Scott and starts to form this team, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I get it. Obviously, it wouldn't make a really compelling what if title to say what if Sinister had not killed Scott's adoptive parents? But it's just interesting to me that.
Rob: Well, not even adoptive parents. He never even got to adopt.
Guido: No, they never even adopted. But it's just interesting to me that there is such a clearly defined point of divergence by Simon Furman in the text here. And it then of course leads to a whole different world in which Sinister then forms the Xmen. So I think that's an interesting note on the question and what the question actually is exploring and what this Earth actually is. So what did you think of this issue overall?
Rob: Overall, I think it is a fun issue. I think it sets up what I'm now seeing is more of a Sinister newbie and I think we're going to get into in a moment to talk about the Croquant era that his always thing is that he is the manipulator behind the scenes. And that is just so true here too, where he set up this team and he's lying to people. And then there's this other X Men team who Scott doesn't know about. So that just seems so core to who this character is.
Guido: Well, even the way what's interesting in this is that they give us a little bit of a backstory on why each character has joined the team. So Sabertooth, he's paying, but otherwise, of course, Maddie, he cloned. But Soron is interesting because they are telling a bit of a different story where Soron meets Carl. Carl, right. Carl like. And he then encounters him as a frightened kid and triggers the transformation to store on and to control him. And so you're right, the manipulating constantly strategizing Sinister is here too, even the way the story unfolds, because then he wants Magneto to attack him in the end again so that Scott will feel the threat against Sinister and be willing to join the X Men but not be coerced by the love of Jean Grey.
Rob: So it really seems like and I'm only kind of getting this now, as you're saying it, but it's almost like this whole thing is like a long Con by Sinister in this issue because it starts with them trying he's sending them to kill Magneto and he says you have to kill Magneto, otherwise the whole world is going to fall apart. They don't kill Magneto, but really that's all kind of part of his master plan in the long run.
Guido: It is. And what's not clear is even what his plan would be here, obviously in six one six. As we read in Inferno, his plan is he needs the genetic material of Summers and Gray. He needs the child of Scott and Jeans or just the genetic material of them. Here. He's cloned Maddie and he has Maddie and Scott on his team. So he has what he needs essentially here. He's not interested in Gene Gray. He's actually a little threatened by her. So it's not totally clear what he's doing and why. There's a little bit of an apocalypse thing here where he sort of just wants X Men, I mean, mutants to rule and be dominant and he wants to genetically make sure everyone's immune and get rid of humans and Homo superior rules, which makes sense. But yeah, his plan doesn't always make sense.
Rob: Yeah, I think so. The other character I really liked in this and I think the more I read him is really one of my favorite Xmen characters is Sabertooth. I think he's just a really fun character to write, and he brings a lot of levity to this story that um he's got a lot of great lines that I think otherwise this does get a little bit more serious, and I think he does able to bring a little bit of excitement to it. What do you think?
Guido: What's an example? Do you have an example? While you look for an example? I'll say, yeah, obviously Simon Furman, he's using Sabertooth also for the exposition. So I think that you're right that he's in some ways, Sabertooth is almost the protagonist of this story because he's the one who's like, questioning and challenging and that Sinister has to explain things, too, to bring back. Even though the story is primarily about Sinister and Cyclops, Sabertooth seems like the protagonist. But did you remember?
Rob: Yeah, the classic X Men show up and they're saying who their names are or something like that, or they're announcing themselves and Sabertooth says, who cares, though? I guess we'll need something for the headstones. It's like those great kind of because he's so unrepentant as a villain. You can just get those great lines from a character like that, which you can't get from a Magneto or now you can get from the later series, Sinister, but you can't get from this Sinister you couldn't get from an apocalypse. So you can have a lot of fun with Sabertooth.
Guido: Yeah. Agreed. There's a few other plot points I want to comment on just because this issue is really quite stuffed. So they're in Cairo because they're all trying to get Storm. So that's what brings the X Men and the X Men up against each other. Sinisters X Men and Xavier's X Men. And then, of course, it's also what brings Magneto and his Brotherhood back over which Sinister sort of manipulates. So that happens. And the last thing in that is also Sinister is scared of Scarlett Witch. I liked seeing that. It's so fun to me, especially in MCU, as everyone knows just what a threat potential Scarlett witch has. It's fun that as you go back and read her over the decades, it's all there, even though those strands don't start being pulled together until the 2000s by Bendis in House of M and Disassembled in House of M. It's just cool that Sinister is complete control of everything, as you're saying. But then he says the Magneto and the Brotherhood would normally pose no real threat, but with the Scarlet Witch and her probability altering, Hex nothing is certain. So he's a little worried then. So those are fun aspects of this over stuffed plot that I would have enjoyed.
