The MCU Secretly Set Up Its First X-Men Villain 15 Years Ago

The MCU‘s Multiverse Saga is building to its (hopefully) epic conclusion, but the future lies in a different direction. Marvel acquired the rights to the X-Men back in 2019 when Disney purchased Fox, and the MCU has already begun bringing mutants into the 616 timeline. Granted, Marvel’s pulled this off in some pretty unexpected ways; Iman Vellani’s Ms. Marvel was officially the MCU’s first mutant, followed by Tenoch Huerta’s Namor the Sub-Mariner. Many thing Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Wonder Man is another mutant.

The general assumption is that Avengers: Secret Wars will end with some sort of multiversal reboot that sets up the MCU’s version of the X-Men. Whether that is indeed the case or not, though, characters like Ms. Marvel and Namor prove Marvel has already laid the the groundwork for the upcoming “Mutant Saga.” Surprisingly, though, the first setup began long before Disney bought Fox. It can be found all the way back in Captain America: The First Avenger, 15 years ago.

Captain America: The First Avenger Secretly Set Up A Major X-Men Location With Mr. Sinister Ties

As seen in The First Avenger, the US government initially intended Steve Rogers to be the first of a long line of super-soldiers. That particular plan came to an abrupt end when Dr. Erskine, creator of the super-soldier serum and the only one who truly understood it, was assassinated by Hydra agents. A furious Steve Rogers told Colonel Phillips that he wanted in on the inevitable counter-attacks, but Phillips wasn’t impressed. “You’re an experiment,” Phillips told Rogers. “You’re going to Alamogordo.”

This is actually a surprisingly deep-cut reference in X-Men lore. Brian Xavier, the father of Charles Xavier himself, worked at a nuclear power plant in Alamogordo, New Mexico. It wasn’t until the ’90s that Marvel writers began to revisit Alamogordo, with Xavier learning it had actually been home to some sort of secret experimental facility dedicated to genetic engineering. There were even subtle hints Alamogordo had ties to the Weapon X Project, the secret experiment that gave Wolverine his adamantium skeleton and claws. Over the next decade, Marvel gradually revealed the truth about Alamogordo.

The Alamogordo facility was established after the Second World War, and it was dedicated to researching the emergence of the mutant race. Unsurprisingly, several key mutants alive at the time were secretly involved with the base, including the mutant precog named Destiny; her lover, the shapeshifter Mystique, actually infiltrated it on one occasion. But the most dangerous figure involved with Alamogordo was undoubtedly a scientist who operated under the alias of Dr. Milbury, in reality the iconic X-Men villain Mr. Sinister.

The Seeds for this Major X-Men Villain Were Sown 15 Years Ago

Better known by his real name of Nathaniel Essex, Mr. Sinister is a twisted geneticist who hails from the Victorian era. Granted immortality by Apocalypse, he learned how to steal mutant powers and incorporate their DNA into his own, becoming increasingly powerful as the decades went on. He also learned how to both clone himself and preserve his own consciousness through genetic transfers – his real purpose at Alamogordo, where he was working with another ageless villain who called herself “Black Womb.”

Mr. Sinister never actually made his debut in Fox’s X-Men films. Ironically, though, the Fox movies had actually been setting him up for years:

• X-Men: Apocalypse‘s end-credits scene teased a company called “Essex Corps,” a pretty obvious nod to Mr. Sinister.
• Essex Corps was name-dropped in Logan, related to the origin of Dafne Keen’s X-23 (an appropriate tie, given the character was Wolverine’s female clone)
• Deadpool 2 featured the Essex House for Mutant Rehabilitation, linking to the fact Mr. Sinister once ran an orphanage in the comics, where he secretly experimented on mutants such as Cyclops.
• New Mutants revealed Alice Braga’s Cecilia Reyes worked for Essex Corps, and her facility was named “Milbury House” – drawing on Mr. Sinister’s common comic book alias. Cecilia wore a red diamond pin akin to Mr. Sinister’s logo.

Fox’s plans were abandoned, of course, and now the X-Men are coming to the mainstream MCU. It would be so very appropriate for Marvel to introduce Mr. Sinister, the villain Fox never quite got round to introducing. Better still, he’s already been set up, which means it would be very easy to integrate him into the main MCU timeline.

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