House of X #6 annotations
As always, this post is full of spoilers, and page numbers are according to the digital edition. This is the final issue of House of X, but I’ll be reviewing it and Powers of X together once both are complete, since they’re functionally a single book.
COVER (PAGE 1): Storm, Emma Frost and Exodus, on Krakoa, with Storm apparently addressing an audience. There are more people watching from the balconies in the background.
PAGE 2: The epigraph simply has Professor X proclaiming an imperfect but good start. That applies not just to his plan with Krakoa, but to the Hickman run in general – House of X is more of an extended prologue to establish the Krakoan status quo than it is a story in itself. The line comes from the Council meeting scene later in the issue.
PAGES 3-7: One month ago, Professor X dons the Cerebro helmet and makes his speech to humankind – the one that he gave shortly before issue #1.
Krakoa. Krakoa is floating, not connected to the sea bed. That would explain how it could have been hurled into space at the end of Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975), and indeed how it could have got back. On the underside – with inverted gravity – is “Moira’s No-Space”, previously mentioned in Powers of X #5 as a location for one of Xavier’s backups of mutant data. Issue #1 established that a “No-Space” is also beyond the consciousness of Krakoa itself. There’s an obvious question here: why is all this being hidden? Note, by the way, that Xavier’s speech refers to “the island of Krakoa”. We’ll come back to that.
Professor X. Even though he starts the scene without his Cerebro helmet, every panel is framed so that we only see the lower part of his face or the back of his head – there’s no clear view of the parts of his face that are normally obscured by the helmet. But Magneto and Moira are looking right at him and seem to see nothing wrong. This doesn’t seem to be the first time that Xavier puts on the helmet – he was already wearing it when he went to recruit Emma in Powers of X #5. (And that scene must come first, because it takes place before Xavier’s pharmaceuticals have become public knowledge.)
Xavier’s speech. Xavier claims that the drugs “have been discovered by mutant scientists.” Who? Does he mean Moira and Sinister (who seems to be treated as a mutant for most purposes in this series)? Xavier also claims that his drugs extend life, cure mental illness, and prevent “most common maladies”, including “most cancers”. The “most” there is probably a nod to not breaking the rest of the Marvel Universe too badly while this storyline is running, but you have to figure that something is going to go wrong with these drugs in the end – partly because profound social changes in the MU tend not to stick, but partly because they’re just too odd to be a mere background point.
Xavier claims that he has realised that his dream of harmony between humans and mutants was a lie, with humans standing by and doing nothing to help when mutants were under attack. While he alludes to the Genoshan genocide, he stops short of actually accusing humans of committing it (rightly, since that was Cassandra Nova). Oddly, he refers to the dead mutants as “our children” rather than “us”, which is a theme that keeps coming up in this series. Broadly, Xavier is trying to portray himself here as someone who has abandoned a dream of integration instead of separation.
But remember, in Powers of X #5, Namor refused to join Xavier because he didn’t believe that Xavier really meant all this. And there are plenty of reasons to be deeply sceptical before taking Xavier’s speech at face value. For a start, he claims that he’s supplying drugs to humans on condition that humans recognise Krakoan sovereignty and grant amnesty to all mutants. But in Powers of X #5, he tasked Emma with delivering the drugs to countries that rejected the deal – so he seems to be lying about the conditions. Xavier frames his amnesty as giving convicted mutant criminals a chance to “overcome man’s bias against mutants”. But just look at what actually happens to Sabretooth – a supposed beneficiary of the amnesty – later in the issue. And Xavier claims that mutants are “the future” and “an evolutionary inevitability”. But he knows from Moira that in her previous lives, what actually happened is that the machines inevitably rose to prominence. By all appearances, then, Namor is right – this is an act, at least in part.
Here’s another point. In House of X #1, the epigraph credited Xavier with “Humans of the planet Earth. While you slept, the world changed.” (That’s actually the first and last sentences of his speech here.) In Powers of X #1, Percival’s dying words were “There was a dream. Our dreams are the same. While you slept, the world changed.” That appeared at the time to be an expansion of Xavier’s speech. But we now know that Percival actually comes from Moira’s previous life – and the two sentences about dreams being the same don’t feature in this version of Xavier’s speech at all.
PAGE 8. The credits. The story title listed here is “I Am Not Ashamed”, which would tend to suggest a mutant-pride angle. But in the Krakoan-text trailer pages, the title of this issue was given as “I Am Not Ashamed Of What I Do”, which is slightly different. The small print in the bottom right reads “The House of Xavier – The Three Laws.”
PAGES 9-10. Data pages on the Quiet Council of Krakoa. This is a repeat of what we saw in Powers of X #5, with most of the redactions removed and some added material about the “great captains”. Frankly, it’s not clear with hindsight what the point was of redacting all this so heavily in Powers of X #5, except to delay the reveal.
