Sins of Sinister #1 (2023)

Year Zero Mister Sinister is dragged into the Pit of Exile kicking and screaming in response to having killed Hope Summers . The Sinister-influenced Xavier, Emma Frost, Exodus, and Hope Summers discuss the need to hide their Sinister diamonds “until [they] pull the trigger.” At the next Quiet Council meeting, the group considers the decimated ranks of the Council - Sinister is in the Pit, and Destiny and Mystique have left. Xavier suggests sharing resurrection access with humans. Emma opposes on the grounds that so many mutants are in line before humans. Sebastian Shaw counters that allowing resurrection access would indebt humans to mutants in the long run. Exodus vehemently voices his opinion against the idea, but Hope leaves the question open for herself. Storm questions the practicalities of opening access to humanity. Kitty Pryde notes that they would need to increase the resurrection rate as well as save backups of human brain waves. Xavier suggests Forge can help pick up where Sinister left off and Emma says that the Cuckoos could handle the backups. Year One Ben Urich meets with J. Jonah Jameson and quickly tests him with a device that should identify whether or not Jameson has been compromised. Jameson passes and Urich tells him that the X-Gene has been corrupted with a “para-personality” that can take a person over at any time. He notes that politicians have accepted the X-Gene and that they likely have been compromised. As Urich speculates that mutants are poised to take over the world, Jameson reveals a diamond on his forehead, showing he has already been compromised and telling Urich that his test was a fake plant to lure resistors out. Urich is taken away. On Krakoa, Forge creates an orbital cannon to shoot Krakoa and reduce it to a vegetable. Hope presses the button that triggers the blast. In the Quiet council chambers, Doug Ramsey is concerned about Krakoa's unresponsiveness and Wolverine emerges from the shadows and kills him. Emma Frost transmits a telepathic message to all of humanity, falsely claiming that Orchis was the source of the attack on Krakoa and that the attack also wiped out all stored psychic imprints. She says that they have a mystical method of retrieving mutant backups, but not human ones. She urges humanity to join the mutants in fighting Orchis. The Avengers assist the X-Men in raiding the Orchis Forge and they defeat Nimrod using a virus that Reed Richards, Tony Stark, and Forge created. Victorious, Cyclops tells Captain America that if humanity electively takes on the X-Gene, they would be able to establish psychic backups for humans. He also points out that Captain America taking on the X-Gene would send a positive message to humanity. Later, back on Krakoa, Forge forces the now-brain-dead Krakoa to regurgitate Mister Sinister from the Pit. Xavier lets Sinister know that the plan has progressed. Sinister tells them to keep up the good work as he walks through a portal. The portal takes him to Muir Island, where he has hidden his “Moira lab” beneath her old Mutant Research Center. Sinister congratulates himself for being able to hide copies of himself and “some extra spice” in every DNA sample, thus compromising anyone who went through the resurrection process. A data page outlines the major problem as Sinister sees it: dominion-status artificial intelligence beings will eventually consume mutantdom. His solution is to achieve dominion status himself before this happens. His plan is to: use his “Moira engine” to reset the timeline whenever an undesirable outcome is encountered; compromise the DNA database such that he can take over or influence any mutant; use this leverage to take over Earth; use mutant creative power to determine the quickest way to achieve dominion status, likely through exploring new power sets and mutant evolution; reset the timeline as needed to apply new research discoveries; transcend reality through achieving dominion status; and gloating over his victory. Sinister spent some Moira resets before he figured out that Hope Summers was fixing his genetic meddling without knowing it, prompting him to compromise and kill her , forcing her through the resurrection process and subsequent infection by Sinister's X-Gene. Now that his plan has come to fruition, Sinister enacts the first five years of his master plan, which includes: - heading off a future Thanos threat by using Juggernaut as a bullet and shooting Thanos in the head while he is in the Timestream - using an infected Namor to kill Victor von Doom and replace him with a mutant-controlled clone - inciting a war between Krakoa/Arakko and the Eternals, in which the Arakkii let Uranos loose for an hour, per their previous agreement, and he defeats the Eternals - infecting Ben Grimm and causing him to successfully pursue vengeance against the rest of the Fantastic Four - causing infected members of the Avengers to become violent and unhinged, with Captain America eventually murdering the sitting President; the X-Men save the day and effectively replace the Avengers as America's most trusted heroes Year Five In the Quiet Council, Storm has misgivings about recent events. She also points out that the Nightcrawler present is not the true Kurt. Sinister, who Storm thinks is still in the Pit, brings out the real transformed Nightcrawler. The rest of the Council reveal themselves to Storm as compromised by Sinister's X-Gene. Storm, having erased her backup , was not able to be compromised. The Quiet Council telepaths begin to psychically assault Storm, but she has a fail-safe in place. Storm arranged with Lactuca to create a defense should anyone tamper with Storm's will, and once a special phrase was spoken, Storm would be linked with Lactuca's infinite mind and any psychic attacks would be pushed away. This defense is triggered and Storm is whisked away to Peru, where she encounters Mystique and Destiny. Destiny tells Storm that they “must be on the same side”. Back on Krakoa, Sinister, noting that Storm's exit leaves an open seat on the Quiet Council, is easily voted in by his infected peers. He continues on to the next phase of his plan, which involves: - Sebastian Shaw becoming an emissary to the various Hells and turning the Waiting Room into a Hell that he rules - Magik destroying the remnants of Asgard - killing Wanda Maximoff (just in case) - turning the old Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters into a genetic experimentation lab to produce Chimera, which pollutes the entire eastern seaboard Storm is pursued on Arakko with stage-two Ora Serrata-Cyclops Chimera and a Legion clone is inserted into Arakko's core and detonates, creating an asteroid belt from the planet's remains. Storm's fate is unknown. Year Ten Earth and its inhabitants are effectively under Sinister's control. In a Quiet Council meeting, the group agrees to stop hiding the presence of the diamonds on their foreheads now that their control is absolute. Hope notes some points of concern: the remains of Orchis are still out there, they don't know where Storm is, plus the greater space empires have noted what is going on and might be coming to attack Earth. She suggests taking the initiative and taking a preemptive strike. Sinister disagrees and wants to focus on his scientific efforts, noting that he has finally managed to get Nightcrawler's genes working but he doesn't know how he did it. The group votes and side with Hope's idea. Sinister, miffed at the audacity of his creations having enough will to disagree with him, doesn't like how things are going and decides to reset the timeline by killing a Moira clone. However, his teleporter is not working, forcing him to physically go to his hidden lab on Muir Island. Once there, he discovers his Moira lab has been stolen by someone, trapping him in that timeline.