Sins of Sinister: Dominion #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
SINS OF SINISTER: DOMINION #1
“Sins of Sinister, part 11: ∞ Deadly Sins”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artists: Paco Medina & Lucas Werneck
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Mr Sinister in prayer – the present-day version, not the far-future one.
PAGE 2. The Storm System, 1000 years in the future.
This establishing shot joins the action at page 11 of Nightcrawlers #3. As Vox Ignis explained in that story, the Spirits of Vengeance (who left Earth early on) have possessed Galactus, fuelled by his rage at what Sinister has done to the universe.
PAGE 3. Sinister and Moira talk.
So far as these characters are concerned, we’re picking up from Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants #3, which ended with Sinister shooting Jon Ironfire through the head. Moira’s absence was noted by Sinister in that issue, but it wasn’t clear that he was in radio contact with her. (There’s no contradiction, though, because Sinister doesn’t know where she is.)
The dead characters lying on the ground around Ironfire are Bloodroot (the red one), Old Oda (the bird) and Genas Mind-Flayer (the furry guy in the hood). Not that it really matters at this stage.
“Any luck in changing Ironfire’s mind about that?” Sinister was indeed arguing vigorously in SatBoM #3 for access to the lab.
“Emma’s fashionably dead.” Killed by Storm in SatBoM #3.
“Destiny’s message.” Received by Sinister in Immoral X-Men #3.
PAGE 4. Juggernaut impacts the planet.
This is Sinister’s perspective on the scene that we already saw in Nightcrawlers #3. In that issue, we saw that it (nearly) lowered the force field around the Worldfarm, allowing Mother Righteous to finish the job and get in. Here, we see that it lowers the forcefield around Sinister’s stolen lab, containing the Moira clones.
PAGES 5-6. Ironfire fights Sinister.
“I need to upload my data.” For anyone joining us late, Sinister’s whole scheme with the Moira clones is that each time he gives up and resets the timeline, he sends back a record of what happened, so that he knows what to repeat and what to avoid in the next timeline.
PAGE 7. Recap and credits.
PAGE 8. The Beast makes his way to the Worldfarm.
The Beast was shown in Immoral X-Men #3 as essentially a lackey of Emma Frost – but perhaps he was just cowering in her presence, since everyone seems to be accepting him here as having some degree of authority. At any rate, he’s clearly moved in to fill the void.
“Mother Empress.” Emma Frost. This might just be the Stepford Cuckoo clones’ term for Emma, since the original Cuckoos were cloned from her.
“We fight for our very existence.” The Beast is actually right – Sinister and Moira are both proposing to wipe out the timeline.
PAGE 9-11. Professor X learns what’s happening, and takes command.
This is apparently the prime Professor X (through a series of resurrections, obviously); the “lotus-eaters” we saw in Immoral X-Men #3 are presumably some of his followers. He seems to be engaged in some sort of demented programme of imposing “serenity” by force, consistent with this Professor’s approach of forcing his dream on people. The monks all have Sinister diamonds on their foreheads, so presumably they’re helping to power him up somewhere.
Of course, Professor X knows perfectly well what the significance of Moira clones would be, because he’s been aware of her timeline-reset powers all along.
“Nothing can stop an idea.” Referencing the maxim “Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come”, which seems to have started life as a loose paraphrase of Victor Hugo. (What he actually said was more along the lines of “You can resist invading armies, but you can’t resist an invasion of ideas.”)
PAGES 12-14. Sinister and Ironfire react to Professor X’s attack.
“I did have an Omega psychic…” Rasputin IV, who he betrayed in Immoral X-Men #3. She’s a chimera whose powers include Quentin Quire psychic abilities.
“Regrets. I’ve had a few.” Sinister is quoting “My Way.”
“I should look the part.” Ironfire is using his powers to make a helmet that resembles the late Magneto’s.
“Magneto’s old trick.” Magneto’s helmet was often attributed with shielding him from telepathy, which was generally supposed to be something to do with hidden circuitry or something like that. In this version it seems to be attributed to a shielding property of the metal itself, which Ironfire can mimic with his powers.
“Lifted from Juggernaut, of course.” Juggernaut’s helmet had the same trick. Both are basically fixes for the obvious problem of “why doesn’t Professor X just think everyone into submission in the first panel”.
“I wish we had more time to become acquainted.” It seems like we’ll be seeing more of Ironfire in the present day in X-Men: Red once it resumes.
“With my Moira engine, he’ll be unstoppable.” Presumably because Xavier will be able to try out alternative timelines in the same way that Sinister planned to. Not that it did him any good, of course. But Sinister’s ego doesn’t allow for the plan failing.
PAGES 15-16. Ironfire fights Professor X.
“Erik?” Professor X senses a connection with Magneto, probably just the use of the same metal. Ironfire quickly disavows being the same person.
“He was right.” Referencing the old “Magneto was right” slogan from the Grant Morrison era. But right about what? As he was dying in X-Men: Red #7, Magneto did express worries about what would happen to Charles now that he didn’t have Magneto or Moira to watch him, and whether he would make some disastrous decision to martyr everyone. (“He is a good man, Ororo. We must be wary of good men. For what will they not do to show how good they are?”)
PAGES 17-20. Sinister confronts Moira.
“You turned yourself into a machine.” In X Lives of Wolverine.
“Why is Mother Righteous bleeding over my nice, clean floor?” This is the aftermath of Nightcrawlers #3, which plays out much as Moira describes. What she doesn’t tell Sinister is that Righteous’s plan was to use the Moira’s to send information back to herself instead. Nightcrawlers #3 ended with Moira holding the device that Righteous was going to use for that purpose, but as we see later on, she’s used it herself in the interim.
“If I don’t send anything back, it’ll just happen again.” This is a rather deterministic view of things – are there no random elements that could play out differently along the way? But if Sinister’s correct in dismissing that, then presumably he’s right. Unless perhaps the next timeline’s Sinister realises that he didn’t get any data back from this timeline, and that affects his course of action somehow.
