X-Men In General

Okay, so Powers of X #4. Kind of a breather episode, but also...well...

It's called "Something Sinister" and Mister Sinister is, of course, the highlight. I think we kind of needed a break like this after the last issue, because there are no scenes in the "present day."

Instead, we look at Year One, where Xavier and Magneto travel to Bar Sinister to talk to Minister Sinister about him collecting a library of DNA and convincing him to make it a library of mutant DNA. And Hickman's Sinister is fabulous, complimenting Magneto's cape and wanting a cape of his own. When Sinister rejects their idea of collecting mutant DNA, another Sinister (WITH A CAPE) kills him and reveals that he's the Sinister who is also a mutant. Kind of. Because Mister Sinister lies a lot. The scene ends with Xavier basically making Sinister forget they were even there until they need him to. And then there are a bunch of pages of "Sinister Secrets," gossip that is either lies or foreshadowing of storylines to come.

In Year Ten ("a few months ago," actually, so still not the present), Xavier introduces Cypher to Krakoa. And we get more of a backstory on Krakoa — it used to be a single island named Okkara, but it was split in two (Arrako and Krakoa) by an invasion from beyond. The invasion was pushed back by Apocalypse and his original Horsemen, but they had to send the other island over to the other side, making Krakoa alone. It's all very fantasy heavy, but cool. Xavier reveals his plans telepathically to Cypher and Cypher works on getting a Krakoan system up and running.

In the Year One Thousand, one of the Elders talks to the Phalanx and has their assimilate their "seer-self," a robot with their mind uploaded, since the Phalanx apparently only eat machine minds and can't upload biological ones. The issue ends with them waiting to see if the Phalanx find it acceptable.

THEN: SOCIETY

NOW: FOR THE CHILDREN

Edited by alliterator on Sep 11th 2019 at 6:30:55 AM

Did this campy, fabulous Sinister start with Kieron Gillen? If so, I'm glad Hickman carried that one over because he's great. It's also worth noting that the final SINISTER SECRET! is Sinister being aware that Xavier wiped his mind but is keeping quiet about it.

both Sinister and Krakoa are hyping us up for the First Horsemen. Other nice little details are that Black Tom Cassidy is on Krakoa defense (which makes perfect sense) and that Forge is definitely totally working on super-secret stuff at Krakoa.

I feel spoiled because Cypher is my favorite X-character and he got a third of the issue dedicated to him. It seems with his mutant-machine fusion that he may be a "solution" to the issue in Year 1000.

This one was a lot less exciting than the previous few issues, but there's clearly a need for setup after last week, and next week is a BIG RED issue, so should be important.

Sinister's always been camp — his name is Mister freakin' Sinister, after all — but yeah, Gillen is the one that turned it up to eleven and made him super glam. And I am super glad that Hickman took that and ran with it. It also reminds me of his appearance in Hickman's Secret Wars — "Ah, the law. How trashy."

So, is there anyone who can provide an analysis of the Sinister Secrets? My X-Men knowledge is a bit too limited to decipher them.

No clue about the first secret.

Secret 2: I don't know this one for sure—there was a Jumbo Carnation, who was a mutant fashion designer in Morrison's New X-Men who was assaulted by humans (and killed from a drug overdose)

Secret 3: "deceased redheaded pretender" likely refers to Madelyne Pryor, Sinister's clone of Jean Grey. Her alias was Goblin Queen before she died during the Inferno crossover.

REVEALED! John Proudstar was one of the "all-new, all-different" X-Men (with Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Sunfire, Banshee and Nightcrawler) at the beginning of Chris Claremont's run. He died very early on in that run, in an airplane explosion. I'm not sure if the body were recovered. His younger brother is James Proudstar / Warpath from X-Force.

Secret 5: "Best there is at what he does" is Wolverine. "Married with a child", I'm not sure about. I wondered if it were Madelyne Pryor (Scott's first wife and mother of his child, Nate / Cable) or Jean Grey (who raised Nate in a complicated storyline), and Jean's husband is Cyclops. Cyclops and Emma Frost had a...psychic affair in New X-Men, so that could explain the comment "But who is he to point the finger?"

