010: That Time SoraRabbit Got Some X-Men Comics

Welcome back everyone. I have a comic book review for you this time around. This entry is a continuation of Post 003 where I briefly discussed House of X and Powers of X. This one will be much less brief, but it *will* be filled to the brim with spoilers. So if you plan on reading these series, I would recommend coming back afterwards so I don't wreck all the many twists and turns.

And hoo boy are there a lot of twists and turns. This is a very massive and well-crafted story. The two limited series that comprise the tale are House of X and Powers of X. (Pronounced "ten" for reasons that become apparent in issue one.) The two series are considered two halves of a whole and should be read in the order laid out in the checklist at the back of each issue. Do not read House 1-6 in that order. Issues of Powers are interspersed, and I would suggest reading them in the intended order to maintain story integrity. (When the collections are released, I would assume they will be in the correct order.)

Professor X, being all mysterious. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

As outlined in Post 003, I am not necessarily an X-Men fan. I have nothing against them, I just consider the various X comics to be convoluted and overwhelming. I haven't gotten an X-Men comic since the 90's, so coming into these series, I was very far behind. All I knew of what the mutants had been up to in the last few decades was what I had gleaned from crossovers in other comics. From what I have been able to gather, Marvel had all but sidelined their famous Mutants in recent years, attempting to replace them with the Inhumans. This was highly unsuccessful, and a few attempts were made to bring the X-Men back to their glory.

And that's essentially what this whole event was... a way to reboot the X-Men and bring about the next chapter in their saga. Thanks to the movies and 90's cartoon, a lot of you already know what the X-Men are all about, but for those of you who may not, or may need a refresher, here it is in a nutshell. In the Marvel Universe there are people born with an X gene. These people are called Mutants by some, Homo Superior by others. They're basically another race of life form, more than humans. The X gene gives them powers of varying types. Mutants are heralded as heroes by some, but more often than not they are persecuted and feared. The good mutants are typically led by Professor X. The bad mutants have several groups, but among their leaders are Magneto and Apocalypse.

I'm going to make two things clear from the outset. Number one, I didn't intend to be drawn into this story and once I was, it was due to curiosity. Marvel had fantastic advertising and buzz around it. I do not intend to continue reading X-Men now that the event is over. I *may* read the first issue of the relaunch on Marvel Unlimited when it gets released online, but we'll see. I have enough comic books to keep track of. (Just getting into the IDW version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pretty much broke my brain. Talk about a convoluted reading order and excessive tie-ins. Sheesh. The collections put them in recommended reading order, so that helps. So far it's proving to be very much worth the trouble. But that’s a whole other post.)

Second item: This is a twelve issue story, and it's pretty massive. I'm going to give a broad strokes summary before I get to my review, but this will not be a blow by blow. There will be plot points and characters I gloss over for brevity's sake. If I were to go over everything, this would be a three part series of posts. So keep in mind as you read that I'm going really basic with a complex story.

Both the series were written by Jonathan Hickman. House was illustrated by Pepe Larraz and Powers was illustrated by R. B. Silva. Let's begin.

Think I could pull off a suit like this? (Credit: Marvel Comics)

House of X Issue 1. The story sets the stage for a new world order very quickly. Apparently unbeknownst to the rest of the world, the remaining Mutant population had formed their own nation on the remote island of Krakoa. (Which is, itself, a mutant-- it's complicated.) This island was already set up with its own language, pharmaceutical exports, and strangest of all... a mix of good and evil mutants. The reasons for all these sweeping changes and the cooperation of such famously opposed groups slowly unfolds over the course of the 12 issues. In-between pages with text, charts, and maps fill in more back story.

Charles Xavier has telepathically announced to the world that Krakoa is to be accepted as its own nation in exchange for trading their manufactured pharmaceuticals to the world. They have drugs that can extend human life by five years, one that prevents diseases of the mind, and an antibiotic to prevent most diseases. They have also planted seeds in strategic locations all over the world which act as portals that only Mutants can use. So already this has far-reaching effects that can change the landscape of the Marvel Universe forever. The Mutants, traditionally oppressed, are now in a position to flip the script on mankind.

But it's not all peace and flowers. In space a new threat looms. A group called Orchid, made up of several diverse groups including SHIELD, AIM, and Hydra (!) have all turned up to create Sentinels to stop the Mutants. Because why not? You see, everyone is afraid that mankind will die out, replaced by Homo Superior. There have been great genocide-level disasters in the past, but the appearance of Krakoa has sped up the shift, leaving mankind with ten years left before Mutants outnumber them. Not everyone is happy about this.

Badass. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

Powers of X Issue 1. This one jumps between four time periods. The past, the present, one hundred years in the future, and one thousand years in the future.