PAGE 21. Data page. Basically, Sinister changes plans at the last minute and sees one last opportunity to hijack all the Sinisterised mutants and kill them in order to absorb their knowledge and create a Dominion so that he can ascend to a higher state of existence – the thing that all of the Sinister copies have been trying to achieve throughout this timeline, and indeed in the mainstream Earth too.
PAGES 22-24. Sinister puts his plan into action.
Page 24 is a montage of characters dying. We see, in particular, Wagnerine and her baby from Nightcrawlers. Note that they don’t seem to be dying, which might be because Mother Righteous was able to purge Sinister’s control gene from Wagnerine and her fellow Nightcrawler chimeras. Exodus is shown top right. Sebastian Shaw, as a Hell lord, is doing just fine in the bottom right.
PAGES 25-26. Sinister finds his ascent blocked by another Dominion.
The idea seems to be that since a Dominion has been defined (by Jonathan Hickman’s stories) as something that exists outside space and time, anything that will ever become a Dominion in any timeline is already there. It’s not entirely obvious why the existence of another Dominion should prevent this Sinister from ascending, though – we know there are meant to be multiple dominions. Rather, this Dominion seems to be actively blocking Sinister’s ascent – it says that it’s harvesting the power that he stole from the dead mutants, and it returns him to the Worldfarm with the sole information that somebody else became a Dominion first.
PAGES 27-29. The timeline resets.
“A Sinister Dominion is already outside time and space.” Note, the other Dominion didn’t say it was a Sinister. As far as we can see, he’s just assuming that. At any rate, for Sinister, there’s no point in any of this if he can’t ascend. He more or less lets Ironfire behead him.
PAGE 30. Back in the present, the next timeline begins.
The first three panels are reprinted from the opening of Immortal X-Men #10. The dialogue repeats up to the point where Sinister asks “Information?” This time, the computer reports that there’s one previous timeline with a thousand years of data. In the original version, the computer tells him that it’s the first iteration, and Sinister makes a joke that “I really hope this works… I really could do without being trapped helplessly in the Pit forever.” Irony!
PAGES 31-32. Sinister receives Moira’s message from the future.
All Sinister apparently gets to learn about the future is the fact that he can never ascend to Dominion status, because another Sinister (at least as he believes) has got there already.
“I found my way to the lab and watched the end of your rival’s scheme.” Nightcrawlers #3. Moira gives a basically accurate recap of the finale of that issue, and goes on to explain that she took control of Mother Righteous’s mythic virus.
PAGES 33-34. The Moiras are destroyed and Rasputin IV appears.
Somehow or other, Righteous’s virus disables the Moira clones’ powers, allowing them to be safely destroyed without further rebooting the timeline. (We established in X Lives of Wolverine that this works.)
Rasputin IV made a deal with Mother Righteous at the end of Immoral X-Men #3. Apparently, her data has somehow been sent back in time so that she can be reconstituted by Sinister’s machines. She seems to be accusing Sinister of wiping out mutantkind in the Sins of Sinister timeline as seen earlier in this issue, so her knowledge of that must come from Moira.
PAGE 35. Mother Righteous receives the information from her future self.
Evidently, whatever Moira did, it didn’t fundamentally thwart Mother Righteous’s plan of sending a thousand years of knowledge back to the present for her own use. Mother Righteous has won, but nobody else knows.
PAGES 36-37. Rasputin IV hands Sinister over to the rest of the Quiet Council.
As in Immortal X-Men #9, Kate Pryde takes control in the absence of Professor X, Hope, Exodus and Emma. That could be more significant than it first seems, given where this is going.
PAGES 38-40. Sinister is banished to the Pit.
This is a reprise of the scene in Immortal X-Men #10 where Sinister was banished to the Pit as part of his cover, leaving the Sinisterised Quiet Council to start carrying out his schemes. This time, Sinister is genuinely trying to warn everyone that Dr Stasis, Mother Righteous or Orbis Stellaris becomes a cosmic god, but of course nobody is listening – with the possible exception of Destiny. Sinister makes sure to reference her repeated claims that they need to work together. When pressed, Destiny claims that Sinister is trying to throw suspicion on her, but admits that she has some idea of what he’s talking about.
PAGES 41-42. Rasputin IV introduces the Quiet Council to Mother Righteous.
Unfortunately Rasputin IV has gone from Sinister’s heroic dupe to Mother Righteous’s. Righteous has met some of the cast of Legion of X before, but she isn’t known to any of the Quiet Council – except for Sebastian Shaw, who was discussing a deal with her at the end of Immortal X-Men #6. He pretends here not to recognise her. She also approached Nightcrawler at the end of Legion of X #10, but he was much more mutated in that story, implying that the arc takes place after “Sins of Sinister”, despite being published first.
She gives a basically accurate account of Sinister’s scheme, which Destiny is able to verify. Righteous then gives a broadly truthful account of the general nature of the Sins of Sinister timeline (which Rasputin can confirm), and claims credit for thwarting Sinister (which is at best a half-truth).
Righteous’s comments to Nightcrawler allude to the Nightcrawler chimeras that she had as followers – the Nightkin – but she doesn’t explain it directly.
PAGES 43-45. The compromised Quiet Council members exile themselves in the Pit.
“I don’t trust her, but we do owe her.” Interestingly, Shaw is the only character here with significant established dealings with Righteous, and while he doesn’t admit to that, he is the only character to expressly question her.
Mother Righteous’s power gives her control over people who offer her thanks – so by manoeuring herself into a position where the government of Krakoa is offering her the gratitude of the nation, she’s doing rather well.
PAGES 46-47. Crossover checklist and trailers.
Well, this was an interesting enough storyline, and the ramifications might prove interesting.
1) Getting rid of Moiras I-VII effectively removes the lingering thread of potentially resetting the timeline prior to this moment (as far as we know, those were the only Moira clones in service). The Marvel Universe doesn’t have to worry about being rolled back prior to Judgement Day or even to the start of the Krakoan era. This had to be done, otherwise it was a ticking time bomb both in-universe and on a meta level. Whether or not more Moira clones will surface with Sinister or someone else exploiting them is anyone’s game–and unfortunately, there’s no way to say for certain. Luckily, the other three Sinister variants aren’t so much into cloning.
