It’s been nearly six years since I last picked up a new X-Men comic with any real consistency. The last series I read with any regularity featuring the merry mutants was Jason Aaron‘s Wolverine and the X-Men. Which apparently ended around six years ago. It’s fair to say that I’m a little out of touch with that side of the Marvel Universe (though I have been following both Old Man Logan and Dead Man Logan, but those series didn’t really involve the X-Men as much as a team book would). More than a little, honestly. A lot has happened in the six years I’ve been away, and since I barely pay attention to solicitations I have missed most of it.
But with Johnathan Hickman steering the X-Men in a new direction with both House and Powers Of X, I thought this might be a good time to start reading X-Men comics again.
But how easy is it to jump back in relatively blind after more than half a decade away? Join me, and I’ll tell you.
Expect spoilers as I try to make sense of the comic.
I’ve been really enjoying the House/Powers Of X event thus far, it has been an interesting reintroduction to the X-Men for me, and is an event that isn’t using huge set piece fight scenes to sell comics. No, the appeal of this event for me is that we’re getting a story that’s going to reframe how we look at the X-Men in the Marvel Universe, an event that is more of a beginning than a culmination of several years worth of preplanning and build up.
It is perhaps the most accessible event Marvel have had in years, with the main story being told in House Of X with Powers filling in the missing pieces from that story. Case in point with this issue as we learn how Xavier developed the current iteration of Cerebro which allows for a full back up of a mutant’s mind, memories and such.
Kind of like restoring an old version of the novel you’re working on after you overwrite the wrong save file.
At this point in the story, as we come to the finale of the series, the end that’s going to be a beginning, there’s no reason for the series to appeal to new readers. As somebody who hasn’t read any X-Men comics in years, at this point I’m not feeling out of my depth at all – as the series has progressed it has been less alienating to new readers, which is exactly what I had hoped would be the case.
How it ends at this point in the game is more of an interest to me, and how well it sets up the next phase of the X-Men’s story… will you need to be familiar with the House/Powers event going forward?
It’s an interesting question I’ll probably try to answer…
“You see I know how you humans love your symbolism, almost as much as you love you religion. And I wanted you – I needed you – to understand… you have new gods now.”
Magneto, House Of X, #1 p.47.
I keep leaving this image and quote in the column because, for me, it’s emblematic of the series as a whole. It’s Hickman, through Magneto, setting the stage for the future of the X-Men.
Powers Of X #5 was a great change of page for the story, and consequently builds the anticipation for House #5 after last week’s comic. We all know that somehow things will be resolved to a new status quo (after all the solicitations that I have seen are pretty clear about that), but how has yet to be revealed.
I can’t wait to see what’s going to come our way next week.
Will I understand next week’s installment in the saga, House Of X #5? Do I regret skipping six years of X-Books? Am I ever going to find out how Xavier is walking again*?
We might find out next week. We might not.
Marvel provided a FREE copy for review purposes, but I read the comic in print from my LCS.
*The answer is yes, but it made no sense when two of my friends told me individually last week, but it basically boils down to “comics being comics” which I’ve kind of accepted with an air of nonchalance.
