House of X / Powers of X

House of X/Powers of X goes beyond being a great comic to being one of my favorite works of literature. I'm not trying to say it's Shakespeare, but it incapsulates many themes and archetypes that appeal to me as a modern reader. And it also pushes the medium forward by recontextualizing these characters in a genius way and providing an incredible amount of world building through prose sections and diagrams. The art from Pepe Larraz and RB Silva isn't like, Dave Gibbons game-changing, but it does a great job of conveying some very heady concepts while showcasing the emotions of the characters. Both artists also manage to channel some previous eras while still feeling unmistakably modern. There's something very '90s about Sabretooth here. But then there are characters like Marvel Girl who feel right out of the '60s, and not just because of some throw-back costumes. That Hickman's premise can be summarized in one lean sentence only serves to underscore its genius: Moira Mactaggert is a mutant with the power to reincarnate, and the entirety of Marvel continuity up until now has been her tenth life. Half of the storyline deals with the establishment of Krakoa, the latest and greatest mutant nation that Moira has been secretly working toward with Professor X and Magneto's help. It differs from Genosha or Utopia in that the land itself is a living thing, much more capable of adapting to the mutants' needs, and in that all mutants are welcome there, good or evil. While this new status quo is incredibly positive and inspiring, it has some dark implications. Moira, Professor X, and Magneto have all been aware that events might play out a certain way, and still allowed them to happen. One prose section suggests that Moira didn't just happen to have her mutant son Proteus - she specifically chose her husband and had Proteus knowing that the mutants would one day needs his reality-warping power. And while that sort of dark twist might disturb some readers, I think it only serves to make the previously one-note Moira much more interesting, and to present Professor X with some truly interesting dilemmas when it comes to how far he is willing to go to achieve his dream. One of my favorite action sequences in any comic ever occurs when X sends the X-Men to stop the creation of a "Mother Mold" sentinel orbiting the sun. He coldly tells them to "Do whatever it takes" and telepathically watches with determination - and heartbreak - as the team accomplishes their mission, and are killed one by one. Of course, with Krakoa's new resurrection protocols, each is cloned a new body and then implanted with Professor X's back-up memories of them. But are they really their old selves brought back to life, or mere clones? How can you not LOVE this??? It's mind-blowing. Just...so, so satisfying to see the X-Men brought to the cutting-edge of sci-fi storytelling. Speaking of, the other half of the narrative showcases other timelines, Moira's previous lives. We see a timeline where mutant chimeras working for Apocalypse sacrifice themselves to get Moira information on how Nimrod comes to be. And we see an especially long-lasting timeline wherein humans reach a point of technological transcendence and merge with the Phalanx, who, in another profound recontextualization, are revealed to be just the tip of a universe-spanning cluster of artificial intelligences more akin to God. Is it humanity's fate to evolve to this point, or is it better that they retain their individuality? This stuff is so, so cool. I have read it twice and tore through it both times. Grant Morrison's New X-Men is the only thing that comes close. This is really the pinnacle of the franchise. But of course, it can only exist because of what has come before. I'm nearing the end of a two-year marathon reading every issue of X-Men ever, and even I missed some of the references here. Wolverine makes amends with Gorgon, a villain from a Mark Millar solo Wolverine comic run that I somehow hadn't heard of. But overall, I think the series is still accessible to even a casual X-Men fan. I've seen some on here describe it as "convoluted," but if you pay attention to the diagrams and various boxes it's all laid out pretty clearly. And it's all doled out in a really compelling order. While I've yet to read everything that has come after this, it stands on its own as probably the best thing Marvel put out in the 2010s, aside from Hickman's previous big work, Secret Wars. It's just massively entertaining, stimulating, engrossing, packed full of secrets and hugely pleasurable new ways of looking at your favorite characters. It's amazing. I love it. Read it and then be inspired to go read every X-Men issue ever like I was.

A great place to start the Krokoa era. Interesting story of the lives of Moria.

I missed reading krakoa era as it was happening but this book is incredible.

Great story, great art. Having the entire store in one go is a nice addition to the collection and always makes it easier to read everything in one go instead of waiting months for the story to finish up and hoping that you don't miss an issue.