Rob: Well, being the master manipulator, I think a character like Scarlett or you get a little bit of this in some of the previous issues we talked about with the Lone Star character, long shot, um long shot, because all these characters where their powers are about probability and we'll get that with Destiny in the Crocodile era. Those are the characters that Sinister is really afraid of because he is such a planner that someone that can trades.
Guido: On information exactly tries to control the direction of things. Yeah, that's a great point. So we've never been back to this world.
Rob: Yeah, I figured it's not on Earth.
Guido: We'Ve ever seen uh before, but before we get into the future possibilities that we see in the comics, would you want to go back to this world? Would you want more out of this world?
Rob: Yeah, I think I would go back at least on this kind of great cliffhanger where Scott is now with Xavier's X Men, but is still being controlled by either being controlled by Sinister or just follow Sinister. We don't quite fully know, I think. But I think it would be cool to see what Scott, who's such in the six one six is so rigid and such the ultimate hero kind of character, how he would be as the mole. That's kind of an interesting plot, I think.
Guido: Yeah, I agree. I think there's a lot of fun. I think it definitely lends itself to a sequel. Really? Well because of that, even the closing panel is like half of Sinister's space and half of Cyclops space. So you have a sense that there is going to be more out of this, right? Psychopath is not going to become the good moral. What if it's not going to reset to the status quo?
Rob: Well, our dog is barking. Maybe that's one of Sinister's dogs with Cyclops'visor on Christmas.
Guido: Oh God, I love that you're spoiling what we're about uh to talk about.
Rob: But with that bark, it's time for pondering possibilities. Will the future you describe sukido? I know you really want to move to croqua if it's an actual real place, but how did you come up with uh this list?
Guido: Well, yes. Any excuse to get you to read more Cocoa X then basically that's the short of it, I'd say. So there is stuff after using the rule of following the what if, which is 95, there's a little bit actually right in 95, 94, 95. There's a little bit more unfolding of the Sinister's plot that happens by primarily Fabian NICESA in Xmen that adds a few uh confirmations about his role in the orphanage and that he ran this orphanage and stuff like that. But none of that felt related to the what if so much as related to the origin stuff. So then I was like, okay, I really just need you to read in Mortal Xmen Number One, because I think it's an extraordinary book, like close to Hawkspox level. I think it's probably the best book not HoXPoX to come out of the croqua era. And then I was like, well, also, Sinister formed a team of X Men, basically in the earlier Quoa era uh title Heliums. So that's what we're reading.
Rob: So that, as you said, is helian's number one from May 2020. Let them be snakes.
Guido: So this is written by Zeb Wells, penciled and inked by Stephen Sigovia, colored by David Curiel, lettered by Cory Pettit, edited by Jordan D. White with Annalise.
Rob: Pizza and Immortal Xmen Number One from just very recently, May 2022. And that's part one, the left Hand.
Guido: Written by Kieran Gillen, penciled by Lucas Wernick, who also did the inks, colored by David Curiel, lettered by Clayton Cows, edited by Jordan Dy and Lauren Amaro. And I'm just so excited that you read these. I forced you to read Hawkspox is the only thing you've read, so I don't even know where to begin. Where do you want us to begin? I could talk about these for a whole another hour. Where do you want to begin?
Rob: Well, I think the character of Sinisters changed quite a bit from the earlier.
Speaker B: Maybe you and I talked about this obviously before recording a lot. So yes, Kieran Gillen is known for defining the sinister we know today of the very flamboyant snarky sassy Dandy over the top, but still really Devilish Knows Everything character in his 2000s run on Xmen. However, rereading even just those few issues that we read, Sinister was always a little flamboyant and he was always a little overwritten. We both pointed out that he used some word I still don't know the word is I don't even know what that is.
Rob: Which is also very just Claremont too, I think, too just over, just a little too writer Lee, which I think you also get in a very different way with the Kieran Gillen one, where it's also very riderly, but it's very quippy in that.
