House of X

“House of X” 
Powers of X #6 (2019)
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by R.B. Silva with Pepe Larraz
Color art by Marte Gracia and David Curiel

Powers of X #6 is the end of the beginning; the final notes of the overture to what is promised to be Jonathan Hickman’s grand mutant opera. Now that the full shape of House of X/Powers of X is known, we can see that this was very much the origin story of the Krakoan nation, and how this bold new plan for a unified mutant front was devised with the knowledge of Moira MacTaggert’s nine previous lives. It’s so simple when put that way! 

This issue is focused on Moira, and its primary action is centered in the far future timeline of the ascension, which we now know to be the end of Moira’s previously unknown sixth life. It’s not quite clear how Moira is alive this far into the future, much less fairly young looking, but she’s there in the preserve that was introduced in the first issue of POX along with the Wolverine of this timeline. They’re the captive of the Librarian who set up the ascension plan with the Phalanx, who turns out to be homo novissima, the end-stage hyper-evolved product of centuries of genetic engineering. The machines, the Nimrods, all of this extermination of mutantdom? All just a diversionary tactic to keep mutants from interfering with the process of breeding something far beyond human or mutant. 

Wolverine kills the Librarian after Moira extracts everything she needs to know to carry over to her next life. And then her next three lives after that. It’s unclear how she ended up on the path that brought her and Wolverine to the Librarian’s preserve – a story for another day, I hope – but it’s now much more understandable how her 7th, 8th, and 9th lives were so angry and desperate. This leaves the Moira of this timeline, our timeline and the one she believes to be her last life, in a position of desperation and some degree of repentance for having been involved in so many awful things. The House of X has to work. 

The centerpiece of the issue is a set of Moira’s diary entries that fill in lot of details about how the House of X plan came together with Charles Xavier and Magneto, and explain how this retcon fits into previous X-Men continuity. There’s some very casual bombshells dropped in these pages – for example, the revelation that Moira and Xavier both became the parents of reality-warping mutants (Proteus and Legion, respectively) because they knew they would need someone with that power to enable the mutant resurrection protocol and deliberately found mates who would produce this sort of offspring in combination with their own mutant genes. I actually gasped upon reading that bit. 

We learn a lot about how necessary it was for Moira to break Xavier’s inherent optimism and idealism, and how difficult it was for her to deal with the “casual arrogance” of Magneto. She notes that Sinister has turned himself into a chimera mutant, decades ahead of schedule compared to the other timelines. There’s also some oblique explanation for how the plot of the Magneto/Moira storyline in X-Men #1-3 by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee – the best-selling comic book story of all time! – fits into all of this. 

The story ends with Xavier, Magneto, and Moira meeting after the Krakoan nation has been established, and the Quiet Council is nearly complete. Moira is in hiding, as she’s been for many years. It would seem that the only people aware of her being alive or her role in this grand plan are Xavier and Magneto. 

Moira seems very paranoid in her isolation, and is deeply afraid of the notion of Destiny being revived to placate Mystique, or of precognitive mutants in general because she fears what would happen if the other mutants discovered that mutantdom is snuffed out in every iteration of her life. This makes some sense given that she has up to 2000 years of regrets and anxieties to live with, but it also seems like a deep-seated fear of Destiny in particular after her ordering her agonizing death at the end of life three. And what does she actually fear Destiny telling the other mutants – that mutantdom is doomed every time, which many probably would believe anyway given everything they’ve personally experienced, or that in her third life she tried to wipe out mutants herself? 

Hickman ends HOX/POX on a high note, but undercuts the sense of triumph with Moira’s nagging doubt. What if this is still not enough? What if the mutants resist this attempt at species-wide unity? What if mutants really are doomed, just as they’ve been in all of Moira’s previous lives, and most every other future and alternate timeline in the history of the franchise? These are the stakes going forward, and they’ve never been higher.  

So now we look ahead to the new X-Men series by Hickman, which begins next week. Hickman has planted seeds for major stories with most of the X-Men’s major antagonists: 

• Orchis will certainly seek retaliation for the destruction of the Mother Mold, and will be an ongoing threat for sure. 

• Nimrod will inevitably be created at some point in his run, and we’ll probably see the beginnings of the genetic engineering that will eventually lead to homo novissama. 

• Apocalypse will begin a quest to find his original Horsemen on Arrako, the lost twin of Krakoa. 

• We’ll need to explore the mystery of what Mister Sinister has done to take advantage of the genetic archive, and how he may have sabotaged or corrupted the resurrection protocol.

• “Inferno 2,” anyone?