Oh, X-Men, you lovable but convoluted train wreck. Ever since the famous 1981 storyline, “Days of Futures Past”, introduced time travel to the X-Men, its borderline become a stable of the series plots ever since, both good and bad. The bad is that if one were to examine all the stories and creative teams work on X-Men, Uncanny, New Mutants, Excalibur, Legacy, New X-Men, X-Force, and 200 other X-spin-off books the timeline as a whole is mountain of conflicting timestreams and continuities. The series has come and gone with various creative teams shifting the X-Men timeline again and again. Enter Fantastic Four and Avengers scribe, Jonathan Hickman, who’s been out of mainstream comics five years. Returning to Marvel, Hickman has gotten has hands on the X-Men and, oh boy, it’s one hell of a reboot gamechanger for the mutants that we haven’t had since 2001’s Grant Morrison’s X-MEN. This is ambitious stuff. HOUSE OF X/POWERS OF X collects issues #1-6 of each series. Long time human X-Men supporter character Moira MacTaggert has made a shicking discovery: she’s really a mutant. Her mutant power is having 10 lives. After each death, she is reborn with all previous knowledge even in the womb. After various lifetimes, Moira knows all that is true across them is that mutants will be extinct thanks to human developing Sentinels over years into the perfect mutant killing machine, Nimrod. Moira has tried every conceivable way to prevent this in each life to no avail. Now on her final life, Moira decides to go big: recruit Charles Xavier and Magneto at start of their careers and form an alliance that all mutants, both good and evil, will live on the island known as Krakoa, free from all human problems in exchange a new revolutionary drug to human to make Krakoa a mutant government. Things look good for mutant and even human kind. But that much power in one spot is still enough to unnerve most governments, so much like all mutants under one banner, the governments of the worlds have united together to stop mutant kind in their own way, one that will affect the future by not only 100 years, but 1000 years in the future. If that sounds like a lot to take in, that is because it is. Jonathan Hickman’s HX/PX is a daunting, dense, ambitious, and wide-effecting book that demands to be read slowly. It’s not to be taken lightly as a few hours of your time. There is a lot of reading here for the better as Hickman builds up a massive political thriller and sci-fi story mixed together, with shades of good and bad. 50+ years of mutants having to survive in the Marvel landscape has made it where mutants have had enough this is them putting the foot down on the world. A good majority of X-lore shows up one way or another as Hickman himself said 92 Heroes appear, with 91 villain appearances as well, all having a part (small or large) to the whole thing, specifically the newly retconned Moira MacTaggert, Charles Xavier, and Magneto. Hands down, Hickman’s best portrayal is Magento and Xavier being akin to Reed Richards and Doctor Doom. Both are cold and subtle in their actions, but they truly are the heart of this new series going forward. Xavier walks around looking with Cerebro (strangely looking an awful lot like The Maker, Reed Richards evil counter-part) that you never see his face giving vibes that he may or may not be doing the right thing this time. Even Magneto walks the line on this new order, even mentioning my favorite piece in the whole book near the end where everything comes together and Magneto admits he should be crying from seeing his vision of Mutant superiority and independence, yet it doesn’t feel right (referring to the numerous actions Xavier and many others take over the course of the book as Xavier has always been the good guy against Magneto’s evil actions). There is plenty of that and other psychobabble about technology and pseudo-science fiction. This is a dense read about the X-Men like never before, which is interesting because this isn’t really an X-Men book by any means. It’s really a Mutant themed book with certain X-characters leading the charge into the greater Marvel 616 Universe. Hickman has it all designed to be digested with the story as it jumps between four time periods. You know the title Powers of X is a pun of the numerical number, 10 (you know the math basis 10 to the X number? 