2) The removal, however temporary, of Xavier, Hope, Exodus and Emma, (and Sinister) leaves Krakoa wide open in various ways. The Quiet Council is in tatters, some of the most powerful mutants and telepaths on the island are out of commission for even a brief period…
(though how does this affect Emma apparently becoming a regular cast member over in Iron Man, or did I read their intentions wrong for that book?)
And with Hellfire Gala III coming up, this could be messy.
3) Mother Righteous–who has yet to really grow on me as a character–is now positioned as a new big bad lurking in the shadows, with 1000 years worth of deleted history which, presumably, may be of some use, though I’m not sure what yet. And getting a collective thanks from the entire island, so to speak, should be good for her power levels.
I expect at some point, with Orbis, Stasis, and Righteous still all lurking about, “our” Sinister will either be freed from the Pit at some point to help counter them, or we’ll see a new diamond Sinister activated as a contingency plan. Assuming that the Prime Essex doesn’t manage to turn up alive and well despite evidence to the contrary.
Last thought is… who became a Dominion? I know good money was on Moira obtaining the power at the end of SoS but it didn’t sound like anyone we know offhand–no distinctive voice.
Technically that bit about Moira being killable once you neutralize her X-gene was in Inferno, not X Lives
Dr. Stasis would probably be the most interesting choice for Dominionhood, considering his involvement with Orchis. I can’t say I have much interest in Righteous. She’s the least interesting character to me, so seeing her being the person to come out ahead from all of this was the least interesting option. I’m interested to get back to Hickman’s core themes about post-humanity, AI, and mutants…not the diversions involving magic.
The Dominion seen in Sins of Sinister stopping our Mr. Sinister from achieving Ascension to Dominion status can be explained in the same way as the Librarian’s explanation to Moira that if post-humanity were to a achieve Ascension, then the Dominion would become aware of Moira, and the Dominion would stop Moira from preventing the rise of post-humanity. In the same sense, this Dominion must have been aware of Mr. Sinister’s goal to become a Dominion, so it is actively working to prevent any other Essexes from achieving Ascension.
Isn’t a Dominion just an intelligence so vast that it collapses in on itself and forms a black hole? I don’t know how that could possibly be blocked, short of some kind of lobotomy. Maybe that’s what happened. But then, why fight it if by their nature, Dominions would simply blob together anyway? It’s not like one little Sinister brain among a mass bigger than a star could make any perceivable difference. I suppose the tradition of showing the Phalanx as working differently every time they’re used is continuing, and now they’re more like literal gods in a big invisible clubhouse with a bouncer at the door.
And on a different note, how are you meant to pronounce “Wagnerine”? Nightcrawler’s name is pronounced “Vargner”, and that sounds okay, but the pun makes more sense if you pronounce it the Anglicised way, like “WAG your tail”.
@Chris V – that was always a weak spot. If the post-human Dominion is outside of time and space, and so is unaffected by Moira rewinding time, shouldn’t it also be unaffected by Moira changing events? Dominions shouldn’t give a stuff about what happens in time or space, because they don’t live there any more. Maybe they take an interest, like a person reading news articles about a town they lived in as a kid, but it can’t affect them in any way.
Here Comes Tomorrow did this storyline better in 4 issues, managed to make me care about all the new characters it introduced, and also importantly had an actual ending instead of yet another teaser for yet another event.
How can Ironfire mimic Magneto’s helmet without knowing what it’s made of?
So Destiny DID know about the device to destroy the Sinister’s. And presumably Stellaris knew as well, but didn’t want to use it to risk turning Sinister into a Dominion.
When I first saw Sinister being blocked from being turned into a Dominion, I assumed that the problem was that Sinister thanked Mother Righteous and that enabled her to harvest the energy he stole. However, Mother Righteous was absorbed into the heart by Moira, so it couldn’t have been her.
However, I do have to wonder what if it what happened was that the original Nathaniel Essex somehow arranged it so that when one of the Sinisters tried to become a Dominion, he would absorb the energy instead and become a Dominion. That would be ironic, since Sinister was leeching off the Sinisters he created, so it would be fitting if his creator was doing the same to him.
If Dominions are outside space and time, what does it mean that another Dominion was created earlier? In a previous Moira timeline? In 2024, instead of 3023?
Note that there were 3 survivors of the psychic Inferno. One of them was obviously Ironfire. But who were the other 2? Wagnerine and her baby? I originally thought one of them was Rasputin.
I’m not sure I buy that Moira realized that Mother Righteous would work as a sacrifice instead of the baby. She’s a scientist, not a sorcerer.
How does a cloning device create a Soulsword?
it’s too bad the X-Men didn’t believe Sinister when he tried to warn them about the Dominion. I guess they believed conspiracy theories that Dominions were hoaxes created by followers of Hugo Chavez.
So the virus wasn’t just supposed to send information back to Mother Righteous but also destroy the Moiras without destroying the timeline. It still seems a little underwhelming.
Re Shaw: I think he’s pretending to be suspicious of her, offering to check her out and then will claim that the people he spoke to all vouch for her.If they’d asked Strange or Clea, they might have known she was evil.
I hope that it turns out Magneto’s helmet is lined with aluminium foil, and that the cartoon crazy people were right all along about it blocking mind control.
Si-I think it is completely unaffected by Moira resetting the timeline. I think the problem was that the Dominion realizes how it was created, so it needs to set up events that leads to its own creation, otherwise, there would be a temporal paradox, that the Dominion exists, but its existence never came about in the timeline. If Moira could continue to reset the timeline before the rise of post-humanity, and the rise of post-humanity is necessary for the Dominion’s creation, then there is a temporal paradox which would break the timeline.
I guess if the Dominion exists, it must necessarily mean that Moira does fail. Perhaps the Dominion’s actions are necessary to ensure its own creation.
I think the idea that the real conflict has always been mutants vs machines and humans are always the loser is a very interesting twist.
I think all this high level Dominion stuff is deeply uninteresting. It’s too big, too abstract, too Christopher Nolan sci-fi movie.
