House of X and Powers of X

House of X
House of X #1
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Format	Limited series
Genre	Superhero
Publication date	July – October 2019
No. of issues	6
Main character(s)	X-Men
Creative team
Written by	Jonathan Hickman
Penciller(s)	Pepe Larraz
Inker(s)	Pepe Larraz
Letterer(s)	Clayton Cowles
Colorist(s)	Marte Gracia
Editor(s)	Jordan D. White Annalise Bissa

Powers of X
Powers of X #1
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Format	Limited series
Genre	Superhero
Publication date	July – October 2019
No. of issues	6
Main character(s)	X-Men
Creative team
Written by	Jonathan Hickman
Penciller(s)	R.B. Silva
Inker(s)	R.B. Silva Adriano Di Benedetto
Letterer(s)	Clayton Cowles
Colorist(s)	Marte Gracia
Editor(s)	Jordan D. White Annalise Bissa

House of X and Powers of X are two X-Men comic books created by writer Jonathan Hickman and artists Pepe Larraz, R.B. Silva and Marte Gracia, published by Marvel Comics in 2019. Both comic books are part of a crossover event within the Marvel Universe that will lead to the "Dawn of X" relaunch.

Publication history

Jonathan Hickman wrote a story arc in the Avengers and New Avengers comic, ending in the 2015 crossover Secret Wars. His return was announced on March 2019. Some days later, it was detailed that he would write two comic books, House of X and Powers of X, with penciling by Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva. Marvel Editor in Chief C. B. Cebulski said that "We are excited to have Jon back with the Marvel family, and we could not have asked for a better creative team to help usher the X-Men into a whole new era"

Both comics were released as a company wide relaunch of the X-Men. All the ongoing X-Men comics were cancelled: Uncanny X-Men, Mr. and Mrs. X, X-Force, X-23, and the Age of X-Man tie-in miniseries.

Plot

Reading order

1. House of X #1: "The House that Xavier Built"
2. Powers of X #1: "The Last Dream of Professor X"
3. House of X #2: "The Uncanny Life of Moira X"
4. Powers of X #2: "We Are Together Now, You and I"
5. Powers of X #3: "This Is What You Do"
6. House of X #3: "Once More unto the Breach"
7. House of X #4: "It Will Be Done"
8. Powers of X #4: "Something Sinister"
9. House of X #5: "Society"
10. Powers of X #5: "For the Children"
11. House of X #6: "I Am Not Ashamed"
12. Powers of X #6: "House of X"

Part 1: "The House that Xavier Built"

Somewhere, X (Professor X's mind is in Fantomex's body and wearing a different type of Cerebro helmet) watches over several beings emerging from cocoons. "To me, my X-Men" he says as they crawl towards him.

Starting five months ago, members of the X-Men began taking flowers from the island of Krakoa to various locations, notably Westchester County, New York, the Blue Area of the Moon, the Green Area on Mars, the Savage Land, Washington D.C., and the Jerusalem Habitat. Since then, they have grown into large bio-masses of plant life.

Now at the Jerusalem Habitat, several ambassadors arrive to the area, responding to a telepathic message sent by Charles Xavier to recognize a new sovereign nation of Mutants Krakoa. The ambassadors are met by the newly appointed Krakoan ambassador Magneto.

As Jean Grey leads the mutant residents of the X-Mansion to Krakoa, information is given through diagrams on the layout of Krakoa as well the main items of trade it produces: flowers designed for various purposes such as extending the human lifespan or creating portals directly to Krakoa.

Near the sun, spacecrafts approach the station known as "The Forge," home base of a human group called Orchis. Orchis is the self-proclaimed "last hope" for humanity, made up of various members of human organizations such as A.I.M., S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra, Alpha Flight, and others, allied to prevent the extinction of homo sapiens to mutants. The Forge is based on the remnants of Sol's Hammer (a planet killer designed by The Illuminati during the lead-up to Secret Wars) and a Mother Mold (a Sentient machine designed to create "Master Molds" which in turn create Sentinels). Orchis was activated when Xavier's message went out to the world, a seemingly "trigger" for the eventual extinction of humanity.