10 to the 0th power is 1, 10 to the 1st power is 10, 10 to the 2nd power is 100, and 10 to the 3rd power is 1000). So X0 is Year One, where Xavier can still walk and planning on starting his school for mutants, X1 take place in the present day, X2 takes place 100 years in the future, and X3 takes place 1000 years from now. Hickman does a little Quentin Tarantino in making the story jump forward and behind in time, while also some jumping to Moira’s various lifespans. It’s a lot to take in, but I think Hickman makes it come full circle reasonably well. Hickman posits Moira as a guide to the whole X-Men lore from the various story plots writers have put her. Each of her lifetimes is explained as happening as being X-Men canon if one were to really examine it. It makes it so just about every event in X-Men history has happened. The only reason I’m not giving this a 5-star rating, and I’m awfully tempted to do so, is this is still a continuity nightmare. I’ll give Hickman the credit where credit is due for the massive number of main X-stories and characters are presented and streamlined for this new era, but it still feels massively convoluted. X-Men stories have been geraniums. The main story takes place during Moria’s 10th life, but it’s as if Hickman looked at the greatest hits of X-Men lore and didn’t really study them. Many characters who were dead are alive with no explanation, certain characters have surprise powers never followed up on like Moira or Mister Sinister, and because we don’t know if these characters are clones, copies or from possible time periods or dimensions. I get it Hickman hasn’t gotten to that point yet further down the line, but he explains so much of the inner workings of this new series internal systems, he leaves many characters without any real preface to who or what they are. I’m no aficionado on X-Men, yet I’ve read my share of X-Men comics, so I understood many references and character powers and inner workings. Yet if your someone is really new to the X-franchise, you have to suspend your disbelief on most of the cast and their purpose because it never gets explained in favor of the massive picture Hickman has here. Most culturally significant characters like Wolverine, Cyclops, Charles Xavier, and Magneto are known thanks to the films, but the other 80% of the cast barely get explanation. You might see a cool looking character like Exodus and think “what makes this guy powerful enough to be one of the elites on Krakoa?” X-fans know who he is and why that makes sense, but if you’re not a reader of X-Men lore, you won’t know anything further about him and plenty of other characters as well. I can easily see the day when another writer takes over and just sweeps everything away and just put the Hickman Timeline in its own Universe. As much as Hickman put into cleaning up such a convoluted timeline that is X-Men, if you really start connecting all the timelines and characters, it still doesn’t quite add up to the X-Men history as a whole. I really wish a writer will come along and just go back to Days of Futures Past and work from there without time travel or other dimensions. It’s become such a crux for the series anymore that I’m tired of it as it’s the go-to method of trying to clean up X-lore, but it just impounds further. For example, many of these characters died just before being relaunched under Hickman and are here alive and well. Now Hickman does explain a certain plot point at the possibly why this happened (it’s a spoiler moment that I don’t want to give away), yet it still doesn’t explain everything because Hickman is using the same MacGuffin time travel/Space piece to clean things up, which also creates new problems in its place. There are various time lapses that happen here and happened during other famous X-arcs that are acknowledged by characters, and it just doesn’t fit when you look at it making sense. Still, HOUSE OF X/POWERS OF X is a damn good new beginning for the X-Franchise that hasn’t had this kind of clarity in two decades at least. It’s ambitious, well-written, and means monstrous business in terms of the status quo for here on out. With the addition of Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva’s lush and gorgeous artwork to convey Hickman’s grandiose dense script. It’s a work of massive proportions that works on most levels, but the paradox of explaining character personalities and powers to characters leaves a hole in making it seem like it’s the main 616 Universe that until Hickman can explain down the line, it’s just looking more like another X-timeline offshoot that will be called the Hickman timeline or alternative Earth due to the ramifications that Hickman is notorious for. Still, this is a great opening volume that really changes the status quo of the X-Men in a long time. Even if the follow path lead by Hickman on numerous creative teams and books may not live up to what he has setup, it’s still an impressive new beginning for the Children of the Atom.