•  It’s only a matter of time before Destiny is resurrected, and we’ll get to see whether Moira’s fears are valid. How will all the mutants of Krakoa respond to learning about Moira and her many lives? I suspect that the deeply nihilistic Mystique will be not be pleased, and this will set her up to go rogue.

• Sabretooth’s breakout from imprisonment and pursuit of vengeance. Perhaps he is recruited by Mystique? We’ll see. I’d be more excited for him to just claw his way back up to the surface and go on a rampage at the worst possible time…like, say, after the resurrection protocol is inevitably broken. 

• We’ll certainly see the Phalanx again, but I wonder if the notion that the worlds Moira inhabits in each of her lives dies with her is just a bluff. It doesn’t make much sense, and Hickman has put way too many pages into establishing the notion of the Phalanx absorbing the offering of the mutant consciousness archive to just never show us what happens. The Librarian makes a point of stating that once the Phalanx merges into a Dominion it will exist outside of time and space, and I believe that is the path to this popping up in the main timeline down the road. Also, it seems very likely that the Moira 6 version of Wolverine will be merged with the Phalanx, and the Librarian mentions this as a possibility in passing. Given the layers of abstraction in the Phalanx/Dominion concept, it would be narratively useful to give it a familiar face in the form of the franchise’s most popular character.

• It can’t be too long before things with the Hellfire Club go wrong, and I suspect the long term arc of Hickman’s run will bend towards Magneto doing something horrible and breaking off from Xavier. I think he’s setting the readers up for a heartbreak right now.

Some lingering questions:

• How exactly is Moira alive in the far future of life six? There’s a line about her having the same blood type as Wolverine, but that only barely makes sense. If that’s the hand wave explanation, then OK, sure, but it’s awfully flimsy.

• I’m not quite sure why this issue, HOX #2, and HOX #5 were color coded as red. This and HOX #2 are both Moira issues, but she’s not in HOX #5 at all. I suppose they are all big reveal issues, but in that case, wouldn’t POX #3 with its Moira 9 reveal also be one of those?

• How were the full capabilities of Krakoa discovered? Moira clearly learned about this from Apocalypse in life nine, but when did she and Xavier begin work on this in life ten? And how does this relate to the formation of the second class of X-Men in the original Krakoa story back in Giant Size X-Men #1? 

• What will Moira do with what she learned from the Librarian in life six? Is the X-Men’s longtime association with the Shi’ar actually about Xavier courting a galactic society as a form of ascension? Or is that more about forming the alliances that led mutants to end up in Shi’ar systems in her ninth life? 

• Surely there’s a good number of mutants who aren’t totally into the Krakoan mutant society thing, right? We don’t see any dissent among the ranks in this story, but I have to assume this will be part of the narrative in Hickman’s X-Men and the assorted spin-off series going forward. 

For The Children

“For the Children”
Powers of X #5 (2019)
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by R.B. Silva
Color art by Marte Gracia

It’s a bit strange to slow narrative momentum to a crawl in the final third of a 12-issue story, but here we are with a 10th issue that feels like an epilogue following the double climaxes in the middle of the story and the previous issue’s triumphs and revelations. “For the Children” is a series of four conversations that mostly fill in details and set up plot to come, mostly with regards to establishing the new purpose of the Hellfire Club and setting up the premise of Gerry Duggan’s Marauders spin-off. There’s some light intrigue in terms of teasing out the membership of the Quiet Council of Krakoa, but it would seem that question was mostly answered by this bit of promotional art by Mike Deodato from a few months ago. 

The plot is inert, but the exposition is necessary and gives Jonathan Hickman some space for pleasing character moments. It’s nice to see the often marginalized Forge take on a big role as Cypher has in previous issues, though it’s hardly surprising given Hickman’s consistent interest in scientists and engineers through his body of work. It’s fun to see Hickman revisit Namor, the prickly and extraordinarily arrogant anti-hero of his New Avengers run. The extended sequence in which Xavier and Magneto recruit Emma Frost into their grand scheme fills in some crucial information about the X-Men’s pharmaceutical business that has been simmering in the background since House of X #1, and provides a crucial beat in which a very intelligent character voices skepticism of their master plan with a nod towards previous disastrous iterations of the “mutant island nation” notion on Genosha and Utopia. 

The final sequence in the distant future offers some plot movement, but the acceptance of Nimrod’s mutant archive into the Phalanx galactic hive mind is rendered with about as much drama as someone swiping a debit card and waiting a few moments for approval while having a vague concern about their checking account getting overdrawn.  Nimrod the Greater provides a huge amount of exposition regarding the evolution of machines and societies. There’s a few lines that nudge the reader to notice the parallels with the main plot about the establishment of the Krakoan nation-state – “a society so advanced that it collapsed in on itself,” “we asked for sovereignty, but with it came an unexpected price” – but it’s all just setting us up for the reveal of what happens when mutation and mutant culture is absorbed and assimilated into the Phalanx. It’s interesting, but not particularly exciting. 