Meanwhile, a team made up of Mystique, Sabretooth, and Toad infiltrate the base of Damage Control searching for information in the databases. While they get what they searched for, Sabertooth maims several guards in the chaos and is eventually captured by the Fantastic Four.

At the same time, Magneto leads the ambassadors through several worldwide Krakoan habitats, connected through portals. The ambassadors question the war-like capabilities of the instantaneous travel, which Magneto declares is instead of an "instrument of war" an "unassailable refuge." He also reveals that the ambassadors will not be going to the island of Krakoa, for "Man is not welcome there."

While the Fantastic Four are about to take away Sabretooth, Cyclops arrives to bring him back to Krakoa due to diplomatic immunity. While tensions arise between him and Mister Fantastic, Cyclops decides to leave Sabretooth to them to avoid a situation. While leaving, Invisible Woman asks if Cyclops and X are sure about what they are doing. Cyclops states that he believes in X and offers Invisible Woman's mutant son Franklin Richards a place to stay with his "family" on Krakoa before leaving.

Back with the Ambassadors, Magneto reveals to the Stepford Cuckoos that he is aware of the true nature of the ambassadors as potential plants within Krakoa (while hinting that one member has a true alliance to Orchid). While he claims he is not threatening them, Magneto declares that he wants humanity to understand that they "have new gods now."

Part 2: "The Last Dream of Professor X"

Year One (The Dream): At a fair in Oxford, Charles Xavier meets Moira Kinross (eventually MacTaggert) who asks why he is smiling. Charles explains that recently, he has had the "most wonderful dream," of his place in a better world referring to the eventual creation of Xavier's School and the X-Men. Moira stops for a second, before stating "Well, here's the thing Charles... It's not a dream if it's real." Charles questions whether they have met before, which Moira responds to by asking him to read her mind. Charles reads Moira's mind, and his eyes go wide.

Year Ten (The World): In present day, Mystique and Toad arrive on Krakoa after the infiltration of Damage Control. Mystique takes the flash drive with their findings on it to X and Magneto, who enter it into a computer to view the contents.

Year One Hundred (The War): In a dark future Earth ruled by a man-machine called Nimrod the Lesser and his Sentinels, the remaining mutants on Earth are either those from before the current war or "Chimeras," mutants genetically-engineered by Mister Sinister to have multiple abilities at once. A small team of mutants led by a Chimera named Rasputin IV (who has the powers of Shadowcat and Colossus) escape from a group of Sentinels, but lose two of their own in the process, Percival is killed and Cylobel is captured. Cylobel is taken to Nimrod, who charismaticly apologizes to her for everything he has done, before trapping her within a experimental hive-mind creator, killing her. Rasputin and the remaining mutant Cardinal escape to arrive at their base through a Krakoan flower, where they are met by the only remaining mutant resistance, five others (four of which we see), including Wolverine and Xorn. Rasputin and Cardinal confirm their mission was not in vain, for they got what they were looking for, and Wolverine begins to lead them to "the old man."

Year One Thousand (Ascension): In the archive of Nimrod the Greater, a blue-skinned being converses with Nimrod on the final fate of his hive-mind experiment, which proved pointless due to the 'surprising' final fate of the war.

Part 3: "The Uncanny Life of Moira X"

Moira I: Moira Kinross (later Cowan) lives an unassuming life as a teacher, with a husband and three children. Moira later passes away at 74 of natural causes peacefully.

Moira II: After her death, Moira suddenly finds herself back in her mother's womb with all memories of her previous life. Moira is actually a mutant and this resurrection ability is her power. While she conceals her nature as best she can, she is nevertheless considered a prodigy and decides to become an academic in biology and psychology at Oxford to understand what she is. After two decades of research, she spots her former classmate Charles Xavier revealing himself as a mutant on television. Realizing this is the key to her nature, she takes a flight to America that ends up crashing in the ocean, killing her.

