Was I a Monster for Loving Mr. Sinister as a Child?

Back in 1993, I was sitting on the couch at my great-aunt's apartment in Cicero, IL. It was close to Christmas and we were all trading presents with each other in the small apartment that was decorated like it came from another time. My youngest sister opened a present and got the Teddy Ruxpin phone, where you could call Teddy Ruxpin and he'd tell you a tall tale. My middle sister got some make-up because 9 year olds need make up. Before me, laid two packages shaped exactly like action figure packages. My great aunt Molly didn't know me very well, so I was leery about the presents. I opened the first one and got the Toy Biz Wolverine figure, which I already had, but opened up anyway because who doesn't need two Wolverine figures where his mask turns into a sweet ring? I opened the second figure and received something that made me freak out in a fit of joy: Toy Biz Mr. Sinister. The one with the sweet light-up chest.

Any time I think about growing up and reading comic books, my mind always wanders back to my favorite character during that time period: Mr. Sinister. As an adult, looking back, that was a pretty awful character to love. Sinister is a pretty awful person and is on par with infamous people from history like Doctor Mengele.

However, I loved X-Men: The Animated Series. I fact, I used a clip from the show in my junior high speech class about the merits of modern day animation and the broad appeal to people of all ages. Actually, the speech was a lot dumber sounding than that and said speech opened the door to bullies because they just don't understand Beast the way I do!

Here's the thing, at the age of 11, I was wowed by Sinister for a plethora of reasons. As an adolescent, more than anything else, the aesthetics of a character seems to be one of the more powerful motivators for my love of certain characters, and considering this story all takes place in the 90s, the era of aesthetically pleasing costumes, there was a lot of love.

His cape was made up of strands of cloth, something I had never seen before. He had a ridiculous collar around his neck. There was a red diamond on his torso and on his forehead. He simply looked cool and I became a huge fan of the character. I couldn't stop talking about how much I liked him, even though I knew little to nothing about him, aside from his appearances on the animated series. However, his appearances on the animated series were incredibly dark. Sure, X-Men dealt with items like racism, acceptance, and the fight for equal rights on a weekly basis, but every time Sinister was on, we got things like torture, murder, and genocide. Is your memory foggy? Here's a clip.

In a nutshell, the guy is creating a master race of mutants by experimenting on them and holding them captive. Again, this is the cartoon version of the character, and it's dealing with some pretty rough storytelling elements, and I saw all this and was like "Only Cyclops can hurt him with his optic blasts. He fizzes green. He's so cool." I'm not saying I was a giant moron at 11 years old, but I was a giant moron.

The comic book version of him wasn't much better. He and the Marauders massacred the Morlocks and later he spent his years stalking/torturing/yearning for Scott Summers. How deep did that get? Well, Sinister had this theory that the child of Jean Grey and Scott Summers could destroy Apocalypse, but since Jean was dead, Sinister cloned Jean and that lady became Madelyne Pryor. Summer and Pryor got married and had a child and Sinister mentally suggested they move to Alaska to raise said child, so he could keep an eye on them. Also, Sinister just carried around Cyclops' DNA with him. Of course, there's more murder and manipulation than you can shake a stick at with this character, but hey, I didn't know that. I was more impressed with hitting the switch on his back to make his chest light up.

The 11 year old version of me loved a murdering stalker, but it's cool because he has a diamond on his forehead and has complete control of his body, down to the cellular level. Don't get me wrong, he's a really cool character, involved with some fantastic stories that actually stood the test of time, even though he didn't and died during AvX (Don't worry. He cloned himself as a scantily clad Hellfire Club member named Miss Sinister, just in case he passed away). The problem is that's a really weird favorite character for a kid. There's nothing sympathetic or compelling about him. Sinister is a deluded sociopath, so does that make the 11 year old version of me the same way because I was attracted to those ideals?

Not really. I think my attraction to this character was purely aesthetic and a little bit of attraction to power. Most fans of comics growing up had to deal with getting picked on. It's just something that happens, so what attracts many fans to certain characters is power and maybe a dark side. That's really why I believe I gravitated towards Sinister. Luckily, he's not a complete throw away character. He's intriguing and involved in a lot of great stories.