Secret 6: Progeria is a condition where symptoms of aging occur at a very early age; people who have it don't typically live beyond their 20s. This is a guess, but in New X-Men there was a character Ernst who appeared to be an elderly woman with the height and behavior of a small child. She is actually a rehabilitated form of the villain Cassandra Nova, who is Charles Xavier's twin sister. Hickman used "gifted" to refer to the original 5 X-Men in HOX #2, but I think the use here is just referring to the X-Men in general.

Secret 7: Havok and Cyclops (Alex and Scott Summers) are brothers, and their origin story involves their father (Air Force pilot Christopher Summers, a.k.a Corsair of the Starjammers) throwing them out of an airplane with a parachute to save their lives from an attack (actually by the Shi'ar). Their mother was killed by the Shi'ar. Sinister made vague hints to a 3rd brother back in the 1990s. In 2006's X-Men: Deadly Genesis, it was revealed that there was a third Summers brother, Gabriel a.k.a Vulcan. Vulcan went on to conquer the Shi'ar for revenge on his mother's death. He's been mentioned in data sheets in HOX #1 and is on the cover of the first issue of the Hickman's upcoming ongoing X-Men.

Secret 8: The "fittest-of-all" is Apocalypse, who is always going on about survival of the fittest. He always has four Horsemen, named Death, Famine, War, and Pestilence. The first time we meet him, Angel became Death (now Archangel).

Secret 9: I'm guessing the couple in question is Jean Grey and Cyclops. Jean Grey died near the end of New X-Men in 2003. It was only this year at the end of Rosenberg's Uncanny X-Men that they finally reunited (and were both alive. Long story.).

REVEALED 2! Inferno was a crossover event of late-1980s X-books. Among other things, New York was overrun by demons, Jean Grey's clone became evil, and Colossus's sister Illyana / Magik gives into her demonic side.

Secret 10: I believe this is Sinister saying he's aware that Xavier brainwashed him in this issue and is playing along, likely for malevolent reasons as usual.

Edited by flawlessvoid on Sep 12th 2019 at 12:58:57 PM

I love the continual usage of Magneto's helmet to (de)humanize him in any given panel.

"A sad little man in his sad peasant suit" Campy Sinister is great and also it's now my headcanon that this was the sole impetus for why Xavier switched over to the bodysuit for HOX.

"[00.00]_Lies" I'm guessing this means the Sinister Secrets are true in some manner

Campy Sinister is best Sinister.

Logan sing along from Reddit ◊

Double post:

Read House of X #4 again, and actually saw the part about Wanda being referred to as a pretender.

Not only that, in a list of humans who committed crimes against mutants, she's listed along with dudes like Trask, Graydon Creed, and Cameron Hodge.

I mean, yikes. There's no denying what Wanda did was horrible, but she was also unintentionally insane when it happened (and also didn't The Childrens Crusade reveal it was really Dr. Doom's fault).

To say nothing of her helping to reverse that in Avengers Vs Xmen too.

That is grotesque.

There's a point where "can you blame them? The mutants are just trying to guarantee their survival in a world that hates them" loses some of its touch. And its when they do stuff like this, and have apparently every single mutant believe they are superior to humans.

I just want to point out that we don't know who made the data pages. Whether or not they were made by Moira or Xavier or even Apocalypse, we don't know.

In addition, nobody has done anything to Wanda except lump her with the other people who killed mutants. Which she did. She killed a ton of mutants, even if it wasn't "technically" her fault.

It's just....once again, Wanda had been driven mad by outside forces (or whatever, I know Doom had something to do with it apparently), and was neither deliberately trying to harm mutants or pretending to be a mutant.

And again, unlike many of these dudes actually undid the mess she caused alongside Hope in Av X.

It's true that we don't know who made that list, but it still feels like she's seen as Not So Different from those guys: another human who's killed a lot of mutants (ignoring that a sane Wanda would never do that, even if her not a mutant reveal had happened sooner).

Anyway, right now Hickman is messing with us. We all know the Xmen are gonna be good guys in the end, and all this stuff going on is just to shake us up. It's working too.

Yes, I don't know if we are supposed to be rooting for Xavier right now. What we do know is that both Moira and Xavier were traumatized (HOX #2 says they were each "radicalized") by the repeated failure of attempts to protect mutant survival. While we are led to empathize with the cold hard numbers of mutant deaths / depowerings recently, we're also supposed to think that something is still awry and the data pages show that. The data page as propaganda against Scarlet Witch is a perfect example of that.

