Rise of the Powers of X #1: Fall of the Machines

In this book, Gillen presents us with his opus. Like Duggan, in Fall of the House of X, this story echoes beat for beat, the story which opened the Age of Krakoa. This mirror (in which the mutants always win, albeit painfully) has been consistently hinted at by Omega Sentinel, and the result is a story that is is intensely satisfying, even as it is tremendously painful. 

Gillen’s writing echoes Hickman’s in many ways (I’ll list some of the incredibly clever inversions below) but Kieron has a strength that Hickman utterly lacks — he can combine his tight plotting with true-to-character emotional beats that render the story about a million times more impactful than Hickman’s purely cerebral world building could ever hope to manage. When Mystique finally says something nice to Gambit, for example, it is earned and it makes the carnage that follows immediately after hurt that much more. 

Anyway, year 10+ echoes Powers of X’s year 100+, down to a character consuming a Deathseed and a very important death which comes at the pointed ends of Logan’s claws. The Phalanx are summoned, as they were before, by the sentient AI who will, if they can, eliminate all forms of life. 

I cannot say more about the plot, without revealing important spoilers, so I will say (again) that the aspect of the writing that elevates it into the realm of genius is not the plot, tight and flawless as it is. Gillen has a poet’s eye for economy of line, and he manages to insert a frankly remarkable amount of character and backstory into this appalling world within some intensely limited boundaries. Pay special attention to that Iron Man armor, folks. 

Of course, comics are primarily a visual form, and this book would be nowhere near as effective if R. B. Silva were not rendering it with his patented sensitivity and grace. Emma’s diamond corpse, the delicate poise of her frozen hand, pack more poignancy into three panels than other artists manage over the course of a book. And, again, having him draw the mirror of his own work allows for some absolutely incredible moments. I’m thinking, in particular, of the death of Moira in the Phalanx timeline, and the echoes to that here. 

Silva echoes himself in other places. The gates of the Children of the Vault’s sanctuary are incredibly similar to the bubble Eden Moira and Logan inhabited in the Phalanx timeline. Shadowtiger attacking Phobos mirrors Cardinal desecrating the AI church. There are so many other moments like this that, if I were to list them one by one, they’d fill up an entire thesis.