The Krakoa Era Was Great, But I’m Not Convinced Hickman’s X-Men Was Good

The X-Men are one of Marvel’s most popular properties, enthralling readers for decades. There are some brilliant X-Men stories, books that changed the face of comics. Right now, however, the X-Men are in something of a slump with the “From the Ashes” storyline underwhelming fans. The worst part about this was that the X-Men had just come off the most inventive X-Men era ever: the Krakoa Era. The Krakoa Era was headlined by writer Jonathan Hickman, a creator who has gone down as the greatest writer working today to many fans. The Krakoa Era was very popular for a time, with Hickman writing X-Men events comics like House of X, Powers of X, and Inferno, all while also writing the flagship comic of the entire line: X-Men.

Hickman was given the title of “Head of X” and put in charge of a group of writers and artists to craft the X-Men line into his story. However, instead of sticking to his outline, there were changes across the line, and this led to the ending of Hickman’s time in the X-office. Hickman wrote some amazing X-Men stories, but an argument can be made that Hickman’s run on X-Men is underwhelming, at best. While the book definitely has its moments, it’s not nearly as good as Hickman’s previous Marvel team books.

Hickman’s X-Men Never Really Came Together

So, before we get into dissecting Hickman’s X-Men, I want to make it clear that Hickman’s X-Men (Vol. 5) was not a bad book. There are some great issues in its 21 issues — X-Men #4 is outstanding, issues #5, #18, and #19 are a sensational three issue story, and any of the Mystique/Nimrod issues, issues #6 and #20, were hugely entertainment — but they are few and far between. Hickman’s X-Men was a book that mostly revolved around one to two issue stories, each one setting up an idea for Krakoa. So, we got things like the Summers House, the home of the Summers family on the moon, the return of the Vault, Mystique spying on Orchis and Destiny’s prophecy for her, Shi’Ar Empire shenanigans, and crossovers with Marvel event book Empyre. There was no actual X-Men team in the book; most of the issues revolved around Cyclops teaming up with various mutants on Krakoa and having adventures. Readers even got to see a new origin for Apocalypse as part of the X-Men crossover “X of Swords”, which was created by Hickman and Excalibur writer Tini Howard. However, Hickman’s X-Men was nowhere near as good as his writing on team books like Secret Warriors, The Ultimates, Fantastic Four, Future Foundation, FF, Avengers and New Avengers, and it became a big problem with the entire X-Men line.

RELATED: 3 Confusing Things About the X-Men’s Krakoa Era That I Still Don’t Understand

It’s hard to really understand why Hickman’s X-Men wasn’t as good as it could have been. Recent interviews with Hickman have revealed that he wasn’t exactly happy to change his overall story and he feels that he should have stuck to his guns. Looking at his stories in X-Men, it’s plain to see that the changes to Hickman’s over all outline had a big effect on the book he was writing. X-Men‘s first ten issues felt like set-up for the future; after the “Empyre” and “X of Swords” crossover issues, it feels like the book really didn’t have anything to say, other than finishing the Vault story and giving readers another Mystique/Nimrod issue. Now, a book setting up ideas for later is a good thing and that’s where it felt like X-Men (Vol. 5) was going in the beginning. However, as Hickman’s role in the writing of the X-Men books changed, it became a book that was almost all filler. Things had started off so well with X-Men; fans were enjoying what Hickman was building in the early issues of the book. However, even back then, when we didn’t know about the behind the scenes going ons in the X-Men office, there still seemed like something was wrong with X-Men. It never really came together, and has gone down as a disappointing comic for a lot of fans.

X-Men Was a Flagship Book That Wasn’t Leading

Hickman’s X-Men was a huge missed opportunity for Marvel. When Hickman signed with Marvel again, it was well-reported that he chose the X-Men because they were one of the last properties he really wanted to work on at the House of Ideas. Looking at House of X/Powers of X and the early issues of X-Men (Vol. 5), it’s easy to see just how passionate he was about his work on the Krakoa Era, building a story that seemed like it was going to take readers to places they had never been before. It was all very exciting, but that excitement started to lessen as time went on and the book still felt like it was setting things up instead of pushing the story forward.

X-Men (Vol. 5) was the flagship book for the entire X-Men line, yet as time went on, it stopped feeling like it was leading the line anywhere. It actually felt like one of the least important of the X-Men books as things went on. Hickman’s work on X-Men (Vol. 5) was never terrible — there’s no way that Hickman could write anything that would be considered terrible — but it never really gave readers the kind of book that they wanted.

What do you think about Hickman’s X-Men (Vol. 5)? Sound off in the comments below.