R.B. Silva shows some signs in this issue of strain in keeping up the demanding schedule of producing six consecutive issues of Powers of X in what seems like a relatively tight window of time. His work is still quite good, but you can observe some cut corners – copy/pasted panels, more panels without backgrounds. I suppose some of this comes down to the extremely talky nature of Hickman’s script, and in fairness, Silva goes to town on drawing the holographic sea life of Forge’s home in Dallas. There is a slight blunder in that Silva draws Forge in his Jim Lee-era costume despite this sequence with him and Xavier apparently taking place long ago – this error seems to be addressed by blacking out his X belt buckle, though it’s still a generic X-Men uniform years before he’s a member. It’s no big deal, though.

Notes and observations:

• Magneto really hitting that “grow to an inferno” line hard, just in case the reader didn’t quite pick up on how aggressively Hickman was laying down the notion of an “Inferno” sequel in POX #4. 

• The covers for POX #4 and #5 are reversed in terms of their relationship to actual plot developments in each issue, but I figure this was done to throw off reader speculation. It worked on me! 

• The Forge/Xavier discussion about building Cerebro is the first scene of the series that perhaps didn’t really need to be dramatized, where all the information could’ve been conveyed in a text page. Still, it’s nice to get a moment with Forge and to observe Xavier as he advances his ambitions. And of course, we get a reminder that Xavier has off-world connections to the Shi’ar empire, and possesses something called “logic diamonds.” Surely all very useful information for later. 

• Emma Frost, Xavier, and Magneto meet at the Louvre by the Nike of Samothrace, a surviving masterpiece of Hellenistic sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of Victory. The statue, which is believed to be created to commemorate a victory of the navy, would seem to foreshadow Frost’s forthcoming nautical adventures in Marauders in which the Hellfire Club will become, as she puts it in this issue, “the East India trading company of mutantdom.” 

• So Moira X has a No-Place, eh? I’m just dying to see what she’s been up to in the present day. 

Something Sinister

“Something Sinister”
Powers of X #4 (2019)
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by R.B. Silva
Color art by Marte Gracia

The plot of House of X and Powers of X is focused on the decisions of Charles Xavier, but eight issues into this twelve issue story we have had very little insight into the man and what is driving him. When he appears in the story he’s inscrutable and unknowable, and he’s defined entirely by his actions. Jonathan Hickman puts the reader in the position of what is must be like to actually be in the character’s presence. His mind is a mystery, but everyone else’s mind is an open book to him. He’s got an elaborate agenda, but it’s hard to understand what he’s doing at any given moment. You get the sense that he’s a benevolent figure, but he doesn’t make it easy to trust him. 

The majority of “Something Sinister” is focused on Charles Xavier advancing his plans in two time periods, and trying to parse exactly what he’s doing is just the same as working out what Hickman is setting up in this issue. The first scene, in which Xavier and Magneto visit Mister Sinister and attempt to con him into building an elaborate archive of mutant genetic samples, seems to set up the return of the core X-Men who died in the previous issue. The second scene, in which Xavier brings Cypher to Krakoa to commune with the living island to develop a bond that can lead to establishing a nation-state there, fills in some crucial back story and establishes a connection to Apocalypse. 

The gears of plot are moving towards a payoff, so the thrill of this issue is more in the character details. The Sinister scene is remarkable and hilarious, and builds on Hickman’s previous use of the character in Secret Wars by establishing “Bar Sinister” as official canon rather than just an alternate reality thing. Hickman’s Sinister, which is heavily indebted to Kieron Gillen’s reinvention of the character as a glam mega-narcissist who has cloned himself into an entire species, is a delight. He’s the ultimate queen bitch, and the presence of the theatrical and flamboyant Magneto pushes him to up his game as a melodramatic scenery chewer. 

The first text sequence of the issue is a cheeky mutant gossip column written by Sinister featuring blind items about various mutants, and it’s inspired. It’s also the first narrative nod towards storylines that will exist after HOX/POX is over – apparent ethical non-monogamy in the mutant society, a bit more hinting about Apocalypse’s original horsemen, something about Madelyne Pryor, and an item that forces everyone to go look up the word “progerian” and try to figure out who that could be referring to. (If we’re taking this literally, it best describes Ernst, who was heavily implied by Grant Morrison to be a reformed and reborn Cassandra Nova.) 

