The universe has officially gone to hell. 1,000 years after Sinister took control of the Quiet Council, it’s time to take one last look at the inner workings of Sinister’s scheming and the Council’s backstabbing. In the final issue of Immoral X-Men, Kieron Gillen and Alessandro Vitti have teamed up to put an end to a twist-filled book as the Sins of Sinister event continues.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Immoral X-Men #3!
Immoral X-Men #3 opens up with a quote from Candide because of course it does. As Sinister’s optimistic desire to reset the world charges on, he sends Rasputin IV to an Exodus Prayerworld. There, eggs filled with suffering chimera constantly praise and pray to their ruler, a gigantic copy of Exodus.
Rasputin finds a secret hidden among the eggs and projects a prayer of thanks. She regrets it immediately. After all, what does Exodus respond to better than prayers?
Marvel Comics
As she flees to her ship, the mighty Exodus follows. Unfortunately for Exodus, he breaches galactic law. Another Exodus from a neighboring planet launches after him. Both regard each other as heretics in their dual desire for mutually assured destruction. They strike, and billions of souls are slaughtered as they take the entire solar system down with them. Rasputin and Sinister flee, having gained a short message from a mysterious source.
With Rasputin lamenting the long-standing wars, the history of the past 900 years slowly begins to unravel throughout Immoral X-Men #3. Every member of the Quiet Council has been busy. Kate Pryde lives in exile, ruling the Void as its Pirate Queen. Colossus is referred to as the “Bulwark of Materialism” of the “Space Soviets,” which desperately needs exploring. Magik lost the seventh diamond war and now hides in the Limbic Incursion. Shaw continues to rule Hell, while Namor rules drowned worlds, Emma serves as the Empress, and Xavier acts as Protectorate.
It’s a lot of titles, and Immoral X-Men #3 reserves it for a single data page.
Rasputin has survived countless years by clinging to the idea of sandy beaches and soft breezes and leaves dancing in the wind. Her loyalty to Sinister is unwavering. When they are attacked by Pryde’s ships and nearly come under Colossus’ citadel’s scrutiny, she never even questions. Yet, when they retrieve an object lost in space, she finds her first reason to doubt.
Sinister takes a message in his private room. It’s an old audio recording from Destiny, urging Sinister to reset the world and join him. She gives him the instructions to find Moira, and Sinister takes them, planning to betray her along the way.
Marvel Comics
Yet something goes horribly wrong. As Destiny informs Sinister that his plan to become a Dominion fails, Rasputin is standing outside the door, listening. She confronts him, and Sinister laments having to destroy his favorite chimera. Of course, after he throws her out of the ship, he decides he will just make another.
Sinister then heads to a distant planet, where he meets a broken Doombot and the original Moira. Sinister and Moira agree to work together to find his clones, while the Doombot informs Emma Frost of their plans. Ever-cunning, Emma sends an army after them, and she also recruits a five-gene chimera floating out in space. As Jon Ironfire joins Sinister, the Doombot and Moira, the stage is set for a battle as Immoral X-Men comes to an end.
To say that the plot progresses at a rapid-fire pace would be a disservice to the issue. The issue feels less like a comic from 2023 and more like it stepped out of the ’80s, where writers and artists packed so much into each book that it could be dizzying.
Gillen and Vitti do an excellent job of making the passage of time feel genuine, which is something that has been lacking throughout Sins of Sinister. The universe is a completely different place, even if Rasputin does lament how progress has stagnated. Each of the characters is given a fresh new design, owing to a millennium of changes and a series of wars.
The atmosphere of Immoral X-Men #3 is absolutely depressing, especially as Rasputin’s sense of hope is smashed to pieces in front of her. Rain Beredo’s coloring emphasizes that darkness, only ever breaching the grays and blacks with Sinister’s reds and yellows as whole worlds are set alight.
Marvel Comics
The entire issue feels like the end of the line, which is exactly what it is meant to be. Even as Sinister and Moira scramble to bring a correction to a dying universe, that death is all around them. Untold genocide, blood, and decay streak over a history that is only told in whispers and one-off mentions. Yet their influence feels like they could someday be explored in a 1,000-page tome.
Sinister’s betrayal was inevitable, after his utter heel turn in Immoral X-Men #2, but it is still devastating to see Rasputin’s reaction, even with such little time with her.
That time is really the only issue with the book. As fun as it is, there needs to be more. Rasputin has spent 900 years working alongside Sinister, and that time desperately needs to be seen. After all, it seems somewhat absurd that she and Sinister would find two key pieces of information right before the end, when it hardly seems like they did anything at all before hand. Yet with such little space and Sins of Sinister: Dominion on the way, Immoral X-Men #3 does an admirable job setting it all up.
While X-Men comics have a habit of introducing absolute destruction, Immoral X-Men #3 makes it all feel fresh. Instead of having the same devastating stakes, it adds a new element of hope — that is swiftly crushed and reintroduced. This issue is a great take on the darkest possible future, even if it still desperately needs more space to tell its story.
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