- The “autumn” Council members are Professor X, Magneto and Apocalypse – presumably linked by their grand visions.
- The “winter” group are Mister Sinister, Exodus and Mystique – all villains. Sinister has obvious practical importance to the plan, and Mystique may or may not have connections with Moira (via any clues that Destiny left for her). Exodus is a strange inclusion, since he’s traditionally been a rather slavish follower of Magneto who only takes a leadership role when Magneto is unavailable; perhaps that’s the point, that he’s a reliable vote who’s bound to side with Magneto.
- “Spring” is Sebastian Shaw, Emma Frost and a still-redacted Red King, all presumably representing Krakoa’s trading wing.
- “Summer” is the traditional X-Men, represented by Storm, Jean Grey and – a little surprisingly – Nightcrawler.
The great captains. Basically the field leaders who are the next level down, it seems.
- Cyclops. The “captain commander” and first among equals – but isn’t it a little odd that he didn’t make the cut for the Council? In favour of Nightcrawler…?
- Gorgon. The Hand leader who’s had a couple of cameos before now, but has little previous history with the X-Men outside a few Wolverine stories.
- Bishop. A veteran X-Man dating back to the early 90s – and not previously mentioned by Hickman. Bishop is a time traveller from a possible future generally along the lines of the Days of Futures Past, although in his world there was a successful rebellion which ended the Sentinel domination. How that fits into the inevitable robot ascension remains to be seen, but it’s striking that Hickman has kept the X-Men’s time travellers (who are not in short supply) at bay up till now.
- Magik. Another established X-Man and former New Mutant, with bonus sorcery which might come in handy with all those comments about Inferno we had in Powers of X #4. Magik can also time travel, though it doesn’t come up that often.
PAGES 11-17. “Now.” This seems to be the first meeting of the Quiet Council, who decide on some laws and then punish Sabretooth for killing people during the raid in issue #1. The mysterious Red King is absent, and nobody comments on the empty chair. Everyone speaks normally in the meeting, so it’s not clear why it’s the “Quiet Council”.
The council chamber. The seats are in four groups of three (representing the four seasons), and the centre has the new “X” logo used on the covers of this series – the first time we’ve seen it in a story. Krakoa is in the background as a large tree trunk with a face, and Cypher perches puck-like in his branches, seemingly to act as interpreter – though all his actual contributions here seem to be on his own initiative. Xavier identifies the X-Men group as “family”, the Hellfire Club as “friends”, and the three blatant supervillains as “allies”, which is very tactful.
The laws. The Council proceed to debate what the basic laws of Krakoa should be. The discussion comes up with a grand total of three laws, which is not what you’d call a functioning legal system, and has more in common with religious guidance such as the Ten Commandments. These are: (1) Make more mutants; (2) Murder no man; and (3) Respect this sacred land.
The second law of mutantdom. This is the first one to be discussed, despite the numbering it gets later. In the discussion, the ban is specifically on taking a human life, on the logic that humans can’t come back, while mutants (now) can. The question of exceptions for self defence and so forth is acknowledged and kicked into the long grass; you get the sense that Magneto, at least, is willing to take a very flexible approach to what this law was “meant to” cover, should the point ever arise. Apocalypse seems to be suggesting that a bit of mutant-on-mutant violence should be encouraged so that they can continue to test their fitness. (His other argument – “How can it be a crime to kill someone who cannot be killed?” – is hopelessly bad. The answer is “because it’s still an assault.”)
Economic laws. Raised by Sebastian Shaw, and parked as a bit difficult for discussion. Cypher raises the understandable objection that people can’t own bits of Krakoa because it’s a person, and Storm seems to suggest mutants may still keep their actual homes outside Krakoa if they prefer it that way. Interestingly, Cypher claims that Krakoa is “fauna, not flora” – an animal rather than a sentient plant.
The third law of mutantdom. Exodus’s main contribution to the discussion – other than refusing point blank to talk to Sinister – is to propose that Krakoa be treated as sacred. Nobody disagrees with this… everyone seems quite on board with the cult-like aspects of the whole thing.
The first law of mutantdom. Proposed by Nightcrawler in response to Mystique taunting him about his religion – be fruitful and multiply, and all that. (Oddly, Mystique refers to Nightcrawler as if he were the only religious mutant.)
PAGE 18. A data page emblazoned with the three laws of mutantdom (which sounds a bit like Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, but that’s probably coincidence). Note the small print at the bottom of the page: “Krakoa 1, Arakko 0”. In Powers of X #4, we were told that the land of Okkara had been torn into Krakoa and Arakko back in primeval times. Why the laws lead to some kind of scoreline – if indeed that’s what it is – is unclear.