Speaking of Cassandra, please note that Xavier’s wardrobe in the Cypher scene is notably similar to that of his evil twin, and that makes the otherwise benign and hopeful sequence echo the scene in “E is for Extinction” in which Cassandra grooms Donald Trask to prepare the mega-sentinels that caused the Genoshan genocide. I suspect Hickman is just trying to spook us with this and add to the general sense of unease about Xavier in this story, and that this is more like the positive version in which Xavier sets up the opposite of his sister’s evil actions. 

Miscellaneous notes: 

• I like the way Hickman nudges the reader to consider the perspective of certain text pages. The page outlining the interface with Krakoa designed by Cypher to delegate responsibilities suggests that it’s internal X-Men information until the final bit in which there is speculation on whether Forge has a “massive subterranean laboratory” for development of Krakoan biotechnology. Suddenly it seems more like an Orchis intelligence report. And if that is the case, how exactly are they gathering some of this information? 

• Note the vast gulf between Charles Xavier’s ambitious plans for Krakoa and him knowing virtually nothing of its history until Cypher directly communicates with it.

• The sequence at the end of the issue in the distant future with the blue people – it’s still unclear exactly who these people are – confirms that they are attempting to upload Nimrod’s archive of mutant consciousness into the Phalanx. The issue concludes with the blue people waiting to find out whether the Phalanx will accept this offering. There’s a mirror of this plot point in the Sinister sequence, in which Sinister explains that he introduced mutant genes into his own carefully bred genetic system, and we see that the version of Sinister who agrees to collaborate on a mutant genetic archive is the first mutant Sinister. 

• Also, while it’s pretty clear that Hickman doesn’t plan on drawing too much on loose ends of other people’s stories, it is worth noting that his Sinister is directly inspired by Gillen’s version of the character and that version of the character was studying/experimenting on the Phalanx.

• This issue was advertised with a caption promising to reveal the “true purpose” of Cerebro, and while that didn’t quite happen, it now seems like a safe bet that Cerebro may be a psychic archive of mutant minds directly inspired by Moira X’s knowledge of Nimrod’s archive and connected to the plan we see Xavier set in motion with Sinister in this issue. 

• Cypher passing on the techno-organic virus to Krakoa via his Warlock arm probably doesn’t bode well, given that it’s a form of the Phalanx. Hmmm…

• RB Silva has revealed himself to be particularly inspired in drawing physical comedy in this series, first with how he drew the physical mannerisms of his oddly cute Nimrod, and now in the slapstick antics of the various Sinisters. He gets some amusing little moments with Cypher and Safari Xavier in this issue too.

This Is What You Do

“This Is What You Do”
Powers of X #3 (2019)
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by R.B. Silva
Color art by Marte Gracia

“This Is What You Do” is an issue that dials back expectations somewhat. After four consecutive issues of game-changing plot and dense world building, this issue zooms in on a particular plot thread – the year 100 X-Men’s suicide mission to take down Nimrod – and focuses on shading in established ideas and delivering a plot payoff that firmly establishes the stakes of the next sequence of the story in which Cyclops leads a team against Orchis in the hopes of preventing the creation of Nimrod altogether. The big reveal at the end of the issue that this is all taking place in Moira’s 9th life ties together most of the plot action in the first act of the story, explaining how Xavier knew to have Mystique apprehend the Orchis plans that set in motion Cyclops’ mission. 

The reveal is excellent and I particularly like Moira 9’s death scene as she’s killed by Wolverine to get on with her mission in her 10th life. “This is what you do,” she tells him as he readies himself to stab her, a turn on his classic “the best there is at what he does” catchphrase that feels both oddly hopeful and grimly fatalistic about Wolverine’s role in any narrative. Moira has a perspective on him that’s closer to that of the audience than anyone in the story. (The scene also visually echoes Wolverine’s mercy killing of Jean Grey in Grant Morrison’s “Planet X” arc.) 

The trouble is, at least on my end, is that I’ve spent enough time trying to predict the plot of this story that I’d already figured out that the “future” was in Moira 9’s lifetime. There is a nice sense of validation in correctly parsing the clues, but it’s been a lot more fun to be entirely surprised with plot developments, as I was last week with the Phalanx reveal in the far future storyline. I can’t imagine I’ll be able to resist further speculation as it is a big part of the fun of following all of this, but I have to keep in mind that it’s most enjoyable when Hickman is several steps ahead of me and catches me off guard. 

