State of the X-Books

[FlexionDynamo]

Just finished Decimation. Started on the Eternals, then need to figure out my path to the House of X paper back I have on my nightstand.
Prob. Civil War

[CTVampSlayer]

So I'm reading the new X-factor boom and loving it so far. 1 thing bothers me though. How is Northstar's husband allowed on the island?? Thought it was mutants only and as far as I knew he was human.

They made exceptions for Northstar's husband and Jubilee's adopted son. IIRC the rule is that humans can come to Krakoa as long as they are chaperoned by mutants.

[MarvelLegendsMan]

Does anyone know where one can find a spoiler-free reading order for Hickman X-Men post PoX/HoX?

[Samael13]

I think these two more or less covers everything through X of Swords? They also have the Empyre and King in Black events, which include the X-Men books a little, so you might end up wanting those, as well.
https://marvelguides.com/dawn-of-x-reading-order
https://marvelguides.com/x-of-swords-reading-order

[TFitz]

Just read Planet-Size X-Men that they made such a big deal about...

Spoiler! :

So just a few months ago we suddenly had millions more mutants on Earth due to Arrako. This just seems like someone said "We have no [email protected]#$ idea what to do with all these." and another person just said "Toss them on another planet so we can forget about them." "Brilliant!" says another person. [email protected]#$ stupid IMO.

[TheSameIdiot]

I was pretty blown away by Planet-Size X-Men. It was one of my favorite issues of the year, at least. But I am a sucker for new powerful mutants, Magneto doing cool shit, and Hickman-inspired ideas.

I'm still reading Cable, Hellions, Marauders, New Mutants, SWORD, Way of X, X-Corp, X-Factor, X-Force, and X-Men.

I dropped Children of the Atom, so it joins Fallen Angels, Excalibur, and Wolverine on the shortlist of current X books that didn't make the cut.

I'm meh about Marauders, New Mutants, and X-Corp right now, so I'm playing those titles by ear.

[CTVampSlayer]

I was pretty blown away by Planet-Size X-Men. It was one of my favorite issues of the year, at least. But I am a sucker for new powerful mutants, Magneto doing cool shit, and Hickman-inspired ideas.

I'm still reading Cable, Hellions, Marauders, New Mutants, SWORD, Way of X, X-Corp, X-Factor, X-Force, and X-Men.

I dropped Children of the Atom, so it joins Fallen Angels, Excalibur, and Wolverine on the shortlist of current X books that didn't make the cut.

I'm meh about Marauders, New Mutants, and X-Corp right now, so I'm playing those titles by ear.

Agreed, Planet Size was cool af to me. I love seeing the mutants finally get to flex instead of constantly being on the verge of extinction. The whole Krakoa era has been such a great time so far, definitely going to end up in my top 3 X-Men runs when all is said and done. I dropped Children of the Atom, Wolverine, and Cable, but am still reading the rest. Excalibur is still pretty bad but I still want to know what's happening to those characters.

[Mannie_Bothans]

The announcement of Hickman leaving really sours my excitement for the X-Books. I'm gonna still hang around (I'm pulling so many books lol), but the whole reason I bought in back in 2019 was because of Hickman.

I really hope one day he gets to revisit his original plans. There are so many story seeds planted that will not be paid off during Inferno. It's kind of a bummer. Still, this whole experiment has been a success because I'm invested in X-books for the first time in over a decade.

[TheSameIdiot]

Agreed 100%. I understand why Marvel wants to keep this as the status quo for a while. Whether you like it or not, it's a fresh spin on the X-Universe. I hope Hickman eventually returns to finish the story he set out to tell.

[supreme-d]

I’ve read all of Xmen, Xforce, Xfactors, Hellions, and the occasional issue of Marauders, Excalibur, and Wolverine. Nothing has really impressive has happened in these books since Powers of X. I feel like I’m still waiting for the pay off when it comes to this Sentinel situation. I guess the Apocalypse reveal was neat, but the tournament was dumb and as much as its cool to get some motivation behind his character, I dont know that it really paid off the way it should have.

