Warning: SPOILERS for Immortal X-Men #9The X-Men have just lost their most impressive asset, the power of mutant resurrection, due to the machinations of Mr. Sinister. Introduced at the beginning of the Age of Krakoa as the most important innovation in mutant history, the Resurrection Protocols allowed mutants to come back to life endlessly, revolutionizing the entire world. However, Mr. Sinister has just taken all that away by killing Hope Summers, an essential component of the Resurrection Protocols.
The Resurrection Protocols are a genius invention that works by putting together a specific set of mutant gifts and the most impressive technology available in Krakoa. The group called the Five is composed of Egg, Proteus, Tempus, Elixir, and Hope Summers. These mutants’ powers combined are able to create a husk-like body in an “egg,” and then gestate the body in hours with time-altering powers, before the mutant’s consciousness and memory, stored by automatic backups in the Cerebro supercomputer, are psionically inserted into the new body. Hope is essential to this process: using her gift of mimicking and manipulating the powers of other mutants, she coordinates and harmonizes the efforts of the other members of the Five.
Mr. Sinister is one of the mutant villains who benefited from Krakoa’s general amnesty. Essex was even able to secure a seat in the Quiet Council because his huge mutant genetic database is essential for the Resurrection Protocols. However, Sinister has been following his own dark, twisted agenda, and is planning to take out the Quiet Council using clones of Moira X and their power of “resetting” the timeline every time he wants. Pushed to the limit by the events of Judgment Day, in Immortal X-Men #9, by Kieron Gillen, Lucas Werneck, and David Curiel, Sinister begins a series of attempts to kill the Quiet Council, including Hope. Many times he fails and uses his “Moira system” to reset time and try again. Finally, Mr. Sinister manages to break through the Council’s defenses and murder Hope, thus destroying the Resurrection Protocols too.
The X-Men May Have Just Lost Their Immortality Forever
The events of this issue set up Marvel’s new, big mutant event, Sins of Sinister, in which Essex reshapes the timeline in his image. The loss of Hope is particularly meaningful, because the entire Age of Krakoa, set up during House of X, was built upon the Resurrection Protocols. Due to them, characters’ deaths have stopped being impressive in the X-Men comics, but Hope is a whole different matter because the whole system is built around her. In fact, during the war between Eternals and X-Men in Judgment Day, the Eternals’ first plan of attack was trying to kill Hope, which was barely avoided by Wolverine. Sinister managed to do something that not even the most ruthless enemies of the X-Men did and completely crippled Krakoa. Even if Colossus says that there are contingency plans to bring Hope back, they’re not tested, and there is no guarantee that they will work.
Could it be that the most important aspect of the new, and incredibly successful, X-Men era is gone forever? It is a bit unlikely, considering that the exposition to the world of the Resurrection Protocols was a huge plot point for the recently-concluded Judgment Day. However, Mr. Sinister just proved once again to be one of the best (or worst, according to perspective) X-Men villains ever, and his dastardly machinations may have stripped mutants of their immortality once and for all, all in service of remaking the entire Marvel Universe in his image.
Immortal X-Men #9 is available now from Marvel Comics.
