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Spotlight Release of the Week: POWERS OF X #1
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![r/comicbooks - [Spoilers] Hickman's new universal societal cosmology (Powers of X #2 and #5)](http://web.archive.org./web/20240803033824im_/https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/lFGLovgzTO95HMfELZNV37STeA2wC5Sn8fkYG8mTzRg.jpg)
![r/comicbooks - [SPOILERS] "They've murderred so many of us, the world has grown used to it." [House of X #4]](http://web.archive.org./web/20240803033824im_/https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/hmRP96w7Z0KymiwC-7UnDGt79V2R-6JXSdsJWaTOtKg.jpg)
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Thank you for your service!
Do you happen to have a picture of the alphabet translation?
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I see it, thanks.
Just reread Powers of X and trying to put the clues together, especially from that one page that was supposed to change everything. Moira says to Charles in the flashback that they know each other, they "go back quite a ways." Then he asks, "Who are you?", her reply "Read my mind and see." This plus the cipher "Moira X." Is she really Moira Xavier? Is Moira MacTaggert really the daughter of Professor X??
I already know Hickman is going to wait 5 or 6 issues to tell us.
I don't think Hickman leans into incest too much with his stories.
Teach me
what pages are those ciphers on?
I really liked the characterization of Nimrod there. Kinda like how Spader's Ultron was a bit more human but less out-of-character. At least here we can say this is not the Nimrod we know but rather one that's been newly created or evolved.
So, is Omega the very same Karima that has been with us since Zero Tolerance?
Looks like it. Geeze, what has that woman been through.
I was so upset that she was there, like that, in the future. I was super happy that she was a sentinel again last week, but then she becomes an evil robot in the future :/.
You were happy she was an evil sentinel now but not in the future?
There wasn’t any indication that she was evil in House, at least that I could tell. I guess the organization she was with was shady. I was glad she was back to being a sentinel since the last we saw her she was back to human.
It's interesting how roles have been reversed. Nimrod, one of the classic X-Men robotic villains, seems more "human" (although in a creepy condescending way at times), and even kinda funny/cute in some panels. Meanwhile Karima, who used to be a human and has even been on the X-Men, is now the ruthless one.
I agree. Though we've seen Nimrod be human as well. When he was first introduced, he had a human alter-ego with an apartment and a job working construction.
When Hickman said this issue was important, he wasn’t kidding.😩
I've been skeptical of how the future story could be a status quo until now.
This is our new days of future past future. The hounds, the nimrods, the pits. It shows up every now and then. This is the status quo for that dark future.
I'd be interested to see it merged with the Ultron future. Ultron and Sentinels as allies. Asteroid K seemed like it might be that Groot island from Avengers Original Sin.
I can't believe that nobody has done this story before.
Well they did it with the Phalanx in Conquest.
It seems like a Slam Dunk of a story, so I’m hoping Hickman does it here
Especially with Groot being one of the residents of Asteroid X without being a mutant. I love the connections to his old work
I thought that was an evolved version of Black Tom
Could also be a physical manifestation of Krakoa
Asteroid K is part of Krakoa, likely a no-zone. The red Chimera/priest guy planted a black Krakoa seed to open a portal to there. Hence the name Asteroid K instead of Asteroid G. Also makes sense when you consider the original Krakoa was shot into space, so it could be that one. If HOX told us only mutants are allowed on Krakoa, that could easily be Black Tom in the future, given that he'll be appearing in the new X-line soon.
Asteroid K can be both Krakoa and Groot. The land is Krakoa, Groot is a tree on it. Hickman already established an asteroid in the future with a giant tree and that tree was Groot. It looks pretty much just like Asteroid K. Franklin Richards, an omega mutant, was on it too.
The tree guy may very well be Black Tom. But the tree at the center of the island would be Groot. I'm not talking about the tree guy. I'm talking about the actual tree.
It told us quite explicitly that non-mutants are allowed, actually. They have to be accompanied by mutants and approved by Krakoa. If he's accompanied by Franklin, Krakoa would certainly not object to Groot of all beings.
Sure, but what did we see? Asteroid K, accessed via black Krakoa seed, with only mutants on it. The likeyhood that it’s the related to Groot, especially given that Hickman’s FF is pre-Secret Wars and this is post, seems slim.
And a giant tree.
It wasn't FF, it was Avengers.
Secret Wars didn't change the future.
