The following first appeared in the ComicsXF newsletter. You can get early access to our editorials, a roundup of the week’s best content and get to know the members of the ComicsXFamily by subscribing right here:
As first reported by Entertainment Weekly, it appears that “Head of X” scribe Jonathan Hickman isn’t contracted to do monthlies, and Marvel is pulling him to work on something else until the X-office is ready for the next event.
“After Inferno, I’ll be leaving to go work on my ‘Next Big Marvel Thing™’ and starting in January the X-line will rocket forward starting with a weekly series that leads into the very cool, refocused, line of books,” he told the magazine.
(He’ll also be pretty busy launching his Substack project, 3 Worlds, 3 Moons, but we covered that last week.)
As J-HiX prepares to go on a Krakoan hiatus, it’s a great time to reflect on where we are with the current era of X-books.
I maintain my faith in the X-office, an enormous glut of talent that includes some of the most talented writers and artists working in comics today. The question is going to be, in “refocusing” the line, whether the stories can carry the same narrative forward motion and weight of House of X and Powers of X (HoXPoX). Can the team fulfill the expectations readers generally have for the plot points seeded for the long-term future?
Those hoping for a “Hickman has a master plan” situation may see his departure/hiatus as structural failure. We expect Hickman runs to have a strict timeline like we saw in Fantastic Four and The Avengers leading up to Secret Wars, but it’s important that we remember this is no longer a Hickman solo project and never really was to begin with.
This is a collaborative X-office that has expanded on those original ideas in ways that Hickman probably could never have predicted. Each writer has gotten to pitch their own corners of the island, so to speak, and evolve the Krakoan concept into its current form. I think it’s reasonable that there will still be story points that will be hit, but it’s also reasonable to expect that the X-office will continue to take the Krakoan era to new places, world-building in exciting new ways. Look no further than Planet-Size X-Men #1 from Gerry Duggan and Pepe Larraz.
However, for this to work as a narrative moving forward, there still has to be some kind of master plan. With the exception of Fallen Angels, the Dawn of X launch felt cohesive as a line from X-Men #1 through X of Swords: Destruction. Since then, we’ve seen some additional swings and misses that are making the current state of the line feel a little rocky. I am a huge fan of both Tini Howard’s and Si Spurrier’s work, but X-Corp and Way of X are both books that don’t feel akin to the rest of the line. And while I appreciate there being variety (a book for each kind of reader), the overall story of our mutant heroes does require a cohesiveness that those books aren’t providing.
Also worth keeping in mind are the ways in which this ongoing story is at the mercy of the corporation that is publishing it. While Disney is usually content to allow Marvel some freedom in return for being a multibillion-dollar IP farm, books are going to live or die by sales, interest and company support. X-Factor‘s quick cancellation to promote a standalone miniseries with a legacy title (Trial of Magneto) is a great example of the way any of these books could end in a heartbeat.
To Senior Editor Jordan D. White’s credit, he said from the beginning that books would launch and end as it was felt they served the larger story. As long as the X-office keeps that larger narrative in their minds as the line continues to evolve, it won’t lose the core threads of what makes this era so bold and interesting.
The danger, even just two or three years into this project, is simply allowing HoXPoX to be another flash-in-the-pan landmark in the history of a franchise whose concepts remain stagnant. HoXPoX served as a bold new direction, but the Powers of X angle promised readers endpoints that can’t be forgotten about, like Moira’s possible 11th life or the Phalanx hivemind. These are the exciting kernels of sci-fi that make the promise of the Krakoan era so exciting. I fear a scenario where the X-office dissolves slowly over the next decade and a completely different writer is ultimately tasked with wrapping up these plot points. A fear which is extremely possible given the wonky nature of comics publishing and work-for-hire at Marvel.
Is it reasonable to assume the resolution to HoXPoX will arrive before Marvel scraps the line for its inevitable alignment with the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Is it reasonable to even expect a conclusion to a piece of serial storytelling that’s not ever supposed to really end? There are so many variables at play here, and the uncertainty is incredibly frustrating.
It’s worth noting that any guesses about what’s to come are sheer speculation. X-Men graphic designer Tom Muller tweeted a “You have no idea what’s coming” gif in response to the EW interview. And he’s right. As painful as it may be to see what the new secret plans are for the future of a story we’re all invested in, we have no idea what is going to happen. It’s important to note that after HoXPoX and several key issues of X-Men like “The Crucible” (X-Men vol. 5 #7), Hickman has not been doing the heavy lifting for this line. But that doesn’t mean his involvement wasn’t vital in leading to where we are now.
I am going to continue to trust in the immense talent of the X-office to explore Krakoa, Arakko and Otherworld, and hope that the forces-that-be don’t cause this wonderful era to get sucked into a singularity.
Adam Reck is the cartoonist behind Bish & Jubez as well as the co-host of Battle Of The Atom.