Moira III: In this life, Moira instead decides to focus on anthropology and genetics and seeks out Xavier while at Oxford. However, Xavier's arrogance and Moira's distaste for her own nature leads her to decide to devote her life to creating a cure for mutation. She succeeds only for her lab to be destroyed and her colleagues killed by Mystique, Pyro and Destiny. Destiny's precognitive powers allow her to realize Moira is actually a mutant invisible by standard mutant detection methods. She warns Moira that if she ever decides to act against mutants again, Destiny will kill her before her X-gene activates at thirteen, which would kill her permanently. She also tells Moira that her powers are not infinite and that she will only have ten lives, or eleven "if [she makes] the right choice in the end". Destiny then orders Pyro to burn Moira alive slowly so that she will never forget this encounter.

Moira IV: Moira decides to throw herself headfirst into the cause of mutant-human co-existence and once again pursues Xavier at Oxford, with the two becoming lovers. They go through what is implied to be the pre-House of X history of the X-Men before finally being killed by Sentinels in a Days of Future Past-like future.

Moira V: Having become radicalized by the experience, Moira decides to meet Xavier even earlier and convince him to create an isolated haven for mutants. Nevertheless, the Sentinels eventually attack and exterminate Moira.

Moira VI: Not revealed in the comic book.

Moira VII: Moira forgoes science entirely and instead becomes an assassin dedicating her life to exterminating the entire Trask family so that the Sentinels are never invented. The Sentinels turn out to be an inevitable consequence of technological development and humanity's fear of mutants and thus once again exterminate mutantkind.

Moira VIII: Further radicalized, Moira decides to ally with Magneto instead of Xavier. They are both defeated by the combined forces of the Avengers and the X-Men and Moira dies during a failed prison escape.

Moira IX: Even further radicalized, Moira decides to ally with Apocalypse and go to war with humankind.

Moira X: Facing her last life and looking back at all her experiences, Moira decides that in this timeline, she and Xavier will "break all the rules." She meets Xavier in Oxford and tells him to read her mind showing him all she has done.

Part 4: "We Are Together Now, You and I"

Year One: Professor X and Moira McTaggert visit Magneto on his island base in Bermuda. Professor X has come to mend the fences with Magneto and despite initially mistrusting him, Magneto agrees to open his mind to them. Moira reveals her true nature to him, giving Magneto a glimpse into her previous lives. Seeing the many ways in which he has failed, Magneto agrees to Professor X and Moira's proposal; a long-term plan to guarantee the future of mutantkind.

Year Ten: Magneto and Xavier show Cyclops the plans of a Mother Mold. They believe that it will usher in a new generation of Sentinels and that this is when Nimrod emerges. They order a strike on the Mother Mold, which is on a station orbiting the sun and Cyclops leaves to assemble a team.

Year One Hundred: Cardinal and Rasputin IV return successful from their mission, having retrieved an indexing machine which will allow them to know the location of key machine intel. Krakoa manages to successfully de-crypt the index, revealing the location. Wolverine's War form points out that the information is useless since they would have to hold off the Sentinels in order to access the information which would in turn be a suicide mission, but Apocalypse assures them that they will succeed as he will personally lead them.

Year One Thousand: The Librarian and Nimrod have been successful in their plan. In order to prove their value to the higher civilizations in the universe, they create a replica Worldmind which is found by the Phalanx who successfully consume it and come to Earth to find its creators.

Part 5: "This Is What You Do"

Year One Hundred: As the Church of Ascendancy, an organization that is dedicated to the worship of the machines, is giving a sermon at the Temple of Concordance, the X-Men arrive and attack. Omega Sentinel watches from the Human-Machine Monolith and tries to convince Nimrod the Lesser of the need to investigate, but he refuses and dismissing the attack. Omega heads off alone to confront the X-Men where she and her squadron of Sentinels gain the upper head, prompting Rasputin IV to remove the mask of Xorn's Death form unleashing the black hole contained within his head, killing both the remaining X-Men and the Sentinels.

