So, Sinister admits he’s never been able to truly clone Jean…

[Drexelhand]

Nate was built to be a weapon. So Sinister created him with a failsafe in the form of a expiring date. He was only ever meant to be a bullet fired at Apocalypse.

Our Nate later got cured from this and was considered the only truly working Nate Grey in the multiverse. There was also a distinction made between Cable and Nate. They are not the same. Their DNA might be 99,9999 similar or something less or more but the are not the same. Brothers perhaps but not clones or twins.

They are literally the same person from two different versions of the timeline. It's the flow of time, when Legion rewrote the past, Nate was born in place of Cable. I vaguely remember somebody saying Nate has the same birthday as Cable - but that could also be a fake memory. They are considered brothers because of the different personalities but are genetically clones, not twins. It's like how if you clone a cat, the new cat will have a completely new personality even though it is genetically the same.

I think the quote from the issue is just a way of Sinister acknowledging Jean's individuality and shouldn't be taken as anything more than that.

[Mercury]

Sinister said he “couldn’t clone Jean Grey,” and I’m choosing to interpret his words exactly as they were spoken. Madelyne is not an exact replica of Jean—frankly, she never was—and is certainly not equal to her in terms of power. However, I do sympathize with her and hope she is finally redeemed and allowed to carve out a life for herself in Limbo.

Hopefully, Dark Web will end well for her.

[MarquisAsh]

Sinister said he “couldn’t clone Jean Grey,” and I’m choosing to interpret his words exactly as they were spoken. Madelyne is not an exact replica of Jean—frankly, she never was—and is certainly not equal to her in terms of power. However, I do sympathize with her and hope she is finally redeemed and allowed to carve out a life for herself in Limbo.

Hopefully, Dark Web will end well for her.

Hopefully she can get a new hair color…

[Malachi]

They are literally the same person from two different versions of the timeline. It's the flow of time, when Legion rewrote the past, Nate was born in place of Cable. I vaguely remember somebody saying Nate has the same birthday as Cable - but that could also be a fake memory. They are considered brothers because of the different personalities but are genetically clones, not twins. It's like how if you clone a cat, the new cat will have a completely new personality even though it is genetically the same.

I think the quote from the issue is just a way of Sinister acknowledging Jean's individuality and shouldn't be taken as anything more than that.

Cable was born from Maddy and Scott’s union. The old way without knowing what the result might be.

Nate was born in a vat from samples that Sinister obtained from AoA’s Scott and Jean. Witch we are free to assume are genetically identical to our Jean and Scott. He was created to be the most potent combination of those genes to serve as a weapon. So Sinister inserted a failsafe. This Sinister never met a Cable or knew of one. If he wanted to he could have as easily made the weapon a female.

Now what we have are the meta reasons behind Nate’s creation from Marvel. He was that universe standin for Cable. Replacing Cables solo. That coupled with 90’s thinking is probably why Nate had to be a male. Considering his brain is the source of his power I see no reason why he had to be a male, unless Sinister counted on testerone to make him more aggressive.

X-man 67-70 uses the distinctions between a Jean Grey and a Madelyne Pryor while talking about the concept of a Nate Grey. Cable is never used as a Nate Grey he is treated as his own person. He was also canonically first so it would be more proper in that case to talk about Nathan Summerses instead of Nate Greys.

Nate is created to be a weapon by Sinister to the extent that Sinister thinks is the most powerful weapon he can create. If Nate and Cable are the same it is because Sinister by some chance managed to create an exact replica of a man he never met while pursuing his version of perfection. Meaning that to our understanding Cable would be the most potent mix that could have resulted from a union of Maddy and Scott. Even down to the smallest adjustments Sinister made to Nate.

I can buy the idea that Sinister never was able to create a perfect clone of Jean. Maybe he got real close but not all the way. I can see a distinction between a Madylyne and a Jean. Between a Nate and a Cable.

[Micabe]

I wonder if this was just a throwaway comment or if it might lead to anything (I suspect the former). For some reason it reminded me of when the High Evolutionary told Peter that Professor Warren never really achieved true cloning, but instead infected other people with a virus that would rewrite them into someone else.

I suspect Sinister's comment might be more abstract though - he did technically clone Jean but Madelyne never really exhibited the FULL range of her powers or even have her full memories, and actually wasn't even alive until the Phoenix breathed life into her.

Actually, Madelyne was quite alive but she didn't gain consciousness until the Phoenix Force sought to return to Jean Grey the portion of life force and memories it took from her hence, the reason why when Madelyne became cognizant she uttered -- Scott!

After that, the Phoenix Force appeared and finished explaining to the two of them what it had done.

Then live Jean Grey. Live for all of us... Which I took to mean all "three" of us (which now makes even more sense after what was said to Jean Grey as she was being judged in A.X.E.: X-Men #1).

