SPOILER ALERT: Adamantium Agenda has finished and when the dust settles, more than one among the X-Men has huge shock in store.
With the finale of the Hunt for Wolverine: Adamantium Agenda, Tony Stark has dropped a double bombshell upon the mutant community. One of which holds particularly personal significance for Laura Kinney as an individual. But also another with deeper, more troubling implications for the X-Men family itself. While he, X-23, Spider-Man, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones were looking for signs of the re-emergence of the clawed X-Man Wolverine, they followed a trail which led them to Sinister’s recently trashed lab and discovered a database of every human being on the planet, as well as a more heavily digitally protected mutant database, which had already been copied by someone else before their arrival. Someone who not only destroyed the base but killed everyone in it and left Sinister barely alive.
However, while in the process of decrypting it, the others told Tony he should destroy it. Though he at first has an inner struggle as to what to do, he did the only honorable thing and destroyed it. Partly because of Sinister coming to and appealing to him as a fellow scientist, imploring him not to destroy his work and partly also because Tony remembered a promise he once made to Logan that he would put people before potential. However, due to this hasty turn of events, he was unable to ascertain certain details of some of the more troubling information he had so far discovered.
Tony later revealed that he had managed to glean from the database that Laura isn’t actually a true clone of Logan, or simply the surrogate daughter of Sarah Kinney, the scientist placed in charge of reawakening the Weapon X project, but is in fact her real daughter.
However, while she had to sit down to take all this new information in, another bit of status-changing news was revealed, one that may just have slipped under the radar of the wider audience. Tony found evidence that one among the X-Men is a sleeper agent, genetically altered to look like a mutant. One of the X-Men is NOT a mutant.
It seems as though Laura may not even be aware of this as Jessica had given her Danielle to look after while she went to quiz Tony on his second revelation, but it’s a safe bet she heard, with her extra keen senses. Due to the destruction of the database he was unable to discover who this person was and so it is unclear if they were a copy of an existing mutant, much like Skrullverine was, or they were simply slipped into the line up from the start. What Stark also doesn’t know is if this sleeper agent is even aware of the fact themselves, or is instead waiting for the right time to make their move.
And so, much like the time the future X-Man Bishop arrived with news about a traitor in their midst, which was later revealed to be Xavier himself in the guise of Onslaught, the X-Men now face the dilemma of wondering who among them is a potential traitor and agent for an enemy, as well as several more troubling questions. Who IS the Machiavellian maestro behind the ploy? Could Sinister have just been playing possum and be up to one of his nefarious tricks? And who destroyed the lab and now has the information? Also more importantly could it be that the individual in question is unaware of their sleeper status? As some Manchurian Candidate, are they just a pawn put in position that will be unwittingly triggered to fulfill an objective? Or will they go against their masters will?
Much as Voyager was placed in the ranks of the Avengers during No Surrender and fought against the ‘viper in their midst’ ruse, this new wolf in sheep’s clothing may possibly decide their own fate and side with those who have called them ally for however long this scenario has been brewing. As we all know, clones are as unpredictable as they are dangerous, especially clones of mutants. It will all depend on who the character in question is revealed to be and if they are a copy of an existing mutant or a later recruit who was simply placed among them. Longstanding Alumni member or recent recruit, which will it be? Only time will tell. It’s time to ask that question once again…Who do you trust? One thing’s for sure, you can always trust an Avenger to throw the cat amongst the pigeons.
Watch this space for more news on the revelations set to rock the world of X.