There is no telling when the Marvel Cinematic Universe will bring the X-Men to life in its shared universe.
There was a big tease that the Fantastic Four is coming at the tail-end of Phase 4, but the X-Men are still a big question mark.
Marvel gained the rights to both the Fantastic Four and X-Men when Disney purchased Fox, and while the FF had three lackluster movies in its run, the X-Men were big moneymakers for Fox for many years.
It was the X-Men that started the new superhero movie craze, predating Spider-Man and arriving eight years before the MCU launched with Iron Man.
There has been criticism for the later era X-Men movies, but even those often received critical acclaim, with Logan and X-Men: Days of Future Past ranked as the two best X-Men movies according to Rotten Tomatoes.
There is also one thing from the later movies that the MCU needs to pay off somehow when it makes the X-Men movies.
It is time for Mister Sinister to come to the big screen.
Who is Mister Sinister in X-Men?
Mister Sinister has been around since the 19th Century. He isn’t as old as Apocalypse, but he is really old and has a lot more sinister plans than even Apocalypse.
Apocalypse wanted to rule the world. Mister Sinister wants to corrupt it.
Mister Sinister tortured Scott Summers as a child and was a constant antagonist to Cyclops when he became an adult. He created a clone of Jean Grey that Cyclops married for a sinister purpose.
The two had a child who ended up infected with a mutant virus, only to be sent into the future where they could cure him. This child was Cable.
As a master in creating clones, Mister Sinister brings something very different from what the X-Men faced in the Fox world and he could be a great way to bring the mutants to the MCU.
How did Fox hint at Mister Sinister?
Fox laid the groundwork for Mister Sinister, and there is no reason to let that go to waste.
Mister Sinister’s Essex Corp played a large role in Logan, as the center that created the clones of the X-Men, including X-23, Laura.
In the post-credits of X-Men: Dark Phoenix, there was a scene of Wolverine’s blood placed in an Essex Corp briefcase (this is how they created X-23).
In Deadpool 2, the location that tortured Russell Collins and Domino was the Essex House for Mutant Rehabilitation. With Deadpool coming back as part of the MCU, maybe Mister Sinister could first show up there.
Finally, in New Mutants, the hospital that kept the young mutants prisoner and observed them was run by Essex Corporation, which is where they recruited new evil mutants to work with.
With so many hints and clues that Mister Sinister was coming, Fox losing X-Men was a tough pill for X-Men fans to swallow. It is time for the MCU to give fans what they want.