X-Men #1 is a burst of optimism in a remade universe
The Scott Summers and Family Show is a total joyBy Oliver Sava
This is the brave new world of Dawn Of X, Marvel’s branding for six new titles spotlighting different aspects of mutant life on Krakoa and beyond. The story begins with this week’s X-Men #1, written by Hickman with art by Leinil Francis Yu, inker Gerry Alanguilan, and colorist Sunny Gho. And after months of tearing up the foundations of the mutant world, the biggest surprise of the issue might be how fun it is.
PREVIOUSLY, ON X-MEN
Jonathan Hickman has created a paradise for Marvel’s mutants with his run on the X-Men comics, beginning in July with the companion miniseries House Of X and Powers Of X (read as “Powers Of Ten”). Working with the all-star team of artists Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva, colorist Marte Gracia, letterer Clayton Cowles, and designer Tom Muller, Hickman has redefined life for mutants over the past three months, telling a centuries-spanning story of an oppressed people doing whatever it takes to avoid inevitable suffering.
For decades, X-Men comics have rehashed the same ideological conflicts with slight variations. Grant Morrison’s run in the early ’00s was revolutionary in how it explored the ways mutant culture diverged from humans, but then Marvel wiped out the mutant population and erased all that progress. Hickman starts his X-Men story by going even further than Morrison, giving mutants their own safe, sacred space to reach their full potential as a people. How does this all happen? Moira X, a revived and retconned Moira MacTaggert, who is now a mutant with the power to resurrect and relive her life from the same birth point.
