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House of X - #2 Review
Well, the House of X comics or Jonathan Hickman's re-imagining of the X-men, is getting deserved rave reviews across the board.
As I've reviewed on Good Reads:
Another fascinating read -- and a bit of a brain teaser. A comic book that requires concentration and I 'm willing to bet lost a lot of readers along the way. These books remind me far more of speculative sci-fi writers than comic book writers, with a heavy dose of metaphysics and science, as opposed to scholarly morality. No longer do we have stories where we are arguing the political morals of say Magneto vs. Professor X, or Cyclops vs. Wolverine or Captain America vs. the X-men, or even Emma Frost vs. Jean Grey. Nothing so simple, and the characterization has gone a bit deeper than the soap opera trappings.
This book features a bit of a game changer in how it reconstructs the character of Moira McTaggart from the ground up. Not only that, it resurrects the character, and provides historical motivation. Along with an interesting moral structure -- asking various moral and metaphysical questions, without quite answering them. The ultimate what-if gambit -- what if you were born with the ability to relive your life over and over, again and again, with all the memories of the past one. Not reincarnated into a new life, but reincarnated in the old one -- sort of an eternal time loop. But you have a choice -- you can either try to change it, or be a passive observer.
Then, we get to see each of Moira's lives -- the first life through her tenth, which we're currently on. And we're told she has exactly eleven no more, no less. The first one is lived out happily - a normal human life, with no mutants, no violence, ordinary. Love, family, job, etc. But when she is reincarnated, she can't relive that life -- she knows too much. (Answering the question of -- what would happen if you had to relive your life, would you do the same things? Could you? If you knew all the factors?)
The game changer is that Moira is a mutant -- but her power is reincarnation, a curse really, the ability to relive her life endlessly. Or seemingly so. There is an end. She's not immortal. And when she hits the tenth life -- she decides to break all the rules with Charles Xavier.
The constant in each of her lives is the human creation of killer robots or AI. This is also a constant in various science fiction novels and a well-known trope -- from Battle Star Galatica, I Robot, AI, Humans, and Terminator -- the idea of creating a mechanical life form that will eventually enslave its creator or destroy it. Within that nightmare concept is the message -- those who play God are doomed to be destroyed by their own creations. The killer robots are what condemns humanity -- humanity's need to be superior and destroy what it hates to further its own self-interest, condemns it. Just as the Mutants equal need to be superior and to destroy what threatens it out of self-interest, condemns it. Over and over again.
By the 10th one, Moira is hunting another way -- a means to survive and escape the machines.
What isn't clear is whether the series that came before this one is within the same time stream. I'm thinking it must be -- due to the chart. Which shows that at age 52, they create House of X. In other words...the story we've been reading from Stan Lee to Rosenberg is year 10. Part of year ten happened in a previous lifeline of Moira's but not all. That's what the chart seems to indicate. We're given each life-line, and the years of Moira's life within it. Moira is currently 52 in this life-line. And in this one, she and Xavier decided to break all the rules.
It's confusing and I'm not entirely certain it works. But...it's also a superhero comic book and I'm willing to hand-wave a lot when it comes to comic books. Just as a candy eater waves a lot when it comes to candy. But it's definitely different and raises some interesting ideas.
The art is also different -- beautiful and clear, with sections that have no art at all -- just paragraphs like out of a novel, and other's that are long geometric flow charts. The writer and artist play with how you read a comic book. Comics for the literary set -- or the sci-fi geeks.
Looking forward to the next installment.
What's interesting about Hickman's comics is how he changes how you read or view comics. The format, the structure, and the story. In other words, he breaks the rules and forces the reader to focus and concentrate more on the text. Quick reads these aren't.
In addition he's creating some of the most interesting female characters that I've seen in comics in quite some time, not only interesting but feminist -- and no longer mere support for a male lead. Moira McTaggart -- who up until now was basically Xavier's love interest and associate, or Scean Cassidy's. Is now a mutant and a powerful one -- who has affected timelines. She's brilliant and able to keep the knowledge of each previous time line from the moment she's born into the next one. We have a scene in this comic between Destiny, Mystique and Moira that meets the Bechdel test.
And in the process asking some interesting questions. One of the most innovative comics that I've read. If you are a lover of the graphic novel medium, and like things like Umbrella Academy, or off-the-beaten track -- you might want to give these a shot. Will state that you do not have to know anything about the X-men to enjoy them.
