Clearly this is the transition from Act I to Act II in Hickman’s stated 3-Act play, no?
“Generally, one knows me before hating me” -Quicksilver
I'm here for it.
Exactly what I was thinking. Hickman has said in the past that everyone is exploring and playing with different concepts, then eventually they'll make a turn and move into a somewhat planned direction. I'm ready for Nimrod, Orchis, and Sentinel City to re-enter.
"Danielle... I intend to do something rash and violent." - Betsy Braddock
Krakoa, Arakko, and Otherworld forever!
Looks like X-Men is relaunching with Duggan taking over and bringing in some nice artwork with Pepe Larraz. Hope that he brings his Uncanny Avengers/Deadpool level game because I have not been feeling Marauders.
That was X of Swords, this feels more like an interlude.
Act I (Dawn of X) was about the Mutants finding their place in the global politics. Through the main X-men book, we explored the Island of Krakoa and found a sister species to the Mutants. Issue 5 of X-Men I think is one of the more important issues in that era, as it placed the Mutants and allowed them to show how powerful they are on the World stage.
Through books like X-Force and New Mutants, we were seeing the different enemies who were either underground militant groups or far right conspiracy theorists sites.
With Excalibur, we saw how Apocalypse was manipulating events to better suit himself. And from that, we got X of Swords, which was the Payoff to his manipulation while also bringing back the captain Britain Corps.
Act II (Reign of X) appears to be about expansion. We have Sword and now a new X-Men team. They've already found their home and now they want to reach out across other venues
We will see how those conflicts play out, SWORD have already had to deal with the King in black, and going by solicitations, they'll have to face Guardians of the galaxy at some point too.
The Hellfire gala appears to be a short interlude, transitioning one half of Act II into the other and allowing all the current comics to finish their storylines.
I'm expecting the next Act will be Fall of X, where we see the new dream fail. That will most likely be the shortest act, probably containing one big story that affects every title before the era cones to a close in a massive event.
This can also be an ending point for some books too.
Not super excited by these announcements I feel like the writers without a strong handle on their current books or casts of characters are consistently giving more assignments and I personally don't feel Williams, Howard, or the current crop of work from Duggan has elicited the kinds of big and innovative ideas this era requires. Of course this is subjective but Wells, and Ewing continue to demonstrate the ideas this era began and the only two writers who have Hickman beat in plot development, and character usages, their handle on character voices is superb and has even Hickman beat by a large margin.
All of this!
This is a very specific critique that ONLY seems leveled at POC writers especially given the number of subpar white writers that have been on the flagship X-titles in the last 10 years looking at you Fraction, Guggs, and Rosenberg. But specifically in this era Williams, Duggan, and Howard have all consistently turned in decent to mediocre work. Vita has not had half the high profiled characters on a consistent basis as her peers but has used her cast much better than Howard or Duggan and has a much better grasp of character voices than Williams....
Putting Vita on New Mutants was honestly the best thing for that book. Brisson wasn't gelling with it as well, but I think Vita has a direction they want to take it in. I do wonder how much of that comes down to Reis however, whose art is some of my favourite in this X-Men era.
Saying that, I look forward to what Vita has with New Mutants going forward.
It's stunned me a bit to see Hickman off the flagship bc it was selling a lot better than others. But then again the flagship book is demanded by fan service of characters which he did try but it wasnt satisfying. I hope he gets his freedom to write his own story that he started wirh HoX/PoX rather than writing some mainstream characters for fan service.
let's be honest any book Hickman in the writing is automatically going to be dubbed the flagship X title. Let's not forget that Marauders was also supposed to be the flagship title but people naturally gravitated towards Hickman because well why wouldn't you he was literally the author of his new era. Duggan I got a pretty good job writing a traditional X-Men book so it makes sense that he's probably going to be the one to take over the new team that becomes announced at the end of the Hellfire Gala. Well Hickman probably will write a book that continues to focus on World building but with a more concrete cast. Probably something to do with Storm.
I hope that at least one of these new books would be an antology-like series of short personal character-driven stories. Give me a story about Thunderbird and Warpath's reunion after so many years. Or a story about Icarus and what is he feeling now, being resurrected after he did everything to die, or what does he think about how his actions resulted in the death of so many other students, and how they think about him, and how Dust feels now; she blamed herself for his death back then. Or a story about Wither, Elixir, Wallflower and Mercury, and how they feel about each other now. Or even about Wither and Selene, or Selene and Blink - what does they think about living on the same island with a woman who saved their lives and then turned them into killers. Or a story about Blink and Generation X, about how she sacrificed herself to save their lives during Phalanx Covenant. Or about Generation X reunion to celebrate Synch and Skin's resurrection, or, given the events of recent X-Men #19, about Skin's feelings now that he is completely alone - rest of the gang aged up, and Synch now experienced centuries away from them and likely don't have any feelings left towards them.
All in all, I just want to see the characters react to the new world around them and their past with other characters. Otherwise bringing them all together to the same island and resurrecting everyone seems kind of pointless.
Some writers get that these meetings are important. The problem in general is that for fans and readers they are more important then for the people producing the actual comic. Mostly because often these scenes don't drive or influence the plot much at all. You then get "it happened off-panel".
Personally I would love character driven stories exploring the relationships between say the Generation X gang now that they are all back alive again.
Another problem is that some characters, probably Synch, are set up for other parts of the story. It then seems the thought process goes: well we have X or Y amount of space for Synch so lets focus it on things that will further his future plot. While from the outside it seems they could do both. Have a generation X reunion and then ship Synch away to what the future has in store for him. A ship that probably has sailed now.