What Does Mister Sinister Mean For ‘Wolverine 3’?

The X-Men: Apocalypse digital release just confirmed an exciting rumor for Wolverine 3: Mister Sinister. Teased in Apocalypse’s post-credits scene, extra audio commentary featuring producer Simon Kinberg and director Bryan Singer explains the scene was indeed intended to set up the arc for Hugh Jackman’s final run with the claws March 3, 2017.

The scene shows a well-dressed man walking down the destroyed halls of the Alkali Lake Weapon X facility. He grabs a vial of Wolverine’s blood and places it in his briefcase (along with other vials) labeled Essex Corp. Richard E. Grant’s casting in a ‘mad scientist’ role only propelled rumors.

X-Men fans immediately knew this was no coincidence. Nathaniel Essex, aka Mister Sinister, is a genius scientist obsessed with the Summers genetic line. Mister Sinister is responsible for the birth of Nathan Summers (aka Cable). He created a clone of Jean Grey (aka Madelyne Pryor) to breed with Scott Summers (aka Cyclops). Apocalypse and Sinister are allies at first, but it's later revealed Mister Sinister actually created Cable to make a mutant powerful enough to destroy him. He was also a part of the Weapon X project under the name Dr. Robert Windsor. He helped mutants escape, but only to capture them and bring them back to his personal labs for further experiments.

Using his celestial technology, Apocalypse aided Essex’s transformation into Mr. Sinister. The human mutate is pretty much immortal, having a variety of powers, including telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, shapeshifting and molecular regeneration.

The combination of Weapon X, Mister Sinister and Hugh Jackman’s final performance as Wolverine may also hint at something bigger in the works: X-23. Also known as Laura Kinney, X-23 is a clone created using a partial genetic sample of Weapon X’s DNA. Mister Sinister didn't create her, but this could explain how Weapon X program scientist Dr. Martin Sutter gets a hold of Wolverine's DNA to create X-23.

The existence of Essex certainly appears to corroborate the film’s tentative title, Weapon X , but Wolverine 3 can’t just be another origin story. Wolverine 3 was originally rumored to follow the Old Man Logan arc, a direction both Hugh Jackman and the creative team have teased multiple times. Set more than 50 years in the future, Old Man Logan takes place in a world where heroes don’t exist and supervillains rule. After an army of supervillains attacks the X-Mansion, Wolverine slaughters them all to protect the younger mutants. Come to find out, it was all an illusion created by Mysterio. The people he killed weren't the bad guys, they were the very mutants he swore to protect. He throws away his old ‘Wolverine’ persona and wanders across the land trying to deal with the consequences of his actions. In this dystopian society, he refuses to use his claws until the very end when he decides to seek vengeance.

While the plot of Wolverine 3 is far from confirmed and is bound to stray from the comics, X-23 and Mister Sinister may be the only way to continue the X-Men franchise without Hugh Jackman as the famous clawed beast. Like Kinberg has previously said, there’s a place for Mister Sinister (and X-23) in nearly all upcoming X-Men films including Gambit, New Mutants, X-Force , and the next X-Men movie.

How do you think Mister Sinister will fit into Wolverine 3 ? Let us know in the comments below!