Stillanerd Reads: Powers of X #3

After House of X #2, I didn’t expect any more major surprises. Or at least the Earth-shattering kind, anyway. After all, how could one top the revelation that Moira MacTaggert was secretly a mutant who relived her won life nine different times? Sure, there’s a missing sixth timeline. There are those possible futures shown in Powers of X and how they could be linked to the present. Even so, I was getting a bit too comfortable. Then with Powers of X #3, Jonathan Hickman pulls the rug out from under us again.

It starts off straightforward enough. Taking place entirely in the future of “X^2. The X-Men. Year One Hundred,” Apocalypse’s X-Men stage one last attack against the Human-Machine Supremacy. Their objective is to obtain data on the Sentinel’s leader, Nimrod, from the planetary archives. They know this will likely be a suicide mission, but it’s also their last chance to save mutants from the brink of extinction. Pretty much no different than what we’ve seen in such post-apocalyptic X-Men stories before.

Then we come to the last page, and one line in particular. And just like that, every assumption readers may have had about Hickman’s “Two Series That Are One” X-Men revamp are gone. What we thought was a clear-cut, linear narrative isn’t so clear-cut after all. Not that there weren’t clues in the previous issues. At the very least, we definitely should be reading Hickman’s data pages a lot more closely from now on.

This twist also addresses a few apparent inconsistencies, such as why the X-Men leadership would have been stupid enough to trust someone like Mr. Sinister running their mutant breeding program. Not to mention why Chimeras like Rasputin and Cardinal came across as visually cool, but underdeveloped pastiches. If anything, Powers of X #3 brings further clarity as who they and the future X-Men really are.

In turn, this comic also contains some of the best characterizations of the Powers of X installments so far. These characters can also be quite funny, too, in spite of the setting and circumstances. As Apocalypse’s Horseman Death, Xorn is delightfully macabre. The scene between Nimrod and his cyborg second-in-command reads like a spat between an old married couple. Even Apocalypse makes a joke regarding the state of Wolverine’s injuries. The end result is that Hickman’s story thankfully doesn’t feel quite so bleak.

But there’s still plenty of darkness here. Characters seemingly die. Another seemingly sacrifices their own principles for the greater good. Most go down fighting until their last, defiant breath. Even the opening prologue offers its own special king of disturbing. Wonderfully illustrated and colorized by R.B. Silva and Marte Gracia, it perfectly depicts the true nightmare behind humanity’s willing subservience to the machines.

The rest of the comic looks great, too. Silva does his own inking for Powers of X #3, which makes his penciling look even more natural. He also adds plenty of small, visual touches, such as Wolverine gradually healing from severe burns, which further enhances its realism. Gracia also makes the most of enhancing Silva’s panels. He paints the city of the Human-Machine Supremacy, for example, in cold blues, flat greys, and harsh reds, adding to its artificiality. At the same time, motion blurs, lens flares, and reflections are in service of the scene instead of added for show. Of all the House of X and Powers of X comics, this rivals House of X #1 in its beauty.

The only real qualm I have with the comic is its abruptness. We haven’t spent much time in this possible future and, given how Powers of X #3 ends, it doesn’t look like will be revisiting it any time soon. That doesn’t mean we won’t be seeing these characters again, however. There’s at least three of them which, given what happens, doesn’t make me think we should write them off just yet.

While I imagine many readers saw the ending of Powers of X #3 coming, where Hickman’s X-Men series goes from here is anyone’s guess. That’s what makes it such an addictive read, of course. For just as we may think we know all we need to about Marvel’s merry mutants, chances are Hickman will remind us how much we don’t.

Stillanerd’s Nerdy Nitpicks

• “Better to serve in heaven than rule in human hell.” Hope the congregation of the Church of Ascendancy understand that twist on John Milton’s famous line from Paradise Lost. But I doubt it. Also, no coincidence that the black energy around the sphere seems very reminiscent of the Phalanx from Powers of X #2.
• “Apocalypse.” Well, it is an alternate timeline, so maybe the misspelling of Apocalypse was intentional? But at least Hickman is taking this all in stride.
• Okay, I’m willing to overlook one panel copied and pasted, but two? And on both of them the same page? And no, trying to hide one copy and paste with word balloons or a slight adjustment in a character’s mouth just won’t cut it, comic.
• Hold on? North, a.k.a. Pestilence, a.k.a. “Green Magneto” has the DNA of Polaris and Emma Frost. That means he, presumably, has magnetic powers. This means he can also lift metal. The Sentinels are made of metal. So then how did the Sentinels kill him so easily?
• Keep in mind, a singularity, according to general relativity, warps spacetime along with gravity. This is an X-Men comic, where time travel and dimension-hopping is a constant thing. Just saying.
• It is just me or is the idea that Cypher, a.k.a. Famine, can create gateways by parting aside his super-long Gandalf beard unintentionally hilarious?
• So in a possible future, Wolverine, a.k.a. War, dyes his hair. How else to explain why only his chin beard is white while the rest of his hair is Just For Men brown?
• “…this is what you do.” While I’m not a fan of title drops, I have to admit, it’s a nice play on Wolverine’s signature catchphrase.

Check Out: Stillanerd Reads: Powers of X #2