The Dawn of X Is Nearly Upon Us

               House of X has arrived and with it, the future of the X-Men. At San Diego Comic Con, Marvel announced the Post-House of X and Powers of X future: The Dawn of X, consisting of six new ongoing series. There are some intriguing premises. There are not so intriguing ones. Let’s discuss.

               First, we have the flagship series: X-Men. Written by Jonathon Hickman and drawn by Leinil Francis Yu, this series seems to be focused on the Summers family. The solicitation does mention a “hand-picked squad of mutant powerhouses” though so we may see a bigger group than the cover implies. Either would make sense given the way Hickman handled the Avengers and Fantastic Four franchises, respectively. This is clearly the most exciting series of the bunch. And not because I’m a Hickman fanboy (I am) or because Cyclops is one of the best characters in superhero fiction (He is), but because the world of possibilities is enormous and has me looking forward to it. Also, its going to look very good.

Next up is Marauders by Gerry Duggan and Mateo Lolli. Hickman has said this series is his favorite of the bunch, but this is not a creative team that excites me. Everything of Duggan’s I have encountered is mediocre and I do not know Lolli. The premise though. The premise is good.

“Even in this glorious new dawn, Mutant kind faces hardships and oppression from their human counterparts. Led by Captain Kate Pryde and funded by Emma Frost and the Hellfire Trading Company, Marauders Storm, Pyro, Bishop and Iceman sail the seas of the world to protect those hated and feared!”

               That sounds sick. I love all those characters (Basically the cast of Sina Grace’s Iceman) and seeing them set sail across the world sounds fun. Because of that, I’m going to try it. Hopefully the its good. I really want Kitty and Bobby to be in a good series.

               Excalibur is the return of a classic X-Men series. From the creative team of Tini Howard and Marcus To, this series will star Betsy Braddock (As the new Captain Britain), Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee, Rictor, and Apocalypse as they investigate a new connection between Mutants and Otherworld. That’s an interesting premise and it has one of my favorite X-Men, Rogue. Otherworld is a very cool aspect of Marvel comics that’s underused so I’m excited to see it get the spotlight. Similarly, it’s exciting to see Tini Howard, who did excellently on Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Pink Ranger, get a shot at the X-Men. And then there’s Marcus To; an artist I first encountered on Red Robin a decade ago, To is an excellent artist that excels in facial expressions and kinetic action sequences. Can't wait.

X-Force appears to be evolving into a new form of itself. Featuring an intelligence gathering aspect to the team’s usual black ops missions will hopefully provide a fresh take on this team. It helps that this version has a mix of old and new, including Jean Grey, Beast, Sage, and Black Tom on the intel side, and Wolverine, Domino, Colossus, and Quentin Quire (Who is going back to Kid Omega, I guess?) on the other team. My only reservations are on the creative side of this relaunch. Benjamin Percy has a mixed record with me. Green Arrow was very good under him, but Nightwing was borderline unreadable. Hopefully we get more of the weird GA shenanigans than the boring Nightwing ones. I don’t know what Joshua Cassara's art is like do it’s a big question mark, but I trust that it’s going to be good based on the other teams.

Fallen Angels feels more like the recent X-Force teams than X-Force. Written by Bryan Edward Hill and penciled by the fantastic Szymon Kudranski, X-Force is about Psylocke, X-23, and Young Cable going on a, presumably dead, revenge tour against as yet unnamed enemies from the past. Could be interesting. I’m not sure what the hook is supposed to be, but it has an intriguing creative team and I’ll try it out.

Finally, we come to the other big fish: New Mutants by Jonathon Hickman and Rod Reis (and Ed Brisson on the first issue). The New Mutants, along with Chamber and Mondo, are headed to space to team up with the Star jammers in search of a missing teammate. It’s probably Cannonball because he’s not listed on the team and his wife works for the Shi'ar last I knew. Should be a fun book. I’ve seen conflicting reports of whether Hickman is writing this full time or just the first story arc, but I’m in either way.