As always, there will be spoilers, and page numbers reflect the digital edition.<\/p>\n
COVER (PAGE 1)<\/strong>: A montage of Magneto, Mystique, Toad, Sabretooth and Emma Frost against the background of Krakoa. \u00a0Most of these characters don’t actually appear in the issue.<\/p>\n PAGE 2:<\/strong> The epigraph quotes Magneto, and once again, it’s new dialogue. \u00a0Clearly, it’s superficially at odds with the next scene. \u00a0More to the point, though, is the contrast between Magneto’s opening quotation about unbridgeable differences and Xavier’s closing line about togetherness. \u00a0As we’ll see over the course of the issue, this story seems to be interested in a rather more permanent form of togetherness than Xavier would normally have in mind.<\/p>\n PAGES 3-7:<\/strong> Charles Xavier and Moira MacTaggert visit Magneto and form an alliance with him. \u00a0This is presumably the scene which was listed in the\u00a0House of X<\/em> #2 timeline as “Moira and Xavier recruit Magneto”.<\/p>\n The timeline:\u00a0<\/strong>This issue repeats issue #1’s structure of having four scenes, set respectively in “Year 1”, “Year 10”, “Year 100” and “Year 1000” respectively. \u00a0 This particular scene is listed as taking place in “Year 1”, but so was Xavier’s first meeting with Moira in the previous issue. \u00a0But according to the House of X<\/em>\u00a0timeline, Moira and Xavier met in\u00a0Year 17, while their recruitment of Magneto didn’t take place until Year 43. \u00a0That’s 26 years apart, yet \u00a0for\u00a0Powers of X<\/em> it still hasn’t bridged the gap between Year 1 and Year 10. \u00a0So either the “Year 1”, “Year 10” stuff is figurative, or there’s something weird going on with time. \u00a0(Or Hickman has made a mess of his timeline, but that doesn’t seem very likely.) \u00a0<\/p>\n This scene isn’t explicit about precisely when it takes place relative to events in\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em>. \u00a0Xavier is now in his wheelchair, and he and Magneto regard each other as estranged old friends, but that doesn’t really narrow it down much. \u00a0However…<\/p>\n Island M: <\/strong>Magneto’s island base in the Bermuda Triangle. \u00a0I believe the name is new, but the island itself isn’t – it’s the place where Magneto was based in\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #147-150. \u00a0It’s also the same island where he was based in Moira VIII’s timeline, as seen briefly in\u00a0House of X<\/em> #2.<\/p>\n In\u00a0Uncanny<\/em> #147-150, Magneto had only just raised this island from the sea bed. \u00a0It’s not to be confused with the island where he was based in the early Silver Age issues, which which much more mundane (and X-Men Index <\/em>confirms that they’re different). \u00a0Uncanny<\/em> #150 is generally taken as the turning point where Magneto’s face turn begins, after he injures Kitty Pryde, has a crisis of conscience, and runs off to brood about it. \u00a0He doesn’t appear in\u00a0Uncanny<\/em> again until issue #188 – however, by the time of his next appearance in\u00a0Vision & Scarlet Witch<\/em> #4, he’s already talking about “reassessing my values.”<\/p>\n This scene can’t take place before\u00a0Uncanny<\/em> #147-150, at least without heavy retconning. \u00a0It wouldn’t fit with Xavier’s thought balloons, especially in issue #149, where he spends two pages reminiscing about how he hasn’t seen Magneto in ages. \u00a0So the neatest place is for this to take place after issue #150, with Magneto returning to the island once the X-Men are gone. \u00a0He did in fact return later, so that isn’t a problem. \u00a0Admittedly, his behaviour here sits a little awkwardly with the Kitty Pryde scene having happened already.<\/p>\n The design of the island includes details that are directly redrawn from Uncanny\u00a0<\/em>#148. \u00a0It’s\u00a0meant to look Lovecraftian, though neither Magneto nor the X-Men seemed to get the reference in the original story. \u00a0The implication was that Magneto had inadvertently raised\u00a0R’Iyeh<\/a>, the sunken city where Cthulhu was imprisoned in the 1928 story “The Call of Cthulhu”. \u00a0Claremont dropped a couple more hints about the island being ancient and ominous, but never really did anything with the plot. \u00a0The R’Iyeh thing was finally confirmed in\u00a0Wolverine: First Class<\/em> #12, though it uses one of Marvel’s own-brand Cthulhus, Quoggoth. \u00a0Whether any of this actually matters to Hickman’s story, or whether he’s just using the island for visual interest and easy timeline placing, is impossible to say.