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House of X / Powers of X
440 pages
Published October 8, 2025
About the author
Jonathan Hickman
1,344 books2,161 followersJonathan Hickman is an American comic book writer and artist. He is known for creating the Image Comics series The Nightly News, The Manhattan Projects and East of West, as well as working on Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, FF, and S.H.I.E.L.D. titles. In 2012, Hickman ended his run on the Fantastic Four titles to write The Avengers and The New Avengers, as part the "Marvel NOW!" relaunch. In 2013, Hickman wrote a six-part miniseries, Infinity, plus Avengers tie-ins for Marvel Comics. In 2015, he wrote the crossover event Secret Wars. - Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 3, 2026
I want to preface this by saying that I love most X-Men stories. Stan Lee’s initial run was one of the first comic series I ever read, and that foundation still shapes what I look for when I pick up an X-book.
For the most part, I liked House of X/Powers of X. But at the same time, I kept checking to see if I was almost done.
I’d heard a lot of hype going in, but I started this without really knowing what it was about—and honestly, I’m not sure I came away with a full grasp of it either. The plot often felt determined to be needlessly complicated, bouncing between futures and alternate timelines like being handed a map that keeps redrawing itself while you’re trying to follow it. It introduces the formation of Krakoa as a mutant refuge, then stretches outward to show the far-reaching future implications of that creation and what it means for mutantkind as a whole.
The generous way to describe it is ambitious. And it absolutely is. I just wonder if somewhere along the line, the delivery lost its footing.
What I miss most is when the X-Men felt like an actual team—superpowered mutants fighting villains, going on impossible missions, traveling through space, clashing and joking and functioning like a family. Now it often feels like every X-Men comic has shifted into mutant race versus human race on a civilizational scale. The prejudice theme has always been central, but here it overshadows much of the action, humor, and camaraderie that used to make that exploration so compelling.
And whoever handled the formatting deserves a stern talking-to. Every few pages, the story grinds to a halt for dense walls of text explaining either what you just read or what you’re about to read. It felt less like reading a comic and more like having the comic interrupted by excerpts from an encyclopedia.
That said, what I did appreciate was the ambition. There’s some genuinely intriguing science fiction here, and parts of it did feel classically X-Men. The leaps into the future brought to mind Days of Future Past—not on that level, but enough to evoke that same kind of large-scale speculative tension. I love these characters as always, and whenever the book paused long enough to let them actually be themselves, those moments landed.
Overall, though, this one just wasn’t my bag.
For the most part, I liked House of X/Powers of X. But at the same time, I kept checking to see if I was almost done.
I’d heard a lot of hype going in, but I started this without really knowing what it was about—and honestly, I’m not sure I came away with a full grasp of it either. The plot often felt determined to be needlessly complicated, bouncing between futures and alternate timelines like being handed a map that keeps redrawing itself while you’re trying to follow it. It introduces the formation of Krakoa as a mutant refuge, then stretches outward to show the far-reaching future implications of that creation and what it means for mutantkind as a whole.
The generous way to describe it is ambitious. And it absolutely is. I just wonder if somewhere along the line, the delivery lost its footing.
What I miss most is when the X-Men felt like an actual team—superpowered mutants fighting villains, going on impossible missions, traveling through space, clashing and joking and functioning like a family. Now it often feels like every X-Men comic has shifted into mutant race versus human race on a civilizational scale. The prejudice theme has always been central, but here it overshadows much of the action, humor, and camaraderie that used to make that exploration so compelling.
And whoever handled the formatting deserves a stern talking-to. Every few pages, the story grinds to a halt for dense walls of text explaining either what you just read or what you’re about to read. It felt less like reading a comic and more like having the comic interrupted by excerpts from an encyclopedia.
That said, what I did appreciate was the ambition. There’s some genuinely intriguing science fiction here, and parts of it did feel classically X-Men. The leaps into the future brought to mind Days of Future Past—not on that level, but enough to evoke that same kind of large-scale speculative tension. I love these characters as always, and whenever the book paused long enough to let them actually be themselves, those moments landed.
Overall, though, this one just wasn’t my bag.
April 26, 2026
Easily my favorite marvel comic read this year. Going to try and read the entire Krakoa era this year because of this gem.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews