However, over time, Sinister became a perfect genetic manipulator, someone willing to do anything to play around with fascinating mutant genes, particularly those of Scott Summers a.k.a. Cyclops and his family. Sinister famously cloned Jean Grey to make Madelyne Pryor, mother of Cable, and weaseled his way onto the Quiet Council that led the mutant nation of Krakoa. All the while, he did it by cackling and vamping like the perfect baddie.
Sinister wasn’t always sinister, nor was he always a mutant. Originally, he was a 19th century scientist named Nathaniel Essex, who became interested in genetics after learning about mutants. Driven by death of his wife Rebecca, Sinister sought a way to bring her back to life, which he did by cloning her and, eventually, himself. The more he learned about mutants, the more he wanted to share in their power, so he began incorporating their DNA into his own, becoming more mutant with each clone. Upon meeting Apocalypse and learning about En Sabah Nur’s centuries-long battle with Cable, Essex became obsessed with the Summers family.
Which is how Nathanial Milbury came to be. We first meet Milbury in 1993’s X-Men #27, written by Fabian Nicieza and penciled by Richard Bennett. While Beast, Rogue, and Iceman wait by the bedside of the one-time villain Infectia, who has been infected with the Legacy Virus (a clunky AIDS metaphor that was a major part of ’90s X-Men comics), they are greeted by the attending physician, Dr. Milbury. Milbury presents himself as a fierce ally of the mutants, someone who will work tirelessly to save those dying of the Legacy Virus.
Yet, across several X-Men comics published throughout the ’90s and 2000s, we learn that Dr. Milbury is in fact Mister Sinister himself. Furthermore, he used the Milbury alias, which he took from the estate where he and Rebecca lived in England, to form in Project Black Womb, an early genetics think-tank where Charles Xavier was sent as a child. Through Project Black Womb, Milbury learned about the orphanage where Scott Summers was raised and began developing his Mister Sinister identity.
Confusing? Yes, of course. Convoluted storylines are a feature and not a bug when it comes to X-Men stories. But they’re less welcome when brought to screen, which means that we’re unlikely to see generations of various personae adopted by Driver’s character when X-Men hits theaters in 2028.
However, the timeline isn’t really the important thing when it comes to Mister Sinister. Rather, it’s the fact that he has multiple identities at all. Mister Sinister may be the perfect X-Men villain. Yes, Magneto continues to capture the imagination of readers, precisely because has a reasonable worldview and a sympathetic backstory while posing a challenge to the team. But when it comes to pure evil, a guy we cannot like and we want to see punched in the face, it’s hard to do better than Mister Sinister. Sinister sees mutants as little more than living tools for his own ends, the source of genetic material for him to play with, making him both connected to their central origin and irredeemably evil.
