Thus starts my big X-Men 2021 project: reading ALL the X-Men titles in this new Hickman era so I can catch up and understand how the hell they got to where they are now.

Hickman is a big ideas man, and he knows how to execute them. There's no question about that. I can't fault the guy for being so damn good at what he does. It's the reason I rated this 3 stars instead of 2. The problem is, what he does never actually translates to who the characters ARE.

These are the X-Men mostly only in name. These are mutants who have been pushed to the brink, and have started down a path that I never really thought someone would take them. From a story standpoint, this is an interesting way to go - what would happen to make Professor X and Magneto team up to create another Genosha? Decades and decades of trying to save and unite with humans, only to be pushed back and hated and killed over and over again. I get it. I get where Hickman was going with it.

BUT THAT'S THE ONLY X-MEN THING ABOUT THIS BOOK.

Everything else reads as a really interesting high sci-fi story. Krakoa is formed. Moira is given a HUGE presence, which I kind of loved and hated in turns. Charles and Erik bring in every single mutant - literally, every single mutant, no matter their history in the Marvel world. The Hellfire club is here. Mr. Sinister is an ally/being used by Charles and Erik. Fucking Apocalypse is on the Krakoan council. It's mind boggling. Then, they have the audacity to have their first council business be judging Sabretooth for killing humans. When Mystique is right there judging him! Magneto is! Sebastian Shaw is! HUH?

The worst part, I think, is that there is nothing emotional or personable about this creation of Krakoa. It's Genosha 2.0. It's bringing so many mutants together in one place, and they look happy. That would have made for some amazing stories and tiny scenes dotted throughout - a way to humanize and emotionally connect to this new idea of Krakoa.

Instead, we get an emotionally cold story, lots of text pages explaining scientific concepts that tie into the story, a scarily religious/cult-like scene, and some weird Year 100 and Year 1000 X-Men storylines that I didn't care about but eventually had a part in the overall Krakoa story. I think. Probably. I hated both.

Plus, mutants can't ever die now. So, there's that.

I really hope that other writers that focus on smaller team books will have a lot more interesting emotional character and relationship work.

Because I got three small panels of the Cassidys (who have one or the other been dead/a goddess and haven't reunited in about 10 years) in this whole thing:



And as my friend Leshia said: "man, I bet that was an amazing reunion, full of emotion and complex character beats, but lololol who wants to see any of THAT, amirite?"

Hickman, in a nutshell.