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A
Victorian-era scientist obsessed with evolution in all its forms,
Nathaniel Essex allowed the immortal warlord known as Apocalypse to
augment his body and strip him of his humanity. Now, he is Mr. Sinister --
a master manipulator and expert geneticist working to create the most
powerful mutant the world has ever seen!
Real
name: Dr. Nathaniel Essex
Occupation: Geneticist
Group affiliation: None
Base of operations: Unknown
First appearance: Uncanny X-Men #221 (1987)
Height:
6'5"
Weight: 285 lbs.
Eyes: Shining red, with no visible pupils
Hair: Black
Powers: A brilliant biologist and geneticist, Mr. Sinister is also
immortal -- granting him a unique perspective on human evolution. Sinister
can manipulate his molecular structure, thus altering his appearance and
shape. Also, he possesses superhuman strength and an accelerated healing
factor.
Weapons:
None
History:
As a biologist in Victorian England, Nathaniel Essex developed advanced
theories on human evolution. A geneticist of unparalleled genius, he
foresaw the coming of Homo superior -- a new breed of man, gifted with
strange and fantastic abilities simply by virtue of their cellular makeup.
However, his unorthodox experiments resulted in his ouster from the Royal
Society. Shunned even by his wife, Essex found an ally in Apocalypse, an
immortal mutant who had witnessed firsthand virtually the whole of human
history. The merciless warlord transformed the rogue scientist into the
ageless being who would become Mr. Sinister.
As
Essex, Sinister operated an obstetrics clinic in New York during the late
19th century, secretly studying society's deviants, and influenced the
work of Herbert Wyndham, now the master geneticist known as the High
Evolutionary. Plotting the course of specific gene pools for more than a
century, Sinister discovered that a being of incredible power would result
from the union of two young mutants: Scott Summers, known today as the
optic-blasting Cyclops, and Jean Grey, the telepath who would come to be
called Phoenix. To confirm his findings, Sinister arranged for the boy to
be brought to his orphanage in Nebraska, and collected a blood sample from
the girl. When Jean appeared to die years later, Sinister used the sampled
blood to create a clone, Madelyne Pryor.
Sinister's
unflinching obsession with evolution has brought him into repeated
conflict with the X-Men, the outlaw band of heroic mutant adventures whose
members include Cyclops and Phoenix. Assembling a team of superhuman
assassins, Sinister set in motion the massacre of the Morlocks, an
underground community of mutant outcasts, simply because he considered
them genetically obsolete. The X-Men were able to help some of the
Morlocks to safety, and a considerable number managed to escape Sinister's
Marauders on their own -- but the majority perished. Sinister himself
first fought the X-Men during an invasion of demon mutants he helped
create. Later, when the High Evolutionary activated a satellite that
stripped all mutants of their superhuman abilities, Sinister overpowered
his former student and modified the beam to mutate every human on Earth.
However, the X-Men blocked his efforts to create an entire planet full of
guinea pigs for his twisted experiments.
Sinister
sometimes aids the X-Men, but only when it furthers his own ends. He
helped the reformed thief called Gambit save the savage Sabretooth's life
when the Adamantium metal was stripped from the mutant murder machine's
skeleton, and assisted the ragin' Cajun once again when he became trapped
in the 19th century. In almost every instance, however, Sinister exacts a
price costly to the soul.
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