Sins of Sinister Dominion #1 resets the timeline but still makes an impact

It’s been 1,000 years, and Sinister’s best laid schemes have gone astray. Now, he has one final chance to reset the timeline, form a Dominion and save the world. Sins of Sinister Dominion #1 written by Kieron Gillen, with art by Paco Medina and Lucas Werneck, colors by Bryan Valenza, letters by Clayton Cowles.

Mark Turetsky: Rasmus! It seems like only seconds ago we were starting this mini-event, and now here we are, 3 months and a thousand years later, right back where we started. But did any of it matter?

Rasmus Skov Lykke: That has to be an irrevocable yes.

At the end of Sins of Sinister Dominion #1, the status quo of the X-Men has changed in at least – four major ways, which is about three more than I expected.

There’s a lot to discuss, so let’s get to it!

The Last Stand

Mark: We knew this was coming. It was telegraphed not just from the beginning of “Sins of Sinister“, but from the beginning of Immortal X-Men, before we even knew that Sins of Sinister would be a thing. So the question was never “will the timelines get reset?” but rather “just how outlandish will this timeline get before it gets reset?” And also, “what will be the lasting effects of all this Sinister fuckery?” The +1000 era comes down to this: three people holding out against an unstoppable empire. It’s a bit reminiscent of Gillen’s Three in its setup, though that story did not have planet-sized psychic heads or kaijus made of metal blood.

Rasmus: Clear proof that Gillen has evolved as a writer.

Mark: I’m going to be honest: I didn’t have a ton of investment in the new characters introduced in this event, mostly because I knew that they’d be wiped out of existence by the end of it. With that said, by the end of Sins of Sinister Dominion #1, I really liked Ironfire. For as much as his mutant power (turning his own blood into metal) seems excessively, well, 90’s X-Men [Ed. Note: Adam-X the X-Treme is watching], it gets put to good creative use here, namely Ironfire’s creation of a Magneto helmet. It’s just a little thing, but with Magneto currently dead, it’s nice that he gets a little nod here, some small presence in this event.

Rasmus: I agree. Both Jon Ironfire and Rasputin IV do very little for me, for the very reason you mention.

I know the latter originated in Powers of X, another alternate future story, but knowing that she’ll disappear by the end of the event, means I haven’t invested properly in her, even if she does seem pretty cool. 

Al Ewing has mentioned elsewhere that Jon Ironfire will be part of X-Men: Red going forward, so there is some characterization here that is interesting, in how it will be reflected in the younger version that’ll show up in Red. But again… It’s not exactly the same character, so…

These alternate future stories are tricky.

Mark: The arrival of Juggernaut, a bullet fired back in issue #1 and forgotten about and then blasting through Sinister’s final barrier is an extremely meta metaphor. The late Destiny here is a comics plotter, planting a seed in issue #1 that bears its fruit 1,000 years later (to mix my own metaphor). But for me, that payoff falls a bit flat because, while it’s been 1,000 years in-world, it hasn’t been that long for us. So the magic trick of realizing “Oh, they planned this back in issue #1!” doesn’t have such a big wow factor. It’s a victim of this event’s vastness and its smallness. It covers such a huge amount of time, but only has three issues to explore each exponentially different era, and telling three parallel stories at that. 

Rasmus: I did enjoy the moment and did feel that “Oh shit!” moment they were going for. Except I felt that last issue, when we saw it for the first time. So even if Medina draws a kick-ass moment, it does fall a bit flat here. A (very understandable) casualty of each part of a crossover having to work on its own, while still honoring the whole.

But then again, that’s just one of the big moments of Sins of Sinister Dominion #1. We also have a planet sized Xavier to contend with. I have to admit, it fell a bit flat for me, as it seemed to come out of nowhere. Did it work better for you?

Mark: It’s kind of a play on the same thing as the warring Exoduses earlier in the series: a super-powerful mutant psychically fueled by their followers. It harkens back to Jim Starlin’s Warlock saga, with his evil dark future self, the Magus, having formed The Universal Church of Truth. It makes for a fun visual, having a dark and twisted Xavier manifesting as a kind of Ego The Living Planet-style giant head in space, especially when it squares off against a Magneto-helmeted Galactus-sized blood-metal golem, but that’s really all it is, a fun visual.  