PS-Can’t the just resurrect Moira if they want and reset everything again? Have they said dumb robot Moira somehow makes that impossible?
Uncanny X-Ben-They could never record Moira with Cerebro due to Moira not being detectable as a mutant. I think for convenience sake, it’s best to just go with that being Hickman’s intent and ignore all the subsequent changes which have happened since that point and agree that they can’t resurrect Moira.
Yeah it’s a real mess with the Waiting Room and whatnot.
Couldn’t Xavier have forced a recording? I mean he knew and he is now a pretty big monster.
With Hope in the Pit, Krakoa can’t resurrect anyone anymore. And if she wasn’t in the Pit, she is still Sinister-infected and won’t neutralise the Sinister infection in anyone resurrected going forward.
Also, I expect that there’d be some sort of weird rule about if you resurrect Moira, her power would only activate from “now” (i.e. the moment of her rebirth) so there’d be no more chances to reset all the way back to her original birth. Or something. I suspect that no matter how it’s twisted, they’ll steer clear of any more possibility of rebooting the MU courtesy of the Moira Save Point. It’s far too messy otherwise.
I’m trying to think if they ever determined a suitable alternative for Hope in the circuit of the Five. Synch could presumably tap into her power even with her in the Pit. I think Mimic was also floated as a possibility.
In hindsight, it’s obvious that the original Nathaniel Essex was visited by this Dominion shortly before his death in Bedlam.
If we look at his ‘death’ scene in Immortal X-Men 8, it starts off with Essex talking to himself behind bars. Then, he is visited by a red light, which prompts him to say “red and black” over and over. Finally, he says “You’re a ghost, you’re a ghost, you’re a …” and is later found dead.
Dominions (as seen in Inferno 3) have a yellow and black color scheme, but it’s possible an Essex Dominion is red and black. Two possibilities here: (a) contact with a Dominion broke his mind and he died from shock, (b) the Dominion absorbed Essex’s mind, leaving a husk behind.
Where else have we seen the “you’re a ghost” routine before?
In 1920, Mister Sinister said it after a conversation between him and Destiny in Paris. (Immortal X-Men 1)
In present day, Destiny said it after Selene’s gateway monster, which was warping space and time, was destroyed. (Immortal X-Men 2)
So what does it all mean? Probably that Mystique was right in that Destiny knows more about the original Essex’s death than she lets on.
What did Destiny tell Sinister in Paris? That he wasn’t the original Essex? That he wouldn’t reach Dominion status and someone else will?
Or was that not Destiny at all but a Dominion construct of some kind? Or maybe Destiny from the future?
To go back to my Defenders Beyond theory, I’m pretty sure that this Dominion is the same Dominion that the Defenders saw there. Ewing works with the X-Office, I find it hard to believe he introduced a cosmic entity called The Dominion that is completely distinct from the Dominions that Hickman introduced in HOX/POX.
In DB, the Dominion is referred to as a “cosmic outsider” that has come to threaten the Multiverse. The Beyonders claim they used their Concordance Engines to limit the Dominion’s influence to “a narrow band of realities”. Which I assume means Earth-616 and the timelines that branch from it (Moira’s ten lives and the Moira Engine lives).
Loki: “So whatever we saw, we know it’s not a sword, cup, coin or staff… or any of the other suits. So where there are four–look for the fifth business.”
I observed that ‘sword, cup, coin or staff’ is an ancestor to ‘spades, hearts, diamonds or clubs’.
So if this is a hint, who represents the fifth business – the Crown?
The original Nathaniel Essex? Moira McTaggert? Someone else entirely?
Si > Dominions shouldn’t give a stuff about what happens in time or space, because they don’t live there any more. Maybe they take an interest, like a person reading news articles about a town they lived in as a kid, but it can’t affect them in any way.
When Hickman first introduced the Dominions, I think his intention was that they will eventually get involved in the main story to stop Moira from resetting the timeline.
That motivation doesn’t really work anymore with mutant Moira gone and the Moira Engine gone. I think the other X-writers made the decision to tie the Sinister plotline with the Dominion plotline to keep the Dominion stuff interesting.
The Avengers fighting against omnipotent Beyonders with vague motivations is not a very dramatic story. The Avengers fighting against Doctor Doom, who has stolen the power of the omnipotent Beyonders, is far more dramatic because we understand Doctor Doom’s motivations.
Similarly, the X-Men fighting against omnipotent Dominions with vague motivations is not a very dramatic story. The X-Men fighting against Mister Sinister, who has found a way to become an omnipotent Dominion, is far more dramatic because we understand Mr Sinister’s motivations.
So even if it’s not Sinister (or any of his clones) behind this Red Dominion, I bet it’s someone we know or at implicitly recognize. It explains why this particular Dominion gets personally involved in all things mutantkind.
I agree with Uncanny X-Ben that the whole idea of a Dominion is too big and abstract, as well as nonsensical.
Mr. Sinister about to ascend and going splat against a Dominion’s windshield made me laugh, though.
I thought this issue was a strong ending to a decent event story because of the character choices~ Destiny and Shaw playing their cards close to their vests, Sinister’s power hunger leading to his ruin, Mother Righteous’s schemes, and the four members of the Quiet Council choosing exile all landed. I’m looking forward to the return of Red & Immortal, even if I don’t have high hopes for the Gerry Duggan-led Fall of X.
The Other Michael> I’m trying to think if they ever determined a suitable alternative for Hope in the circuit of the Five. Synch could presumably tap into her power even with her in the Pit. I think Mimic was also floated as a possibility.
Synch and Mimic were determined to be suitable alternatives to Hope back when it was believed that all Hope did in the Five was to amplify and synergize the powers of the other four. Now, we know that there is an unknown quirk to Hope’s powers (hint: it’s the Phoenix) that was subconsciously burning out the Sinister personality in every resurrection done in Krakoa.
In IXM 10, Synch (and potentially Mimic) could duplicate Hope’s powers but couldn’t copy the ‘unknown quirk’. This led to proper resurrections for the councilmembers but with the Sinister personality left intact.