Speaker B: So, yes, while the sinister that we're seeing here is a Sinister that's been really well characterized for just the last tenish years, I think that there are seeds of it in his character.
Rob: Yeah. And I think what's fun here is you get. And I think this has always been also part of his character. But here in these, you get really mad scientist vibes, especially in Mortal Xmen number one as well.
Speaker B: Yes. Which is also a core part of his character. You're seeing less of it in that 80s stuff because you're only beginning to see that he has plans unfolding. But even as we saw An Inferno, his plans are still related to genetics. So that has always been a part of him, even though he's been retconned in so many ways.
Rob: And in terms of what I liked about it and did I like it is I think the thing that I gravitated towards the most is that kind of scheming. And I think you had mentioned to me that Immortal Xmen has been described as succession, but on Frakoa, and it definitely has that feeling where we've got this quiet Council, everyone is kind of fighting for supremacy. No one quite knows who's on top. And in fact, Sinister goes through this whole one thing where a vote happens and he thinks it's going to go one way and it's going another way. So you totally do get those kind of succession vibes where everyone's trying to beat each other. And also, I think life succession is if comedy masquerading as a drama or drama masquerading as a comedy. Everything we get from Sinister is super funny, but they're dealing with something very serious.
Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that's true in the Halleans run, too. You don't get to see it as much in this first issue, but definitely Zeb Wells does. It really brilliantly that it's a very dark series dealing with questions about clones and humanity and resurrection and all of the questions of KrakowA that are really interesting and profound and death and murder and violence and blood and horror. But you have this really hilarious wacky sinister at the core of it. So it does the same sort of genre bending, just with a few different elements. I think that's what's fun about characters like a Sinister, I guess, is that they are somewhat genre bending.
Rob: Yeah. I think that mhm it's probably also one of the reasons why even a character like the Joker in DC has continues to pop up in so many different media, maybe more so than he should, because you can bend the genre with a character like that. You can get the humor in. You can have him be super serious and killing people one moment and kind of being a little bit of a sassy FOP in the next moment, as opposed uh to Magneto, who the whole essence of that character is black and white that he thinks of things through one rigid way of thinking.
Speaker B: Yeah, definitely true here. What else did you think about these issues? I love them, as I said. I mean, Hawkspox are my favourite comics ever in the history of the universe. And as I said, Immortal Xmen, I think, is a really great restart to the Cricoa era. And I've loved most of the output of the Cricoa era. Not all of it hits for me. Uh some of it's too long, sure. But this reset just has me thrilled with where it's going to go. And that is what Hawksbucks did. It raised questions and it satisfied and hit on every level. And then it raises really interesting questions. And I think this does it with, of course, Sinister as the narrator. And I love that. I love his sassiness, the backmatter pages of his secrets and the way that that's used differently now by Gillian. It's used to give you a little backstory, which is good for people like you who haven't read everything in the CRICO era.
Rob: Yes, very helpful and cool mhm way to integrate it in an organic fashion. And what I thought was also really fun in Immortal X Men is almost all of it is just people sitting around talking literally giving speeches like succession, like succession. And it's almost at the very end of the book that literally like a giant Kaiju monster. But what's so fun, though, is it's totally remains in the background of the rest of the issue because the issue is about Sinister and there's this fight going on where all the other X Men are battling this giant Sandworm kind of creature. But it doesn't really matter because that's not what he's trying to do. And then of course, I don't think we'll spoil it here, but we get like a little that we see what the grand master plan he has in the final panels.
Speaker B: Well, I don't even know that we see it, honestly. We see one huge thing about it. Right. But I think there's so much more, which is what's so fun is there's a lot going on in here and you can tell there's a big plan also. And before we move into sort of the bigger questions this raises about future possibilities, I just want to name one thing we didn't talk about in the hellians that's a fun connection to our earlier issues is that this first arc of Heliance is actually bringing them back to the school. Found links.
Rob: Yes, totally.
Speaker B: So it's the same school because it turns out underneath the school is where Sinister had his clone pits or his clone Chambers or whatever. And so they want to go destroy it. And it turns out that Maddie Pryor is there doing all sorts of gobliny things. So it's a really fun. And Havoc is, of course, on the Helian's team. So this whole story is using a lot of those pieces that we already know about Sinister, who again gets to form this team and take them on this mission. So it's very fun to read with the echoes of everything else we've read.