Rasmus: In the end, it’s all a distraction. Sinister playing a hail mary (partially orchestrated by Destiny), in order to get to his Moiras and reset the timeline, finally saving us – and more importantly, him – from this hell. Except that’s not all Sinister is planning.

Hail The Conquering Dominion

Mark: Here’s the real subversion of audience expectations. This whole misadventure was in service of Sinister transcending the universe and becoming a Dominion. His one final trick up his sleeve is a big (metaphorically) red button. Oh, and it’s shaped like a diamond. It’s a button that will kill off all of Sinister’s modified mutants and give their psychic energy to him, turning all of mutantkind into a circuit that will allow him to ascend to godhood. It’s an absolute atrocity, lest we forget that Sinister, while he’s the protagonist of this story, is no hero. “I have built a staircase straight out of this reality… and every step is a corpse.” 

Rasmus: Sinister remains Sinister to the end. Even in the face of Xavier taking over everything, Sinister still schemes.

I mean, the clue was in the title of this final issue. Of course Sinister would try to reach Dominionhood. None of the trillions of lives he kills to do so matters, because he can always reset things afterwards. His callousness is absolute.

And in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

With a “Thhdd”, Sinister bumps up against a wall as he’s busy monologuing his ascension to dominionhood. Because the space is occupied, with a force that leaves him with a single fact: It’s not him.

Mark: I like to think the “PLIF” of psychic Sinister being squished by the Dominion as the sound of a pimple being popped.

Rasmus: Any guesses who it is, Mark?

Mark: I don’t have a guess, no. And I also wonder about Sinister’s conclusion, that one of the other versions of Nathaniel Essex became a Dominion. I agree that someone did, but maybe this is playing into Sinister’s egotism. And since the Dominion exists outside of space and time, maybe it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe it’s going to happen in the newly restored timeline of the end of the comic, but within a thousand years. The rules are unclear and confusing.

Back To The Future(‘s Past)

Rasmus: And so we get to all the ramifications of “Sins of Sinister”. Before Sinister can even finish smirking over getting a 1000 years worth of data, a psychic recording of Moira plays. She reveals that she stopped Mother Righteous before she could complete her scheme, that Moira had her own scheme and, most importantly, that Moira (possibly) remembers it all. This would be the first major status quo change following “Sins of Sinister”.

Mark: I’m not even sure present Moira remembers it all. All I know for sure is that the +1000 version of her completes Righteous’ spell, using Righteous herself as a sacrifice. It doesn’t seem like there’s much in it for Moira, aside from escaping the hell timeline and giving her past self another chance at winning (and don’t forget, she’s died ten times and escaped from some pretty bad timelines already). I’d say there’s a big question mark on what present day Moirabot knows or whether she’s allied with Mother Righteous.

Rasmus: The second status quo change follows quickly and isn’t as big. Moira makes sure Sinister knows his ultimate plan fails. Everything he has worked for since the start of Krakoa, achieving Dominionhood, will fail. And to top it off, Moira destroys his Moira-engine (which seems fitting, I must say). It leaves him a broken man.

Mark: Oh, he’s been working at it since before he split himself into different card-suited incarnations in 1895. And of course, Sinister is now the boy who cried wolf Dominion. He has so ruined any possible trustworthiness he might have once possessed that his dire warning goes completely ignored. Or might be: I still have doubts about how much Destiny knows or whether she’ll be taking up Sinister’s work of establishing a mutant Dominion. She admits in Sins of Sinister Dominion #1 that she knew about Sinister’s Moira engine, so why should we simply accept that there aren’t other, more groundbreaking revelations that she’s keeping from the council?  

Let me guess the next status quo change you were thinking of: the presence of Rasputin IV and Mother Righteous allying herself with the Quiet Council?