PAGES 19-22. Having decided that Sabretooth broke the laws they literally just made up, the Council sentence him for breaking them – the only discussion being about whether to give him another chance or make an example with him. Now we know why we had the scene with the human kangaroo court in issue #3 – while this is presented to make us more sympathetic to the X-Men, by any reasonable standard it’s far worse. Sabretooth is given no chance to speak or make his case, and then they torture him. And it’s not like they gave him the option of staying in the human jail.
(And, yes, they’re convicting him under a law they’ve just made up – but that’s the least of the issues here, since it’s a law against murder, and Sabretooth knew perfectly well that that was against the local law when he committed the crime.)
Sabretooth’s sentence is to be placed in stasis inside Krakoa, “alive but immobile, aware but unable to act on it”, and “forever.” Xavier describes this as exile, but by any reasonable standards it’s torture. Xavier claims that this is the only option because they don’t tolerate prisons on Krakoa, and if they executed him then they’d just have to bring him back. But neither reason holds water – they don’t have to bring him back if he dies. And what could possibly be the ethical objection to prisons if this is the alternative? Is this going to happen to everyone who commits a crime on Krakoa? What’s the punishment for not respecting the sacred land?
Xavier does note that perhaps one day Sabretooth will have a chance to redeem himself, so you have to wonder if we’re being told the whole story about where he’s going. Is he actually being packed off to Moira?
None of the Council seem to be surprised by this turn of events, but note their individual reactions. Magneto, Apocalypse, Exodus, Storm and Emma play it fairly straight. Sinister thinks it’s funny. Shaw is barely interested. Nightcrawler and Jean are slightly hesitant, but they vote for it anyway. The one person in the room who seems to have a real problem with it is… Mystique.
Sabretooth is dragged through a hole which opens up in the floor where the X-Men logo is. It’s battered and cracked when it heals over. This isn’t subtle. Yes, Xavier gives us a speech about having to make difficult decisions, but, er…
PAGES 23-27. From that, we go straight into a giant public party for the Krakoans, fireworks and all. Xavier again refers to the mutants as “millions of children”, and suggests that the Council are going to be taking the awful decisions that keep them awake at night, so that everyone else on Krakoa can live happy lives. While we end on a great celebration and a new dawn, there are plenty of signals that this won’t end well.
Recognisable among the crowd – and thus established to be on Krakoa, if we haven’t seen them before – are the following:
- There’s someone with big feathered wings on page 23. This can’t be Warren, since he’s in Archangel form with metal wings when we see him on page 25. It might be Icarus, Cannonball’s brother, who was killed in New X-Men #27 (2006).
- The Five dancing together.
- Banshee, clearly seen as back to his old self and cured of his zombie-ish appearance. Did Elixir sort him out, or was he restored from back-up?
- Siryn, his daughter.
- Dazzler, entertaining the crowd. Dazzler’s powers work by converting sound to light, so the idea is that Siryn is screaming at Dazzler to boost her light show.
- Archangel, Iceman and Beast. Note that the rebooted Warren is back in Archangel form, despite that being the result of Apocalypse’s experiments and not his natural mutant powers. Curious.
- Exodus, telling stories to children around the campfire. If you look closely, Sinister is lurking in the background, watching.
- Marvel Girl, Cyclops and Wolverine – traditionally something of a romantic triangle, with Cyclops and Wolverine as rivals, but all friends here.
- Anole, Surge, Gentle, Pixie, Broo, Synch and Skin. Mostly assorted trainees of varying generations, though Gentle and Pixie have been on the main team for brief stints. Synch died in Generation X #70 (2000) and Skin in Uncanny X-Men #423 (2003), so both have evidently been restored from back-up.
- Gorgon, offered a drink by Wolverine – a remarkable gesture given that Gorgon was the bad guy who turned Wolverine into a Hand agent in Mark Millar’s “Enemy of the State” storyline from Wolverine (2004-5). In a similar gesture of reconciliation, Jean offers a drink to Emma Frost, who had an affair with her husband in the Grant Morrison run. All of this is a little bit Too Good To Be True.
- Jubilee and a woman in glasses who looks to be Boom-Boom.
- Shark-Girl, just visible as a silhouette behind Emma in one panel.
- Havok, Cyclops’s brother, who died in the final issue of Matthew Rosenberg’s Uncanny X-Men and has been restored from back-up almost immediately. (If you were thinking that the X-Men who died on the space station might not have been the originals… well, that argument isn’t available with Havok.)
- Apocalypse sits off to one side and watches.
PAGES 28-29. Data pages on Krakoa… both of them. One in the Atlantic, the other in the Pacific. Note that Xavier’s telepathic speech to the world only referred to “the island”, so something’s up here. The small print on page 28 says “Krakoa Spawn Atlantic” and “Krakoa Spawn World”, which sounds a bit worrying. The Atlantic island has only three features shown: a transit hub, “the Pointe” (which was mentioned in Powers of X #5 as one of Xavier’s back-up database locations) and a training location called the Danger Island (the latest incarnation of the Danger Room).