The entire DNA database that Sinister provided Krakoa has been infected. It’s going to take some time for Forge to build that alternative DNA database. Until such time, or a time in which Hope is cured, I think the resurrections will have to be paused.
Rich Johnston > With Hope in the Pit, Krakoa can’t resurrect anyone anymore. And if she wasn’t in the Pit, she is still Sinister-infected and won’t neutralise the Sinister infection in anyone resurrected going forward.
I agree with this. I believe Hope and the others won’t be stuck in the Pit for too long, they will be out before the Gala at the latest. But the potential Sinister infection within Hope is far more difficult to fix.
So Stasis is the one Sinister that we haven’t seen a credible path to Dominion-hood so far. Sinister and Orbis we know their plans, and Righteous probably wants something like having the entire universe thank her. Stasis so far has seemed like a bit player though. Did his area of study leave him the worst off, or does he have more going on we haven’t seen yet?
Current guesses for the Dominion: Original Essex, Moira, All Mutants, Mystique/Destiny combination, Squirrel Girl and a cosmic group of quintillions of squirrels.
The virus was said to be able to contain things, so I’m guessing that Righteous stuffed Rasputin’s mind/soul into it for that resurrection. It makes sense that it would still mostly be doing whatever she created it for — Moira probably couldn’t exactly remake a long-term magical spell in a few minutes. Recording a message and a scan of Sinister’s short-term memories seems reasonable. Destroying the current version of the Moira engine was probably from Righteous and not Moira, not that Moira wouldn’t have if she could’ve.
At first when the information started to be streamed away after the timeline reset, I thought it was going to Moira rather than Righteous. I’m still half expecting that — it’d definitely give Orchis a pretty powerful PR weapon if nothing else. “Look at what the mutants are planning.” It seems pretty logical for Moira to try and send her past self a message, but could she have hacked Righteous’s magical wifi signal to get it to her past self?
Stasis is pursuing the path of post-humanity to creating a Dominion. The closest of the four to Hickman’s original intent. He is also aligned with Moira, who has the most information about the Dominions. That’s why I’d find his accomplishing Ascension the most interesting, if it’s not Moira (perhaps it is Moira and Stasis). It could also explain why this Dominion stopped Mr. Sinister, as Stasis wants to see humans win, while Mr. Sinister is a mutant.
Remember, the Librarian hesitated about allowing post-humanity to be assimilated by the Phalanx in Life Six. He tells Moira that post-humanity has no choice except to allow itself to become a tiny part of a Machine God in order to become immortal. He asks what alternative Moira could offer. Moira has no answer. Wolverine uses the hesitation to allow Moira to reset the timeline.
I believe it was this moment which was so pivotal in creating doubt in Moira’s mind about her cause. By Life Ten, she is convinced that mutants were doomed to always lose (or so she thought). The war between mutants and humans/post-humanity is always taken advantage of by AI to evolve beyond both. Machines will always win. I thought that Moira’s new plan was to put a halt to evolution, allowing humanity to survive. Instead, maybe Moira has been planning to create that alternative path for post-humanity which doesn’t end with the Machines victorious. So, Moira and Stasis could be working together for post-humanity to create their own Dominion.
Re: who became a Dominion- the most obvious choice would be Mother Righteous. The Dominion says “whatever is yours is mine now”. Sinister thanked her and Mother Righteous thinks whoever thanks her belongs to her.
However, a better candidate might be the original Nathaniel Essex. He created Sinister, so he probably thinks Sinister belongs to him. The Dominion tells Sinister he is “Not you.”- Sinister insisted in Immoral X-Men 2 he’s the same person as the original Nathaniel Essex.Essex insisted before he died that he would be not merely be immortal but everywhere- in other words, a Dominion. Destiny said she wasn’t sure Essex was dead. Essex wanted Destiny by his side and she refused him- he could be responsible for the deaths of Mystique in every timeline.
(Another possibility is that’s it’s a merger of all the Sinisters somehow.)
So it looks like Destiny has known about the Dominion all along. That’s why she insisted that she and Sinister must be on the same side- against the Dominion. That’s probably what she told him in Immortal X-Men 1- about the existence of the Dominion- and what she refused to tell Mystique. It also looks like the Dominion blocked Sinister from realizing that Selene had been empowered by Mother Righteous in Immortal X-Men 1. (That’s one argument for the idea that the Dominion is Mother Righteous but it’s possible that the Dominion needed Hope to become a member of the Quiet Council for some reason.)
I agree with GN that it was the Dominion that was present at Nathaniel Essex’s death in Immortal X-Men 8. I’m not sure if it was the Dominion that killed him though. That scene could be Nathaniel Essex’s consciousness becoming part of the Dominion. If it was the Dominion that killed him, that probably rules out Mother Righteous- Stasis and Stellaris seem to delusionally believe they’re the original so that could be why they want him dead but Mother Righteous seems to harbor no ill will against her creator.
Xavier briefly saw Mother Righteous in Legion of X 10 and had no idea who she was, so this story should take place after that.
The preview for Immortal X-Men 11 is out- and the Quiet Council are already out of the Pit in that issue.
It it were Essex, that would beg the question as to why the Dominion would want to stop Mr. Sinister from becoming a Dominion. Essex’ reason for creating the four clones was to find a way to stop machine evolution. We know that there can be more than one Dominion. Hickman’s mythology shows there are many Dominions. It would seem like Essex would want his four clones to also achieve Ascension, giving them a better chance to stop the Machines.
The same can be argued for the four Essex clones.
A lot of things to point to Righteous…but, gee, that is so boring. I refuse to entertain any of that. I have to assume she’s a red herring.
The fact that Dr. Stasis got so little screen time compared to the other three versions of Essex points to there being more to his story…not to mention he is the one working with Orchis, Hickman’s inverse of Krakoa.
The solicit for immortal X-Men 12 talks about the Quiet Council getting a new member- it looks like Mother Righteous will replace Sinister on the Quiet Council.