<\/p>\n Magneto’s visions:\u00a0<\/strong>Moira shows Magneto what happened to him in various previous lives. \u00a0We see five: Magneto being blasted by a Sentinel (possibly from the life of Moira IV or V), Magneto in chains (resembling his trial from Uncanny\u00a0<\/em>#200), Magneto being generally angry (probably all of them…), Magneto held in some sort of suspended animation tank by Nick Fury (presumably after being defeated in the life of Moira VIII), and Magneto fighting a hideous monster (something to do with Apocalypse in the life of Moira IX?).<\/p>\n PAGE 8:<\/strong> The credits. \u00a0The small print in the bottom right reads “The world of Moira and the man called Magneto.” \u00a0Last issue, it was “The world of Xavier and the woman called Moira”, so perhaps we’re getting a chain here.<\/p>\n PAGES 9-12:<\/strong>\u00a0“Year 10.” \u00a0On the face of it, an extremely straightforward scene in which Professor X and Magneto explain the plot\u00a0to Cyclops (and demonstrate that they’re very much on the same page now). \u00a0The data that Mystique and Toad stole from Damage Control in\u00a0House of X<\/em> #1 turn out to be the plans for the “Mother Mold” Sentinel factory that Orchis are building in outer space. \u00a0Magneto and Professor X want Cyclops to lead a strike force to stop it. \u00a0They say they’re afraid that this is the point in history where a version of Nimrod emerges, picking up on the idea from\u00a0House of X<\/em> #2 that some version of an anti-mutant Sentinel AI always appears.<\/p>\n PAGES 13-19:<\/strong> The “Year 100” sequence. \u00a0On Asteroid K, the surviving X-Men similarly discuss the data that Cardinal and Rasputin retrieved last issue. \u00a0Basically, it’s an “indexing machine” which is a doohickey that tells them where to find the “Genesis Protocols” that they’re actually looking for. \u00a0These seem to be in “SalCen” which, as pointed out in the comments for last issue, is probably short for Salem Center, the town nearest the X-Men Mansion. \u00a0Unfortunately, Percival – the one who died last issue – was the one with cloaking powers, so attacking without him is going to be a suicide mission. \u00a0There’s a couple of pages in here that check in with Nimrod too, but they mainly serve to establish his mad child emperor persona.<\/p>\n Apocalypse: <\/strong>The data pages in issue #1 said there were eight mutants on Asteroid K, but the issue only identified six. \u00a0Number seven turns out to be Apocalypse, now allied with the X-Men. \u00a0They treat him as a leader, and he seems to be working with other mutants to resist the machines. \u00a0He’s also noticeably more reflective than usual, which may have something to do with his upcoming role in Excalibur<\/em>\u00a0– he certainly doesn’t act villainous, beyond the obvious bit of being called Apocalypse. \u00a0He raises a very good point: sure, artificial intelligence emerges in every timeline, but why does it always turn on mutants?<\/p>\n Krakoa:\u00a0<\/strong>The plant guy on the asteroid is indeed Krakoa. \u00a0He says that his “body once belonged to a mutant who could communicate with anything”, and that he retains that mutant’s powers. \u00a0This is pretty obviously Cypher. \u00a0Having first become techno-organic thanks to Warlock, does Cypher wind up repeating the exercise with Krakoa? \u00a0As the first man\/machine bridge in the X-Men mythos, Cypher seems to be an important character for Hickman, particularly given what happens in the “Year 1000” sequence.<\/p>\n PAGE 20:<\/strong> A data page about Nimbus, a worldmind created in the far future of the Year 1000 (so evidently these data pages aren’t written at any precise time frame after all). \u00a0This essentially has future humanity (“post-humans”) creating their own version of the Kree Supreme Intelligence, putting it in a Nimrod body, and sending it out into space to take over the planet Nibiru, where it eventually becomes a Worldmind.<\/p>\n The Kree Supreme Intelligence:<\/strong>\u00a0a long-running Marvel Universe concept, and described fairly straightforwardly here.<\/p>\n The “Badoon infestation of the early 31st century”:<\/strong> this was the set-up for the original Guardians of the Galaxy, as introduced in 1969, and a familiar Marvel Universe future element.<\/p>\n Nibiru:\u00a0<\/strong>Nimbus takes over the planet “Nibiru”. \u00a0According to the theories of “ancient astronaut”<\/a> proponent and pseudohistorian Zecharia Sitchin (1920-2010), Nibiru is a giant planet which visits Earth every 3,600 years, and is responsible for creating ancient Sumerian culture. \u00a0More recently, the name has become associated with a pseudoscientific doomsday theory<\/a>\u00a0in which Nibiru is supposedly going to crash into the Earth imminently. \u00a0(Sitchin himself did not subscribe to this theory, not least because on his calculations, the planet isn’t due back until 2900).