Sinister’s Six #1: In The Dead Man’s Hands

The X-Virus has devastated the Earth, humanity is on the brink of extinction, the X-Men have all but fractured, but as always there is opportunity to be had. Sinister has gathered an oddball team of mutants, and one mutated human, together to serve his own ends, and more importantly, satiate his own ego. 

Sinister’s Six already starts off with a rather bleak tone that is aligned with the rest of the event. Sinister has surprisingly become a guardian of sorts, creating a society where mutants that don’t believe in Revelation’s cause have found refuge, as long as they pledge fealty to him of course. The titular Six in this story: Havok, Lady Phantomex, Omega Red, Domino, and a mutated Black Cat have a common thread that ties them together. Just like humans, like Felicia Hardy, who were negatively affected by the 3K bomb, there were also mutants who were affected as well. Each member of the “Sinister Six” are mutants who were genetically altered at different points in their lives, leaving them susceptible to the 3K bomb in a similar way to humans. 

Poor Alex. He always ends up drawing the short end of the stick when it comes to his older brother Scott, but in a world as broken as Age of Revelation he might get that chance to finally step out of his brother’s shadow. As the de facto lead of the book and the team, a lot of the plot flows through him, but the rest of his team have their moments in this introductory issue to stand out on their own. 

Acclaimed artist David Marquez turns in his pen for prose as he makes his writing debut for Marvel. He is given ample room to spread his wings so to speak, and his writing in this issue is a solid enough start. The characters all fit their circumstances and the stakes are set up well enough for the rest of the series. While the overall premise of the book is very similar to that of fellow AoR tie-in “Longshots”, Marquez brings enough interesting ideas and threads to keep you interested for a little while. We have yet to find out just HOW Sinister gathered this group, but there have been enough crumbs left behind to lead back to those revelations later down the road. 

Backing up Marquez’s script is Rafael Lourerio, who does fairly standard work on pencils. No off model moments and their paneling is easy to follow. A couple of exciting action scenes and even a couple stand out panels here and there, but overall nothing that hasn’t been seen before.