We have a treat for you this time, redesign fans! After several rounds of voting, our group was deadlocked on who to pick, so we went with two! We’re bringing you the sinister Nathaniel Essex, aka Mister Sinister and all his cloned incarnations, and Rachel Summers, currently known as Prestige! Both are very popular characters with the fanbase, so we’re very pleased to spotlight them both here.
What a fascinating choice of characters! Both 1980s icons with new prominence in the Krakoa era, Mister Sinister through his role on the Quiet Council and the recent line-wide crossover Sins of Sinister, and Rachel through her roles in X-Factor, Knights of X, and now as Captain Britain’s girlfriend.
Mister Sinister has inexorably linked himself to the Summers-Grey family tree and has an obsession with the power that genetic line can create. Rachel herself is the Pheonix’s perfected form from the future, Scott and Jean’s daughter from another timeline.
Both characters have some very strong distinct looks, so our artists had a lot of inspiration. See what spins our artists put on these iconic characters, and follow them on social media for even more X-Men goodness!
Alex Buckland
I wanted to combine my two favorite past looks: her 80s hound costume and Chris Bachalo’s design! Throw in a harness with a chic Miley Cyrus mullet on top and you’ve got my design!
Angel Solorzano
For this Rachel redesign I was influenced by 70s and 80s clothing, mixing casual with punk vibes. I wanted to make an original uniform with flashes to her origins, making it seem refined and adult but still reflecting her spiky personality.
Giovanni Saroldi
For Sinister I worked with the idea of “Son of Nobody, Father of None”. He’s a clone, son of who knows how many clones, father of who knows how many more. His pristine, almost plastic body is shown off, highlighting how proud he is of having detached from common humans’ aesthetics.
Léa Dupic
You know sometimes you just want to design a hot character, with not much further thought put in. So I made Rachel a cool bike butch decked in leather, with a jacket she sprayed paint herself, and a dog collar to match her imposing and shiny Amazing Baby. I just really wanted her to be very cool looking.
I only know of Sinister from the original inferno arc and the reveal he manipulated Scott’s life, so I kind of wanted to pay homage to that and to that era of X-Men comics with the pose of him holding Jean and puppeteering Scott and the texture. I wanted him to look a bit like an evil prince , so I integrated the diamond motif into big puffed sleeves. You of course gotta have the cape and well, the boob window was just for fun.
Joshua Bruckner
The true origins of Nathaniel Essex opened up a world of design potential for him, but I liked the idea that Sinister looked as old as he really is, and drew inspiration from some current comic artists who make him look reptilian and utterly foul. I took him into vampire territory with fashion choices inspired by 1700s English nobility, painted face and high heels included.
Rachel Summers has always been a queer icon so I embraced that and made her look like a butch lesbian who’d drive a motorcycle. I borrowed the bright red and the pants from her recent X-Factor look, the spikes and facial markings from her 1980s look, and gave her a jacket because every superhero looks better and gayer with a jacket.
Joshua Bruckner
Joshua Bruckner is a lifelong artist, X-Men fan and scientist, in that order. He lives in Massachusetts and spends his free time reading comics, redesigning X-Men, drawing comics and arguing about X-Men. Follow him at @joshington_bear on most social media.