@Chris V- The reason why Essex or one of the Sinister clones wouldn’t want another Essex to become a Dominion is simple- as this story shows, when there’s more than one Essex, they will always backstab the other Essexes for selfish reasons.
Sure, if you’re a mortal being. If you’re an immortal being which exists outside of time and space, what are you going to do exactly? Besides which, Essex created the clones to pursue his agenda in case of his death.
I grant that for selfish reasons, it would make sense that Righteous would hold a grudge. Dr. Stasis as a representative of post-humanity would continue the war for survival against mutantkind. I don’t see why Essex would care though, if the goal is to prevent the rise of machine intelligence.
@Michael
I don’t know about Righteous on the Quiet Council. In addition to her likely being too new for them to trust, she is as far as we know not a mutant.
Moira being able to operate Mother’s Righteous’ magical macguffin feels like a pretty big ass pull to me. She is not a wizard and there is no reason for MR to give it easy to use user interface for mundanes. The end of NC3 would work just fine with MR activating it with her dying breath in a “I win anyway” moment as Wagnerine kills her. Sure we the readers would see one of the consequences of the event a week early.
I took it that Wagnerine’s baby protected her from Sinister’s kill switch, that caption says it would take a miracle to survive and baby has been describes as a miracle before. I would’t be surprised if they show up in some way in Son’s of X.
The problem with Dominions existing outside time and space is that any Dominion that will ever exist is already there. And unless the Dominions try very hard to stop more Dominions from forming there will be a lot of them around. It’s implied in this series that a 1000 years of shenanigans can create one and the universe is currently ~13.7 Billions year old. Add any from previous and following universes in marvels cosmology, and well there could an infinite number. Dominions are kind of a stupid idea if you think about it. Obviously narrative conventions dictate that the Dominion that swats Sinister will be a known character, but it pretty limited what you can do with it once it’s formed.
@Chris V- The entity possessing Omega Sentinel comes from a future where the Dominions were killed by the wielder of the Phoenix Sword, so clearly it’s possible to kill a Dominion, it’s just VERY, VERY difficult. If Sinister and Righteous, for example, both became Dominions I could see them trying to manipulate whoever had the Phoenix Sword into killing the other and both winding up dead in the end.
I still can’t wrap my head around the idea that someone(s) achieving Dominionhood exist/have existed/will exist forever. What have they been doing this whole time? Is the Marvel Universe putty in their hands, or are they just hanging out giving on existence? What do Dominions actually do? What goals do they have once they achieve Dominionhood? Mr. Sinister is a narcissist and a sadist, so he would probably make reality something akin to the SOS story before he lost power. But… the MU exists as it always has… and I can’t wrap my head around the “why” of it all.
If this were a Grant Morrison story, we’d know who the Dominions are: Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Stan Lee, Chris Claremont, etc. Collectively, they created and changed the MU, and their work will exist for the duration of its lifespan.
If th
I don’t think it’s fundamentally any weirder than any time travel story, where the future already exists or else you couldn’t interact with it. It’s just expressed in less familiar terminology.
The way that the Librarian described the Dominions under Hickman, they are transcendent beings above the everyday workings of the universe. The Librarian says that if post-humanity achieves Ascension, then the Dominion will become aware of Moira and decide it is something worth the Dominions time to interfere. So, that gives you the idea they are beyond knowing or caring about things at the mundane level of existence. I got the feeling that the Dominions purpose was to guide machine life forward in its evolution until AI had become so advanced it could bring about the creation of the Dominion. It seemed to me that Hickman was very influenced by Pierre Teilhard De Chardin when he was writing about the Dominions.
As far as the goal of the Dominion, it is to assimilate more and more knowledge from the universe (the purpose of the Phalanx), until there is nothing left in the universe except the Dominion.
The way the writers are using a Dominion now…Oh, anyone could be one. Oh, they can speak. Oh, they are involved in this and that in the Marvel Universe…is problematic. I don’t see it as how Hickman would have handled the idea. The one thing Hickman is good at is presenting metaphysical ideas which don’t require characterization.
The purpose of Sinister wanting to achieve Ascension is so that he can become immortal. It’s also a way for mutants to win. So far, we have only seen Dominions which are machine life. The machines have become immortal while everything else in the universe dies.
It seemed like there was a good idea with Sinister’s initial plan that he’d spread his Sinister-gene across the universe and create a hivemind. In that sense, he was pursuing the same goal as the Dominions. There would be nothing left in existence except Sinister.
Michael-Yes, a Dominion can be destroyed by the Phoenix force or Galactus, as was pointed out by Hickman in House/Powers.
@Paul: the way I look at most time-travel stories *a* future exists, but the protagonist/plot-driver seeks to change it in order to achieve their goals. The future is usually changed (resulting in an alternate timeline) or comes about as a result of the time-traveler’s actions.
I understand Sinister’, Dr. Doom’, or Mother Righteous’s motives (amassing power, narcissism). I could understand Professor X’ or Magneto’s motives if they sought this goal (protect mutantkind). Without a character driving the action, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of Dominions. I guess I can understand a machine collective’s programming going out of control (e.g. record knowledge or something leading to recording all knowledge, destroying the sources, and subsuming the universe).
Also, how could Galactus or the Phoenix Sword affect something outside space and time? Galactus may have been born in a previous universe, but he exists within the current universe (the 8th Cosmos) and I can’t remember any indication that he could transcend the universe. The Phoenix force exists in the White Hot Room, so I guess it can go beyond the physical universe, but can be thwarted in the MU. Can it really out-power a Dominion?
(On the other hand, the rules for and nature of the Phoenix is so inconsistent that… I guess it could?)
In reality, if something was outside of time and space, it would be completely static, an omnipresent smear that couldn’t do anything or have anything done to it.
In fiction, when a dominion or Kang or the Exiles or the Silver Surfer or whoever are outside of time and/or space, it’s more like Heaven or something, a higher plane of existence, where time and space still function just fine but we pretend they don’t for the sake of the story.
So these dominions, they’re just big robot gods in robot Olympus, and all the rest is window dressing. Which is unsatisfying for me, because the Marvel Universe already has a bunch of more interesting higher powers, but there you go.
