“House of X”
Welcome to the column where I talk about the next big thing in the X-Universe.
Over the past few years, Marvel had been downplaying the X-Men and the Fantastic Four; gone were the flagship team replaced by separate teams with sporadic appearances for most of the X-Men. This was attributed to the fact that the film rights of the X-Men were owned by FOX studios.
But after the merger, something seems to have changed. Renewed focus has been put on the Fantastic Four and it seems to be the turn of the X-Men. After various meandering titles that served no purpose other than to have a book on the stands (there were some great books too, cant deny that); Marvel tapped Jonathan Hickman to bring about a new fresh feel to the X-Universe.
This takes place in the form of House of X and Powers of X, two new X titles taking place with the sole purpose of returning the X-Men to their prominent position in the Marvel Universe.
Both of them have been spectacularly great and it has brought about something new to the mutant world and teases us with various exciting possibilities that could lead to some great X series. The first issues alone have been filled with information and major Power moves having the Mutants on the upper hand.
For a long while, mutants have been ostracized by the very world they seek to protect and it has always been a question of when it would turn out to be too much. We are not there yet but we could be leading towards that. There has never been a Mutant War, humans have always taken the first steps towards escalation of this conflict and it remains to be seen whether the mutants will start to hit back. When or more precisely, if that happens, it should be interesting seeing the Defenders, Avengers and Fantastic Four joining the conflict and what their role might be.
But its just speculation, House of X deals with Charles Xavier and his X-Men unveiling their brand new residence to the world and placing mutants in a position of power after a long time. This is continued by Powers of X which is said to be a trip through the history and future of the X-Men.
While Hickman was unsurprisingly opaque about either of the series’ plot points, his explanation of how he presented Marvel with a pitch justifying the cancellation of all the publisher’s current X-titles is interesting in and of itself:
And in the spirit of ‘what works’ and also ‘what the market is used to’, I didn’t feel like just doing a new number one was enough. I also didn’t think that if we were serious about what we were trying to do we should have a mixed message in the market about what an X-book is.
So I argued for cancelling the entire line: Why it would work, why it was a good idea, and most importantly, why it was what we needed to do narratively to return the X-Men to their rightful prominent position in the Marvel Universe.
We needed to sell the idea that this is what we’re going to be doing for the next few years. So if you want to read X-Men books during the run from late-July through September, House of X and Powers of X are the only new X-books available and everything that’s going to follow is based on them. We wanted to be clear to the fans, to the stores, and just as importantly, to the creators who are going to be staffing these books in the future. We wanted the message to be very clear: This is a whole new era for the X-Men. This is what we’re doing now.
These titles are just the start and it will be followed by two waves of X-Comics. The first phase of X comics are shown below under Dawn of X branding.
Personally, I am very excited for these titles and the immediate future of the X-Men, For the first time in a while, it seems like they have a solid direction they could follow and that is something to enjoy.
Let me know what you think of this column at marveldcallaccess@gmail.com
