Do the Evolution: On House of X #1 and the Power of Reinvention
This piece is about House of X #1.
But it’s also not about House of X #1.
There are plenty of things to say about the first issue of Jonathan Hickman’s new direction for the X-Men, almost all of which would be positive. It’s a comic I loved, and one that has me more excited about the direction of a franchise I adore than at, well, pretty much any point in my adult life.
But the interesting thing about that first issue from Hickman, artist Pepe Larraz, colorist Marte Gracia, letterer Clayton Cowles and designer Tom Muller isn’t anything qualitative. That’s not notable. Comics are good and bad each and every week. That’s ordinary, and for a storytelling medium that’s often rather decompressed, it can even be a fluid idea.
It’s that it’s doing something new with a concept built on the idea of evolution for the first time since at least Grant Morrison’s run, and how it’s forcing one of the most rigid structures in the world of comics – what a superhero comic is – to be something different.
Those ideas to me are where things get very interesting indeed. 3
As a heads up, no spoilers are discussed in specific from House of X #1. However, art from throughout the issue is used, so tread lightly.↩
As a heads up, no spoilers are discussed in specific from House of X #1. However, art from throughout the issue is used, so tread lightly.↩
As a heads up, no spoilers are discussed in specific from House of X #1. However, art from throughout the issue is used, so tread lightly.↩