The Pacific island map has grown some new points since we last saw it in issue #1. The first twelve items on the key are the same. Five new items have been added:
- Bar Sinister, which must be Sinister’s home.
- Hellfire Bay, presumably the base of the Hellfire Trading Company.
- The Red Keep, presumably something to do with this Red King guy.
- “Blackstone”, which means nothing to me.
- The White Palace, which sounds like Emma.
Item 18 on the map is off in the sea, and is left blank in the index. It forms part of an area of sea marked off with a dotted line; it’s not clear yet what that refers to, but the line was on the issue #1 map too.
PAGE 30. The closing quote from Magneto, drawn from the party scene: “Just look at what we have made.”
PAGES 31-32. The reading order, and the single train for Powers of X #6, which reads “NEXT: HOUSE OF X.”
I figured due to its location that “Blackstone” would be the home/offices/whatever for Sebastian Shaw, AKA the Black King, just as Emma gets her White Palace and the Red King gets the Red Keep.
It seems as though many of the Quiet Council get their own places.
Xavier: House of X
Magneto: House of M
Apocalypse: ?
Sinister: Bar Sinister
Mystique: ?
Exodus: ?
Jean: ?
Nightcrawler: ?
Storm: ?
(Presumably, the X-Men get their own collective space, since I don’t see them being as fiercely individualistic as certain other members…)
Emma: White Palace
Shaw: Blackstone
Red King: Red Keep
(And this block also has the Hellfire Bay)
I wonder if 18, which is mainly in the ocean will be related to Namor somehow, or if it’s going to turn out to be a whole hidden area of development/expansion.)
I also wonder what exactly areas like “The Wild Hunt” and “Carousel” represent. This feels like a callback to Hickman’s Secret Warriors series, where he introduced all sorts of secret bases and places with catchy, if not always obvious, names.
Re: Cyclops – I think Hickman’s taking the view that Cyclops is a tactician, not a big-picture strategist. So he gets to be the top field leader, but not in the council deciding where Krakoa’s going. (Meanwhile, Nightcrawler has a distinct perspective, especially if him being restored from backup has fixed his Aaron/Guggengeim “no soul” thing).
Re: Siryn – Remember that when Siryn was last seen at the end of PAD’s X-Factor, she’d become an immortal god/witch thing – “the Morrigan”, IIRC – with magic powers and an inhuman look to cure Polaris of her insanity (and, later, Madrox of being a mute demon). Since she’s back to normal here, it raises questions of whether she’s reverted to normal (which, given how she became it, shouldn’t be an option) or whether she’s *also* been recreated from backup. (See also: Magik, with how Rosenberg left her).
Wild Hunt and Carousel bring to mind mythology and the film Logan’s Run.
I don’t know, but it might apply, somehow.
It sounds like it has something to do with controlling the mutant population and the cloning stuff, if Hickman is referencing the obvious.
As a fan who started reading in the 90s, I was surprised how happy I was to see Synch and Skin together.
Thinking about it further…
The Wild Hint might also be Apocalypse’s lair.
The Four Horsemen, “survival of the fittest”…
Maybe. Maybe not.
“House of X is more of an extended prologue to establish the Krakoan status quo than it is a story in itself.”
And for only $60. Excelsior!
First: SYNCH! SKIN! ahem.
A lot of people have remarked that this Xavier reminds them of Ultimate Reed Richards, but this whole time he has reminded me of Ultimate Xavier. He was a lot less of an obvious “good guy” than 616 Xavier, had “stages” and “phases” in his plan, and even put his students in mental detention for misbehaving where experienced time would slow to a crawl–Sabretooth’s treatment evoked that for me.
There goes my “no time traveler” theory. Even though I know Cable’s in the ongoing, I thought we were going to avoid specific time traveler mutants here since Hickman’s playing with timelines a lot. I also wondered if Nimrod has already fought the X-Men; the answer is probably “yes.”
Another week, another Asimov parallel. Besides the “Laws of Robotics” observation, we have a secret Plan that will take approximately 1,000 years to fully carry out, and the fewer people who know about it, the more likely the Plan is likely to happen–Foundation again.
I could just about buy Cyclops / Jean / Wolverine burying the hatchet. Emma’s smile at Cyclops immediately after could either be tacit acceptance or furtive planning.
Hickman’s “dedication” to consistent characterization and distinct character voices is such that he almost has me pining for Avengers Disassembled-era Bendis dialogue.
@CJ
Rachel’s also in the first story of the upcoming X-Men series.
@CJ
“Another week, another Asimov parallel. Besides the “Laws of Robotics” observation, we have a secret Plan that will take approximately 1,000 years to fully carry out, and the fewer people who know about it, the more likely the Plan is likely to happen–Foundation again.”