This is not to say there weren’t any surprises in this issue. The introduction of the human Church of Ascendency and their ritualistic transformation into cyborgs at the top of the issue provides some backstory for the plot in the distant future plot thread with the Nimbus worldmind and the Phalanx. It’s also a bit jarring for Cardinal and Rasputin to apparently die along with the rest of the future X-Men so early in the story after such an auspicious debut, though it would not be unreasonable for them to pop up again one way or another. But given Jonathan Hickman’s stated love of “The Phalanx Covenant” and prominent use of characters and concepts for that story, the fate of these characters may be a nod to the way Scott Lobdell gave Blink a memorable debut in that story only to quickly kill her off and have her reappear in a different and even better form shortly afterward in “Age of Apocalypse.” 

Apocalypse’s role in this story is interesting. The Moira 9 timeline is essentially an inverted “Age of Apocalypse” in which Apocalypse, under the influence of his consigliere Moira, takes the Magneto role in the story as the flawed replacement for Charles Xavier, and Nimrod replaces him as the despotic monster presiding over a dystopia. This Apocalypse is still very much Apocalypse-y right on down to having four horsemen, but he’s also rather noble and willing to sacrifice his supposedly eternal life in order to complete a mission to give hope to the mutants of Moira’s next lifetime. His final battle with Nimrod is poignant and echoes the Magneto/Apocalypse duel at the end of “Age of Apocalypse,” except for the lack of catharsis. Magneto got to rip Apocalypse in half while he gloated at him; Apocalypse just gets womped on by four Nimrods at once before the singularity unleashed from Xorn’s black hole skull seems to swallow up pretty much everything. 

“This Is What You Do” breaks some rhythms established by the previous issues, most obviously by deviating from the HOX/POX/HOX/POX pattern, and the established format of Powers issues showing us story in each of its four eras. This works out pretty well in terms of keeping the story from feeling too rigid in its rhythms, and allows for some traditional superhero action after a lot of rather cerebral info dumps and talky scenes. There’s a terrible tendency in contemporary comics, particularly those produced by Marvel, for action to be doled out in a way that suggests the writer is merely servicing genre conventions and giving the artist something “fun” to draw, and this is very much not that. Hickman and R.B. Silva provide big payoffs and high drama, and present action scenes fully grounded in the horror of violence. They effectively convey the bravery of these X-Men and the cold cruelty of their robotic enemies.

Silva’s art continues to evolve into an increasingly expressive and nuanced style as he moves through this series. He’s clearly having a lot of fun with his inking process – there’s a liberal usage of Ben-Day dots for shading, judicious deployment of digital blur effects, and a clever use of fingerprints in rendering Wolverine’s scorched body in the final sequence. I love the way both he and Pepe Larraz are combining the best elements of digital and physical illustration to produce pages that convey a slickness with an underlying loose kinetic energy of pencil and ink on paper. 

We Are Together Now, You and I

“We Are Together Now, You and I”
Powers of X #2 (2019)
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by R.B. Silva
Color art by Marte Gracia

The second issue of Powers of X is largely spent moving plot forward in three of its time periods – Charles and Moira recruiting Magneto for what will presumably become the Krakoa plan, Charles and Magneto sending Cyclops on a mission to disable the Mother Molds before they can create Nimrod, and the future X-Men (led by Apocalypse!) moving forward in their plan to attack Nimrod. The really wild stuff goes down in the +1000 year period, in which we learn that what we’ve seen there is not Earth but rather Nimbus, a “worldmind” created by the humans and machines in the interest of attracting a “Type III civilization.” The Type III civilization that shows up at the end of the issue is none other than the Phalanx, the hive mind cybernetic species that was at the center of several stories written by Scott Lobdell in the 1990s. 

The Phalanx were based partially on the Technarch, the abstracted technological race introduced by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz in New Mutants in the 1980s with the characters Warlock and Magus. The connection between the Technarch and the Phalanx – and the “techno-organic virus” that’s connected to both concepts – is clarified and reworked by Jonathan Hickman in this issue. If you are not familiar with how this has worked in the past, you will only be unnecessarily confusing yourself to concern yourself with those back issues now. As it stands as of this issue, there is a clear hierarchy of artificial intelligence in X-Men comics that follows a powers of ten scale: machine > hive > intelligence > Technarch >  worldmind > Phalanx. At the end of the issue the blue inhabitants of Nimbus – there’s been no indication of who or what they are – willingly submit themselves to the Phalanx, asking for “ascension,” the process by which the Phalanx add an intelligence to its collective self. Perhaps Nimrod’s archive of mutant consciousness, which is in their possession, is the primary offering here?

