X-Men: Jonathan Hickman’s new era is a gift and a curse

x-men Image Source: Marvel Digital Comics

Why changing Marvel’s X-Men is a good and a bad thing.

In April it announced last month that Jonathan Hickman would be starting two new X-Men comic books called House of X and Powers of X. Marvel.com added a description after the announcement saying, “Each series will be released on an alternate weekly schedule, starting with HOUSE OF X, followed by POWERS OF X. Fans will be able to follow along each week this summer and witness history unfold.” I previously wrote that was cliché but could be true. We recently found out that this statement was very true.

During an interview with comicbook.com, Hickman gave the lowdown on what’s happening to the X-Men.

"“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.”"

The current Uncanny X-Men run is currently being written by Matthew Rosenberg and started in November of 2018. It seemed like with every passing issue, the X-Men were losing more family and ground in the real world. So far, Wolverine and Xi’an quit the team, Wolfsbane, Strong Guy and Chamber were killed and it doesn’t look like these will be the last of their lost teammates. If Uncanny X-Men is being canceled and something new is coming, it makes sense to break them down so they can be built back up. This could be a great idea or it could go terribly.

Image Source: Comixology Digital Comics

The Good

Change can be scary. When I read this news and was afraid of what would happen to my favorite characters? Would Wolverine become someone different? After decades, Multiple Man was turned into a phenomenal character. Would he revert back into being just another being with superpowers (he’s technically not a mutant). What if they both die and never come back? With those worries, also came some reassurance. Both Wolverine and Multiple man weren’t always fun to read. This could be another improvement for them and other X-Men.

First off, a new era isn’t always a bad thing. Especially since Hickman knows how to write a series and keep the integrity of the characters. He took the Fantastic Four to new heights all while keeping what made the characters classics intact. He also wrote New Avengers and turned classic characters like Beast and Reed Richards and gave them improvements to their personalities. Ones we aren’t used to seeing from them. In the comicbook.com interview, Hickman also said,

"“One, House of X, is a story about a pivotal month in the history of the X-men where everything changes for mutants on Earth. And the other, Powers of X, is a story about the history of mutants in the Marvel Universe. It works as a series of reveals and revelations where each issue of HOX that follows POX — and vice versa — makes you reinterpret the issue you had previously read.”"

This sounds like an amazing idea. A pivotal moment with the X-Men could mean so much. We’ve seen mutants lose their powers, the X-Men have had their home destroyed, ran out of the country, and so much more. Hickman giving them another moment just adds to the deepness in the X-Men mythos. There is one Marvel Comics series that makes me worried about this series.