Hickman regularly builds on his previous work. The Bridge and Sol's Hammer were also pre-Secret Wars. They're mentioned in House of X.
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and yeah, I recall Hickman saying there will be no time travel in this story, but he can sidestep that if Moira is either a precognitive who can see the future, or is closely tied to someone who is (like Destiny). There has also been some preview art hinting at a stragne connection between Moira and Apocalypse, which would make sense if Apocalypse is the evolutionary gardener appointed by the celestials to ensure the ascendancy of the mutants, and Moira wants the same thing.
Re: being locked into a vision of the future it definitely fits into Hickman's obsession with Frank Herbert. I like the homage to Herbert's no-globes and no-ships, too.
Do you mind elaborating on the no-globes no-ships idea. Being a fan of Dune has me intrigued.
Yeah, I don't know where I got no-globes from... it's no-rooms. But anywhere, it's from the last three Dune novels (God Emperor of Dune, Heretics and Chapterhouse), where the Ixians (I think) develop technology that's invisible to prescience. And Siona Atreides is the final result of a breeding program where she herself is invisible to the God Emperor's prescience. Prescience and its opposite, unpredictability, seems to be a theme for this Hickman X-Men story, so it makes sense that he threw in his own version.
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To be fair, any long-running comic book character's biography looks insane if you compress it all and compare it to actual reality.
I'm continually amazed by Wolvie and Magneto's perseverance. To think that after all they've suffered, they're still out there fighting the good fight all those decades later.
Might not be Mags, could be a future Polaris’s kid because of the color of his outfit but I wouldn’t put it past Magneto outliving nearly everyone.
Or a chimera mutant made by Sinister who took the garb because he has similar powers?
He would fall in line with what we about the Gen 1 Sinister Pits, so he's just a veteran fodder
Do I have to read this to keep reading House of X?
Yes, the stories are supposed to converge into one larger narrative, and you will probably be missing details later on when HoX concludes, without PoX.
There is a scene following Mystiques return to Krakoa. It is brief but its clear that to get the full picture reading both is necessary.
The comics themselves say something like "two books, one story," so yes
You won't want to miss this.
Hickman is just reviving the relevancy of the X-Men more week after week.
SoChimera Rasputin has powers of:
Who is the third ? I can't recognize
She has a soulsword, hasn't she?
Bain refers to unus the untouchable 👍🏾
What does the abbreviated “FOFLD” refer to? Force Field I’m guessing?
thats what I assumed and force field and bain brought up unus, so I figured that made the most sense.
Yep, he legally changed his name to Bain when he moved to the States before he even became Unus the Untouchable. You can evem see a brief forcefield when shes fighting the Tank Sentinel
Oh, you're right. Thanks
I guess this means that Unus the Untouchable will show up in the present day story too.
Wondered this myself. Guessing it's someone they're going to introduce, in the story is set in 3 time periods.
I must be so bad at comprehending what's going on. I could only guess Colossus, Kitty and then Majik due to the sword. Do you (or anyone) mind elaborating?
Ok I'm guessing kid omega due to telepathy, but x23..
Don't just read the "comic", the images that is. Read the profiles too. It's in the one they explain the chimeras. There they explain the powers that went into the pool
So she has the Powers of 5 mutants, I'm guessing we're gonna see a chimaera with the Powers of 10 mutants
I think this will be too much. I think Cardinal and Rasputin bothare third generation, so their 5 powers together are Powers of X.
And also Powers of X stands for10 remain mutans on Anteroid K (two dead, now they are 8).
And of course for math power like that documentary.
Yes, But that would make a bit of sense. Its been established that the soulsword can transfer itself to Kitty if something happens to Illyana. if Rasputin has Kitty's DNA i guess its possible if there was no other kitty to go to it could head to her. Soul intertwined with the Xgene. hell i dont know im grasping at straws.
Ok, I just read HoX#1 and this one without having checked in with the X-Men for years. Is there a quick summary somewhere to get me up to speed?
It's kind of tricky since HoX/PoX are meant to be a new jumping point. While there are references to earlier X-lore, they're more for context rather than as necessary plot points.
Rather, one way to look at it is that Hickman's taking familiar concepts and refining them (like the definition of an Omega mutant, or the X-Men's history with dystopian futures), or if you're unfamiliar with those concepts, they're refined and so you don't really need to know what they were before, aside from the basics.
i read the whole latest Uncanny X-men run prior to it and it gives 0 context to what is going on in Hickman's run. I feel like the same is with other ongoings.