This issue is mainly about the necessity of collectivity for both the survival of a people and its potential to thrive on increasingly larger scales. We start in the zero year with two bitter rivals, Xavier and Magneto, forging an alliance with the understanding that their people are unlikely to achieve much unless they unite as visionary figureheads. In the present, on the nascent nation-state of Krakoa, we’ve seen real progress – X-Men and “evil mutants” cooperating and living together with a shared goal. Moira states it outright in her pitch to Magneto: “I believe the one thing I haven’t tried yet – all of mutantdom as one – is the thing that means more than just surviving, but thriving and assuming our rightful place on this Earth.” 

The final pages of the issue lay out models of society in orders of magnitude based on the Kardashev scale of measuring a society’s technological advancement. The Phalanx are at the top end of categorization – a collective society that controls an entire galaxy, or multiple galaxies. It’s an imperial force, consuming and integrating lesser societies. In the terms outlined there, we see in this issue the X-Men move from machine (solitary individuals) to hive (a team, basically), with the goal of leveling up to an intelligence (a society.) (Perhaps Krakoa is the beginning stage of an eventual organic worldmind?) It seems obvious now that a central tension of Hickman’s X-Men will be the necessity of a mutant society and the difficulty of attaining such a thing from within and without. Naturally this narrative seems to hinge on Magneto – can he embrace a collective ethos, or will his ego and rage get in the way? 

Notes, Annotations, and Speculation:

• Nibiru, the former frozen gas giant that was transformed into Nimbus, is based on a pseudoscience doomsday hoax positing that a planet-sized object would collide with Earth in the early 21st century. Hickman kept the part about Nimbus being on an elliptical orbit beyond Neptune, but resisted the temptation to refer to Nibiru by its other common name: Planet X.

• Hickman has mentioned the Kardashev scale in an early interview about HOX and POX, noting that he would explore “how mutants bend the Kardashev scale.” In this issue we see how the machines bend the scale as they evolve into Technarchs, worldminds, and Phalanx. But what about the mutants? Is it possible that the mutants, in alliance with the Shi’ar, have also leveled up in the distant future? And when the blue person mentions attracting “universal predators,” could it be that one of these is…the Phoenix? The distant future version of the Phoenix seen at the end of Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run, where we see Jean Grey in the “white hot room,” looks a lot like a collective mutant intelligence. Or perhaps “mutants bending the Kardashev scale” is more about what happens if mutation is introduced to the Phalanx on a galactic level.

• While the other covers in these parallel series seem to correlate to the events of the story told in the pages, this issue’s cover does not at all, at least in a direct sense. Of the characters depicted on the cover – Magneto, Mystique, Emma Frost, Sabretooth, and Toad – only Magneto appears in the issue, and Emma Frost has yet to pop up in the narrative. But it works in a broader thematic sense, in that this issue is laying the groundwork for a mutant society that attempts to integrate traditionally villainous and antagonistic characters. These are the characters who represent a resistance to the sort of conformity and collective identity that comes so easily to the machines.

• The promo art for Powers of X #4 tease the revelation of the “true purpose” of Cerebro, the helmet we see Xavier wearing at all times in the present. Cerebro has traditionally been used as a mutant-finding device, and as a machine that amplifies psychic powers. But could it be a way of creating a collective mutant intelligence? And could that, in turn, be the thing that leads to the creation of Nimrod’s archive of mutant consciousness 100 years down the line? It would advance Charles’ agenda of mutant solidarity, and also push mutants up the scale of civilization. I also suspect it would open up Charles to a terrible mistake given that he’s using a machine, and this story is positioning machines as the enemy and chief competitor of mutantdom.

• As the first act of the story comes to a close with the Phalanx reveal and all necessary set-up exposition out of the way, next week we finally get to see…. y’know, the X-Men! Doing X-Men things! I’m very much looking forward to Hickman’s versions of Nightcrawler, Husk, and Monet.

The Last Dream of Professor X

“The Last Dream of Professor X”
Powers of X #1 (2019)
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by R.B. Silva
Color art by Marte Gracia

Last week in House of X we were presented with a new status quo for mutants in which Charles Xavier gave them a homeland in the form of Krakoa, and they were poised to inherit the world within two decades. For the first time in ages, the future was bright for the X-Men! But here we are one week later in Powers of X #1, and we are confronted with the notion that just because nature dictates a mutant future, humanity can still intervene and change course in a genocidal act of self-preservation. Bleak visions of the future are a big part of X-Men mythology, but the futures presented in Powers of X may be the most upsetting yet if just because they are contrasted with the radical optimism of Krakoa and the potential of a mutant planet. It resonates with our moment in history too much for comfort – the threat of seemingly inevitable progress kicking oppressive forces into overdrive as the powerful desperately cling to their position. 

