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Not so long ago, it was touch and go for the X-Men.
Whatever the reason, the X-Men series stopped presenting big, grabby ideas.
Nothing was catching on.
Reading them now is like falling in love after years of luckless dating.
But when theyareready, what a conversation there is to be had.
But that kind of playfulness with form and language is emblematic of what Hickman does best.
Its the Marvel comic I read growing up the one Ive always wanted to do, he tells Vulture.
However, it took him 12 years of professional comics writing to get around to writing them.
The latter of those two titles was what made him a star, and it did so abruptly.
Fans and critics devoured it.
He reinvigorated the ailingUltimate Marvel experiment.
He was assigned to the tales of the Avengers and took them to the ends of time and space.
It all culminated in one of the best superhero crossovers in history, the jaw-droppingly ambitiousSecret Wars.
And then, it seemed, his time with the superheroes was over.
Then, earlier this year, there were whispers within the comics rumor mill:Hickman was coming back.
Whats more, the gossip was that hed be taking on the woefully abused X-Men.
However, that film series proved to be their undoing.
Those days are gone.
We waited with bated breath to see what could happen.
Finally, in late July of this year,House of XNo.
It was an immediate sensation.
There have only been a few subsequent issues of the run theHouse of XNo.
5 came out yesterday but geeks have been poring over every page like its a new Gospel.
These are not wholly unfamiliar tropes for X-Men die-hards, but Hickman, pencilers Pepe Larraz and R.B.
Let us dwell for a second on that last job title: designer.
I dont really construct stories that way, he says.
And those ideas are fascinating.
Youve got meditation on the parallels between the development of artificial intelligence and the evolution of biological organisms.
There are explorations of the righteousness and horror of political terrorism.
Were looking at the ways in which the powerful condescendingly extend sympathy to those they are oppressing.
These are all questions that feel vitally necessary in our present troubled age.
Hickman has both found the Zeitgeist and seems to be altering it at the same time.
We needed the X-Men, and now thank the mutant gods theyre back.
