It’s been two years since Marvel’s mutants changed forever.
In late summer 2019, writerJonathan Hickmanteamed up with artists Pepe Larraz and R.B.
Check that out below; hopefully it will assuage some of the sadness from Hickman’s coming departure.
The nation of Krakoa makes itself known to the world in ‘House of X’ by Jonathan Hickman and Pepe Larraz.Marvel Comics
That all changed withHouse of XandPowers of X, when Xavier finally changed his dream.
The X-Men stopped being superheroes, and became nation-builders.
In this case the answer was, for the most part, yes, which was good.
The nation of Krakoa makes itself known to the world in ‘House of X’ by Jonathan Hickman and Pepe Larraz.Marvel Comics
He absolutely blew me away.
I felt like I was following Jordan and Jonathan around New York going “what if this?
What if that?”
Professor X resurrects Cyclops with the help of the Five in ‘House of X’ by Jonathan Hickman and Pepe Larraz.Marvel Comics
BENJAMIN PERCY (writer,X-Force, Wolverine):Speculative stories often channel cultural unease.
What a noble goal.
It’s still simple heroism.
Apocalypse and other former villains arrive on Krakoa to accept amnesty in ‘House of X’ by Jonathan Hickman and Pepe Larraz.Marvel Comics
I knew it would challenge me and my own preconceived notions.
The elixir of life
X-Men characters never stay dead.
AL EWING (writer,S.W.O.R.D.
Apocalypse and Professor X set aside old differences in ‘House of X’ by Jonathan Hickman and Pepe Larraz.Marvel Comics
Like, you know, the restriction of death.
You shouldn’t die just for the hell of it because you know you’re gonna come back.
And the kids will say, well why not?
Apocalypse reveals his true motivation in ‘X of Swords: Creation’ by Jonathan Hickman, Tini Howard, and Pepe Larraz.Marvel Comics
What’s so bad about that?
There doesn’t really seem to be a good answer.
There’s been a lot of death!
The Shadow King has changed his ways on Krakoa…or has he? From ‘New Mutants’ by Vita Ayala and Rod Reis.Marvel Comics
A couple mutant genocides, even.
Death is not the shocking be-all, end-all.
It’s another conversation that we’re having.
Krakoa finds a place even for the haters and losers in ‘Hellions,’ by Zeb Wells and Stephen Segovia.Marvel Comics
Searching for forgiveness
The X-Men have always had a talent for converting their adversaries.
Magneto, originally introduced as the team’s premiere villain, spent years as headmaster of Xavier’s school.
This is another element of mutant mythology that has been heightened to a new level during the Krakoa era.
Krakoa finds a place even for the haters and losers in ‘Hellions,’ by Zeb Wells and Carmen Carnero.Marvel Comics
Why are they this way?"
That’s what I was interested in exploring with him.
He’s here on the island because he actually believes in the island, but he’s messed up.
Betsy Braddock and Kwannon come to terms with their body crisis in ‘Excalibur’ by Tini Howard and Marcus To.Marvel Comics
You shake him and you hear broken glass.
WELLS:Can people change?
If they can’t change, can they be forced to change?
Betsy Braddock and Kwannon come to terms with their body crisis in ‘Excalibur’ by Tini Howard and Marcus To.Marvel Comics
The mutant telepath Psylocke, a.k.a.
Betsy Braddock, started out as the English sister of Brian Braddock, a.k.a Captain Britain.
HOWARD:That’s something that we talked about from the very first X-meeting I was in.
Betsy Braddock and Kwannon come to terms with their body crisis in ‘Excalibur’ by Tini Howard and Marcus To.Marvel Comics
This was something I took really seriously, and had my nerves about.
But Zeb is incredible as a collaborator, he does such incredible work with Kwannon.
To show that there was a super interesting tragic character under all of that this whole time.
Kwannon works through her issues via unconventional telepathic therapy in ‘Hellions’ by Zeb Wells and Stephen Segovia.Marvel Comics
TheFallen Angelsminiseries had taken a great first step, digging into the tragedy of her assassin background.
I don’t think Betsy knows that, I don’t think she’s supposed to know that.
Betsy working through stuff was completely different, and she needed Kwannon to help her out of it.
The youth of Krakoa are reckoning with new ideas in ‘Way of X’ by Si Spurrier and Bob Quinn.Marvel Comics
It was based on guilt and complicated stuff.
That’s an experience I can write about.
No, white lady; get in your portal!