Jonathan Hickman pulling the rug out from under us straight away focuses the story on the central theme of X-Men: The dream of a better world, and the nightmare of what happens if the dream is not realized. In what is effectively his second issue, he’s established the stakes of his X-Men. The story, particularly the sections that are presented as historical texts, reveal that the establishment of the Krakoan nation state sets in motion a battle between mutants and humans – and their machines – that’s not resolved for hundreds of years. Dr. Alia Gregor’s forecast of mutants becoming the dominant species doesn’t turn out to be the case. 100 years later and there’s just 10,000 mutants left and almost all of them are living in Shi’Ar space. It’s heartbreaking.

Powers of X tells a story in four time periods: The very beginning of the X-Men, the present tense of the X-Men ten years later, the remaining X-Men of 90 years from now, and the distant future of the X-Men in their 1000th year. The pages set in the present mostly move along a bit of plot with Mystique carried over from House of X and allow for a bit more time with the current Xavier, though he’s no less inscrutable than he was in House of X. This scene is mostly interesting in setting up a question of what exactly Mystique has stolen and brought back to Xavier and Magneto, and for establishing that Hickman has a good handle on Mystique, a woman who is always working in her own interest and is constantly running some con or another. 

The oblique opening scene set in the past is the most fascinating bit of a rather dense and eventful issue. The young Charles Xavier is confronted on a park bench by Dr. Moira MacTaggert, who speaks rather cryptically but reveals that she knows him rather well though he believes he is meeting her for the first time. This is a puzzling moment for longtime readers as it is long established that Moira and Charles were once young lovers and that she was a crucial figure in helping him establish the X-Men. The scene ends with Moira inviting a confused Charles to read her mind, and with his surprise at what he finds there. We won’t know about what he sees in her head for at least another week or so. 

Something is off about Moira. That much is signaled in the moments just before Charles sees her, as he looks up to the sky and watches birds circling overhead – traditionally a bad omen that can signal a coming storm, or the hunting of prey. Moira’s tone is knowing but ambiguous, and she is coming to Charles just after his great epiphany about “a better world and my place in it.” Her timing seems rather deliberate. Is Moira a predator of sorts here? Is Charles her mark, or a patsy? 

Moira’s most cryptic dialogue accompanies images of three tarot cards which are illustrated with images of characters and settings from the X-Men’s 100th year, which make their proper debut a few pages later. 

I have minimal knowledge of tarot, but crowdsourced a reading of these three particular cards on Twitter and every interpretation was about the same. Here’s a few of the ones I found particularly resonant with the themes Hickman is laying out with regards to Charles Xavier:

you're absolutely positive about a course of action, but it's going to lead to a major shakeup in ways you didn't expect and will be uncomfortable (this doesn't mean don't do it). don't rely on substances/sex to get you through, they will make the discomfort worse. https://twitter.com/noradotcool/status/1155939469582721024

my read would be the magician is the path you wanted, the tower came in and shook everything up radically, and the devil is how you deal with the aftermath, probably you've been indulging in some harmful behaviors and need to stop to keep moving/heal. https://twitter.com/cortneyharding/status/1155951708284968960

Pride goeth before the fall, which you know, but you just can’t help yourself  https://twitter.com/redrawnoxen/status/1155937015809970176

The magician is the goal
The tower what needs to fall for that to come through
The Devil the catalyst for the next transformation https://twitter.com/henrydarthenay/status/1155944493125758976

It seems likely Hickman is establishing the primary theme of Xavier’s arc not just for House of X and Powers of X, but for his entire run to come. The goal, the obstacle, and what must be done to overcome it. So…is Xavier’s plan with Krakoa in the present the goal, the obstacle, or the catalyst for the next transformation? 

A century later things have gone terribly wrong. Hickman and artist R.B. Silva present a vision of the future that borrows thematic and visual elements from the most famous dark timelines of the X-Men’s past – “Days of Future Past,” “Age of Apocalypse” – but mostly feels fresh and distinct. The X-Men of this era are vaguely familiar – entirely new characters who look like mash-ups of classic characters. Hickman relies on historical information in text pages to establish the backstory of this future and keeps the story pages focused on emotion and action. Long story short: We’re in the last days of a war between the Man-Machine Supremacy and what remains of the mutants, and these X-Men are the product of a breeding program by Mister Sinister that goes horribly wrong, mainly because the mutants decided to trust their future as a species to a Machiavellian mad scientist who calls himself Mister Sinister. 

