X-Lapsed, Episode 1 – House of X #1 (2019)
X-Lapsed, Episode One
House of X #1 (September, 2019)
“The House that Xavier Built”Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Pepe Larraz
Colors by Marte Gracia
Letters by VC’s Clayton Cowles
Design by Tom Muller
Edits by Annalise Bissa, Jordan D. White, and C.B. Cebulski
$5.99 USD
Release Date: July 24, 2019
You ever have one’a those reading projects you just can’t seem to get around to? Yeah, me too! Today, I’m going to try and change that… with this new series that I’m calling X-Lapsed (and yeah, I totally know that sounds a lot like Ex-Lax!).
Despite having been a rabid reader of the X-Men for nearly three decades, I now find myself in the very bizarre position of a “new reader”. These characters might be familiar… but, I’m anything but comfortable with them! Hopefully this reading exercise will help me get back into the X-Groove.
I hope you’ll decide to join me on this little journey, as I fumble and stumble my way through HoX/PoX en route to the Dawn of X line-up! If you have anything about the Dawn of X X-Men you wanna discuss, I’d love to chat… and hopefully learn a thing or two!
I bought and read the whole run of House of X and Powers of X. I did so because all my friends were going to and I thought it would be fun to discuss this "big" series with my buddies.
I liked the series and enjoyed reading each issue. It was fun to talk about with my buddies, just like I hoped it would.
I would have considered reading the launch books but I decided ahead of time not too. It was not because I didn't like the stories, but it was because I figured two or three months after launch of the five books that Marvel was going to start piling on and crossing over with more titles and I was not going to get sucked into that trap. I sometimes wish I read at least the core title but if wishes were fishes and so on…
I'm glad you're reading this series, and I look forward to following along.
HoXPoX brought me back to comic book shops as I hadn't been invested since the end of Onslaught. During my comic shop leave, one friend would always talk about Jonathan Hickman, and how great his storytelling was. When I saw press releases for his X-Men project, it peaked my interest. (Along with the creepy promo art.)
I thought the entire series delivered, and as Jeremiah mentioned above, really created a buzz in comic shops, and online. It seemed like everyone was enjoying it, and there was a lot of discussion and detective work around the mysteries in the titles.
HoX #1
– I enjoyed the art by Pepe and Marte. They (along with RB Silva) defined the look of the X-Men to me, and I was disappointed that neither of them were brought back to the ongoing in DoX. (Comic book labor and economics I guess.)
– He used data pages sparingly in Fantastic Four, so this was my first real experience with this storytelling technique used by Hickman. I enjoyed it a lot, and I thought it added another layer to reading experience. It was a good place to look for clues in the story. For instance, I was able to surmise that the Sentinel head was a Mother Mold (I was very proud of myself when I shared this with my friends…heh.)
– I remember everyone tripping over the page with Wolverine playing with the kids, and the look shared by Xavier and Jean. More on that later.
– It was great seeing the Fantastic Four in these pages, especially after reading Hickman's run (which I did in preparation for this series.) The showdown with Scott was great as you pointed out. Franklin played a significant role in both Fantastic Four and Avengers. Hopefully there will be some payoff to this moment.
– I'm glad Hickman better defined what an Omega Level Mutant is.
So, about the "something is not right" feeling in this book. I felt the same after my first read, but after thinking about it more, I started to look at it from a different angle. What if we're so used to seeing the X-Men battered, bruised and in dire straits, that their happiness, safety, and power is weird to us? If a group in society was able to overcome oppression it might look weird to the oppressors, or those witnessing oppression. I started to think this story might be analogous to Blackness. Other things happen in the story that might support this, but all of that is for another issue and another episode.