MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel
[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]
STORY: Jonathan Hickman
PENCILS: Leinil Francis Yu
INKS: Gerry Alanguilan
COLORS: Sunny Gho
LETTERS: VC's Clayton Cowles
EDITOR: Jordan D. White
EiC: Akria Yoshida a.k.a. “C.B. Cebulski”
COVER: Leinil Francis Yu with Sunny Gho
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Mark Bagley and John Dell with Israel Silva; Mark Brooks; Tom Muller; Whilce Portacio with Chris Sotomayor; Leinil Francis Yu; Chris Bachalo with Edgar Delgado; Artgerm; Marco Checchetto; Russell Dauterman
44pp, Color, $4.99 U.S. (December 2019)
Rated T+
The X-Men created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
“Pax Krakoa”
The X-Men are a Marvel Comics superhero team and franchise created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Jack Kirby. In The X-Men #1 (cover dated: September 1963), readers were introduced to a professor and team-leader and his students who had unique powers and abilities because they were “mutants.” The leader was Professor Charles Xavier a/k/a “Professor X.” His students were Scott Summers (Cyclops), Jean Grey (Marvel Girl), Warren Worthington III (Angel), Henry “Hank” McCoy (Beast), and Bobby Drake (Iceman).
This past summer (2019), writer Jonathan Hickman revamped, rebooted, and re-imagined the X-Men comic book franchise via a pair of six-issue comic book miniseries, House of X and Powers of X (pronounced “Powers of Ten”). October welcomed “Dawn of X,” the launch of six new X-Men titles, although all except one bore titles that have been previously used. The new series were Excalibur, Fallen Angels, Marauders, New Mutants, X-Force, and the subject of this review, X-Men.
X-Men 2019 is written by Jonathan Hickman; drawn by Leinil Franics Yu (pencils) and the recently-deceased Gerry Alanguilan (inks); colored by Sunny Gho, and lettered by Clayton Cowles. The series will apparently focus on Cyclops and his hand-picked team of mutant powerhouses who will stand between the mutants' sacred land (the island of Krakoa) and the threat of the human world.
X-Men #1 (Pax Krakoa) finds the X-Men engaged in a mop-up operation, destroying the last stronghold of Orchis, the organization that was attempting to build a more powerful generation of the mutant-hunting robots, the Sentinels. Cyclops, Storm, Magneto, and Polaris find little real resistance from the minions of Orchis. However, they do find a “posthuman” and a large group of mutant children in need of rescuing... and in need of a home.
So it's back to Krakoa, the living island and mutant nation-state. Many are still adjusting to this new home and the new state of mutant affairs. Meanwhile, their enemies are not going quietly into the night, nor is their evil science.
For the first two decades of its existence, the X-Men comic book series (later titled Uncanny X-Men) had an intimate feel to it. The series basically focused on a small band of heroes and adventures who (1) had few allies and (2) fought “evil mutants” in order to protect the larger world of humanity. Even when the team line-ups changed or when a second group of “New Mutants” entered the picture, the X-Men comics felt like an intimate affair with its tales of the mutant-us against the world.
From the mid-1980s on, Marvel Comics published an increasing number of X-Men and X-Men related ongoing series, finite series, graphic novels, and assorted one-off publications. Then, the hit film, X-Men (2000), presented the X-Men's home and base, “Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters” (Xavier Institute for Higher Learning), as an actual school, packed with minor children who were mutants. Marvel Comics followed suit, and suddenly Professor Charles Xavier a.k.a. Professor X's mansion went from half a dozen or so inhabitants to housing untold dozens of students, in addition to members of the X-Men who were suddenly being depicted as teachers and counselors.
So during the past two decades of X-Men comic books, the X-Men titles have stopped being superhero comic books and have become mutant soap opera, dystopian, science fiction, serial dramas. That would not be a problem except there are too many characters, too many plots, and too many comic books. No matter how many Spider-Man, Superman, or Batman comic books there are, those titles still focus only on Spider-Man, Superman, or Batman. There is still an intimacy between the reader and a single character. Too many Avengers or Justice League comic books become redundant, like an over-supply of superhero characters. That's the problem with the X-Men... still... even after the latest spiffy, new reboot.
Jonathan Hickman's House of X and Powers of X were finite series with a purpose, a goal, and (more or less) an endgame. Each series had a beginning, a middle, and an end – even during the moments when that was presented in a non-linear fashion. Both of these comic books were wonderful, satisfying, complete reads.
But we seem to be back to the status quo that was not supposed to be, at least, post-Hickman revolution. X-Men 2019 is the start of a wave of new X-Men titles, “Dawn of X,” soon to be followed by more waves. Well, maybe Hickman will continue to surprise us and later issues of X-Men 2019 won't feel like padded story the way this X-Men #1 does. One can hope, even a former X-Men fan like myself. But I have a feeling that sales on the “Dawn of X” titles will have plummeted so much by the end of 2020 that Marvel Comics will already be planning the next relaunch.
5.5 out of 10
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.
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