Rob: Yeah. There's lots of connections between the Haley and Number One and the what if. Really, because you get wild child in kind of the place of Saber tooth along with the other guy who's got a metal arm. I'm not sure who's also very Saber tooth because he's just kind of a big professional badass.
Speaker B: Oh, Grey Crow. He had a different name as a Marauder that is offensive to Indigenous people, so he's renamed to Grey Crow, but.
Rob: The two of them together, you kind of get save or tooth, and then you have havoc on the what if team and on this team as well. So there's a lot and you get kind of the psychic character and now you have empath here, so there's a few combinations that you kind of can see him playing with.
Speaker B: Do you think that Earth Nine Five Six influenced the Six One Six year?
Rob: I usually don't think they're influenced, but I kind of think there is some influence here. There are lots of parallels between um the fake X Men that he puts together in the what if and the Hellians team.
Speaker B: Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's subtle and there's a way that it could just be something that, of course we'd want to see Sinister leading team of Xmen, right? When we meet Sinister, he's leading the Marauders, he's leading a team of mutants. So it would be interesting to sort of flip that around. And so maybe it was an inevitability, but I think you're right. There are enough references here, including to the Scott origin and the orphanage, that it could be that Zeb Wells was inspired a little bit by Simon Furman's work on the what if.
Rob: I was going to ask you too, because those first Claremont stories we read were backups, but now they are so pan and they've been coming up and all these things, including the heliums. Is that rare to have these kind of backup stories?
Speaker B: No, it's not rare because they're so good. I mean, there's another aspect of the Cricoa era. There's an entire character who was resurrected in Marauders in the Kokoa era and plays a huge role in some of that plot unfolding with Shaw and the Hellfire Gala, and the character only appeared in a classic X Men backup.
Rob: Oh, wow.
Speaker B: That was her only appearance. And then she was resurrected and pulled through and reckoned an origin with Emma Frost, and it's really fascinating stuff. So those classic X Men backups are really important, really great material. And yeah, I think a lot of them have been referenced in different ways. The one actually after the two that we read, this is a tangent, but the one after the two that we read is a really cool one where we see Phoenix Jean Gray in limbo after she dies, and it's the creation of the white hot Phoenix, which becomes a really important part of the Phoenix lore. So it's the first time we see a white Phoenix, and what that could mean in terms of the Phoenix and Gene Gray. So I think because, like Anaconda and Claremont and all the writers of the books are writing those backups only a few years after they're writing the original mhm books. So I think they are really important. And yes, they are core.
Rob: The other thing I'm thinking, too, and it kind of goes into like, this starting in a backup story is so often I think in comics we have these characters who are these two? They're two sides of the same coin, and they're the arch enemies. Right. So we've got Xavier and Magneto, we've got Reed Richards and Doctor Doom, and they have these shared backstories. What's so interesting about this is that Scott doesn't even know that his arch enemy is Mr. Sinister. And Mr. Sinister almost hasn't more in his head, this obsession I get with Scott Summers and that all of this has been he actually inserted himself into Scott's story, as opposed to Charles and Eric or Victor and Reid, where their stories are. There was a divergent point where they go back, kind of back into their histories.
Speaker B: Well, I think that speaks to Sinister always having a plan. So I think that's baked into his character and in a cool way, where Scott doesn't realize it because Sinister doesn't want Scott to realize. Yeah, right. So we as an audience know it. Certainly by the mid 90s, we know Sinister's obsession with Scott. We already knew an Inferno, his obsession with the genetic material. But of course, Scott doesn't see it or see Sinister as a nemesis because Sinister doesn't want him to. So I think it speaks to the sort of cloak and dagger or odds great and powerful aspect of Sinister, where he's always manipulating people to see something other than what he's actually trying to do.
Rob: Yeah. And that you have Scott, who okay, he's a cool guy. He's a good leader, but he can just fire optic beams from his eyes, while Sinister is like this Grandmaster Manipulator, who's kind of also invulnerable and immortal and all these things. So there's almost the scales are tilted in a way, too, on these two characters.