@Si: In terms of MU higher powers, I think of Eternity as the embodiment of the 616 universe. When Dr. Strange or someone similar has gone outside of the universe, it’s sometimes depicted as blank white space with Eternity being near the protagonist. I like that method of showing a lack of “regular” time and space, even if characters move through that null-space and perceive their actions linearly. Hopefully, Dominions will prove more interesting than the robot gods they could end up being.
Dominions are still living beings with lifeforces and Galactus is essentially the no.1 consumer of lifeforces (“World Eater” after all) in the Marvel Multiverse . Dominions , also being beyond time , are beyond change , and the Phoenix is essentially the embodiment of change/growth/progress/development in the Marvel Multiverse (which is why Chris Claremont , when he returns to the XBooks in that period between Grant Morrison’s New XMen era and Matt Fraction’s San Francisco/Utopia era , made it that her exact opposite is what he called “The First Fallen” , who is male and the embodiment of the lack of change/stasis/stagnation , the yin to Phoenix’s yang basically)
And wouldn’t even just a mere simple blood sample of any individual mutant already be sufficient for the rest of the Five to work their mutant circuit ? What’s so special about Sinister’s genetic samples that only they can be used ?
After all , didn’t Steve Orlando recently introduce his own version of John Francis Moore’s XMen 2099’s Cerebra , Shakti Hadad * , whose own unique “biometric/biopathic” mutation can cause her to scan and copy anyone else’s own individual genetic sequences onto standard genetic matter , thus eliminating the need for any actual individual genetic samples to begin with . Isn’t that how Kate Pryde’s Marauders were able to a) restore the Threshold Trio , who didn’t have anymore actual individual genetic samples of their own left after billions of years , and b) create Threshold in the first place via stable closed loop time paradox , using non-traditional ectoplasmic clones created via mutant circuit , of all of the 16M+ mutant and human victims of Cassandra Nova’s Genoshan Massacre ?
* just trivial digression, I always thought that her name implied that she was possibly half-Indian Hindu on her mothers side and half-Muslim Arab on her fathers side ( unless there are Indian Hindus named Zail Haddad , like her father ) maybe the opposite of Chris Claremont’s Amaya Singh , Jaime Braddock’s apparent childhood sweetheart , who while supposedly raised in the UK , could possibly be ethnically half-Muslim on her mother’s side (her name is traditionally Muslim) and half-Hindu on her father’s side (Singh , which Claremont presumably misspelled as Synge, is both a Muslim and Hindu family name, and AS has a Bindi on her forehead , that is most commonly worn only by Hindu females , though Google states is occasionally worn by females of other religions , mostly in South Asia )
Actually, one point no-one seems to be thinking about – Sinister cloned Betsy Braddock, she wasn’t Five’d, and then her mind returned from an alternate universe and possessed the clone.
Shouldn’t she be Sinisterised?
@Jdsm24- Re:Sinister’s samples- I think they originally needed Sinster’s samples for dead mutants they didn’t have DNA of- like the Genosha victims or the Mutant Massacre victims. They could have definitely avoided this, though, if they resurrected the Quiet Council members from DNA they provided.
And yes, Cerebra’s powers negate the need for Sinister’s samples but they didn’t have access to Cerebra until recently.
In fact, it’s possible that one of the reasons Sinister killed Hope NOW was because he was worried that Cerebra’s powers would replace the need for his samples.
(Of course, you’d also think they’d have Blindfold double check Destiny’s predictions after all the times Destiny betrayed or lied to them.Even if Blindfold’s powers are more limited than Desitny’s, it would still be of some help.)
@SanityorMadness- I think that Sinister was playing the long game. If he just clones Betsy and Sinisterizes her, then she’ll probably be found out sooner or later. But if he clones Betsy without the Sinisterization process, then the Council will think there’s nothing wrong with the Resurrection Process. and he gets to subvert the Council (which will enable him to subvert all of Krakoa.)
We’re overthinking the Dominions. As a plot device, the Dominions are similar to the Builders, in that they serve as ‘cosmic repercussions’ to the schemes of Earth characters.
In Hickman’s Avengers, the Builders were an ancient civilization that had grown beyond the confines of normal space and moved to live in the Superflow. When the incursions starting happening (with Earth as its centerpoint), the Builders grew threatened. They raised their armies and invaded normal space, destroying everything on the path to Earth. This culminated in the Avengers + Galactic Council at war with the Builders, ending with Captain Universe destroying the Builders.
Similarly, in Hickman’s X-Men, the Dominions are super-advanced machine societies that have transcended space and time. In Hickman’s original plans (where Moira was never intended to be evil), I suspect the Dominions grew threatened by the constant resets of the timeline (with Moira X as its centerpoint). They invade/interfere with normal space at around the reset time, destroying everything on the path to Krakoa. Eventually, this would have culminated in the X-Men + Imperial Guard at war with the Dominions, ending with Phoenix destroying the Dominions.
As Chris V mentions, this was hinted at in PoX 6, where the Librarian theorizes that if the Dominions learn of Moira’s power, they will not tolerate its existence. We can also see remnants of this storyline in NM 2. Oracle says the local Titans are assembling for war, which prompts Gladiator to put Xandra on the Shi’ar throne. Dominions are made up of Titans. Hickman said that he initially planned to launch an Imperial Guard book off of NM 7, which probably would have developed this storyline but that plan fell apart.
I also believe both the Builders and the Dominions were inspired by the Dominators from DC. Hickman is a LOSH superfan.
However, plans changed and Hickman brought the Moira plotline to a head in Inferno, where the resurrection powers were removed. When Gillen took over from Hickman, I believe he shuffled some ongoing plot threads around. “Mr Sinister creates mutant chimeras and betrays Krakoa” and “the Dominions descend to attack Krakoa” got merged into “Mr Sinister betrays Krakoa and creates mutant chimeras to become a Dominion that descends to attack Krakoa”. The mystery around the four Essexes gives this some complexity. (If we want to go deeper down this rabbit hole, I also theorize that ‘Phoenix can destroy the Dominions’ got expanded to ‘Phoenix can undo the Sinisterization process’.)