The original New Mutants have become mentors to the new kids of Krakoa in ‘New Mutants’ by Vita Ayala and Rod Reis.Marvel Comics
The kids are not all right
The X-Men have always been about the children.
So I wanted to know if the kids were all right.
Who’s driving this thing?
Orchis, the human answer to Krakoa, was unveiled early in ‘House of X’ by Jonathan Hickman and Pepe Larraz.Marvel Comics
They’re on paradise.
What would kids do on paradise?
They would get into trouble, I think.
Orchis, the human answer to Krakoa, was unveiled early in ‘House of X’ by Jonathan Hickman and Pepe Larraz.Marvel Comics
WILLIAMS:The Academy X kids in particular have always stuck out in my head.
I think they’re so fun, but they are also the single most traumatized generation of students.
AYALA:The New Mutants are young adults at this point.
Orchis is also fighting a culture war in ‘Way of X’ by Si Spurrier and Bob Quinn.Marvel Comics
They’re no longer children, they have full autonomy.
SPURRIER:Kids are very good at changing culture.
New ideas will always be adopted by young people before they’re adopted by adults.
Krakoan leadership discusses the formation of a mutant CIA in ‘X-Force’ by Ben Percy and Joshua Cassara.Marvel Comics
Well, there is that whole human world.
Honestly, it stings a little bit.
It’s also not a lie.
Krakoan leadership discusses the formation of a mutant CIA in ‘X-Force’ by Ben Percy and Joshua Cassara.Marvel Comics
DUGGAN:They’re the heroes of their story!
In another universe there’s a team book calledOrchis.
You’ll get to see it play out!
A new kind of mutant circuit was unveiled in ‘SWORD’ by Al Ewing and Valerio Schiti.Marvel Comics
There’s a few sneakily coded things in there if people want to go hunting for anagrams.
They would be holistic, they would have a holistic approach.
But none of them will be, this is the story where the X-Men fight and beat Orchis.
A new kind of mutant circuit was unveiled in ‘SWORD’ by Al Ewing and Valerio Schiti.Marvel Comics
It’s like fighting a war.
You don’t just see planes flying over there, fighting, and coming back.
It’s just one piece in the theater of operations.
Cypher expected to die fighting in ‘X of Swords,’ but instead found himself marrying Arakkii champion Bei the Blood Moon. Written by Tini Howard, art by Phil Noto.Marvel Comics
That’s the thing about being in the X-office: it’s the nicest war I’ve ever fought.
The great game of nations
And so, mutants have enemies right now.
Not in the way superheroes do, but in the way nations do.
Cypher expected to die fighting in ‘X of Swords,’ but instead found himself marrying Arakkii champion Bei the Blood Moon. Written by Tini Howard, art by Phil Noto.Marvel Comics
Nation-building isn’t even limited to Earth, because thanks to the S.W.O.R.D.
space program, mutants have begun asserting themselves in intergalactic politics as well.
PERCY:Krakoa is a nation, and X-Force is the mutant CIA.
Cypher expected to die fighting in ‘X of Swords,’ but instead found himself marrying Arakkii champion Bei the Blood Moon. Written by Tini Howard, art by Phil Noto.Marvel Comics
Beast is the head, Wolverine is the fist.
He’s been corrupted by the power bestowed upon him.
Xavier gave himcarte blanche, allowed him to do whatever needs to be done to protect mutantkind.
The swordbearers of Arakko starred on the cover of ‘X of Swords: Stasis’ by Pepe Larraz.Marvel Comics
They’re treating this like their last stand.
Beast views himself as a necessary bastard.
We’ve certainly seen that in our own country.
The swordbearers of Arakko arrived in ‘X of Swords: Stasis’ by Jonathan Hickman, Tini Howard, and Pepe Larraz.Marvel Comics
What I’m doing is playing with morality, right and wrong.
What’s appropriate, what crosses the line?
EWING:With the space stuff, I wanted to make space more coherent.
Magneto led a circuit of powerful mutants in terraforming Mars in ‘Planet-Size X-Men’ by Gerry Duggan and Pepe Larraz.Marvel Comics
And projects likeEmpyreallowed me to really reinforce that.
That’s where we’re at now.
This needs a little bit of work.
Magneto led a circuit of powerful mutants in terraforming Mars in ‘Planet-Size X-Men’ by Gerry Duggan and Pepe Larraz.Marvel Comics
The magic and technology of teamwork
The X-Men have always been a team.