You’re right, but in fairness (?), all of Hickman’s Marvel stories do something like this, where some amoral super genius has to solve a looming problem within a set amount of time or else everything falls apart.
I’m less offended for the $60 of prologue with HoX/PoX than I am with, what, $130 worth of nothing that was Age of X-Man (the recent alternate reality series where nothing at all happened).
If nothing else HoX/PoX had consistent (and pretty good) art, a single writer (and therefore a mostly consistent narrative), and was at least intriguing (as evidenced by the unprecedented amount of discussion here on House to Astonish). Comics are a bad value proposition, but I came WAY closer to getting my money’s worth out of HoX/PoX than Age of X-Man, which was utterly throwaway and forgettable and which Marvel should have paid me to read.
@Jerry Ray, re: discussion here
To be fair, it’s been a long time since Paul did posts for individual issues outside of one-shots (back to the early days of If Destroyed…, at least.) Discussion mid-arc/while a story is ongoing is a very different beast to talking about something in retrospect, and the expectation of having a post up on Thursday or so while the iron is still hot also changes things.
Both of those would probably lead to increased discussion even without the Big High-Concept Relaunch factor to boost it further.
This entire series should have been a double size single issue.
I want to wait to see what happens in the final issue.
Right now, it looks like Hickman made some simple plots far more complicated than needed.
It seems that one could argue that this series set up Krakoa and ended the threat of Nimrod. So, this series accomplished some goals, instead of being purely a set up for the new relaunch.
However, all of that is being based on what has happened to this point, minus the finale.
Yes, if that was the intent, it does seem that this could have been accomplished in roughly four issues.
@Paul I think Xavier might say the drugs were invented by mutant scientist to obscure their origin – if he simply said they were grown on Krakoa he would be tipping his hand. Some humans upon hearing that might want to invade on the basis that if they controlled Krakoa, they would still have access to the drugs.
I suspect that Nightcrawler is on the council as opposed to Cyclops because Nightcrawler represents a more spiritual point of view. Cyclops for most of his career would probably just be a yes man for Xavier, but if the purpose of the council is to present different mutant points of view, then it makes a certain amount of sense to have a voice for theological mutants represented. (Admittedly, the mutants being effectively immortal really kind lends itself to all sorts of philosophical and spiritual debates and that’s before you factor in the fact that Nightcrawler was literally resurrected once by the X-Men going to heaven to get him).
There is something sinister (lower case) about the whole setup, of course. Hickman is obviously trying to get us to feel that despite it looking like a utopia, it still feels cold, and unfeeling, as shown by Sabretooth. Someone who, in some ways, probably deserves that fate, but not something that Xavier would have ever even tolerated as a suggestion prior to this relaunch. I’m sure we’ll get a big reveal as to why they’re acting this way in Powers of X #6.
I’ve been very apprehensive about all of these books, especially due to Hickman’s narrative tendencies which we’ve all discussed at length on previous comment sections.
But I’ve got to be honest… I absolutely loved this issue. The opening Xavier speech was Hickman doing Hickman.
But the council scene really surprised me. To me that was some of the best dialogue Hickman has been responsible for (almost think he got help from someone). I thought it carried a lot of weight and personally got very caught up in it (not wanting it to end). This was probably my favorite scene in all of HoXPoX so far. Though my one criticism of the council is that it appears to be made up of completely sinister and/or self-important characters… which are the characters Hickman has always favored obviously.
The celebration afterwards was nice as well. It felt like the dawn of a new era, as well as a payoff to all that we’ve read so far. Seeing so many past characters back in action, along with all the supposed buried hatchets just made me feel like there really was something worth celebrating. It was almost like a scene from the end of an issue of What If? with eternal peace between all of mutant-kind and the promise of a bright future on the horizon. But this isn’t the end. We get to see what comes next. And there actually is a plan for what comes next for the X-Men (for the first time since probably the move to the West Coast over a decade ago).
Two other points. One, Generation X was my favorite comic as a kid and Skin along with Banshee were my favorite characters. Seeing BOTH of them back (though I know neither are going to be used in any significant way immediately) may have tainted my opinion of this issue. You know that noise 7th grade girls make when they see a member of a boyband on tv? I may have made those noises when I saw them. Maybe.
Two, I know this isn’t a promise of what is to come. The whole thing could be flipped upside down in the PoX wrap up, and I also have that feeling that everyone is generally too eager to just get along with one another for it to be completely… natural. I am optimistic though, mostly because Hickman is guiding the books from here on out writing only a book and a half and other creators will be fleshing out the majority of the x-universe. This definitely plays to Hickman’s strengths. Regardless, I’m excited for whatever comes next.
“How can it be a crime to kill someone who cannot be killed?” – is hopelessly bad. The answer is “because it’s still an assault.”)
An assault with no consequences, though.