Meanwhile, Apocalypse leads Wolverine's War form and Cypher's Famine form into an old machine databank in order to retrieve an information crystal. They are successful in finding it, but are intercepted by Nimrod. Famine opens a portal for them to retreat through and Apocalypse stays behind to buy them time. War and Famine escape with Apocalypse seemingly succumbing to Nimrod. Back in the safety of Asteroid K, War releases Mother Akkaba, also known as Moira, from her stasis. He presents her with the information crystal, force-feeding the information into her mind. As per Apocalypse's request and with Moira's consent, War then kills Moira in order for her to start over again, now armed with the knowledge of exactly when in time Nimrod emerges.

Part 6: "Once More unto the Breach"

Cyclops informs X and Magneto that he has assembled a team in order to attack the Mother Mold facility orbiting the Sun. Cyclops briefs the team, composed of Wolverine, Husk, Archangel, M, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, and Mystique on their mission and they take off.

In the superhuman prison known as Project Achilles, a trial is being held for Sabretooth. The trial is interrupted by Emma Frost who presents the judge with a pardon from the U.S. Supreme Court along with all requisite paperwork as the U.S. government has agreed to a general amnesty for all mutants on American soil in anticipation of Krakoa becoming a sovereign nation. Despite the protests of the human officials at the court, Emma and Sabretooth are allowed to walk free and return to Krakoa.

On the Orchis Forge where the Mother Mold is being constructed, the human scientists detect that the X-Men are inbound. Nightcrawler is sent in for recon and encounters the chief scientist and Omega Sentinel. Omega Sentinel deduces that the X-Men plan to attack the control collars in order to send the Mother Mold hurtling into the Sun. The X-Men dock onto the station and begin drilling their way in. Realizing that their only hope of defeating the X-Men is an asymmetrical response, Chief of Security Erasmus sets off a bomb, killing himself and destroying the X-Men's vessel.

Part 7: "It Will Be Done"

On Krakoa, X and Magneto contact Marvel Girl in order to keep tabs on the mission. Jean reveals that Archangel and Husk were killed in the explosion set off by Erasmus while Wolverine and Nightcrawler were injured. Deciding that they still need to finish the mission at any cost, Nightcrawler teleports Cyclops, Wolverine, and Mystique into strategic locations in order to destroy the control collars, with Nightcrawler himself taking the last one while Jean and M staying on the ship in order to maintain the connection to Krakoa.

Wolverine and Nightcrawler are successful in destroying the collars, but the ship is boarded by Orchis forces. Monet puts Jean into an escape pod and fires her away, staying on board in order to cover her escape and buy her time. She transforms into her Penance form and begins fighting the humans. Cyclops finds and disengages his control collar, but Mystique, having gotten turned around, is intercepted just as she finds hers and is killed as Doctor Gregor opens an airlock.

Desperate, the humans power-on the Mother Mold, despite not knowing whether it will be sane or not. X tells them to do whatever it takes to stop it. Wolverine and Nightcrawler volunteer to head to the final switch which is now in a vacuum. Nightcrawler teleports Wolverine onto the collar before being instantly evaporated by the Sun, while Wolverine's healing factor buys him enough time to carve through it before he too is evaporated as the now online Mother Mold hurtles into the Sun while raving maniacally via an Olympian allegory that the machines have found both man and mutant guilty and will destroy them both.

With the mission complete, Cyclops tries to find a space suit in order to get to Jean's pod so that they can try and make their way home. However, he is intercepted by Doctor Gregor who incapacitates and then executes him. The Sentinel drones that were mining on Mercury and thus could not reach the station in time to stop the X-Men, finally arrive, intercept Jean's pod, and work to kill her. As his proteges have seemingly all died at the hands of humans once again, X cries and vows "no more."

