The long-term planning can be admired, as moments from the earliest chapters are reflected toward the end in a way that wasn’t previously obvious. The plot is there, but Hickman treats the X-Men as a cog in other events, not as an insulated microcosm, and over the opening chapters the priority is examining how the mutant community on Krakoa interacts with the wider world. The density was always obvious, but reading all Hickman’s post- House of X/Powers of X work in one run offers a completely different perspective. While it could be admired how casually Hickman throws in another mind-boggling notion, the impression given was that these were all that mattered to him, and the cost was the character interactions that had sustained the X-Men for years, and any sense of an ongoing plot. Hickman then wrote the core X-Men title developing those ideas, while other creators picked up on different aspects for separate titles featuring Marvel’s mutantsĪs individual issues, and even three trade paperbacks, Hickman’s vision for the X-Men stuttered because the ideas appeared prioritised above all else.

That set out a blueprint of the X-Men’s future, introduced several threats, and established a community open to all mutants on the island of Krakoa, connected to the wider world via transportation gates and offering an array of new florinic-based technology.

What he supplied was an innovative rebuilding of their world set over three separate eras introduced during House of X/Powers of X, mystifyingly absent from this Omnibus. In 2019 Jonathan Hickman was given free reign to re-imagine the X-Men and the world they occupied.

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