Way of X is was pretty good while it lasted though. Sad to see it go.

[KnightDamien]

I stopped reading everything X-related, including even my usually beloved Wolverine solo, around the end of the 'Swords' storyline. The whole thing has been a [email protected]#$ stupid waste of time, in my opinion. It's an X-Men Kitchen Sink event. Just do everything and nothing at the same time and see if people react to any of it, without ever giving any payoff to anything or having anything mean anything and everything is just as confusingly stupid as it's been for a decade.

I really hoped this soft reset on the X-verse would clean everything up, make it easier to follow, and allow for some engaging stories of our favorite characters. It's done none of those things and has probably been the greatest disappointment I've had in my time as a fan of comic books.

Edit: Also.. Hickman is over-rated and I honestly don't believe he had any idea where to go with this from the beginning. He's leaving NOW, sure. But it's not like under his direction this entire thing hasn't been a gigantic, convoluted mess. What Hickman had was ideas. Not a story. Really important difference.

[maverick10126]

I dropped this a while back, just too many books to keep up with and frankly it wasn't holding my interest one issue at a time. I've been thinking about going through it again in tpb format but yeah....this just wasn't really holding my attention. House/powers was great. I really loved that....but my impression of Dawn of X was a directionless story.

I'm not sure what to make of Hickman honestly. I really liked his Avengers run....however Secret Wars was a mixed bag for me. It was initially confusing....then started to come into foucs...but then I felt a little lost as to what happened with Marvel comics after. I'm a DC guy primarily and I'm used to more concrete resets but apparently Marvel does them softly every few years just to put out some new #1 issues?

I'm slowly working on Hickman's FF run...but that's the key. Slowly. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet but I definitely feel like Hickman is a little overrated. I'm not hating it, but I'm not hauling through it like I did his Avengers story, or other books from other writers.

It's an unfair comparison but when I sat down to read Grant Morrison's X-Men run it grabbed me. When I read Giant Sized X-Men and worked on going through those books from the 70's I was hooked.

Hickman it seems had a great pitch for a stand alone story and very little idea after that. I think he knew this from that start but couldn't bounce right away. He had to go through the motions of making an effort.

[Samael13]

I have to say, I more or less agree; I found the HoX/PoX setup interesting, but I I felt like there wasn't enough payoff and that there were hints being dropped that I wasn't convinced were actually going to go anywhere. It's been two years, and, as far as I can tell, there's still been no real resolution to the "Professor X seems sketchy" bits, and we're just finally getting to the "why can't precogs be involved; what are they hiding?" part, but only in the sense that Mystique is finally going ballistic. It just feels like it's *all* been planting seeds, and very little letting those seeds bear fruit. I like some of the designs/redesigns and the promise a lot more than I've liked the results, I guess.

[maverick10126]

It's LOST. Intriguing first season....then the mysteries pile up faster than the answers come...and the answers that do come start getting weaker and weaker.

[wraith1701]

It's LOST. Intriguing first season....then the mysteries pile up faster than the answers come...and the answers that do come start getting weaker and weaker.

Yep. And I don’t blame Hickman.

Before HoX/PoX, my only exposure to Hickman was his run on Avengers/New Avengers. And it was awesome. His run marked the first time in my adult life that I gave the slightest crap for an Avengers title. Not only did the guy display a masterly grasp of the Slow Burn, he struck me as a writer genuinely in love with Marvel lore, going back to at least the 80’s.

Best of all, he had A PLAN.

With The X-Men relaunch, it was evident to me that the guy had a huge story in mind, and I was intrigued by the seeds he was planting. Unfortunately, it appears that rather than follow his plan, editorial decided to take what he started and farm it out to different writers who had no idea interest or desire of following his roadmap. The result: a bunch of titles meandering around with no endgame in mind, destined to be either cancelled or rebooted.