Part 8: "Something Sinister"

Year One: X and Magneto travel to Bar Sinister to meet Mister Sinister. Encountering resistance from some of his clones, they're soon shown in to meet with Mister Sinister. They ask that he help them, using his knowledge of genetics to help build a database of mutant DNA. He declines, but he's soon shot dead by another Mister Sinister who one claiming to be the version of himself with the mutant gene. That version readily agrees to help the duo build their database, asking where he should start. Xavier then wipes the memory of their meeting from Mister Sinister's mind.

Year Ten: Several months ago, X and Cypher traveled to the sentient island of Krakoa. X brought Cypher deep into the island to meet the entity of Krakoa. Cypher conversed with Krakoa as he learned its language and some of its history. He revealed to X that Krakoa was once one island Okkara that was split into two islands named Arakko and Krakoa by the arrival of an enemy. This enemy sought to destroy the world and was only stopped by the arrival of Apocalypse and his Four Horsemen. Later, X telepathically revealed his plans to Cypher. He tasked Cypher with building an interface system on Krakoa to allow the mutants to communicate and use the island. An informational page reveals that Cypher succeeded, building a translation program so that mutants could interact with the island without Cypher's help. Additionally, Cypher helped create four systems, involving transit and monitoring, defense and observation, secondary and external systems, and overwatch and data analysis controlled by Sage, Black Tom Cassidy, Trinary, and Beast. There are rumors too that Forge built a large subterranean laboratory to help build biological machines as well.

Year One Thousand: The Librarian offers himself to the Phalanx for conversion and, hopefully, ascension. The Phalanx take the orb offered by the Librarian and assimilate it into themselves. The Librarian questions if he is within the Phalanx and the Phalanx reveal that he is. Surprised, the Librarian turns to his people and asks if that form is acceptable. The Phalanx suddenly transform into a large, spherical shape, confusing the assembled group. The group explains that the Phalanx only absorb machine intelligence they find useful and that the Librarian has created an empty vessel and copied himself over into it in the hopes of ascending as part of the Phalanx. They stand waiting and watching for the Phalanx to decide if the form is acceptable.

Part 9: "Society"

On Krakoa, X, Magneto, Storm, and Polaris assemble somewhere. The four are joined by five other mutants: Eva Bell, Proteus, Hope Summers, Elixir, and Goldballs.

Magneto explains that the five mutants, collectively known as The Five, are able to revive deceased mutants. Goldballs creates unviable eggs, which Proteus in a Professor X husk makes viable using his powers. The preserved DNA of a mutant is then injected into the eggs and Elixir kick-starts cellular replication while Eva Bell uses her powers to accelerate their growth. Hope uses her powers to help the others operate at their peak and in unison allowing them to revive any deceased mutants.

Magneto further explains that X has been using Cerebro to copy the mind of any mutants found so that he could put their mind back in these empty shells as needed. X watches over several beings emerging from the eggs. "To me, my X-Men" he says as they crawl towards him. He places Cyclops' visor on him and watches as the group stands, thanking them for all they did.

Storm brings The Five and the revived mutants out, proudly announcing that The Five has allowed the nation of Krakoa to defeat death. She then introduces the revived mutants one by one to the assembled crowd, assuring the crowd that they are the mutants they've known. Off in the distance, X and Magneto watch the events and discuss how far they still have to go. They discuss the upcoming United Nations vote on Krakoa's inclusion into the organization. Magneto asks if Charles is worried, but Xavier simply says that today, he is filled with hope. The revived mutants enter the crowd as Storm calls them the "Heroes of Krakoa".

At the U.N. Headquarters, X, Beast, and Emma Frost celebrate with other ambassadors for gaining recognition of Krakoa as a nation. X and Emma telepathically discuss the events as Emma hints she manipulated the Russian ambassador to abstain from the vote. X thanks her for her work and promises that he has bold plans for her in the future. Informational pages reveal that over 100 countries accepted a trade deal with Krakoa and that several others are still negotiating trade deals. They also reveal that several countries rejected a trade deal for ideological and political reasons, including Iran, North Korea, Latveria, Russia, Brazil, and Honduras. Wakanda alone rejected a trade deal, stating that they did not need the mutant drugs, as did Azania, Canaan, and Kenya as the three countries are Wakandan economic protectorates.