Now, if Hate-Monger was my favorite character, growing up, then there'd be a huge problem. What was your favorite character when you first got into comics? Are there characters you feel weird about liking as a kid?

Not as bad as the majority of the kids who would say "joker is my favorite" growing up.

Although he wasn't my favorite, I also found Mr. Sinister looking cool when I was a kid. Just something about that crazy vampire look...Magneto & Venom were my favorites growing up

Liking Sinister makes you quite the opposite, which is awesome! He was always my favorite as well by far, so I feel ya becasue no one understood what I liked about him so much. This is the best article of the week. Thanks for sharing!

Well that explains a few things now :P

lol You could do worse. At least Sinister is an interesting character.

I defiantly like his old classic look better. It makes him look more threatening and bad ass for sure. That's one costume that can always stay the same and age well. What made Sinister so cool to me is he was not only a threat physically but also mentally. He was always coming up with crazy schemes that involved lots of science and you have to not only be strong but smart to rule all! I dont like his new look with the cane and all. Makes him seem too gentleman like

Short answer: Yes. Definitely a monster for loving Mr Sinister. The ramifications for that kind of adoration… I mean next thing you know you'll be talking about the cosmic key, painting yourself silver and a variety of other colors, having custom made ladders built for you and beating up professional wrestlers and calling yourself Stardust.

**Insert Cody Rhodes Stardust gimmick complete with Mr Sinister cape**

To be a bit more serious, its actually quite cool you liked Mr Sinister at such an age, as Claremont's original idea for Mr Sinister was that he was an immortal child, and the Mr Sinister we saw running around wasn't actually Nathaniel Essex or real, but the creation of Nathaniel Essex who would need more gravitas and respect than his current child body could provide him. So Mr Sinister was essentially supposed to be a child's idea of what a creepy, scary, sinister adult was, a bad guy, hence why Sinister was a tad bit dramatic, with the name, pale skin, sharp teeth and all that. Which is another way of saying Sinister was basically designed to look really cool and badass to kids.

I personally gravitated more towards Magneto, and this might sound weird, but it was because the first X-Men stories I read, and I read them as a kid, and I read much older comics than was being printed when I was a kid, but it was the issues where Magneto was a good guy and on good terms with Xavier. Magneto was actually on trail in Paris and well… he allowed himself to be captured and put on trail. That was crazy to me as a kid, that the main source of conflict was a former villain… now fighting alongside the heroes… in a courtroom, with like talking and arguments and clashes of ideologies rather than fists. Something about it felt real, genuine, sincere, honest. I liked the grey. Of course I still had lots of love for the more black and white characters who had less redeeming qualities, especially Sinister. He's very suave.

Having a villain as a favourite character is always going to be problematic, because since the 80'ties (and in certain case before them) villains in comics have tended to be depicted as proper monsters, even those that are human. Like people are still going crazy for Deathstroke, and his list of accomplishments include nuking a city, being a terrible family man and bedding a minor.

I wont say it makes you a monster for liking Sinister, because early on you were drawn to his visual appeal while not really knowing what he stood for. And visual appeal is true of many villains and their relationship with fans/readers, we think many of them look cool... but we don't agree with or condone their goals and methods.

And in any case; you are not this guy:

(Personally, I prefer Sinister in his Victorian get-up, the original look just makes him look like Colossus' evil brother)

Nah, Mr Sinister is a cool villain, I liked him back in the old Ultimate X-Men comics around 2005 or so.

Bro, Sinister was my favorite character too... until I got addicted to Gambit lol.

No. Of course if you not imagined yourself as Sinister...)

I've liked Mr. Sinister since I was a kid as well. I also had that bad ass action figure with the glowing chest.

Well maybe it's the fact we kinda grew up on the Mad Scientist trope and maybe that's why we like Mr Sinister........and having the word Sinister in your name just makes you Cool i guess.

No, absolutely not. Heck, I loved Thanos as a kid, & he was a freakin' nihilist. I've enjoyed reading him & turned out fine, been an upstanding citizen & taught kids for a time, even...haven't destroyed any planets or universes....yet....

Seriously, as they say, a hero is only as good as his villain....