And it's not like Xavier has been the "noble high ground" exemplar either in the past.

I wonder if we'll finally get Moira VI tomorrow in HOX #5. Clearly something happened between Moira V and Moira VII, from "Let's isolate ourselves in a community" to "All Trasks must die horribly".

Edited by flawlessvoid on Sep 17th 2019 at 11:09:29 AM

I see Dr. Trask is still getting the blame for things other people did with his robots long after he was dead, too.

I mean, he did still build the robots didn't he?

Edit: Right. Read up on things. While he did build the robots, he was not an anti mutant bigot. He did believe there was a threat, but only wanted a way to keep them from potentially taking over the world (thanks Erik) and willfully sacrificed himself to stop the Sentinels when they became a greater threat....then was revived by Bastion using the Transmode virus and is NOT happy when he finds out that his actions turned him into a martyr for every anti mutant bigot in existence and that he's indirectly responsible for many deaths.

No wonder he shot himself in the head after that one.

So yeah, Trask gets the short end of the stick.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Sep 17th 2019 at 9:36:17 AM

Writers and fans alike seem to do this with any character who can even remotely be connected to Mutant suffering. A lot of Storm fans hate Forge for getting her depowered while ignoring that the device he built was supposed to be used on the Dire Wraiths not mutants.

Okay, House of X #5. I suspect that this one is going to be a controversial one.

It turns out that Xavier can resurrect any mutant he wants after death — by using five mutants and their different powers: Goldballs (whose balls are apparently "eggs" made of unviable biological material), Proteus (who can warp reality to turn that unviable material viable), Elixir (after they inject a mutant's DNA into the egg, Elixir kickstarts cellular replication), Eva Bell (who speeds up time so that the body of the mutant grows quickly), and Hope (who is able to harmonize all of the other's powers together to make it all work optimally). All of the X-Men who died in the last issue come back and yes, it is the first scene from the first issue, with Xavier going "To me, my X-Men."

And then we see why he has Cerebro on his head: because it contains a copy of every mutant mind. (A data page later explains that he essentially "updates" those minds every week so that they have all the requisite memories they need.) He puts those minds into the bodies that the five mutants created and suddenly those X-Men are alive again. There is a big celebration, the five mutants are pretty much worshiped by the others for conquering death, and Xavier and Magneto discuss the UN vote tomorrow.

The next day, the UN has pretty much agreed to Krakoa's demands, with a little help from Emma Frost. Xavier thanks her and tells her that he has big plans for her.

Two days after that, Wolverine, Magneto, and Xavier open up a portal in Krakoa for other mutants...villainous mutants. A ton of (former?) villains walk through and into Krakoa, including Mister Sinister, Exodus, and Apocalypse. Apocalypse comments that he knows Krakoa and fought a war here a long time ago. When Wolverine asks if there's going to be a problem, Apocalypse says that he's actually proud of what they've accomplished. Xavier has him say the words, "One people. From this day forward" and then welcomes them to Krakoa. "Welcome home."

THEN: FOR THE CHILDREN.

NOW: I AM NOT ASHAMED OF WHAT I AM.

Some notes:

The data pages show that Proteus's power is still too much for his physical body, which only lasts a week before they have to grow him a new one. Sometimes it only lasts a day, if he uses his power too much. Also, the biological material they use is Xavier's himself, so...I'm not so sure this is Proteus at all?

The data pages also show that, if they push it, they could resurrect 30,000 mutants a day, but that would tax all of them, especially Xavier. They are still trying to resurrect everyone killed in the Genoshan genocide, however. There is also the issue that they have to "confirm" a mutant's death before they resurrect them, which might be a problem later on.

Also, since these are new bodies, I'm not sure why Cyclops still needs his visor or if Wolverine still has his adamantium claws.

Also, there is a list of countries that did not accept the drugs from Krakoa. Wakanda is listed in red, with the words "THEY DO NOT NEED MUTANT DRUGS."

Also also, the last pages with the code also have the code "xx_orbis_06." Which...might mean we're not in the 10th life like we thought, but Moira's 6th life?

