The Mr Sinister story continues! I only have one complaint - given what’s going on here, when exactly did this happen? Of course, how well it fits in with the rest of Avengers vs X-men will depend on exactly how this arc ends. Still, it’s a delightful romp through a world architected by Sinister.
The last issue revealed that Mr. Sinister, ever the Xanatos Gambit planner, knows that the X-Men will arrive and exactly how they will act based on all the times they’ve faced off before as well as his intellect. We also saw that he had a bunch of X-Men clones although we didn’t know how that would fit into his plan. In this issue we get to see just what he was up to. In effect it leads to such an awesome battle that I’m surprised no one has thought of this before. It makes perfect sense, too, as a combination of fight fire with fire and if you can’t beat them, join them. If villains are repelled time and again by the X-Men, why not use X-Men to fight X-Men?
Daniel Acuña handles all the art duties on this issue and it leads to a pretty great result. I love the style and the colors.
Unfortunately, this is a very short review because the entire issue is just a series of battles and there isn’t much to discuss there that doesn’t end up being a spoiler. I can say that I ended up being pretty surprised at the ending. There’s also a funny scene involving the non-Phoenix-powered members of The Extinction Team. Whether or not you can accept the idea of a villain being so good at predicting his enemy’s moves so well that it’s almost as though everything is predetermined rather than based on free will is going to be the deciding factor in whether you find this story arc fun or inane. I have to say that Kieren Gillen is doing a pretty good job walking a fine line here just as he did in the first arc of Uncanny X-Men vol 2 with respect to Mr. Sinister’s abilities and whether those make him an undefeatable villain without a deus ex machina.
I’m really enjoying this story arc and I think you should be reading it - it is a good mix of cheeky humor and action, but this may not be the best time to jump on.