The timelines. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

X0 is where the "most important scene in X-Men history" takes place. A character familiar to X-Men fans named Moira MacTaggert meets Professor X on a bench during a festival. He reads her mind and is shocked by what he sees there.

The most important scene. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

Cut to X1, where Mystique hands over the data they stole in House Issue 1. X2 shows a harsh dystopian future where Mutants are being hunted by robots, seemingly led by one named Nimrod. Mutants have been genetically bred into Chimeras, which combine traits from several Mutants. A few of these are fighting the robots to varying degrees of success.

Nimrod and friend. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

Jump forward to X3, nearly 900 years later. Nimrod has become a small floating robot and a blue-skinned creature called the Librarian is overseeing the Mutant DNA archives. Mankind has mostly died out, replaced by these blue beings.

House of X Issue 2 was the first big turning point. This one blows everything up. Moira, who was famously a non-Mutant ally of the X-Men, actually turns out to have been a Mutant all along. This was a huge retcon. (A retcon, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a way to scrap continuity and change things into ways that will be amenable for future stories. There are very mixed feelings about retcons among fans.) So, yeah, Moira is a living breathing retcon. She has lived ten lives. After death, everything in the timeline is reset and she is reborn with the knowledge of what happened in her previous lives. It's like Groundhogs Day if it was a whole lifetime rather than one day.

This serves three purposes, story-wise. First, it opens up a wealth of possible stories in various timelines. Second, it sets up the current reboot and allows everything to change throughout the history of the X-Men. (Essentially Hickman is saying that it's always been this way.) Third, it gives Marvel an escape hatch. If they tire of this new world order they can kill Moira and reset the continuity with little impact to the rest of the Marvel Universe. (I don't like that third one, but I feel like I have to acknowledge it as a possibility.)

Aww. Baby Moira. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

Every life Moira makes different choices. She's been actively against Mutant-kind, an ally, a radical. She has been allied with Xavier, Magneto, and Apocalypse at different times. In her last (tenth) life, she decides to try something new and reveals herself to Xavier early on, showing him the contents of all her tragic lifetimes. One thing to note is that her sixth life is skipped over entirely with no mention. Mysterious...

Powers of X Issue 2. Throughout the issues, X0 is used to show the backstory— the set up of Krakoa and Moira's plans. X1 shows that the data Mystique got was to determine when Nimrod is created. Basically they're creating a Mother Mold, which can make unlimited Master Molds, which creates Sentinels. (The robots that hunt Mutants.) I know, complicated. Bottom line, if that space factory is built, they're all toast. But now the Mutants know about the human plans and are hatching a counter plan to stop them. In X2, we learn the freedom fighters work for Apocalypse, who has usually been portrayed as evil and fanatical. They captured data last issue and need to go off on a mission to get more data. (What is this data? Stay tuned.)

Cold, Nimrod. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

In X3 it's revealed that the blue-skinned people sent out a world-sized machine in the hopes of getting the attention of a machine intelligence greater than theirs. (Everyone needs a hobby.)

Powers of X Issue 3 continues (and completes) the story of X2, where the Mutants sacrifice themselves for the important data. The data is actually the time Nimrod comes online. Very valuable information. Wolverine gives this to Moira and kills her, resetting everything. This was the end of her ninth life, setting her on the path we're on now in House of X.

Zap. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

House of X Issue 3 and 4 are the mission aboard the Mother Mold.

That’s a really big head. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

This is the next big shock. The X-Men are successful in shutting down the Mold, but it comes at a high cost. They all die. All of them, including Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Gray, and Nightcrawler. This was a really exciting, action packed part of the story, and it shows how far the X-Men were willing to go to keep themselves safe.

Go Wolverine! (Credit: Marvel Comics)

Powers of X Issue 4. Professor X and Magneto recruit the evil Mister Sinister to make a database of Mutant DNA. Mister Sinister is awesome.

The fabulous Mister Sinister. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

X3 shows the blue-skinned people meeting with the Phalanx, who have been X-Men villains in the past. They're a machine race that live in a Borg-like hive mind. The blue-skins are looking for ascension, to be absorbed into the collective, becoming a part of the whole. This is the fate they have chosen.

House of X Issue 5 has one of the biggest reveals in the series. Death is no longer the end for the Mutants. On Krakoa, by combining the powers of five Mutants, new bodies can be grown and the recorded DNA injected, with Professor X implanting their backed up memories into them. All the Mutants who died two issues ago are reborn in new cloned bodies and heralded as heroes.