Then, someone thought it genius to just bring Madelyne back via the Resurrection Protocols and make her the new Sorceress Supreme of Limbo...

Marvel’s Mutants and their Uncanny Clone Counterparts

[Exodus]

shouldn't we have 3 Madelyne's in the Marvel Universe at the moment?!

-The one crossing over from an alternative universe who fought the time displayed teenage X-Men
-the psychic ghost created by Nate Grey and also created the new sisterhood
-and now the new resurrected one who is the "original clone" who has died during Inferno?

Or did I miss something?

[Uncanny X-Man]

shouldn't we have 3 Madelyne's in the Marvel Universe at the moment?!

-The one crossing over from an alternative universe who fought the time displayed teenage X-Men
-the psychic ghost created by Nate Grey and also created the new sisterhood
-and now the new resurrected one who is the "original clone" who has died during Inferno?

Or did I miss something?

I believe at the time it was mentioned that the evil alternate universe Maddie (who was actually the Jean from that universe if I recall correctly) had killed the "psychic ghost" Maddie before replacing her. And then Nate killed her while visiting that universe.

But then, because nobody really ever dies and you can't keep a good telepath down anyway, the psychic ghost Maddie returned and formed the Sisterhood in order to give herself a body. When that failed, she was seemingly vanquished but then was given corporeal form again by Arkea. That's the Maddie we see at the start of Hellions and the one that was then killed and resurrected by the Five.

[Havok83]

shouldn't we have 3 Madelyne's in the Marvel Universe at the moment?!

-The one crossing over from an alternative universe who fought the time displayed teenage X-Men
-the psychic ghost created by Nate Grey and also created the new sisterhood
-and now the new resurrected one who is the "original clone" who has died during Inferno?

Or did I miss something?

2. The psychic ghost is the newly resurrected one

[Celestialbodies]

I believe at the time it was mentioned that the evil alternate universe Maddie (who was actually the Jean from that universe if I recall correctly) had killed the "psychic ghost" Maddie before replacing her. And then Nate killed her while visiting that universe.

But then, because nobody really ever dies and you can't keep a good telepath down anyway, the psychic ghost Maddie returned and formed the Sisterhood in order to give herself a body. When that failed, she was seemingly vanquished but then was given corporeal form again by Arkea. That's the Maddie we see at the start of Hellions and the one that was then killed and resurrected by the Five.

Can you elaborate even further? The X-man psychic ghost/alternate reality Jean Grey/Forming the Sisterhood has always been what genuinely threw me off.

[Odd Rödney]

Can you elaborate even further? The X-man psychic ghost/alternate reality Jean Grey/Forming the Sisterhood has always been what genuinely threw me off.

The fact that you want more elaboration on that mess marks you as a braver person than I!

[Huntsman Spider]

Ackhtwally, it was revealed why , in of all places , NetFlix’s 2022 Resident Evil series (gone too soon tsk tsk tsk) LOL : Forced Growth always results in cellular degeneration (why is the same problem with the OG Jackal’s cloning until Ben Reilly solved it more or less with stabilizing pills in the Clone Conspiracy) and Nate Grey is confirmed as being forced-grown to his adolescence in 1997’s X-Man Minus One

A Netflix series based on a Capcom videogame is not canon to the Marvel comics

No, but it is a logical explanation for why clones in fiction tend to suffer from rapid cellular degeneration, leading to a relatively limited lifespan, that could easily slot into Marvel Comics' handling of clones.

[Jackraow21]

And would also make sense as applies to Cable, the son of a rapidly aged clone, and why his cellular structure struggles to contain his raw power without the T-O virus nerfing it. Same goes for his own genetic clone, Stryfe. And X-man himself was rapidly aged, so he suffers from a similar, perhaps worse, condition.

[Havok83]

No, but it is a logical explanation for why clones in fiction tend to suffer from rapid cellular degeneration, leading to a relatively limited lifespan, that could easily slot into Marvel Comics' handling of clones.

One cant say it always results in that considering there have been characters that have aged unnaturally than have been fine. Joseph and Vulcan come to mind

[Jackraow21]

Maybe it doesn’t always happen, but often does. Serves as a pretty good explanation for these things in my mind.

[Uncanny X-Man]

Can you elaborate even further? The X-man psychic ghost/alternate reality Jean Grey/Forming the Sisterhood has always been what genuinely threw me off.

Basically when Nate Grey resurrected Maddie she was always a psychic ghost but after getting seemingly killed by the alternate universe Maddie (who was really that reality's Jean) she apparently went full-on ghost, to the point she wanted to possess Jean's then-dead body in order to go corporeal. To achieve that, she put together a Sisterhood and put Betsy Braddock back to her original body as a trial run. When the X-Men prevented her from possessing Jean's corpse she basically disappeared until the Sisterhood and Arkea resurrected her and gave her a physical body again. And that brings us to when she showed up in Hellions.