<\/p>\n PAGES 21-24:<\/strong> Year 1000. \u00a0Nimrod and the Librarian discuss how Nimbus was a plan to attract the attention of a higher civilisation, which duly arrives in the form of the Phalanx. \u00a0The Librarian explains that humanity want “Ascension”, and all this is explained further in the data pages immediately following. \u00a0We see more of the future city, and the written language seems basically Asian in style. \u00a0It certainly isn’t Krakoan.<\/p>\n PAGES 25-27:\u00a0<\/strong>Data pages on “types of societies”, both “planetary” and “galactic.” \u00a0This sets out a scale of interstellar societies based on the extent to which individual minds have become hives – the general implication is that progress up the ranks means becoming giant planetary hiveminds. \u00a0This isn’t exactly the sort of progress that most people would be keen to achieve.<\/p>\n The Kardashev scale:\u00a0<\/strong>Nikolai Kardashev (1932-2019) was a Soviet astrophysicist, and his\u00a0scale was a hypothetical three-tier scale of civilisations, essentially based on whether a society had harnessed the energy of its planet (Type I), its solar system (Type II) or its galaxy (Type III). \u00a0Earth, on his definition, was not quite at Type I yet. \u00a0Kardashev’s scale is basically about technological progression as measured by energy use. \u00a0Given that we’ve just finished talking about Nibiru, it’s maybe worth stressing that Kardashev was a mainstream SETI thinker.<\/a><\/p>\n The Technarch and the Phalanx:\u00a0<\/strong>Having set up the man \/ mutant \/ machine trio in the previous issue, Hickman evidently has an interest in the X-Men’s longrunning notion of techno-organic creatures who straddle the machine line – and note again that Cypher, long associated with this kind of thing, was one of the handful of characters who got proper attention in issue #1. \u00a0The techno-organic concept stems from Warlock in New Mutants<\/i>, and his race, the Technarch, were introduced at the same time. \u00a0The Phalanx are very similar, with more of a hive mind, and come from the Nicieza\/Lobdell era in the 90s.<\/p>\n Inverting the original explanation of how they interacted, Hickman has the Phalanx as the superior beings (presumably because in his scheme, hives are superior). \u00a0If the Phalanx like a world, then they assimilate it into the collective. \u00a0This is “Ascension”, which the Librarian was asking for.<\/p>\n If they don’t like a world, then they infect it with the techno-organic virus which eventually leads to a Babel Spire being built, and a Technarch being summoned to wipe out the world. \u00a0This refers to the plot of the 1990s crossover “Phalanx Covenant”, as supplemented by the short-lived Warlock\u00a0<\/em>solo series from the M-Tech imprint. \u00a0In those stories,\u00a0the Phalanx were supposedly trying to contact the Technarch, not grasping that the Technarch would wipe them out. \u00a0It’s not quite clear how those Phalanx fit into Hickman’s description; perhaps he would view them as Phalanx-infected people rather than true Phalanx. \u00a0At any rate, Hickman seems to be retconning the original Phalanx\/Technarch relationship into simply What The Technarch Believe.<\/p>\n The name “Kvch” for the Technarch’s home comes from the 2008\u00a0Nova Annual <\/em>– though in Hickman’s version there are plenty of them, all called “Kvch”, and all unaware of the other.<\/p>\n PAGE 28:<\/strong> The Stan Lee page.<\/p>\n PAGE 29:<\/strong> Closing quote from Xavier about the importance of unity – obviously taking on new implications in the light of all that material about hive minds.<\/p>\n PAGES 30-32:<\/strong> Finally, the reading order again, and the previews. \u00a0They read: “NEXT: THIS IS WHAT YOU DO” and “THEN: ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As always, there will be spoilers, and page numbers reflect the digital edition. COVER (PAGE 1): A montage of Magneto, Mystique, Toad, Sabretooth and Emma Frost against the background of Krakoa. \u00a0Most of these characters don’t actually appear in the issue. PAGE 2: The epigraph quotes Magneto, and once again, it’s new dialogue. \u00a0Clearly, it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hoxpox","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4686"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4752,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4686\/revisions\/4752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}