Warning SPOILERS for X-Men #1
Marvel Comics may have subtly revealed the identity of a traitor in the X-Men's midst. Jonathan Hickman's relaunch of the X-Men has seen the entire mutant race gather on the living island of Krakoa, establishing themselves as a powerful new global force. The X-Men have abandoned Xavier's Dream, now supporting a far more isolationist philosophy akin to Magneto's.
The Krakoan Dream is an incredible one, because the X-Men have even welcomed mutantdom's worst killers to their new nation. Even Apocalypse has apparently been tamed, proudly - if weirdly - declaring that Krakoa is everything he ever wanted for his race. But there's no reason to assume that every character has set aside their own agendas; Powers of X #6 featured dialogue in which Moira MacTaggert claimed Emma Frost is still playing games of her own. And if Emma is doing so, then it's quite likely others are as well. There's been some speculation that Charles Xavier could be psychically reprogramming mutants as they enter through Krakoan gateways, but naturally telepaths would be able to resist this influence.
Jonathan Hickman's X-Men #1 contains a subtle hint that one mutant on Krakoa may be going further than anyone else, stoking the fires of mutant-human conflict in pursuit of their own agenda. And it may have even revealed who that mutant traitor really is.
Some human scientists believe the organization of the mutant race means there's now an evolutionary battle for survival between man and mutant. They've enacted the Orchis Protocol, gathering assets from all manner of covert scientific organizations, and their best minds are working on a response. One of their key players is Doctor Gregor, one of the senior scientists on the Forge, a base that orbits the sun and has the potential to create the ultimate Sentinels. The X-Men already launched one strike, and Dr. Gregor's husband was killed during their attack.
X-Men #1 ended with Dr. Gregor revealing that she knows how to bring her husband back, and brandishing a mysterious pink crystal. Visually, this doesn't correspond with anything that's been seen before in the X-Men comics; it's certainly not a shard of the M'Kraan Crystal, given those are fragments that are broken off, and wouldn't have the same kind of precise shape. It's far more likely that this is a Shi'ar memory crystal, used by Charles Xavier to store the psychic patterns of a mutant in order to clone them. It's reasonable to assume that Dr. Gregor is claiming this memory crystal stores the mental pattern of her husband, and that she then intends to use cloning to bring him back.
If this is the case, there are two implications. The first is that humans and mutants are now in something of an arm's race, and the X-Men aren't aware that Orchis is catching up. The second is that the X-Men have a traitor, because how else would one of Xavier's memory crystals be acquired by the humans?
The most probable culprit is Mr. Sinister. A scheming, Machiavellian being, Sinister was originally a scientist who lived at the time of Charles Darwin. He correctly predicted the rise of the mutant race, and unwittingly earned the attention of Apocalypse, who transformed him into his current guise. Sinister is an expert at cloning, and he's played an important part in helping Xavier perfect the Krakoan approach to resurrecting the world's mutants. Xavier scans the minds of all mutants across the globe, while Sinister records their genetic codes; the two are put together to allow any mutant who's been slain to effectively be brought back from the dead.
It's important to note that not many mutants seem to fully understand the resurrection process. In House of X #5, Magneto explained it in detail to his daughter Polaris, clearly implying she'd never been told how it works before. But Sinister would be one of the few to know all about it, simply because he's been in on the process for quite some time. Furthermore, it's notable that he has the ability to teleport himself, meaning he could get memory crystals off Krakoa without passing through the gateways and being monitored. He's also a telepath, neatly explaining why he could any psychic probes from Xavier.
If Sinister is indeed the mutant traitor, then he could prove to be a very dangerous asset for Dr. Gregor. While the X-Men have developed their own approach to cloning, Sinister has been able to clone men and mutants for years, and he's even been able to duplicate mental patterns as well; his original Marauders were cloned countless times, and clones of Sabretooth have been unable to distinguish themselves from the real deal. No wonder Dr. Gregor believes she can bring her husband back.
Sinister has never been particularly loyal to the mutant race; in fact, he only became a mutant because he incorporated mutant genes into his own body. Hickman's portrayal of Sinister is heavily influenced by Kieron Gillen's 2012 Uncanny X-Men run, which redefined the villain as a far more complex, nuanced character. This version of Sinister views himself as the peak of evolutionary perfection, and seeks to transform the entire world in his image. He believes his clones are the perfect people, and that the other races - humanity, mutants, whatever - should just get out of his way. In Gillen's run, he even attempted to trigger a Celestial judgment of the Earth in order to burn away all the competition.
If this is indeed the version of Sinister that Hickman is using - and all signs indicate that it is, given Hickman's is every bit as camp as Gillen's - then it's reasonable to assume he has a new plan. He aims to bring man and mutant into head-on collision, hoping they'll wipe each other out and allow him the opportunity to become the dominant force on Earth. Worse still, the X-Men have given him access to all the tools he needs to accomplish that purpose - and they don't yet appear to realize his treachery.
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