But since the founding of Krakoa, mutants have taken these further with new formations called “circuits.”
Similarly, superhero comics are a very collaborative medium.
The X-Men unveil their new eco-friendly headquarters in ‘X-Men’ by Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz, and Marte Garcia.Marvel Comics
Even so, this kind of collaboration has also leveled up on the Krakoa X-books.
All of them describe it as an extremely positive experience.
I mean, the world was shit.
This even included non-feeling monsters like myself and Ben Percy.
PERCY:Collaborating with [X-Forceartist] Joshua Cassara has been a treat.
We text or call every day.
Early on, when we were brainstorming ideas, he said “Krakoa needs a watering hole.
Let’s figure this out.”
I riffed off that and together we created the Green Lagoon, which made its first appearance in X-Force.
He has an incredible artistic talent, but he also has a great storytelling mind.
We just whip ideas around.
We’re very much co-creators.
I ask him, what do you want to draw?
And he’ll give me, “what about this?
What about that?”
And we’ll make that happen.
It is a community.
Also we hang out there for fun.
There’s nobody more feral than Hickman, but I say that as a high form of praise.
I’m a millennial, so that means he has earned my deepest respect.
But that’s also not prescriptive at all.
If I say ‘hey I have an idea about Mars,’ they’ll bring it in.
But we all do have the things we love.
If someone needs to do something with tarot it’ll be “hey Tini!
EWING:I wanted to do something with mutant circuits, with an idea like The Five.
What’s an example of a mission S.W.O.R.D.
could do that’s not just defending against alien attack?
So, okay, they can bring something back from that.
Okay, what do we do with it?
It’s a power source.
They could offer it to people.
They could use it as a currency.
There’s a line in a recent issue: “We have always been a school.”
In-world, the mutants are constantly learning from each other.
You know, the X-Slack is a circuit of writers.
When is a swordfight not a swordfight?
Crossovers have been a regular occurrence in X-Men comics ever since 1986’s “Mutant Massacre.”
As with so many 2020 comics,X of Swordswas hit by big pandemic delays.
When I look at those issues, I feel like every panel has hands on it.
So we were kind of losing our minds together and making this book.
In a way I think it saved my year.
DUGGAN:That was occurring at a really hard time, obviously.
There was a lot of life happening.
For different reasons we borrowed Phil Noto fromCableto come in, so he did anExcaliburissue in there.
I thinkX of Swordsis a hell of a read in collection.
I’m proud of that collaboration.
It’s my favorite Apocalypse story.
HOWARD: Working with Phil Noto was insane for me.
He’s one of the great artists of comics.
And I lost my mind.
Phil draws the s–t out of a wedding.
So in my designs I put all the things that interest me.
And then you look for the references, so I looked at Egyptian and African art.
For the swordbearers, I got like one line each from the writers.
For Isca the Unbeaten, it was just, “she can’t lose.”
For Pogg Ur-Pogg, it was, “a monster.”
I really like Pogg because I love to draw giant animals.
Every chance I have, I draw giant animals.
“Draw whatever you want.”
Okay, then I’ll draw giant animals.
Here I went with a giant crocodile because of the Nile and Egypt, so it made sense.
I feel really proud of the cover of theX of Swords: Stasisissue.
It’s not very common that in a Marvel comic you have a cover with all the villains.
But this is all new characters!
DUGGAN:If you’re looking to follow the spine of our beast, that’s where Pepe is.
Where he goes, the direction of the whole monster goes.
A new way forward
The X-Men’s new golden age doesn’t just stop with Krakoa.
In this summer’sPlanet-Size X-Menone-shot by Duggan and Larraz, Magneto unveiled the most powerful mutant circuit yet.
DUGGAN:TheHellfire Galawas camouflage forPlanet-Size X-Men.
It was like a heist.
Obviously Pepe’s a special artist.
We wanted him to be able to flex like that.
Really the whole month of June was a flex for those artists.
LARRAZ:The thing is, it’s about time.
If I have enough time to do what has to be done.
I love the script from top to bottom, because it was weird and unusual.
It was an issue without a villain, without a fight, it was just beautiful.
When people ask me about the book, I say it’s a landscapes book.
It’s like a travel guide to Mars.
I think that it is important to lead by example there.
Those thoughts do turn into fiction in your head.
That’s sort of wherePlanet-Size X-Mencame from.
Even if you go back to earlier Marauders issues, we see Iceman bolstering the Arctic.
The treehouse is a nice way to visualize what could be possible, another way to live.