Two days after the U.N. vote, X, Magneto, and Wolverine wait at several portals. Wolverine expresses his misgivings about the upcoming event, but X and Magneto assure him all will be alright. Soon after, several villainous mutants, including Mister Sinister, Sebastian Shaw, Exodus, and Apocalypse arrive through the portals. Apocalypse in particular expresses satisfaction at arriving and Krakoa responds in the same way. Magneto and Xavier reveal that they have invited all mutants, even those who have fought against them in the past, to Krakoa, to form a society. The assembled villainous mutants agree to their terms, and Xavier shakes Apocalypse's hand, welcoming him and the others to their home.

Part 10: "For the Children"

Year One: X meets with Forge and asks the latter to modify Cerebro to allow it to store copy mutants' minds in a main storage unit along with 4 backups. Forge claims the storage and power required are far beyond anything on Earth, but X reveals he has access to Shi'ar technology capable of overcoming that limitation. When Forge asks if he must redesign a new system or build it onto Cerebro, X leaves the decision in Forge's hands and simply asks "Are you--or are you not--going to build it for me?"

Year Ten: X and Magneto meet with Emma Frost in the Louvre in order to recruit the Hellfire Corporation to aid in the establishment of Krakoa. Emma believes the idea of establishing another mutant nation-state is a recipe for disaster, but she is ultimately convinced by seeing Krakoa first hand. X explains that they need the Hellfire Corporation's help in distributing Krakoa's exclusive drugs to the rest of the world which Emma compares to becoming "the East India Trading Company of mutantdom". X offers Emma two seats on Krakoa's council: one for her and another for Sebastian Shaw, whom X wishes Emma to recruit so that he can run black book operations into countries that reject Krakoa's sovereignty. Emma accepts on one condition: she will need an additional seat on the council. Later on, X sends a telepathic message worldwide summoning all mutants to Krakoa. The only one shown rejecting it is Namor, who claims that X doesn't truly believe that he is superior to the rest of humanity and tells him to come back when he "really means it."

Year One Thousand: The Phalanx accept the Librarian's offer and destroy the Elder. The Librarian asks Nimrod why they did this and Nimrod speculates that the Phalanx are part of a truly massive intelligence hosted in a network of black holes and that by adding other intelligence to their own they also utterly consume their physical form, which they will now do to Earth.

Reception

House of X holds an average rating of 9.2 by 55 professional critics, while Powers of X holds a rating of 8.8 by 67 critics on review aggregation website Comic Book Roundup.

Prints

House of X issues

Issue	Title	Publication Date	Comic Book Roundup Rating	Estimated Sales to North American Retailers (First Month)
#1	"The House that Xavier Built"	July 24, 2019	9.2 by 31 professional critics.	185,630
#2	"The Uncanny Life of Moira X"	August 7, 2019	9.3 by 24 professional critics.	101,972
#3	"Once More Unto the Breach"	August 28, 2019	8.9 by 15 professional critics.	109,110
#4	"It Will Be Done"	September 4, 2019	9.3 by 19 professional critics.	TBD
#5	"Society"	September 18, 2019	9.5 by 16 professional critics.	TBD
#6	“I Am Not Ashamed Of What I Am”	October 2, 2019	TBD	TBD

Powers of X issues

Issue	Title	Publication Date	Comic Book Roundup Rating	Estimated Sales to North American Retailers (First Month)
#1	"The Last Dream of Professor X"	July 31, 2019	8.9 by 25 professional critics.	167,840
#2	"We Are Together Now, You and I"	August 14, 2019	8.7 by 22 professional critics.	107,524
#3	"This Is What You Do"	August 21, 2019	8.8 by 21 professional critics.	100,267
#4	"Something Sinister"	September 11, 2019	8.5 by 17 professional critics.	TBD
#5	"For the Children"	September 25, 2019	TBD	TBD
#6	"House of X"	October 9, 2019	TBD	TBD