Edited by alliterator on Sep 18th 2019 at 3:05:07 AM

As for the next issue blurb codes, I don't see any clear connection to Moira's lives. I went back to look at how the "next issues" were labelled starting from HOX #1:

POX #1: os_orbi__00

HOX #2: xx_orbi__04

POX #2: os_orbi__0x

POX #3: os_apoc__00

HOX #3: xx_orbi__04

HOX #4: xx_orbi__05

POX #4: xx_orbi__05

HOX #5: xx_orbi__06

POX #5: xx_orbi__06

HOX #6: xx_orbi__06

POX #6: (we'll find out next week)

"orbi" makes me think of Latin orbis (world). The issues labelled "os_" involve Moira IX and Apocalypse in the Year 100 timeline, but that's all I can see.

Edited by flawlessvoid on Sep 18th 2019 at 7:23:56 AM

(double-post) As for the actual issue:

Again, more hive-mind examples with Hope's resurrection team and mutant community over mutant individual.

We knew the dead from last issue would be resurrected, and that doesn't bother me at all. It's nice that Hickman spent a lot of time to convince the cast (and us) that they are "real". I thought the Cyclops / Storm two-panel reunion was really good. (Almost makes Uncanny X-Men #201 seem really good.)

I am amused that 1) Goldballs ended up being essential to the resurrection process, and 2) apparently you need to parade around Krakoa naked in triumph? Can you at least wipe the pod juice off of your body first? The Scenery Censor tropes are in full swing here.

the reveal of Apocalypse and Xavier shaking hands isn't too surprising, even if it is (intentionally) off-putting. We could guess the series was heading towards "Mutants take care of their own" and "Mutants are subject to mutant laws" from how Sabretooth's been handled. It's also noteworthy that only Wolverine (not Cyclops, Jean, etc.) was present at the villain arrival.

What's interesting to me is how Hickman will handle this resurrection ability. We need a viable story so it can't go on forever; I mean, death has to mean something in-story to the characters, at least. I don't mind resurrection powers if it puts some mutants in circulation (and moves us beyond the pall of "verge of extinction"), but it has to be temporary.

Can anyone ID the villains arriving? I make out Random, Wildside, Sinister, Lady Mastermind on the top panel; who are the other three? On the bottom panel I can see Emplate, Selene? (with the skull), Exodus and Callisto with the eyepatch, but who is the person on the far left (EDIT: Sebastian Shaw?), and the person with the red face paint?

Edited by flawlessvoid on Sep 18th 2019 at 9:50:01 AM

This is getting very cult like.

os could stand for operating system? Idk if it means anything other than tying to the machines

Well there goes my assumption that it was mainly Sinister at work with these pits and pods. Though the mentions of designer modifications being an open possibility still leaves the room open for him to do his stuff.

Now I'm really wondering what the hell Mystique was doing on this mission because it seems like she didn't really contribute anything.

This thing with Cerebro and copying the mind reminds me a lot of the discussion on the Elder in POX 4; he couldn't be integrated into the Phalanx because so he made a copy and had that uploaded instead to find a way to circumvent, so I think there's probably some catch with Xavier's new method of resurrection. Especially if someone gets ahold of their corpses or duplicate bodies for some Cloning Blues, which I think will happen after all that emphasis on it being the ones they know and that ominous note about mixing minds with someone else's body being untested.

I'm guessing "FM" stands for "Five Mutants", but I have no idea what "EB" means.

This is the first time I would have liked to see some in-depth character drama because the Five coming together and bonding sounds like a fascinating story that the infographics don't really satisfy.

It'll be very interesting to see how Hickman handles the X-Men in conflict with Wakanda and Latveria like he did with the Fantastic Four in HOX 1.

The more that's revealed with Apocalypse and Krakoa, the more it feels like the early parts of POX's Year 100 feel off because they needed to hide the reveal. Magneto's surprise at Krakoa's embrace of Apocalypse makes me think that there's a possible clash over this.

It's possible that FM stands for "Fabio Medina" (Goldballs) and that EB stands for "Eva Bell", which fits with the "(temporal)" tag.

You can see the Sinister red diamond on Hope's syringe when she is injecting an egg. Uh oh.

Here's a very interesting idea. Even though I don't think Rosenberg's run was written very well, there's no doubt that it and Age of X-Man are very thematically resonant to the current HOX/TOX.

Huh.

Do you think Rosenberg was given some marching orders on that front. Sure a lot of stuff he did was awful (though we know there was some Executive Meddling on what he could do) but considering he was just filler for Hickman anyway, maybe someone filled him in on what was coming and told him do a little subtle set up?