Wednesday, January 26, 2022

I think reading House of X has given me a glimpse of the blueprint the MCU may use to integrate the X-Men.

A good friend turned me onto the writing of Jonathan Hickman, and what he's been doing with the X-Men comic books. If you don't know who this guy is, he's essentially now a legend/superstar for the plot lines he's been concocting. He's achieved a ton of cred for Secret Wars and his work with the Avengers comic book. In reading House of X, I am catching glimpses of what could very well be Marvel's cinematic future and what they will probably need (or will) do in order to bring the X-Men into the fold. Allow me to elaborate by talking about the plot points of House of X.

First off, House of X has honestly changed everything. The basic backbone of the story rests with an underappreciated hero/character named Moira MacTaggert. Previously, I had memories of this character as just being the paramour of Professor X at one time in his life. But there really wasn't anything I could tell you that was very important regarding this character other than Professor X had a relationship with her. But in House of X I learned that Moira is a mutant, and her power is a ground-hog day-esque version of reincarnation.

How this works in the comic book is that she gets essentially ten or more lives (the jury is still out on this one). A comic book character named Destiny told Moira (prior to killing her so that she would remember what the life cost her) that if she died before her mutant abilities manifested, it would be her final death. And she set a verbal capstone on the amount of times Moira could be reincarnated that reminded me a lot of the stuff they used to say about Doctor Who's regenerations. So...yeah...it's there...but it's kinda wishy washy and if the writers need more in future stories they left the door open.

Anyway, Moira not only remembers everything in her prior lives, but she can also be an active agent in living her current life. This means that as she experiences a lifetime in a time loop, she can either choose to be passive and follow the choices that she made previously and then everything turns out the same, or she can be an agent of change and actively make different choices and alter everything. And through nine lifetimes, she supports the mutants warring against humans, and each time she tries something different and it never ends well. She even joins Apocalypse in one of the reincarnations. In the tenth life, she gets Magneto and Charles Xavier together by meeting Xavier earlier than she ever did in any of her other lives and then asking him to fully read her mind. As a result, Charles builds a mutant island sanctuary named Krakoa, Magneto moves there and lives in the House of M, and mutants are the dominant species. They also sell miracle cures made from a flower on the island to human governments in order to get recognition for their new country.

What I find kinda brilliant about all of this is that it wipes the slate clean for the X-Men in a very elegant retcon. So all the prior garbage that we find in the Fox properties that may be baggage that the MCU might want to address just gets retconned. They can acknowledge it easily, and then say that Moira MacTaggert made different choices and move forward to integrating the X-Men into the MCU. J.J. Abrams employed this same trick when he rebooted Star Trek with the whole "red matter" timeline (which I thought was wonderful, but I know Andrew hated it).

The book/collection of House of X takes on a huge timeline (spanning about 1000 years). It's told in glimpses of the past, the present, and the future. We see mutants get their own island nation that is teeming with wonders and is a place only mutants can get to without escort. They even get their own written language that they immediately understand that gets implanted into their brains. They come up with a vaccine to eradicate all disease and extend life, and humans want it desperately. Even powerhouses like Apocalypse agreed to join Krakoa, and then they established the first three mutant laws (which are very interesting):

MAKE MORE MUTANTS.

MURDER NO MAN

RESPECT THE LAND OF KRAKOA

There's also a potentially great MCU villain in this story called Nimrod. To put it simply, any future that has Nimrod in it ends badly for mutants. Nimrod is easily the worst aspect of any Sentinel (which are machines that capture the ultimate aggressiveness of normal men who see mutants as their enemy), and he's a huge threat. He basically is as powerful as several omega-level mutants together in one place. 

This is Nimrod. He's really powerful and dangerous to mutants.

Anyway, by reading this graphic novel or comic book collection or whatever it's called, I've got a glimpse of what could be when the X-Men finally make their appearance in the movies. I want to see Krakoa. I want the brilliant retconning of all that has passed through Moira MacTaggert's many lives. I see it as something that's never been done before, and it has way more potential than the school setting which has been in too many movies now. I know none of them have been in the MCU, but I have no interest in seeing what the school will look like with Disney in charge, as it will more than likely be more of the same. It's time for something radically different, like what Jonathan Hickman has shown us in House of X. And I think that introducing the X-Men through a storyline like this will go a lot smoother than The Eternals, who did nothing to help when Thanos was killing off half the life in the universe.

Anyone else have thoughts on this? Anyone else a fan of Jonathan Hickman?

2 comments:

  1. I read some of his Avenger run. Not a big fan.

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  2. Interesting. I mean, that's not how reincarnation works, but every sff property has to have its Groundhog Day iteration. Have you noticed that? It's one of the tropes that gets done at least once in any run of any property that lasts longer than a one-off.

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