Thoughts on X: House of X #1

Look, I’m not the biggest X-Men fan out there. I’ve casually followed the Merry Marvel Mutants through the years, but I’ve not bought many books or even read many of the key story-lines. That said, I’m far from ignorant on the subject, just not in the hardcore audience. I say this just to set the table, to show that me adding ‘House of X’ and ‘Power of X’ (read as 10) to my pull list is no small thing, especially at a $6 cover price. To further show that Jonathan Hickman getting control of the franchise, and getting to do whatever he wants with it is a BIG deal. So yeah, I am buying these two books. Will I get any other X books as they launch? I have no idea. But I know I want to be here for these books. So here we are for “Thoughts on X”.

While reading each issue of these two books I will try and record some of my stream of consciousness reactions to what is going on. We will be trying to figure it all out. Why ARE all these covers littered with images that don’t make sense? We’ll see how this goes. My intent is to be spoiler free, we’ll see if that makes sense or not. Maybe it is a flop and we will just let it die. Maybe it will be great. Who knows? So onward, the first book: House of X, #1: The House that Xavier Built by Jonathan Hickman, pencils by Pepe Larraz.

OK – opening pages, very reminiscent of Hickman’s Avengers run. Assuming that character is who it seems to be, that’s interesting. Especially since I thought they were dead.

So, part of the advertising for these books is that it is a completely fresh start, that you need not read anything leading up to this. BUT, I really seems to be missing some backstory here here. Maybe everyone is lost at this point. Definitely helps if you know who/what Krakoa is. I do btw 😉

OK – so that seems to confirm the opening individual’s identity, but doesn’t explain the other opening images. Also, holy old uniform Batman.

OK – well THAT’s a thing…..but I’m still lost 😛

Every so often there are pages of the book that explain what characters were just taking about, so that’s nice.

Well that can’t be good. Glad they gave an explanation

Well mutants have sure gotten cocky. And all the dead ones are not so dead?

Well that was a declaration. They clearly have set the tone. Of course this is world changing stuff, but I doubt many other books will incorporate these events. Such is the trick of living in a shared world.

This issue has done its job. My interest is piqued, and they have really set it up for anything to happen. I am very interested to see what happens next and how the two books differ but integrate into a single story. Next time, Powers of X #1!