‘The Wild Hunt’ sounds like it shoud be the title of a ’90s X-Men issue featuring the Dark Riders or something.
The funny thing about this direction is that when Claremont left the book, Shaw had the government contract for the Nimrod project.
I’m sure that’s just being ignored at this point, but it would make for an interesting reveal that the being they had been trying to stop was created by Shaw’s corporation.
“It always starts with a Mother Mold.”
Shaw: “Yes. Yes. A Mother Mold. Not me. I’m not the one responsible. Nope.”
“This entire series should have been a double size single issue.”
Ben is basically right. Even four issues would be generous for this set-up. There isn’t even really a story here. I have no idea how the comic buying public is going to have patience for this.
Oh, and regarding Warren – wasn’t it a plot point in Kyle and Yost’s X-Force that Apocalypse hasn’t simply grafted artificial wings to Warren, but changed his genetic make-up with the T-O virus, so that his wings are always metal, even when they look feathery?
If I recall it correctly – and I’m in no way certain that I am – that could explain his cloned body having metal wings, if it’s been cloned from a sample collected after his first transformation.
…Wolverine’s adamantium is still magic, though.
When Warren got cloned after the assault on Orchis, he was back to regular Angel.
So…either Warren evolved after being cloned, there are more than one clone of Warren (and maybe others), or the artist messed up.
Counting content is for the cynical and weary – which a lot of the writers of the past decade have been guilty of as well.
It’s easy to forget that the most important thing is – are you excited for the next page as you turn it? Are you hoping the next page is not the last?
For the longest time I’d forgotten how that feels. That is HoXPoX’s success and the question is will that continue or not.
@Ben
“This entire series should have been a double size single issue.”
Absolutely. In fact, around 2010, Hickman was quite public in interviews about cramming content into his writing, tons of dialogue per page, giving people value for their dollar. Not so much anymore, it seems.
I do think HoX could’ve been trimmed quite a bit. We needed an intro (we had it with Jean giving a quick tour of Krakoa), the Mother Mold mission, and the aftermath. Plus info. pages. Some parts, like Emma at the museum, were really filler-y. 4 issues was easily enough, if not less.
@JD
“I suspect that Nightcrawler is on the council as opposed to Cyclops because Nightcrawler represents a more spiritual point of view”
. . . and yet, not only has Nightcrawler literally spent time in heaven and returned, but he has died and returned in this very series, as have a number of his fellow X-Men. One should ask why Nightcrawler has any monopoly on spiritualism when dozens of them have been “there and back.”
I like the idea of multiple clones per character to accommodate their variations. It would help to explain how Ligan is in so many books at once. Brown Logan in one book, yellow Logan in one book, Patch in one book, weapon X in one book, …
Same for Scott, Kitty, Ororo, Warren, Hank, Jean ,…
@Dave
“I do think HoX could’ve been trimmed quite a bit.”
I mean, we have a double-page spread dedicated to the lives of Moira, in then in the next issue or so, we had a revised double-page spread.
And in this very issue, we have a page dedicated to listing the membership of the council, whereas in the previous issue we had the same page with most of the names blacked out (except for in review copies).
How anyone could think this is an efficient use of page space is beyond me.
@Brent
See that council scene was interesting enough for me, but I can’t really call it good characterization.
Everyone is still a totally on board for all this crazy cult shit. Either their brains are being messed with, or they’re mostly all wildly out of character.
Storm and Jean and Nightcrawler are fine with condemning Sabertooth without trial for a law they just made up, to suffer for all eternity in a waking coma?
Really?
That’s some deeply evil shit.
Oops that’s me Ben above, replying to Brent.
@K: I absolutely agree. This is the first time in a looong time that I’ve been so excited about the X-Men. And it’s mostly down to getting to explore these new ideas and the beautiful new setting. I don’t mind paying $60 for a story that’s had a lot of effort put into it.
@Brent: That council scene was awesome. It’s the first time we’ve heard from so many characters at once, so that was exciting. It’s also the first time we’ve seen Krakoa (as a country) operate in any practical sense. I’m always a sucker for the “mutants separate themselves from humans” story, so I’m instantly interested in the mechanics of their new society/culture.
@Ben aka Fake Brent
“Everyone is still a totally on board for all this crazy cult shit. Either their brains are being messed with, or they’re mostly all wildly out of character.”
It seems almost certainly the latter at this point. What would be the benefit of intentionally writing 12 issues of all these characters behaving uncharacteristically on purpose? Hickman has always sacrificed characterization for “big ideas” that amount to little more than chess piece shuffling.
Has anyone now read HoX 1-6 apart from PoX? If so, how does it read as a series in itself?
The Council scene reminded me of the Legion of Doom from Superfriends.
The fact that I couldn’t help but read Sinister as the Joker didn’t help.*
“Meanwhile, at the Hall of Doom (Krakoa), Professor Lex Xavier plots something sinister involving one of their own.”