Our three main characters in this era represent three forms of bred mutants. Rasputin is a Chimera class mutant, a nearly unstoppable being made from the combination of Colossus, Kitty Pryde, Quentin Quire, Unus the Untouchable, and X-23/Wolverine’s genes. Cardinal, basically a red Nightcrawler, is an Outlier, a mutant designed for war who nevertheless developed spiritual and pacifist tendencies. Cylobel is a hound with an unreadable “black brain” bred by the Man-Machine Supremacy to infiltrate and betray her own kind. Cylobel is captured by the machines and brought to their leader, Nimrod the Lesser. Cylobel’s programming backfires on her masters – she has betrayed them, and not the X-Men. Her last act before being deposited into a system that will break her body and mind down to nothing more than data to be processed in the interest of further understanding “the mutant anomoly,” is an act of defiance. She embraces her martyrdom and swears that even if it takes “a thousand years,” mutants will endure and wipe out their oppressors. 

Hickman’s Nimrod is delighted by her spunk. This version of Nimrod resembles the character created by Chris Claremont and John Romita Jr but has the personality of an effete elite who masks their inhumanity in politeness and shallow declarations of empathy. In addressing Cylobel, Nimrod prefaces extraordinarily cruel statements and actions with effusive apologies. You immediately recognize this guy. You’ve read his op-eds. You’ve seen him on cable news. He’s what happens when polite society is built on systemic injustice that stops looking anything like cruelty to the people on top. Nimrod doesn’t hate the mutants, he pities them! He is so sorry they are not at his position in the hierarchy. It’s so sad they must be killed! Silva draws Nimrod as a pastel behemoth with broad and cartoonish mannerisms not too far removed from the cute and cuddly Baymax in Big Hero 6. The design is just a tweak on Romita Jr’s original look, but it’s smoothed out a bit so he looks more like an Apple product. He’d make a great stuffed doll. 

Cylobel may have accidentally predicted the future with her “a thousand years” line. In the issue’s final scene we’re a thousand years from the day Charles met Moira, in the era of “ascension,” and meet a bald blue humanoid called Librarian who is attempting to recover information from Cylobel’s preserved body in Nimrod the Lesser’s archive. The Librarian is accompanied by a small drone – Nimrod the Greater. This scene is rather oblique, but ends with two important bits of information: The “human-machine-mutant war” has ended in a surprising way, and the current residents of Earth have kept some remnants of humanity in a place called The Preserve. The issue ends with a shot of a man and woman lurking in The Preserve in shadows. They look a bit like…Mystique and Toad?

A few stray notes:

• In the tarot sequence, the magician card is Rasputin and the devil card is Cardinal. This makes some sense in that context, but I’m more intrigued by the way these two characters essentially split the spirit of Xavier’s ethos in half – one represents the idealistic fight, and the other the dream of peace. Rasputin is bred for war, but Cardinal retains too much of his ancestor Nightcrawler’s spirituality to embrace the potential of his weaponized genes. 

• Much in the way that Pepe Larraz stepped up his game in House of X, R.B. Silva reveals the full extent of his talent in this issue. Silva has been working on X-Men comics for the past couple years but has mainly been working on rather bad material – he drew a good chunk of the absolutely dire X-Men Blue/X-Men Gold series written by Cullen Bunn and Marc Guggenheim. But whereas those comics were largely exercises in rote continuity mining and pointless nostalgia, Powers of X gives Silva the opportunity to create, and a lot of the energy of this comic comes from his obvious delight in designing his own world. You can see the influence of modern video games as well as traces of Joe Madureira’s designs from “Age of Apocalypse.” He also integrates the particular geometric elements of Chris Bachalo’s design for Omega Sentinel in that character’s descendent here without compromising his aesthetic identity. There’s still a good amount of Stuart Immonen influence in Silva’s art, but that’s receding as Silva asserts his own identity with crisper, cleaner linework that leaves more of the lighting effects to colorist Marte Gracia.

• This issue gives us our first look at a “No-Place,” which was mentioned in passing in House of X #1 in the text page outlining the use of Krakoan fauna for mutants. A “No-Place” is a Krakoan habitat that exists outside of the Krakoan collective consciousness and is created by an artificial Krakoan flower. The No-Place, a zone that should not be, is depicted as dark and upside-down to great, mildly unnerving effect.

• Charles Xavier seems to have developed telekinetic powers in the present. He has canonically only ever been a telepath. 

• All four sequences of this story involve an attempt to access forbidden or lost information, but we do not know what that information could be or why it is needed. The story threads in the present and in year 100 leave off with emissaries passing off information to their superiors – in the case of Mystique, to Xavier and Magneto, and in the case of Rasputin and Cardinal, to a superannuated Wolverine and the remnants of the X-Men. 

• The heavy themes around betrayal in the future sequences of this issue suggest Moira and Mystique are not to be trusted in the past and present. (Of course Mystique is never to be trusted.)