Uncanny X-Men: Past stories that will dramatically affect the series
By Mark Lynch
Image Source: Marvel Digital Comics
Losing and recovering the Mutant Gene
Stories: House of M, Messiah Complex, Second Coming, Avengers VS X-Men
It started with three words. In House of M, Wanda Maximoff said, “No more mutants” and 90 percent of the mutants lost their powers. This led to a ton of death in the mutant community and their enemies using this tragedy to try and finish off the rest of the mutants for good. Years later, the first mutant birth happened in Messiah Complex.
This ushered in a new hope for mutant kind. Cable brought the new mutant (aptly named Hope) into the future to help her make her own decision on how to live her life. She later came back in Second Coming (my favorite X-Men tale) and after a hard fight and some tragic deaths, five new mutants appeared in the world. A visit from the Phoenix Force and a fight between the X-Men and the Avengers (Avengers vs X-Men) and the Wanda and Hope restarted the X-gene and the mutants are reborn.
This extended period of time is the most important part of the mutant timeline. Comic books fans knew that there was no way that the X-Gene would be gone forever. Even though there was a long time with no new mutants popping up. Who knows what exactly will cause them to disassemble, but Beast will certainly bring up mutants losing their powers and Hope is too important to not be around.