{"id":9743,"date":"2024-01-11T23:13:40","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T23:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9743"},"modified":"2024-01-12T21:14:58","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T21:14:58","slug":"rise-of-the-powers-of-x-1-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9743","title":{"rendered":"Rise of the Powers of X #1 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

NOTE: This post has been revised now that the digital edition has been corrected to include the data pages at the right places.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #1<\/strong>
\n“Data Pages”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Kieron Gillen<\/strong>
\nArtist: R. B. Silva<\/strong>
\nColour artist: David Curiel<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nAssociate editor: Lauren Amaro<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong>
\nEditor-in-chief: C B Cebulski<\/strong><\/p>\n

THE RISE OF THE POWERS OF X<\/strong> is the companion series to\u00a0The Fall of the House of X<\/em>, mirroring the\u00a0House of X \/ Power of X\u00a0<\/em>twin minis that launched the Krakoan era. And yes, according to the credits pages, the titles have a THE in them.<\/p>\n

With the original books, the titles were supposed to be pronounced as “House of X” and “Powers of Ten”. Presumably the same goes for this, but you never know.<\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> The near-future X-Men team, of whom more later. They’re surrounded by foliage but in front of a mechanical portal showing what looks to be the sun.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits. The recap basically covers the plot of\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em>, and then explains that we’re ten years in the future, following the fall of Krakoa. The story title refers to the Krakoan era’s signature device of including text pages in the middle of the story rather than as back matter. It used to be a Jonathan Hickman signature device but it’s ours now.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGES 3-5. <\/strong>Nimrod celebrates victory over the mutants.<\/em><\/p>\n

“The Tower of Nimrod the Lesser, the Human-Machine Monolith, Earth.”<\/strong> In\u00a0Powers of X<\/em>, Moira’s ninth life was a robot-dominated world ruled by “Nimrod the Lesser”, with Omega Sentinel at his side. The establishing shots for those scenes showed the same tower, captioned “The Tower of Nimrod the Lesser. The Human-Machine Monolith.” Evidently, ten years down the line, Nimrod and Omega Sentinel have steered history in a similar direction.<\/p>\n

In that timeline, mutants were nearly wiped out, and humans were subordinate to machines. That timeline ends with the surviving X-Men recovering vital information that would supposedly help Moira to avert Nimrod’s creation, and then killing her to reset the timeline so that she can try again with that knowledge.<\/p>\n

“They did where I came from. The mutants burned down the machine firmament with Phoenix fire.”<\/strong>\u00a0Inferno<\/em> vol 2 #3 revealed that Omega Sentinel is possessed by the mind of herself from an alternate future in which the mutants wiped out the Dominions using the Phoenix Force. She’s come back in time to prevent that from happening. It’s an inversion of Kitty Pryde’s role in “Days of Future Past”.<\/p>\n

Specifically, here’s what Omega Sentinel claims in Inferno<\/em> #3, because it sounds like it’s going to be important:<\/p>\n

“Soon, the Children of the Vault – post-humanity – should emerge. They will appear to be dominant. A threat to supplant humanity and mutantdom alike. But fractured and warring on two fronts, they would eventually fall to Krakoa. [The art shows Apocalypse, Genesis and the original Horsemen.] Post-humanity – it was believed – had arrived too early and would have to wait its turn. You [Nimrod] were born in the year that followed. Lesser than you are now, but still a marvel of marvels. A great machine. But your emergence – the threat of you – did not go unnoticed by the mutant nation and your makers sent you back in time to fight mutantdom in its infancy. This Nimrod – this flawed you – failed.<\/p>\n

“Earth – the entire Sol system – was lost to both human and machine. Mutants ruled. And all our machine hopes rested in the timeliness machine gods – Dominions – to save us… to take us in, so we could be. But the mutants captured the celestial powers – life and death – and, using the Phoenix blade, the child of the sun – who wielded it with vigour – destroyed Titan after Titan, Dominion after Dominion, and ended the machine future forever. Except for me. Omega at the end of the line.<\/p>\n

“The trickster Titan – betrayer and coward of its brother and sister machines – downloaded my mind and pushed it through a black hole to infect and overwrite the me who lived in the past but had not yet awakened. I closed my eyes in mutant hell and opened them years ago – here, on earth. All my days of a future past.”<\/p>\n

Omega Sentinel then goes on to explain that she created Orchis, apparently to prevent mutant domination, but ultimately in order to guarantee machine ascendance. It’s tempting to assume that the “trickster Titan” is Enigma, the Dominion based on the Nathaniel Essex AI from Immortal X-Men<\/em>, but the closing data page doesn’t equate them.<\/p>\n

“It’s as if the Terminator had a happy ending.”<\/strong> Nimrod sees this as a story where history has been successfully changed, although obviously his idea of a happy ending may differ from yours.<\/p>\n

“Tomorrow, we meet our new god. Tomorrow, we become our god.”<\/strong> This calls back to Moira’s sixth life, in which she and Wolverine survived as prisoners into the distant future while post-humanity attempted to summon the Phalanx in order to ascend to godhood. The post-human Librarian specifically flagged the point that Moira couldn’t be allowed to die before the ascension occurred, because that would reboot the timeline – but he believed that once they had ascended, they would be beyond time and space and, by implication, escape the endless loop of Moira’s reboots. However, Wolverine then kills Moira before the ascension can happen.<\/p>\n

Emma Frost<\/strong> is the hapless corpse that they’re standing over. Mystique refers in the next scene to her “sacrificial distraction.”<\/p>\n

PAGES 6-7.\u00a0<\/strong>Gambit and Mystique die heroically.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Henry Gyrich Memorial Detention Center<\/strong> is the Orchis New York base seen extensively in\u00a0X-Men<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As we establish over the course of the issue, Gambit and Mystique have stolen a file containing a copy of Feilong’s personality, including his knowledge of the whereabouts of Mr Sinister, who’s imprisoned on Phobos. Gambit sacrifices himself in order to buy Mystique time to relay that location to the X-Men.<\/p>\n

“Irene. I’m coming.”<\/strong> Mystique is expecting to die and be reunited with Destiny.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.\u00a0<\/strong>The X-Men receive the location from Mystique.<\/em><\/p>\n

“The Broken Sword.”\u00a0<\/strong>Apparently, whatever remains of the S.W.O.R.D. space station, the Peak.<\/p>\n

The future X-Men are:<\/p>\n