Well... I, for sure, won't blame you ^^

Mr. Sinister is an awesome villain but I think we won't see him until the X-Force movie.

as long as you don't want to be him its cool but if you do....I would have to jean grey you cause that's my favorite character lol.

growing up in the 90s on x-men cartoon it was rogue and storm in that order. then the phoenix saga and dark phoenix saga happened and im a sucker for a love story and i went from wanting to be rogue or storm to wanting to be jean grey. fast forward almost two decades later she is still my favorite/ideal person in comics, though i have much love and respect for mystique, wonder woman, troia, emma frost and many many more.

i have confidence in myself so no cant say i ever feel guilty for liking someone. the concept of guilty pleasures is beyond illogical, if you feel guilty for liking something then some part of you must believe its wrong so why do it? thats my view at least. im proud of all the things/people i love :)

Joker

I loved Carnage, because he just loved what he was doing. Passion is infectious. And he always seemed like Marvel's Joker because he was completely insane.

I think it is important to like the villains once in a while.

**also, if you liked Sinister because he pissed off Cyclops so much, that's okay too.

Venom, Magneto, Juggernaut were my favs growing up.

Villains are cooler, they always have been and always will be.

I loved the x men cartoon as a kid! My fav at the time were Wolverine and Gambit. Lots of awesome in that show. I remember being blown away by the Dark Phoenix saga, lol. When I think back to that storyline it's the TV show version that comes to mind over the actual comic.

I was a huge fan of omega red as a child in the 90s. Looking back, that probably wasn't any better

What was your favorite character when you first got into comics?

By the time I got into comics. I had already had a certain amount of exposure to characters and groups, through various forms of media. So I had a lot to like an look forward to when getting into comics. An when getting into comics, my list expanded, when getting exposed to certain characters that either never got any time in the lime light, or just had so little (like Psylocke).

Also gained a greater appreciation for some as well.

Either way, a lot and too many to mention :P

Are there characters you feel weird about liking as a kid?

Well aside from characters like a homicidal maniac (Sabretooth), an extremist of sorts (Magneto), and various other characters who a lot would see as troubling or unhealthy (even from heroes like Wolverine). lol

If there was anything to feel "weird" about, in regards to a character or characters, to like. It'd have more so been the characters that others would make you feel weird, scared, or ashamed of liking. An for me as a kid, it would be any character that was a "female".

For some odd reason, it was always cool to like a character that was bulky and oozing uber amounts of macho. But liking anything with boobs, made you a joke, weirdo, or whatever.

An there was a sums worth of female characters that I liked. Storm, Wonder Woman, Jubilee, Felicia Hardy, etc.

But because of how people perceived or would perceive, the liking of such characters, as characters an not just something to oggle at. I mostly kept the liking of such characters to myself, and tended to feel like an oddity among others for doing so to begin with.

Eddie, the mascot from the Iron Maiden covers... especially Killers (my first vinyl ever)!

Eddie was my favorite character and monster by far.

no. who doesn't love a good villain?

I probably still have that action figure seen above in the article. And I loved Mr. Sinister as a kid too. Those 90's X-men cartoons cemented my love for all things X for many moons to come. His action figure often found itself among "the good guys."

EDIT: As soon as I saw this article I thought of that action figure and that episode above.

What do you mean was? You still are.

Mr. Sinister was actually my favourite villain from the show even though I only ever watched one episode with him in the animated series.

Even as a little kid I have always liked villain characters more (ie Black Adam, Squadron Sinister, Constrictor, Kang, High Evolutionary, etc). Even growing up watching Kung Fu Theater I always wanted the bad guys to win.

Guess we are all messed up somehow?

my favorite character growing up was wolverine and he still is. the thing was a close second

my favorite villain was Apocalypse.

I don't think there's a problem liking villains. Since I was a kid my favorites characters have been Bane and Sabretooth. We can go even further, to the "manga universe", where Freezer is my favorite DBZ character. And also in Star Wars I've always loved Darth Vader (and Obi Wan, so there´s some good in me).

Talking about those toys brings me back i had both of them too !!

Villian wise i was always more of Venom fan then most of the X-men villians.

Love Sinister, one of my favorite X-Bad Guys!!

I liked Gene Simmons as a child.

Am I a monster ? XD

"My favorite comic book character, as a kid, was Mr Sinister. Does that make me terrible?"

