In a perfect world, there would be no need for an X-Force. As the book’s own official summary puts it, “X-Force is the CIA of the mutant world. But being the darker X-Men book is well within the tradition of the X-Force title. On the surface, X-Force #1 feels like the antithesis of this editorial mandate: a violent story of mutants failing to uphold Krakoa’s primary purpose of providing sanctuary that ends in the shocking death of a major character. I’ve challenged all of the X-writers to - if you have a story where a character has to die, that’s fine, but what’s the other story? What’s the more interesting story?” So. “You can’t play it as, ‘Oh my God, this is awful and terrible.’ You have to be more creative than that. “We made it so that if you told a story where died, it’s a plot device and not an emotional hammering of the reader,” he said. But let me tell you, as a storytelling mechanism, walking in the room and kicking all the toys over - it’s not a good look anymore.’”Ĭreating an infinite system of resurrection for mutants was the easiest way to put any dead or depowered mutant that the X-book writers could possibly want back on the table. “‘I understand that sometimes narratively you want to do something dramatic. “I’ve said this in the writers’ room like ‘You need to stop telling those stories about killing characters,’” he told Harper. Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara/Marvel Comics He wanted to make a deliberate storytelling choice to make additive, positive books. “Whenever you come onto an X-Men book and you make a list of characters you want to use - half of them are dead, half of them don’t have powers, half of them just came back from being dead and somebody’s pitching that they’re going to kill them again,” he told host David Harper.Īnd furthermore, he noted, the use of death as an emotional jolt for the reader no longer worked. Hickman felt that X-Men comics had become repetitive, dark, and defined by death. (On the title page of X-Force #1, he’s credited as “Head of X.”) House of X/Powers of X writer Jonathan Hickman spoke at length last week, on SKTCHD’s Off Panel podcast, about the creative collaboration between the Dawn of X writers room and himself. This isn’t just a fact of the new Krakoan state, it’s a deliberate editorial choice. As it says in one of the comic’s data pages, “Any openly hostile behavior toward mutantkind will be subject to an immediate tactical response.” But we know at least one thing. There’s a lot of things that this could potentially foreshadow. The issue’s final pages show the X-Men reacting in horror and rage, while its final image is of the Professor’s inert hand and his Cerebro helmet, which has been shattered by a bullet. After hijacking a passenger jet, they parachute onto Krakoa and seemingly kill Professor X. In writer Benjamin Percy and artist Joshua Cassara’s X-Force #1, a commando force of four heavily armed human soldiers eludes Krakoa’s defenses by disguising themselves with Domino’s DNA. This week’s X-Force #1 tests all of those rules. Professor X brokered peace with the world. In House of X /Powers of X, the X-Men recreated mutant society, redefining the X-Men setting for readers.