X eggs. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

And it's not just those Mutants. The reason there are so many living on Krakoa so quickly is because they've been working to bring back all those lost in the genocides I mentioned before. This is what the space group Orchid was worried about. Mutants overrunning humanity.

Powers of X Issue 5. Some more plot happens bringing us to where we currently are. But in X3, the Phalanx have accepted the blue-skins offer. They will absorb everyone still alive on Earth. We learn more about what's going on at the end of humanity. Societies become so advanced that they collapse upon themselves becoming singularities. Those societies are black holes, group minds. All the black holes connect to make one massive consciousness that encompasses the universe and lives outside of time and space. This could be what God is. Heavy stuff for a comic book, huh?

Little Nimrod. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

In House of X Issue 6, the new Mutant council meets and begins forming their laws. The nation of Krakoa is accepted by the UN. All the Mutants celebrate in a very Ewok fashion. (Not even joking. There’s a feast, alcohol, fireworks, and tree forts.) (And probably an orgy too… one of the Council’s decrees is that they must “make more Mutants”.)

Finally, a use for Dazzler’s powers. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

And in Powers of X Issue 6 we get a couple of new bombshells. The Librarian meets with the Mutants he has kept alive as animals in a zoo. Among them are Wolverine (since he's basically immortal) and Moira. (Who I guess Wolverine was keeping alive with his blood? They're not entirely clear on this.) Wolverine kills the Librarian and then Moira, hitting the reset button again. The X3 timeline was actually Moira's missing 6th life. So what appeared to be the distant future was actually in the past, technically. Also the robots and humans were not the real enemies all along.

A long-held belief in the Marvel Universe was that Mutants (Homo Superior) were the inevitable next stage of human evolution. It turns out there is another stage that branched off from humans at some point called Homo Novissima. And that's who the blue people were. Basically when humanity evolves far enough, they become one with the machines, no longer human. This revelation is what radicalized Moira and led her to increasingly strange decisions in her following lives.

Yup. (Credit: Marvel Comics)

We learn a couple of other things at the end. Moira has not been telling Xavier and Magneto everything, and has been manipulating them to an extent. Also she has been living in a secret room underneath Krakoa, because she is their biggest weakness. Her death means that everything they've built ends. And she has been told she will not get another chance. This is most likely her final life, her last chance to save her people.

At least until the next reboot… (Credit: Marvel Comics)

So that was the story, essentially. Like I said, there’s a lot more going on that I didn’t get into. In these twelve issues, Hickman weaved a great, complex tale. He really excelled at playing with time... timelines that is. The biggest twists were when we assumed we were seeing the future but it was actually Moira's past lives. There were scenes that were showed earlier but didn't fully play out until the end. The revelations and plot reveals were done in an expert fashion. So many parts of X-Men history were stitched together, given new life and new angles.

All in all, this was a dense, complex, and well-paced story that shows a lot of potential and sticks with the reader far after it's over. I can see a lot of threads that will erupt into further story lines. And all the Moira X timelines could yield endless story possibilities. Plus they have a built-in reset button for the inevitable reboot. I hope they don't take the easy way out and reboot... but I've been jaded in my time as a Marvel fan. It seems every time they have a new character or status quo, no matter how good it is, eventually things revert to what fans are comfortable with. I love Marvel, but they're obsessed with the status quo.

So that's the event. It's over now, setting the stage for the next batch of X comics that I will not be reading. (I'll stick with my Spidey comics, thank you very much.) I recently heard they're planning a Moira X series. I may get that one... I haven't decided yet. I'm assuming it will fill in the blanks in Moira's ten lives, telling the untold stories. That could be worth reading. Moira is an intriguing character. Very much the second best part of these issues. (The best part was the sassy and outspoken Mister Sinister. Give this version of Sinister his own comic and I will be there, Marvel. Doooo it!)

In the weeks following the conclusion of this event, the X titles have been relaunched and there are a lot of them. I fear they’re falling back into old mistakes where they flood the market with X titles that no one could possibly keep up with. This is a good way to cause burn out. Well, even if all this reverts in a few months or years, at least we got these issues showing what X-Men could be. What they should be. Something creative, intelligent, and willing to break all the boundaries to tell a good story.

I don't regret getting House or Powers by any means. It's been a long time since I've been so excited about a title, and the next issue every week found its way to the top of my reading pile. It was a three month roller coaster. I can honestly say that I had no idea where it was all heading, and when I found out, I was not disappointed. It's a story that's going to stick with me. I'm grateful that I was a part of it while it was happening, and had someone to discuss it with. (Shout out to Tim at my local comic book store!)

I'm also grateful for everyone who has made it this far in my entry. You can expect more comic book content down the road, because this was a fun post. Thanks for reading. Come back soon for more treasures!