Powers of X #1 is a look at the X-Men past, present and future. It comes right out of the House of X series so it’s a good idea to be reading both if you’re not already. With House of X being the present, we get to see a little bit of what happened after that issue ended, but we the main focus is on the future in this issue. With the Powers of X, the time line is basically to the power of ten. We start with year one, then the present is year ten, and two futures of year one hundred and one thousand. Is this future set in stone or can the present heroes change what is to come? We will find out as both series continue on.
Credits and Thoughts
Jonathan Hickman is the superstar writer that Marvel has brought in to re-invent the X-Man. The art work for this issue is provided by R.B. Silva with some of the inking done by Adriano Di Benedetto. The color artist is Marte Gracia. This is a must get series if you want to get in on the future of the X-Men. Who knows if some of this will be included when the X-Men finally join the MCU or how this story is going to expand. But if you are a fan of Marvel and the X-Men, you have to get this series. The artwork is stellar with new character designs and to characters all together. The story is awesome with a ton of information packed into the issue. Hickman again has the supplemental pages that you can’t skip that are just full of backstory. I’m excited for these next 10 issues of the two series. Then I understand there are six ongoing series that come after these two wrap up.
Powers of X – *SPOILERS*
We start with an explanation of what the powers of ten are all about. Year one being the past where Xavier has the dream for a mutant world. Then in year ten is the present we see in House of X. Year one hundred is the war between man/machine and mutants. Then year one thousand is the ascension of mutants and machines past the point where war is necessary. This issue is sectioned off with a peek at each time period. There is also a lot explained in the extra pages that you don’t want to miss.
Year One – The Dream
Xavier is at a fair when an unknown woman stops by the bench he is sitting on to have a chat. They share some small talk about the fair but we can tell she’s not just some random person. She talks about the fortune teller and the cards, the magician, the tower and the devil all have something to do with Xaviers dream of the future. We will see all of these play out in the future years. As they continue to talk we see that she already knows Charles and his dream. She tells him to read her mind and what he sees, surprises him.
Year Ten – The World
This section picks up with Toad and Mystique returning to Krakoa with the stolen information on a flash drive. Mystique brings the drive to Magneto and Xavier, but informs them that she had more demands before handing it over. Xavier takes the drive and tells her not to worry, he had extra demands of his own. Every one who live in this world he has built is going to owe something. We are not given what the actual demands are in this issue.
Year One Hundred – The War
There is a ton of information packed into the supplemental pages that I can’t go over it all. But we find four mutants battling a group of humans and machines. One mutant is dying and the other two are Chimera class mutants. We learn that Mister Sinister developed a breading program that combined mutant abilities and created super mutants. They were bred for combat abilities but some failures occurred, leaving mutants with passive abilities and temperaments. Rasputin has five major abilities that include telepathy, metamorphosis, force field, intangibility, and healing. The other Chimera is a failed attempt, called a Cardinal,that resembles Nightcrawler and is unable to commit violence. The last mutant is a hound, bred by machines to hunt mutants with a black skull that prevents telepathic control.
The group is attempting to get something and take it back to Asteroid K, where the remnants of Krakoa all reside. They lose the Hound to the machines but do return to a group of recognizable mutants, with the old man they reference presumably being Xavier. The four remnants are Wolverine, Magneto, Xorn and what appears to be Black Tom Cassidy in his evolved tree form. Other theories suggest that it’s old man Groot but we will have to wait and see for confirmation of who this character is.
Year One Thousand – The Ascension
The machines from year one hundred were taking the mutants they captured and suspending them in a liquid that reduced their mind into data. The data was stored in the machine’s computer to give them advantage in the war. This became the mutant library. In year one thousand we see an alien looking being that is apparently an mutant librarian. The librarian and the machine, Nimrod, are working together to preserve the record and the remnant of homo sapiens in the Preserve. There is a lot of biblical reference going on here with the Tower of Nimrod, and the preserve looking similar to a garden with two humans in it. So with all this ahead in the future, why give it to us in the beginning of the series? If we know what the results of Xavier’s dream are already, why not just focus on the future instead of the present? Well I have a crazy theory.
Crazy Theory
I’m not the best at predicting what is going to happen in a story. So this is probably so far off that we will eventually just forget I ever typed it. So, what if, the Powers of X are actually all past? What if that is what happened the last time the Earth was populated. So Nimrod and the Librarian are creating Earth again, hoping that humanity will learn from it’s mistakes. What if its like an endless loop where humans rise, evolve into X-Men, and destroy each other over and over? Ok, it is far fetched but I just had to get it out there. So who is the woman that Xavier was talking to at the fair? In my theory it could be the librarian in another form. Yes I know, still stretching. But its fun to imagine. The next issue of Powers of X come on August 14th.
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