Speaker B: Well, it's like he says in Immortal excellent. Actually, he does not see mutants as people. He sees them as resources to be exploited. And there's the great comedic moment of which there are so many. While this ugly hairless cat with the Cyclops visor is sitting on the floor, he talks about the gun that he made where it has clones of Cyclops eyeballs in it so it can just shoot his optic blast, which is such a funny thing because it means that he essentially could render the X Men unnecessary in a certain way. He can make weapons of all of them. But that one he just did. I think he even comments at one point that he just basically um did it. He said, I mainly did it because it made me giggle. Yeah.
Rob: And he says, like, all these have a disparaging comment about mutants, and then he has to remember, oh, wait, I'm technically uh a mutant now.
Speaker B: Yeah. So I think that's all really fun. What do you think we're going to see from Sinister on screen. I know that's something you wanted to talk about in terms of our pondering possibilities. He uh was, of course, supposed to be being built up in the Fox franchise, played by John Ham. Eventually, with a little bit of set up in some of the post credit scenes and building this is there a.
Rob: Post uh credit scene where it's like something sinister or something like that, and they have ethics on a box I don't even remember.
Speaker B: And I'm happy or not knowing. I'm glad that we'll get a new depiction of Sinister because I think there's a lot of reasons he'll be great to show up, but the fact that we have never seen him is a really good reason.
Rob: Totally.
Speaker B: He arguably could be the biggest X Men villain that we haven't seen translated because I'm trying to think I mean, you brought up people like Cassandra Nova earlier, but she is much newer as the villain we've seen. Mystique it was just a really different depiction. There's smaller Brotherhood of evil, mutant type people that we haven't seen. But I think he's probably the biggest archnemesis that we haven't seen on screen. And I don't think they're going to go back to Dark Phoenix or Apocalypse. Well, I think Magneto will be a character. I think it will be done differently.
Rob: Apocalypse is just a little it can be a little hard to render, I think, on screen, as we saw in the actual movie where he did not look good. But I think you can be very flexible with Apocalypse has to have the armor. He has to be big. But like Mr. Sinister could be.
Speaker B: It could be a practical effect.
Rob: Yeah, totally. And I think especially with this current iteration, the Kieran Gillen personality of him would just be so fun. And also, I think, very tied into MCU Ness with a little bit of a tongue in cheek and a little wink at the audience, which not all the villains have had, but certainly heroes in the tone of movies like the Thor Ragnarok and the upcoming Thor and the Guardians of Galaxy movies.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Rob: And who would you want to play Sinister?
Speaker B: I think this came out because we were chatting probably with Elliot about who we would want Jonathan Bailey to play in the MCU. And I think I brought up Nathaniel Essex, Mr. Sinister. So Jonathan Bailey, that's my pick for Sinister.
Rob: I think he'd be great. I think he's almost hard to top in my head. I think he has to be British. I think it is definitely a tone. It would be great if it's a queer actor like Jonathan Bailey, but two of the people that came to mind who are not LGBTQ actors but our British and who are two of my favorite actors would uh be Michael Sheen, who can totally do that kind of camp and slide this to him, or Rory Canier, who's had a great year this past year with flag means death and men as well.
Speaker B: Uh there's stuff about him but on Penny dreadful that felt Mr Oh, yes.
Rob: He had that look and he can have that thing where he can be also a very camp but also very uh scary and imposing as well.
Speaker B: Yeah, I think those are fun ideas and I think if we wait long enough we're going to see sinister so as long as we stay alive for ten more years I think we'll inevitably.
Rob: See or we're just resurrected and we just got to get the five to resurrect us when it's time for removing.
Speaker B: Or sinister to clone us.
Rob: Exactly. Just clone us. Yeah.
Speaker B: Well, anything else about the stories we read today about our alternate universe trip?
Rob: No, I'm just super glad that I got to explore characters that I've heard a lot about but I hate to admit they had never really explored in comics.
Speaker B: Too much and you sure is up your alley. So glad you did too.
Rob: Well, I have been Guido and I have been Rob. That's a wrap. Dear watchers, thank you so much for listening.
Speaker B: The reading list is in the show notes so you can read along with us and you can follow us on Twitter at Deer watchers and leave a.
Rob: Review wherever you listen to podcasts. Send us a photo of that review on Twitter. We'll send you a sticker or a new keychain or some other wonderful goody.
Speaker B: We'll be back soon for another trip.
Rob: Through the multiverse and in the meantime, in the words of a watu, keep pondering the possibilities.