Honestly, there is another motivation for the Dominions to go after Krakoa besides Moira’s timeline resets: in Life 10A, the mutants claimed the powers of life and death (Phoenix and Galactus) and killed a number of Dominions that opposed them. But those were explicitly the Machine Dominions and this Red Dominion seems to be distinct from that. But still, we can use that story to justify why the Machine Dominions don’t do anything about the Red Dominion – a number of the local MDs are dead.
Something else I just remembered: the Alien Vampires from X-Men Red. Orbis Stellaris believed that he was their creator and they served as his heralds. The vampires slyly hinted that their true master was someone greater and in XMR 10, Manifold sends them to The Outside, where Eden believes they truly came from. What are the chances the Alien Vampires’ master from the Outside, the Cosmic Outsider and the Red Dominion are the same entity?
@GN: That’s an amazing summary of events. Thank you. Also:
“Hickman said that he initially planned to launch an Imperial Guard book off of NM 7, which probably would have developed this storyline…”
I would have read the crap out of that.
[…] OF SINISTER: DOMINION #1. (Annotations here.) The end of the Sins of Sinister crossover, which has been pretty successful. Yes, there’s […]
Everyone made excellent points that I had fun reading! Seriously, thank you all.
The Dominion is Monet St.Croix. She and Forge went into a singularity/black hole before any of the Sinisters by publication time and space.
I’ll see myself out.
Let me add to the thanks: GN & Jdsm24, those were very good explanations & theorizing. I still don’t like the cosmic/extra-cosmic scale, but at least I have a better idea of what’s going on.
Thom H. > I would have read the crap out of that.
If things had gone according to plan, I think IG would have been one of the Reign of X titles launched after X of Swords. NM 7 ended with Sunspot moving in with Cannonball and Smasher. The three of them would be the leads of IG, the (Cosmic Boy / Saturn Girl / Lightning Lad) to the Imperial Guard (LOSH).
The Dominion (Dominators) plotline and the Vulcan plotline could have been in this book.
Here’s what I think happened: plans for Hickman’s Imperial Guard fell apart and then plans for Al Ewing’s Moira X fell apart. Post-XoS, Hickman was planning to make his exit from the X-books with Inferno, so they offered Ewing the mutants-in-space book. X-Men 17 was Hickman handing over this plotline to Ewing. This became S.W.O.R.D., which was later relaunched as X-Men Red. The Vulcan plot was folded into XMR and Sunspot was moved from Chandilar to Arakko to involve him in XMR.
Which isn’t a total loss, I enjoy Ewing’s version of Sunspot far more than I enjoy Hickman’s version.
Maybe Hickman didn’t go through with the Imperial Guard series because it was already too obviously similar to the Distinguished Competition’s Legion of Super Heroes enough for there to be actual friction with DC , especially now in this current era where their editorial regimes reportedly genuinely hate / and are hostile to each other after Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada foolishly trolled them nonstop in the 00’s tsk tsk tsk
Also maybe Hickman is holding out hope that he’ll get to work on LOSH proper someday and he doesn’t want to burn any bridges LOL
Weren’t DC’s Dominators just scientifically-advanced aliens? I don’t recall them existing outside of time/space or anything.
Arguably , Dominion and Dominator come from the same etymological rootword , so the former used that latter as its thematic inspiration LOL
Btw while it’s nice that Hickman and Ewing have continued the progression of Sunspot (began by Fabian Nicieza and continued by Jeph Loeb and John Francis Moore and Mike Carey) away from his original “honor-obsessed angry hothead” portrayal , the “Kocoum” , under Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson , which is No.1 of the top 2 ethnic stereotypes that virtually nearly every “CIS-HET” POC male at Marvel , especially the XBooks , has traditionally been portrayed as being ; however , it appears that in exchange they’ve made him into the second-best of the three stereotypes : the hedonist trickster foolish/foppish noble , the “Prince Naveen” , who usually started as comic relief but ended as cannon fodder (I.e. “the brown/black guy dies first” ex. Mondo, Maggott, later Skin when he mellowed, Quill) or forgotten-in-limbo (namely Neal S., continuing the tradition of ethnically South Asian/Indian-subcontinental cishet males being the new crazy-foreign exchange-students of American pop culture in the 00’s)
And Ewing nerfed Sunspot 🙁 (to be fair though , Claremont started it when he made Bobby forget that he already learned how to fly like Johnny Storm) by now making him “Not-Omega” considering that Nicieza and Loeb and Moore were obviously power-scaling him as an Omega (or as was known in the 1990’s , an “Alpha”) beginning with his transformation into Reignfire, since he was clearly positioned to be one of the two mutant analogues of the Human Torch (the other being of course Sunfire) tsk tsk tsk 2023 Bobby became like the Dragon Ball franchise’s Adult Gohan , except that Gohan retains his S-Class power levels , he’s just a pacifist like Simon “Wonder Man” Williams
Uncanny X-Ben > PS-Can’t the just resurrect Moira if they want and reset everything again?
Chris V > They could never record Moira with Cerebro due to Moira not being detectable as a mutant.
My theory for some time has been that Moira will be resurrected as a human at the end of FoX (once resurrections are back up and running), but with the memories of her ten lives intact. The genetic material can taken from Sinister’s lab, and although Cerebro never recorded Moira, there is a recording of Moira X’s memories and anima within Machine Moira. This will be her 11th life, once Machine Moira makes the correct choice. We’ll probably see a Moira XI, Professor X and Magneto (who will have returned by then) reunion as a bookend to the Hickman era.
Similarly, I believe the Life 10A Omega will be exorcised from Life 10B Karima Shapandar’s machine mind, returning her to her pre-HOX state, albeit with a fully machine body.
I initially believed that Nimrod would have to be destroyed by the mutants. However, given Spurrier’s development of them as a ‘soulful machine’, it’s possible Nimrod somehow reconnects with his Erasmus Mendel identity at the end of FoX. If so, Nimrod could be reformed, similar to how the 811-variant Nimrod had previously reformed themselves.