As I've reviewed on Good Reads:
Another fascinating read -- and a bit of a brain teaser. A comic book that requires concentration and I 'm willing to bet lost a lot of readers along the way. These books remind me far more of speculative sci-fi writers than comic book writers, with a heavy dose of metaphysics and science, as opposed to scholarly morality. No longer do we have stories where we are arguing the political morals of say Magneto vs. Professor X, or Cyclops vs. Wolverine or Captain America vs. the X-men, or even Emma Frost vs. Jean Grey. Nothing so simple, and the characterization has gone a bit deeper than the soap opera trappings.
This book features a bit of a game changer in how it reconstructs the character of Moira McTaggart from the ground up. Not only that, it resurrects the character, and provides historical motivation. Along with an interesting moral structure -- asking various moral and metaphysical questions, without quite answering them. The ultimate what-if gambit -- what if you were born with the ability to relive your life over and over, again and again, with all the memories of the past one. Not reincarnated into a new life, but reincarnated in the old one -- sort of an eternal time loop. But you have a choice -- you can either try to change it, or be a passive observer.
Then, we get to see each of Moira's lives -- the first life through her tenth, which we're currently on. And we're told she has exactly eleven no more, no less. The first one is lived out happily - a normal human life, with no mutants, no violence, ordinary. Love, family, job, etc. But when she is reincarnated, she can't relive that life -- she knows too much. (Answering the question of -- what would happen if you had to relive your life, would you do the same things? Could you? If you knew all the factors?)
The game changer is that Moira is a mutant -- but her power is reincarnation, a curse really, the ability to relive her life endlessly. Or seemingly so. There is an end. She's not immortal. And when she hits the tenth life -- she decides to break all the rules with Charles Xavier.
The constant in each of her lives is the human creation of killer robots or AI. This is also a constant in various science fiction novels and a well-known trope -- from Battle Star Galatica, I Robot, AI, Humans, and Terminator -- the idea of creating a mechanical life form that will eventually enslave its creator or destroy it. Within that nightmare concept is the message -- those who play God are doomed to be destroyed by their own creations. The killer robots are what condemns humanity -- humanity's need to be superior and destroy what it hates to further its own self-interest, condemns it. Just as the Mutants equal need to be superior and to destroy what threatens it out of self-interest, condemns it. Over and over again.
By the 10th one, Moira is hunting another way -- a means to survive and escape the machines.
What isn't clear is whether the series that came before this one is within the same time stream. I'm thinking it must be -- due to the chart. Which shows that at age 52, they create House of X. In other words...the story we've been reading from Stan Lee to Rosenberg is year 10. Part of year ten happened in a previous lifeline of Moira's but not all. That's what the chart seems to indicate. We're given each life-line, and the years of Moira's life within it. Moira is currently 52 in this life-line. And in this one, she and Xavier decided to break all the rules.
It's confusing and I'm not entirely certain it works. But...it's also a superhero comic book and I'm willing to hand-wave a lot when it comes to comic books. Just as a candy eater waves a lot when it comes to candy. But it's definitely different and raises some interesting ideas.
The art is also different -- beautiful and clear, with sections that have no art at all -- just paragraphs like out of a novel, and other's that are long geometric flow charts. The writer and artist play with how you read a comic book. Comics for the literary set -- or the sci-fi geeks.
Looking forward to the next installment.
What's interesting about Hickman's comics is how he changes how you read or view comics. The format, the structure, and the story. In other words, he breaks the rules and forces the reader to focus and concentrate more on the text. Quick reads these aren't.
In addition he's creating some of the most interesting female characters that I've seen in comics in quite some time, not only interesting but feminist -- and no longer mere support for a male lead. Moira McTaggart -- who up until now was basically Xavier's love interest and associate, or Scean Cassidy's. Is now a mutant and a powerful one -- who has affected timelines. She's brilliant and able to keep the knowledge of each previous time line from the moment she's born into the next one. We have a scene in this comic between Destiny, Mystique and Moira that meets the Bechdel test.
And in the process asking some interesting questions. One of the most innovative comics that I've read. If you are a lover of the graphic novel medium, and like things like Umbrella Academy, or off-the-beaten track -- you might want to give these a shot. Will state that you do not have to know anything about the X-men to enjoy them.