Immortal X-Men #4 Review

A Review By Jesse Baker

Immortal X-Men #4
A Review By Jesse Baker

With it’s third and fourth issues, Kieron Gillen’s Immortal X-Men takes the title of “Flagship X-Men Book”. Even with it’s rotating character point of view gimmick (each issue told form the point of view of a member of the Quiet Council), the book seems to be moving the X-Men franchise forward even as we get Kieron bogging us down with his abominably foppish and campy version of Mr. Sinister and set up for the upcoming X-Men versus Eternals crossover.

Issue #4 is told from the point of view of Emma Frost, and opens with the ending of the Hellfire Gala as the fall-out of Cyclops revealing to the public that Krakoa has found a way to cheat death via mutant resurrection. While Emma and the council refuse to offer resurrection to the rest of the world, Mr. Sinister suggesting they offer it to world leaders with the caveat of having an instant death switch included into their clones. Which is enough for Emma to reveal to the Council the secret of Doctor Stasis and the proclamation that Doctor Stasis is Mr. Sinister and the villain’s proclamation that he is the “real Nathan Essex” and that the Mr. Sinister who has been running around since the character’s introduction is a clone imposture.

While Gillen was the writer who introduced the crappy notion of Mr. Sinister having clones of himself, Jonathan Hickman took it to another level with Sinister having a ton of clones of himself and amping up Mr. Sinister going from a super serious and scary villain, to a poor man’s Tim Curry; a comedic sissy villain who is more interested in being sassy and flaming than he is about actually doing anything evil.

Mr. Sinister’s reaction to Doctor Stasis being unmasked as a variation of himself is enough to force Sinister to flee from the Quiet Council. He’s met at his lair by Destiny, who playing to Sinister’s ego, convinces him not to activate the machine that allows him to harness Moira McTaggert’s reincarnation powers for his own evil purposes. But as he claims ignorance of what Doctor Stasis claims, a teleportation energy flash vanishes Mr. Sinister, as Destiny reveals that the war she predicted last issue that was coming has begun.

Meanwhile we have the reveal that Emma is sleeping in her diamond form (where telepathy is useless against her) to keep her mind safe from mindrape at the hands of Professor X. But as Emma ponders the public turning against the X-Men for their hording of resurrection technology, Emma is beginning to realize Destiny has her own scheme at hand to protect Krakoa.