Now, I’m left wondering if Hickman combined his turned down try-out for the Wonder Twins relaunch with his proposal for a new Eternals book…
*I love Gillen’s Sinister, don’t get me wrong. This wasn’t exactly on-character though. Too much of the Joker.
Didn’t Sabretooth just die in the Rosenberg run?
So, they cloned Sabretooth, just so they could then punish him for eternity.
Why do they feel the need that they must clone every mutant if they die?
FWIW The Wild Hunt is a recurring motif across Northern European folklore. In Marvel continuity it’s associated with Thor. Malekith the Accursed leads the Wild Hunt is a classic storyline by Walt Simonson. But Hickman surely has something else in mind, likely Apocalypse related would be my guess.
I don’t think the data pages count towards page count, so rather than complain about wasted efficiency, just consider it bonus content.
We’ll see how the final red reveal shifts the ground next week but I think the two-series-that-are-One-but-in-12-parts shtick works pretty well. Besides all the foreshadowing and world building and continuity drawing and conceptual re-grounding, it makes use of the reveals and narrative parallels to good effect. The price would be easier to stomach if it hadn’t been for the previous year of X-relaunches and the miserable 12-part Disassembled storyline.
It may not mean anything, but the winter council members arguably all have apprenticeship relations to the autumn council: Exodus is Magneto’s acolyte; Sinister is Apocalypse’s creation (which Exodus is too, actually); Mystique is sometimes portrayed as an agent of Xavier.
Are all mutants really preserved and brought back? How about the Shadow King—if he counts as a mutant? Who might the Red King be who is as prominent as the rest of his “season”?
Yeah I’m ok with having paid the money for this storyline.
While it’s effectively been a prologue, it’s been a gripping read and it’s the first time in many years since I was this excited to be reading the X-men again.
It’s a good feeling and I’m happy with it.
Has it been perfect? No but it’s been a great start and one which I’ve dug the hell out of so farm.
I found a spoiler for who the Red King is online, and I won’t ruin the surprise, but I wonder why Hickman felt the need to treat it like such a mystery.
“I suspect that Nightcrawler is on the council as opposed to Cyclops because Nightcrawler represents a more spiritual point of view”
Maybe Xavier just holds a grudge over being murdered?
Provided this is Xavier, anyway. We keep being reminded of the possibility of the wrong mind ending up in someone’s body, and by the way Xavier’s rebooted himself twice. Hope he did a thorough job purging any backups of Cassandra Nova or Onslaught.
I also have to wonder about the possibility of tampering with the personality backups. If the backups were altered by someone with an agenda, it might produce a cultish atmosphere and out-of-character behavior.
I am fond of Nightcrawler, but somehow the idea that he is better suited for the inner council due to being “more spiritual” than Cyclops just doesn’t wash.
Kurt wanted to be a priest once upon a time and he is a refugee from Heaven. That hardly registers in the MU.
It does not help that his actual contribution was so by-the-numbers and out of character. He said exactly what Mystique and Xavier wanted him to say, and no more. Nightcrawler usually has a lot of heart. But not here. That line about making more mutants sounded bland, empty, perfunctory – and hopefully that was how it was supposed to be. I do not even feel that it was something that came from Kurt proper.
If I had to guess, he is there exactly to occupy the place that would otherwise be due to Cyclops, which could deflagrate some strong reactions from Emma and Jean (at least; probably also Sinister and a few others), which is probably against the interests of “Xavier” and Magneto.
As a matter of fact, it should be rather obvious that this conclave is inherently unstable unless someone is artificially keeping appearances. Again, that may easily be the point. Sinister is not trustworthy even towards himself, as so aptly demonstrated a few issues ago and sort-of-predicted early on. Apocalypse is just not very likely to remain a passive observer for very long – that is simply not his style. Genesis and the Hand guy (Ogun?), too, are not exactly known for being cooperative either.
This inner council just can’t last very much in its current form. It says something that Emma and Sebastian Shaw are among their most trustworthy members.
Re: Angel/Archangel
It’s been shown a bunch over the last several years that Warren can switch back and forth between Angel and Archangel. Depending on the writer is if he can control himself when he’s Archangel, but he can switch.
Re: Mister Sinister being a mutant
This is just a bit of fan theory dot-connecting, but…
In the original reveal, Apocalypse gave Essex powers, turning him into Mister Sinister. Has Apocalypse ever given a human powers besides Essex? Every other time I can think of, Apocalypse has augmented an existing mutant’s powers; Angel into Death/Archangel and various others of his horsemen. In light of Morrison, maybe Apocalypse hasn’t been augmenting powers, but rather triggering secondary mutations? MAYBE, Essex was a mutant originally, but in a way Doug/Cypher is. Doug’s REALLY good with languages. Maybe Essex’s mutant power was he was REALLY good with genetics? And then Apocalypse triggered a secondary mutation in Essex, giving him his shape-shifting abilities?