I guess the one thing that is nice to understand is that Xavier got his current appearance in the end of Astonishing X-men.
More like the middle. The third arc/paperback of 2017 Astonishing X-Men is bizarrely unrelated to anything of the two first arcs.
Reading Phoenix Resurrection might also give context to Jean coming back. And it actuallly got some neat moments of storytelling.
probably) Cause read the brief story from wiki and events with Xavier were in the end of an article so i thought that they had happened in the end of the run =)
Oh, I see. I recommend giving it a try, the first two paperbacks of Astonishing X-Men are a fun read!
depends where you dropped off. if you're familiar with the general contours of the Claremont run ( up to the jim lee era), AoA, Morrison's New x Men, House of M, AvX, and probably some of Brubaker's retcon of early x-history, you're in good shape. It helps if you got some of the Utopia era since that sets the modern parameters of most of the relationships, but Hickman seems willing to just flat-out ignore a lot of the most recent stuff. e.g. he seems to be using krakoa as a MacGuffin to heal or even resurrect mutants that have recently died.
Calling it now, all of this future stuff is actually a simulation being run by E.V.A./The World or maybe a cerebro-like entity that's attached itself to Professor X's brain in his new fantomex body. 'Moira' is really the personification of this system. I don't know much of anything about comic books and I've got no clue how it would work in the greater marvel comics mythology but I bet that's what's going on here, not time travel but all of this being a simulation of what Charles Xavier's "Dream" would truly look like and how it would take shape.
I like this
This was a super interesting, dense, meaty issue. I really enjoyed the intrigue of it all, but in the words of George W Bush, "That was some weird shit."
Does anyone know why 3 issues in the reading order are red?
I’m thinking it has to involve Franklin Richards, who was also marked red in one of the info dumps in HoX#1
Would be dope
I’m thinking they’re key issues. Meaning something very important will happen in those red issues.
In the beginning it said that that the Year One Hundred one was X2 but later when it’s introduced it says X1. Is it a misprint or is it intentional?
I think its a misprint
I mean, it's powers of ten. 101 = 10, 102 = 100. Either it was stated as X1 as a typo (more probable IMO), or it was some indication that maybe the scene wasn't really set in Year 100?
I am REELING from this book. It immediately called Cloud Atlas to mind even from that first page with Charles, Nimrod and the years the comic would span. More thoughts to come when I recover.
Official solicitation:
W: Jonathan Hickman
A: R.B. Silva
Check out last week's discussion of House of X #1 here!
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Well... bio-engenireed mutants, created to betray the other mutants is something I can totally see Sinister doing.
Infodump is never really cool, but the "not-info-dump" parts were good.
HoX still better imo.
I appreciate the info dumps but could see how others wouldn’t. Holy crap they’re dense though, I felt like I had to reread the info pages like 4 times.
Hickman is just great at creating really sophisticated stories. I was doing the same thing, asking myself if this is really as advanced as it sounds, when that kinda thing isn't always common in comics.
SalCen Khennil has got to be a reference to Salem Center, & I have a pretty decent idea on how the Human-Mutant Wars end, w/ the Machines most likely betraying Humanity in-exchange for Mutants. Nimrod & the Tri-Sentinel diaplayed some pretty fleshed out AIs, & we know Cardinal has some passive abilities. I strongly suspect he has Cypher's Language ability, allowing him to communicate & convince the machines to chill. Theres been a lot of AI Rights lately in the comics, specifically the current Iron Man Run & Karima is even acting on the Machines behalf in HoX
How is humanity NOT terrified of the robopocalypse with machines like Nimrod running around?
Cause theyre complacent, hence the extinction
I think in that future the frontier between humanity and machines is diluted. Karima was human and now she is acting as a machine. In the current comic of Iron Man Tony is unsure if he is human or IA in a biological body.
This reminds me of Dune for a few reasons. The drugs being used as political leverage. The scope of time. Selective breeding programs.
This is the kind of mind-breaking masterpiece stuff that we don't understanding but we will, (but also maybe not) later that Hickman is known for. I'm fully on board. I can't wait for the rest of this.
I haven't been following X-men. What's up with Red Nightcrawler? Or is it Azazel?
He’s a new mutant in the distant future biologically engineered using the DNA of other mutants
Thanks.