Yes. Yes it does.

(Although you are a Steel fan, so there seems to be hope for you yet. Hmm...)

No monsters have feelings.

I liked Ultron....I think he is worse.

My favorite character was always Doctor Doom. That kind of quasi-justified arrogance and lust for power has always attracted me in that character. I don't like that of every villain, but I always felt Dr Doom was the perfect villain. He is supremely intelligent, is basically impossible to defeat and, although he is only human, he has made Gods tremble. Yes, he is full of himself, but with the feats he racked up in his career, he has every right to be. I will always say that my favorite hero is Spider-Man because of how down to earth and relatable he is, but my favorite straight-up character in any work of fiction is Vic Von Doom for the exact opposite reasons.

No way, I too loved Mr. Sinister. I clearly remember buying a comic on several occasions because he was on the cover. Everyone loves a good villain.

I had a crush on Witch-Poo. She had a jet propelled flying broom and lived in a talking castle. That was all I needed :)

Big Pac was my fav X-Men villain as a black kid in the burbs until now.

The reasons became deeper as i read the comics.

If you wanted a villain that embodied everything is relative, he was your guy. Apocalypse in the comics and show approached the world like a conqueror from Biblical times. And it was completely savage and inhuman...

And then you realize that he WAS a conqueror from 5000 years ago. He was abandoned because he was different. And, instead of becoming bitter with the world, he let everyone have a reasonable chance to survive. If they were strong enough. Classic Apocalypse was even willing to make humans into mutants if their will was strong enough to make the struggle more dynamic.

But too many people at Marvel could not get off Magneto's ____ long enough to write some compelling stories for him. And some of the jobbing he has done in the last decade.

I'm just going to leave this here:

I fell in love with Cap as an adult and that brought me back into comics hardcore, but what started it all when I was a kid in the 90's? I'll let the picture speak for itself.

My favorite character was Spider-Man because, In my opinion, he was a relatable character

My favorite villain was the Joker because I grew up with BTAS and read several Batman comics during my teenage years

Always liked his look and have always been interested in him. Just never read anything with him in. Maybe one day.

You have no idea how much those kids annoy me. They like him because they think they're so edgy and crap. Like "I like the villains, the villains are self-made men, like the Joker". Are you serious? BATMAN CREATED THE JOKER! STOP TALKING NOW.

That was my rant.

@inferiorego A lot of things make you a monster, Mat. This ranks pretty low on the list, honestly.

As a kid? Definitely Venom. Or anybody else who looked/was a badass.

As a side note, I kinda always had a thing for villains-turned-heroes for some reason.

You're not a bad person for liking Mr. Sinister when you were 11; you were a bad person because you were 11. Everyone's a terrible human being when they're kids, so don't beat yourself up for liking Sinister. Beat yourself up because you still didn't have a good grasp on basic empathy yet.

Personally, I always had two comic book characters in my heart as a kid. When I was ten, I had already been a big fan of Static Shock the show, so when I found out that it had a comic book I picked it up, and stuck with it. As a geeky, socially awkward black kid, it was nice to read about a nerdy superhero who was a lot like me. He was always a relatable character to me, and I always saw him as sort of an alternative Spider-Man. Geeky teenager with a crap load of problems, has every reason to prioritize himself above others, but chooses to help people. For a while, he was my inspiration, and his comic was the reason I wanted to improve my writing ability and one day write a story similar to his. Eventually, he became my ideal self, which is why when DC screwed him over with his New 52 comic book series, I was pissed off.

The other one is Usagi Yojimbo. The first time I ever went to a comic book store, it was to find a Static comic book. When I went there as a 12 year old kid, it was just a birthday visit to pick out whatever I wanted. And what I wanted was a sick ass comic book with a samurai rabbit on the cover. My reasons for liking Static were personal, but Yojimbo was just because holy hell it's a bad ass rabbit with a samurai sword. Then I got to reading it, and I fell in love. Of course, before him was Spider-Man, but no one really counts Spider-Man. Everyone loved Spider-Man.

YES, loving a fictional vampire character as a child makes you complete and utter monster, ESPECIALLY because part of the reason was his design!

My top five villains as a kid.

Venom

Rhino

Darkseid

Apocalypse

Sabertooth