Anyway, agreed that this is a very exciting time to be reading X-Men.
The line about Krakoa brooking no prisons was so incongruous it made me laugh out loud. Obviously, mutants are far too woke to reproduce the prison industrial complex or institute capital punishment. But eternal solitary confinement in a bottomless pit of darkness, without possibility of parole or appeal? Yeah, that’ll do.
For some reason, this issue gave me an Island of Dr Moreau vibe.
Regarding the Red King – whilst it’s ‘King’ in the infographic, I still think it’s another not-reveal in the making and it will simply be Kitty. (Who’s oficially been confirmed as the new Red Queen in Marvel’s social media output at this point).
And I thought that even before, if only because I can see Emma immediately thinking of Kitty when asking for another seat at the table – it’s been established since Whedon there’s a grudging respect there – but I can’t see her thinking that she’d need some guy in the same way.
And sure, Hickman writes 99% of the characters pretty off-brand, but his Emma has been spot-on so far.
On more general issues:
At this point I’m inclined to believe there is no mental manipulation. It’s simply weird characterization on Hickman’s part. I can’t believe Marvel would go all-in on a new status quo involving six books where all the characters are mind-controlled for the next year or so.
And the weird characterization abounds even in the confines of HoX. The big ‘no more’ scene for example is, in the end, just a fake out. It would work as the event that makes Xavier go all in on the Krakoa plan – but that’s not when it happens. He has this emotional breakdown that even consumes the infographics… over something that’s part of his plan. After he has already perfected his resurrection machine. Before the Mother Mold mission we’ve already seen at least resurrected Cuckoos and one of the Xorns if not others. So it’s not a case of Xavier being emotional because he’s not sure he can bring the team back – he’s already done it multiple times.
The ‘no more’ scene works in the moment, but knowing the context of the next issue… it kind of doesn’t make sense?
Anyway, one more red PoX issue ahead. My prediction is the last big reveal will be that the x3 timeline is Moira’s current, 10th life, so that the Krakoan status quo has this specter of planetary annihilation in a thousand years’ time hanging over it. Not quite as immediate a threat as the countless varieties of DoFP, but still unsettling.
@Col_Fury
It was a thing a few issues back that the Sinister who agreed to work with Xavier & Magneto was an outlier in having a mutant gene, which he had somehow got from Thunderbird.
No talk of the people around the world depicted hearing Xavier’s announcement? The other Marvel heroes are easily recognizable, as are Omega and Orchis, but then there’s that last guy with the headgear…
“Frankly, it’s not clear with hindsight what the point was of redacting all this so heavily in Powers of X #5, except to delay the reveal.”
Doing something purely for the sake of delaying a reveal is totally something Hickman would do, I feel. “Speculate, audience!” is very much his operating mode.
‘Everyone speaks normally in the meeting, so it’s not clear why it’s the “Quiet Council”.’
The story does make a big deal about Sabretooth being commanded to “quiet!” so there’s that. Maybe it’s a roundabout way of referencing that aspect, since “You’re not allowed to talk back Council” would be a bit on the nose.
“And the weird characterization abounds even in the confines of HoX. The big ‘no more’ scene for example is, in the end, just a fake out.”
While Hickman often gets criticized for not caring about characterization, I think it’s much more accurate to say he doesn’t care for character *arcs*. A typical Hickman character is so zealous and set in their aims and desires that it’s almost impossible to imagine them changing their opinion. They can be convinced to change a course of action, but only through being presented data showing there’s a more effective way to get what they want; what they want and how much they want it will remain steadfast and same.
If a character does undergo a major shift, it happens off-panel and gets explained by the character in dialogue afterward, when they’re already set in their new course.
Pretty much any other writer would, as you say, use the “No more” moment as a catalyst for… something. Under Hickman, it’s re-affirmation for Xavier of the course he’s already been on since this story started.
“Emma’s smile at Cyclops immediately after could either be tacit acceptance or furtive planning.”
There was a come-hither element to it that brought to mind some fairly… salacious after-party scenarios involving the trio.
Has Moira ever interacted with Bishop, Rachel, or Cable? If any of them did, then the time they spent interacting with her would change in each of her lives…I guess if her actions have no bearing on their futures, it could work? Although the mind boggles.
I’ve been getting a “What If?” vibe from this series despite enjoying it immensely. I think that’s because we don’t get to see Xavier make his choice that leads to HoX; Moira effectively time-travels and decisions and plans were made decades ago.
And yet the reader experiences this as a sharp discontinuity with the previously angst-ridden and integrationist Xavier. We know _why_ Xavier is different; what we don’t see are the moments right after the mind-read in HoX #2. I would find that interesting.