Rasmus: Yeah, those are the next two, actually. Rasputin IV is the lesser status quo change, and it’s not so much Righteous allying herself with the Quiet Council, as her gaining a wing to her library, full of 1,000 years of knowledge. The knowledge that Sinister fought so hard for, that he sacrificed everything for, now gone to a different Essex. Dare I say, possibly even a worse Essex. And then she allies with the Council, weaseling her way in, having all that lovely knowledge to use and abuse.

Then we’re back to a scene we’ve seen before, with the Quiet Council sentencing Sinister and getting ready to banish him. As you said, his warnings fall on deaf ears. Honestly, I feel like they should’ve paid him some attention, as Sinister saying that he’s unimportant and nothing is so out of character for him, that something major has to be up. But then again, that’s when Mother Righteous makes her entrance.

Mark: The council pretty quickly trusts Righteous and Rasputin, which, having just gone through rooting a traitor out of their midst, I wish they might have done a bit more due diligence before accepting these two’s stories (though Shaw, ever-trustworthy, volunteers to check her out). Which is how we come to the final big status quo change: Sinister, Xavier, Hope, Emma and Exodus are relegated to the hole. Sinister permanently, and the other four until they can be rid of their latent Sinister DNA encoding. They might think this makes Krakoa more safe, but if you’ve read Sabretooth, you’d know that people in the hole become psychically linked to the island, and can manifest some strange effects on the outside world. But I guess that’s what they get for not caring about the people they incarcerate.

Rasmus: Sins of Sinister delivered its promise. Even if it was an alternate future story, it had very real ramifications. A lot of status quos (stati quo?) were changed. Hell, even Rasputin IV turned out to be more important than suspected, as she reappeared in the present, all of her memories intact. With Mother Righteous having the ear of the council, Moira being a major factor again, the other Sinisters still loose and half the Quiet Council incarcerated, Krakoa’s future looks more uncertain than ever. Almost like it’s going to… I don’t know… Fall, or something.

Mark: Yes, things are different, nothing will ever be the same again and all that. But all in all, did you enjoy it? 

Rasmus: Short answer, yes.

Longer answer, yes. But only because I’ve read so many superhero comics at this point, that I know the best way to experience them is not worrying about what’s “important” and just focus on what’s fun. Because a lot of what happened here isn’t really important. How truly horrible everything turned out, doesn’t really matter for present day Krakoa. The status quo changes discussed above didn’t really need all those issues, all that horribleness. But it sure was fun to read. To see what insane idea Gillen, Ewing and Spurrier would throw at us in any given issue. I wasn’t as emotionally invested as I’d have liked, but that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. It was very much a sci-fi disaster movie slash Fast & Furious feel, where I was constantly wondering what new, awful, awesome thing was going to pop up, even if it was mostly for the spectacle. 

Mark: I feel somewhat similarly, but I felt like, on the whole, we didn’t get enough time in each era for things to really have an impact. There’s so much scene-setting that has to happen (some in our CXF Slack have said this series makes a great campaign sourcebook) that the individual stories don’t really have room to develop. Especially coming so soon on the heels of the definitively great event that was Judgment Day. That all said, it was fun, it wasn’t bad, nobody got hurt. It checked all of the boxes and provided some amazingly fun moments.

Selected Sinister Sentiments

• “There can be no conversation with him, only assimilation.” One last Star Trek nod before the end.
• While I might not have gotten emotional invested in Jon Ironfire, he does have some killer lines in this. “Any plan you have that doesn’t involve dying is over!” is a very cool thing to say to someone, as you’re strangling them.
• A strange thing: in Moira’s flashback to her first moments in Sinister’s lab, she’s wearing a long coat, while the Moira of the future isn’t wearing one. Is this merely a miscommunication between the issue’s two artists and editorial, or does this hint that maybe Moira cast the spell in a different timeline entirely. My money’s on the former.
• “Apocalypse thought it was like a bundle of sticks” is implicitly fascist imagery, invoking a literal fasces.
• The opening splash of a burning space station, a location caption telling us we’re in “the Storm System”, a Ghost Rider-driven dead Galactus and just a general atmosphere of hell unleashed, as Moira asks Sinister “So… Sinister… Is this what you wanted?” is just *chef’s kiss*. Truly a hell of his own making.