The Avengers, X-Men, and Thanos have all been defeated by a Marvel enemy

The list of ways how 2019’s House X/Powers of X succeeds because a comic story is long. Jonathan Hickman and his collaborators delivered original world-building, deep payoffs, the most twisted plot twists, electrifying action and instantly iconic character moments. But if something over HoX/smallpox still underestimated, it’s because Hickman didn’t just eat — he prepared the meals for those who came after.

This week, Kieron Gillen and Lucas Werneck in the X-Men comics provided the first course of a long-awaited dinner sins of evil

#1, the kickoff issue for sins of evil crossing. Evil glam geneticist Mister Sinister is here to chew up landscapes and screw up the future, and he shows no signs of running out of both in an issue that sees him living Krakoa, Mars, all human governments , every human superhero team, and multiple extra solar power plants like Thanos, Hell, and Asgard himself in just a decade.

What else is happening on the pages of our favorite comics? We’ll tell you. Welcome to Monday Funnies, Polygon’s weekly list of books our comics editor has enjoyed over the past week. It’s part society pages about the lives of superheroes, part recommended reading, and part look at this cool art. There may be some spoilers. There may not be enough context. But there will be great comics. (And if you missed the last issue, read this.)

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Image: Kieron Gillen, Lucas Werneck/Marvel Comics

The joy of Mister Sinister lies in a skillful use of contrast, as Gillen proved when he delivered the definitive modern take on the character in his 2011 Uncanny X-Men run. Sinister is knowingly Camp, a caped monologue who lives for drama, flirting with the fourth wall but never quite crossing it. He’s objectively funny, a villain who commands the reader’s attention with compelling flair and intriguingly intricate schemes.

He is too perhaps the only mutant villain with delusions of deity and ambition to make it so left in the Krakoan era. Because as Gillen codified a decade ago, Sinister’s goals like Magneto and Apocalypse and Orchis and Nimrod are genetic superiority. The difference is Sinister doesn’t believe humans should replace mutants or vice versa.

He thinks he should replace both. He’s an impossibly selfish ego bent on universal genocide of all sentient things but his genetic code – and God, Gillen and Werneck make it hilarious to watch him with his grandiose plans (to shrink the Juggernaut and open a wormhole, to shoot him through Thanos’ skull point-blank range) to his silly little tantrums (“OH, FIDDLE &%&% BASTARD @#%&# STICKS!” he roars through a tear) to his Krakoan Doctor Moreau’s Island hairless cat with cyclopean eyes.

What I’m saying is that the first two pages of this comic pay homage to the opening scene of House X/Powers of Xbut with just Clones of Cyclops and Sinister in the place of Professor X turning the X-Men’s war cry into grammatical mush while looking straight at the camera is awesome.

My parents gave me a bunch of bunnies when I was a kid, and none of my barbies chewed their feet. I don’t want any of the rabbit owners out there to miss this targeted message for them.

Image: Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Rafa Sandoval/DC Comics

This weeks action comics revealed that Lois Lane keeps her husband’s skimpy, chain-like suit from his Warworld days in her bedroom closet, and I just want to say I love that for her.