The Upcoming MCU X-Men Character Who Could Help Shape A Future Spider-Man Movie

Published Aug 24, 2026, 10:00 PM EDT

Nicholas Raymond is an author and journalist based out of Alabama, where he proudly roots for the Alabama Crimson Tide football team. A graduate of the University of Montevallo, he has a degree in mass communication with a concentration in journalism.

A soon-to-be-introduced X-Men character has the potential to play a guiding hand in the story of a future MCU outing for Tom Holland's Spider-Man. Thanks to Sadie Sink's role as Jean Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the mutant corner of the Marvel Universe intersected with Spider-Man's in an interesting way on the big screen. Theoretically, his next movie may be a more traditional Spider-Man story more focused on members of his own rogues' gallery, but another adventure with heavy X-Men connections is hardly implausible.

After all, it's become increasingly apparent that after years of being separate from the MCU due to rights issues, the X-Men are going to finally develop integral roles in its world. Via movies like Deadpool & Wolverine and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Marvel Studios found ways to utilize the X-Men characters from Fox's movies. And that approach will be applied again in Avengers: Doomsday. And through Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the MCU has started to lay the groundwork for its new generation of the X-Men.

From the looks of things, Marvel's X-Men reboot will be the opening act of a new era in the MCU's history, which reinforces the notion that its next chapter will essentially be "The Mutant Saga," whether that becomes its official designation or not. And if it's true that a focus on mutants will define the next few years of the MCU after Avengers: Secret Wars, it perhaps won't be a surprise if an X-Men character heavily influences a Spider-Man movie for a second time.

At D23 2026, Marvel Studios confirmed that Adam Driver has been cast as Mister Sinister in the upcoming X-Men reboot. Given his reputation as one of the X-Men's biggest villains, he's a massive addition to the movie and one that is sure to pose a massive challenge to the new version of Professor X and his team of young mutant heroes. He's also a character boasting a great deal of lore that could be used to further grow the MCU. And parts of that could have an impact on Spider-Man.

Mister Sinister's Connection To The Jackal

Mister Sinister is one of the two biggest names associated with cloning in Marvel Comics, the other being the Jackal. Both are evil scientists who use their genius intellects to create clones, which are ultimately pitted against their respective enemies. Whereas Mister Sinister is a hated foe of the X-Men, The Jackal a.k.a. Miles Warren has long been a thorn in the side of Spider-Man, having personally engineered some of the wallcrawler's most notable story arcs, including both versions of the Clone Saga.

Given that they occupied different places in the Marvel Universe, Mister Sinister and the Jackal remained on separate paths for years, but eventually their similar interests led Marvel to form connections between them. In the 2010s, the Jackal began ransacking laboratories formerly run by Mister Sinister to commandeer his research and resources for his own purposes.

The Jackal believing that he had something to gain from Mister Sinister's work made sense, given that the latter always came across as the superior mind. As a 19th-century scientist, Mister Sinister was older and much more experienced. Jackal, for his part, had endured many failures in his attempts to clone his subjects.

Later on, their shared interests converged in the form of the High Evolutionary, the Marvel Comics villain known for "evolving" animals into human-like creatures. In the Weapon X comic from the early 2000s, it was confirmed that much of High Evolutionary's understanding of genetics was due to his collaborations with Minister Sinister, as both were prominent figures in the scientific community during the 19th century.

This reveal retroactively integrated the Jackal into Minister Sinister's scientific legacy. That's because it had previously been established in 1988's The Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #8 that before becoming the Jackal, Dr. Miles Warren was mentored by the High Evolutionary. He worked as an assistant to him, learning the High Evolutionary secrets to genetic engineering and even trying his own hand at evolving an animal. Of course, he had no idea at the time that Mister Sinister was the true architect of his research.

How The MCU's Mister Sinister Can Set Up Spider-Man vs. The Jackal

As one of the most important Spider-Man villains still lacking a live-action counterpart, the Jackal will obviously be a subject of discussion among fans every time Peter Parker has another movie en route. And if Marvel does have any intention of using him in any capacity, the X-Men reboot offers Marvel a great opportunity to set the stage for his arrival.

It can be presumed that since the movie is giving a major role to Minister Sinister, cloning will be a central plot device in the story, meaning that the concept that would serve as the foundation for a Jackal-centric narrative will already be relevant to the MCU ahead of his debut. Partially for that reason, Marvel may elect to use Mister Sinister's role in the movie to set the stage for Jackal's rise.

Doing so wouldn't be difficult, as it would only call for Miles Warren to be introduced or teased when the film fleshes out Mister Sinister's backstory. Since the MCU already distanced its take on the High Evolutionary from his human origins in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, it could remove him from their respective origin stories entirely and instead give the pair a student-and-teacher dynamic. It's possible that in the canon of the MCU, Mister Sinister directly taught Jackal everything he knows about cloning. If he's defeated in the X-Men movie, Miles Warren could be seen as a twisted continuation of his legacy in a sequel to Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Jackal could represent a consequence of Mister Sinister's actions, but in a way that - if handled with comic book accuracy - wouldn't make his arc a repeat of Mister Sinister's. Minister Sinister had in his mind an incredible, evolutionary step in the future of mutantkind. Jackal, though, had no such grand plan; his schemes were considerably more short-sighted, as hatred of Spider-Man was consistently his strongest motivator. In this respect, an MCU version of Jackal could use Minister Sinister's research in a way that Adam Driver's character might regard as a perversion of his vision.

Why The Clone Saga Could Be The Plot Of A Future Spider-Man Movie

Not only is the Jackal a major adversary to Spider-Man in Marvel Comics, but he's also the driving force behind a significant chunk of Peter's story that has yet to receive any form of representation in the MCU. The original Clone Saga that saw Jackal create clones of Peter and Gwen Stacy left an indelible mark on Spider-Man lore, one that's evident by how times it's since been revisited, not to mention the new characters his stories spawned, such as Kaine and Scarlet Spider.

Jackal has been the villain of multiple Spider-Man stories, including arcs like "Spider-Island" that encompassed other Marvel superheroes, proving that Jackal is formidable enough to warrant large-scale team-ups. Because of the Jackal, battling clones has become a recurring theme in Spider-Man's adventures. However, the MCU's Spider-Man movies have never come close to a story of their kind, hence why a MCU interpretation of the Clone Saga would offer a fresh new direction for the character.