Specifically, he’s a “Cardinal” or a generation 3 outlier chimera- a genetically engineered mutant created by Mr Sinister on Mars with up to 5 different X-genes and a genetic defect making them pacifists to a fault (Jesus what even is that sentence?). It’s explained on one of the info pages midway through the issue.
Was it confirmed he was gen 3?
Edit: just reread i thought all the variants were from other generations.
Does anyone know why some upcoming issues are highlighted in red in the back of the book? House of X 2 is the first one highlighted red and then there are two more much later on in the run.
Someone mentioned this in a previous comment, but I imagine it will have something to with Franklin Richards' name being the only name highlighted in red on the Omega Mutant page in HoX #1.
I think it means humanity . Franklin is in red and he is in the human side, the solar hammer is in red and now it is under the control of Orchis.
Maybe HOX 2 is red because is an issue about a human ( Moira)
We won't know until we get there, but maybe they mean that certain plot threads will vanish for several issues, and those books are where those particular threads pick up again?
I've been a Hickman fan for years now, but I can kinda see where people were coming from when they complained that his Avengers run was too light on character and too heavy on exposition/world building. Most of the characters just kinda talk Hickman-speak.
He can definitely write good, compelling dialogue that oozes character, he did it a lot in his F4 and New Avengers runs.
I'm excited to see where this goes though, because I trust Hickman to make this interesting, but at the same time, I'm starting to think I might have preferred a story that's a bit more tight, personal and down to earth, more akin to Whedon's run. Having this be just another flavor of his Avengers run wouldn't be too exciting, even if I enjoyed that.
The biggest problem with Hickman's long-form storytelling is that, even on big franchises like Avengers and X-Men (or rather, especially on books like that), he's not immune to Marvel's constantly fluctuating status quo. This means that he's forced to alter his plans in order to keep up and it ends up making the story disjointed. Another problem that isn't noticeable when reading in bulk but can become an issue when it's a monthly/bi-weekly publication is his propensity for writing successive exposition issues where we learn a lot but little happens, which ends up slowing the momentum down a lot. New Avengers in particular suffered from this.
I feel like we'll get more of what you're looking for in the actual X-Men series that follows this (that he's writing). I don't like assuming what'll happen in this, but if my one assumption is correct, there's probably good reason we won't get much character development. Then again, it's still too early to tell.
I have no clue what’s going on I thought this would be a good time to get back into comics lol
I never thought I would say "I'm in love with Nimrod", but fucking Hickman proving me wrong as always.
I loved his little squee face when Omega let him do what he wanted
Man, this right here redefines the history of the X-Men
Ive followed X-men on and off for a long time. I have no clue what's going on, but hoping it gets explained more as time goes on.
From what I can understand, I love it.
I have the same feeling about this as I did about last week's, as a single, disconnected storyline, it is extremely compelling, but as a part of a shared universe and timeline, I like NOTHING about what this book is saying about the past, present, or future of mutants in the Marvel universe.
People gonna eat this up, but I didn't enjoy it at all. Struggled to fight through the boredom of it all.
Edit: Am I finally getting down voted for an unpopular opinion? It's a weird feeling, but I kind of expected it...
I think it's more to do with the "pLeBeS WiLL eNjOy tHiS; bUt I, aN iNteLLeCtUaL..." tone.
It’s why I downvoted
I suppose it does read like that. I just knew I was going to be the odd man out. Hickman is adored, I love his stuff normally, it's just this issue bored me to tears.
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I found FF boring, but this has gripped me.
While I didn't hate it was wasn't even close to last weeks House of X.
I just am not a huge fan of disjointed stories and this looks to have at least 4 running through it.
I'm sure it will all come together in the end.
Art was great and I hope we see this new "Rasputin" in our real/currant time line.
I think that's why doing the two books is a really smart idea. To set up this big a story they'd need to do this kind of big picture history lesson, but that would be boring as hell if it were truly the main narrative. They've also established that certain parts of the reading order will have things like House 2 weeks in a row, so they're aware that Powers is a little less engaging.
I'd love to see Rasputin and Cardinal. The designs for both are fantastic and I really enjoyed our time with them in this issue.
This is definitely the kind of book where I can recognize it's real good, but it just didn't click for me the way HoX did. Maybe too much going.
I can definitely see how this issue isn’t for everyone. It has the unfortunate task of introducing a lot of new stuff and not doing much else; it’s basically an info dump issue after last week’s stellar debut. I think it’ll read better later on, but it’s definitely a huge change of pace from HoX. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it (I loved it), but I can empathize with those who didn’t.