Some of the criticism of this book is all world building, which is fair. That it is repetitive, which is a little true. And that there isn't much plot, which is not fair. Sure, it isn't your standard comic fare with a villain showing up to do battle with the heroes, but it sets up the next evolution, pun intended, of the X-Men storyline and it is a natural progression for the mutant race. Several storylines play out in this series, which might be a little confusing if you bought it issue by issue, but as a whole, reading it straight through everything pans out. I found it a fascinating read, truly a different kind of comic story. It is enjoyable, intelligent, and interesting.

I feel like a kid again. Way back in the day, I'd ride to my local convivence store on my bike, grab a Coke and may be a moonpie, and a comic. I was hooked back then. I read Battlestar Galactica and Micronauts, but my favorite book--the one I could not miss--was X-Men. This was Chris Claremont's original run. It was AMAZING, and one month to wait was way too long. Sometimes, I'd get to the store too late, and the store would be sold out. Back then, that meant not only no X-Men that month, but never seeing an entire issue. The world would come to an end! I loved that book back then. I lost my love of comics as I got a bit older, learned to drive, found out just how interesting girls really were. And, it was really late in life--past middle age--that I rediscovered them. Part of it is nostalgia. Part of it is that some of these comics are just damn good reads. Which is what this omni is of the twelve issues of House of X/Powers of X. The story is fresh and new, but it has the feel of that old Chris Claremont X-Men series. It focuses one the Man vs. Mutant issue--the core of the X-Men--and it does it in such a way that both side are right. You will side with both sides, depending on what side you happen to be reading at the time. It's a FANTASTIC book, and Hickman's story will go down as one of the great stories told in the X-Men comics. Don't miss this. If you are an X-Men fan, you will love it.

Jonathan Hickman kicks off his amazing X-Men run in this status quo set up story. It collects the two mini series House of X and Powers of X. The story unfolds intertwining the two series in proper reading order. The story begins that Professor X has given up on the dream of living in a world where humans and mutants live in peaceful coexistence. He teams up with Magneto and another surprise character to setup a nation state on the living island of Krakoa. In exchange for this status Professor X will give the human community special flowers from the island that are able to treat human aliments. We also get stories from the past and future that tie in to how this present comes to be. The story is incredible and bold. Hickman really takes the X-men to new heights. It's a little slow in the beginning but he has so much to build up to. There is massive payoff for everything going on. Hickman leans heavily into sci-fi as oppose to traditional superhero tropes. This is a different kind of mainstream superhero story where there really aren't any superheros. It is crazy what all the characters go through. He provides many a good twists for characters we have known for so long. In typical Hickman fashion there are pages of graphs, charts, and just text. These really add to the overall experience. The art is brilliant. The line work of Pepe Larraz and R. B. Silva along with colorist Marte Gracia provide is just fantastic. They really do the story justice and turn in career work. This epic of the mutants we know as the X-men through Hickman's eyes is a real treat. I cannot wait to check out his X-men proper run as am I hungry for more.

Whaouuu. Ça fait quelques temps que je lis de nombreux Comics sur les X-Men et je commençait à trouver que l'approche de l'acceptation des mutants par la société était souvent la même. Avec ces deux histoires (House of X et Power of X) on a enfin une approche complètement inédite de la question et de plus très cohérente. Très beau travail ! Pas besoin en plus de lire les récits précédents si vous commencez, l'histoire est détachée des histoires antérieures. Bonne lecture !

One of the most relevant arcs about mutants in the last years: any objection notwithstanding, its importance cannot be denied.

Arte magnífica e enredo surpreendente, um must read para fans de x men e o universo marvel em geral, simplesmente uma obras prima

Arrived in great condition, a great entry point back into the world of the X-Men

This book is a must read book. I dont think I have ever said that before. It's one of, if not THE best xmen stories ever. I dont say that lightly. The age of apocalypse storyline was always my favorite. This story, at the very least, rivals that. I will have to think on whether it surpasses it or not. I wont say much about the story, it's best if you experience it unspoiled. But I will say this, you dont to have read anything before to understand this storyline. It def is new reader friendly. Long as you have some slight understanding on who the main players are? You will be fine. And even if you dont, you will still be fine. And if you are a huge xmen fan? You will def love this book. The new era of xmen starts here. It sets up everything going forward. The writing and art are both phenomenal. The story is rather complicated, but hickman has realized that, and has even included charts and diagrams and sections that literally gives you information to make sure you know what's things mean. Now that may sound like a turn off, but I assure you that it's done in such a way, that its not off putting in the slightest. One thing that I really love about this collection? THEY PUT IT IN READING ORDER!!!! Marvel can be really bad with that and collect it by series. Like the first 6 issues of house of X, followed by the 6 issues of powers or X. That would have destroyed the flow of the story. But marvel was smarts this time and it's in perfect reading order, so it's not hard to follow at all. The only thing that you should be aware of, when reading this book? It's just the start of a huge multi year epic. So dont expect a definitive ending. It is a great story, but the ending def has a "to be continued..." feel to it. So final verdict? If you couldnt already tell, is to buy this book. Like now. Its worth it. I can pretty muchgaurantee you that this book will be out of print soon enough. It is that good.