We are currently moving to a new store. There may be delays in processing backorders. Customers will be contacted beforehand. Apologies for any inconveniences

Cart

Cart

Your Cart is Empty

Back To Shop

Cart

Cart

Your Cart is Empty

Back To Shop

House of X & Powers of X Review

The X-Men series has been going through a lot of stuff throughout the years. Ever since the Age of Apocalypse event of the mid-90s, the series has been going through a lot of ups and downs without never establishing once again as once of Marvel’s top titles in terms of quality, regardless of how important this brand is in the comic book industry.

The last decade or so has been particularly negative in terms of quality and the title had been going deeper and deeper into a very bad situation, with an excess of titles, multiple reboots and various writers that didn’t seem to grasp what made this series so successful over the years. This has been a running problem at Marvel for the last five or six years: not hiring capable writers that can truly revitalize these characters, but they managed to do just that with the X-Men thanks to the hiring of Jonathan Hickman.

As many people know by now, Jonathan Hickman rose to popularity thanks to his work on the Fantastic Four and the Avengers earlier in this decade and with some of the best indie comics of the last couple of years, so him writing the X-Men was certainly something to be excited about. Hickman decided to start small with two miniseries, Powers of X and House of X, serving as a soft reboot of sorts of the franchise and radically changing their status quo for the coming years.

Are these miniseries worth your time? Hickman crafted a very well-written story, but I think he also made significant changes to the X-Men landscape.

Plot.

The mutants have taken a very controversial decision. Charles Xavier, now very a helmet that allows him to have the same function as Cerebro, creates the sovereign nation of Krakoa as a haven for mutants everywhere, with their own language and politics, prompting the United Nations to accept. He is aided by Magneto, who has promised to give battle without quarter to the presidents of the most powerful nations if they don’t comply.

Powers of X covers the events that happen in the future where the human race has been extinguished and the mutants are enslaved by a being called Nimrod, with the likes of Wolverine, Apocalypse and a few others being the last remains of the resistance. House of X deals with the present day, where the X-Men are trying to avoid that future from happening and establishing their own sovereign, even going as far as counting with the support of longtime villains such as Sebastian Shaw, Mister Sinister, Apocalypse, Mystique and many others.

The character that connects both miniseries and plots is Moira MacTaggert, who is discovered in this story as a mutant whose powers is to have multiple lives: once she dies, she is born again as a baby with the recollection of everything that happened in her previous lives. And after an encounter with Mystique and Destiny, the mutant that can see the future, she discovers that in one of her lives the mutant race is going to be extinguished, which prompts her to use her multiple lives to find a solution, joining Xavier, Magneto and even Apocalypse in many of those cases.

Finally, in one of her lives, she manages to convince Xavier by allowing him to look into her mind and discovering everything that happened in her multiple lives, where the mutants lost time and time again. Xavier gives up on his dream of the union of mutants and humans, leading to the new approach that we see in these miniseries.

How good was it?

Quite honestly, my summary of these two miniseries is quite unfair to Hickman: in just twelve issues he managed to craft a very complex and intelligent story with various characters, radically changing the X-Men landscape without much problem. It’s a testament to his abilities as a writer and the concepts that he had in mind, making some of the best memorable moments of the X-Men franchise since Age of Apocalypse (Wolverine and Nightcrawler’s “deaths” is a particular favorite of mine, with the dialogue between them before jumping into action being truly heartfelt and poignant).

Having said that, I do have one major gripe with this story: this isn’t the X-Men.

I will never deny that the X-Men franchise was in dire need to be developed by a capable writer and Hickman has done that in tremendous fashion, but at the expense of losing that humanity that these characters always had, caring deeply for life, whether it was mutant or human. This new version of the X-Men, promoting segregation and even threatening humanity if they don’t comply to their demands, feels very out-character, especially with Moira telling Xavier that his dream was pointless and that he needed to change, which is shown as something positive in the context in the miniseries but feels rather off.

Naturally, there are already various new X-books coming out after these two miniseries (because Marvel doesn’t seem capable of not flooding the market) with Hickman writing one or two of them, so the story is clearly not ending here and it could be a setup for the downfall of this new society in Krakoa. But basing my review on just these two miniseries alone, it really doesn’t feel like the X-Men; it feels like an Elseworld story rather than something going on in the main continuity.

But that is my personal appreciation and reaction to what Hickman did here; no one can deny that is one of the best comics of the last years and I would dare to say that is the Marvel comic from this decade, with Hickman’s Fantastic Four run being a close second (yeah, he has a monopoly on Marvel this decade).

Both Powers of X and House of X are two wonderful reads of futuristic sci-fi and some sociopolitical elements done in a very tasteful manner–it gives these two books the value of rereads and it tells a great story. Like I said before, I was a bit disturbed with how Hickman seems to have no qualms in showing the X-Men as pro-segregation and even though that was shown in some previous storylines, it has never sat well with me.

The art.

Pepe Larraz and R.B Silva’s art is good and very solid, providing a great sense of anatomy and visual appeal, but I have to say that they are not my cup of tea, although that’s more of a personal preference than actual criticism towards them: they provide quality art that fits quite well with Hickman’s story and doesn’t take away anything from it.

Overall.

This is without a doubt the best X-Men comic book storyline since Age of Apocalypse; I could say that Grant Morrison’s New X-Men is a close second and I wouldn’t say you were wrong if you choose the latter before the former. But what I find most appealing about this miniseries is how Hickman made people care once again about the X-Men and tell a story that felt important, compelling and had readers waiting for the next issue–that’s a great achievement in an era where mainstream comics are not as important and significant as they once were in the industry.

And beyond my personal gripes with how many of the iconic characters are depicted, I have to say that is a wonderful story and worth your time and your money. Quite likely the best comic book storyline of 2019.

SCORE: 9.5

MUST HAVE!

Wishlist 0
Continue Shopping

Cart

Cart

Your Cart is Empty

Back To Shop