Powers Of X #2 by Johnathan Hickman, RB Silva, Adriano Di Benedetto, and Marte Gracia continues the tale in four times. In X0, Moira and Xavier recruit Magneto. In X1 and X2, the heroes of those words analyze the data they received on previous missions and prepare for their next one. And 1,000 years away in X3, The Librarian unleashes their plan for Ascension.
Chris Eddleman: Rob, itâs time to begin the âdouble stufâ portion of this double miniseries, where we get two issues of Powers of X (PoX), followed by two issues of House of X (HoX). I have a feeling this is where the meaty part of the plot comes in after last weekâs huge revelation. Iâm ready to see some logarithmic time periods.
Robert Secundus: HoX #2 radically rewrote one of the central characters throughout the height of the X-Menâs popularity, massively altered our understanding of X-History in the 616, introduced nine timelines of story, and seeded a few dozen mysteries for the future. Thereâs no way this issue can do more than that, right? RIGHT?
Page 2:
CE: Our quote this week is from Magneto, and it alludes to our first scene, and even more so to the present seen in House of X. Even though Magneto thinks their chasm can never be crossed, clearly it does, seen by their alliance in House of X (and plenty of earlier books too). The code at the bottom reads Magneto Omega, which I probably donât need to remind you means The End.
RS:Yeah, lots of chasms can be crossed! Even the Grand Canyon! Didnât Magneto watch Skywire: LIVE?
Page 3:
CE: Rob weâre back at Octopushiem, Magnetoâs Bermuda Triangle base, and a place I didnât weâd see TWICE in this double miniseries. This being Magnetoâs base early on is not super consistent with early appearances of Magneto, the man who named his first base Asteroid M. However, the caption DOES say Year One [Ed. note:like Batman], which doesnât leave us much wiggle room. Xavier is in a wheelchair here though, while Moira has ditched the hat and big earrings. Clearly some time has passed.
RS: I believe this is the first time Octopusheim has been given an actual, in-canon name; and while I admire Magnetoâs consistency, come on man, youâre like a kindergartner just scribbling your initial on things. [Ed. note:I love the weird little leftover quirks from the Silver Age like Magneto always having a ridiculous super villain lair]
The other thing thatâs interesting to me about this page is the way Octopusheim is depicted. I donât think weâve ever seen it drawn like this before, a collection of classical architectural shapes in whites and golds surrounding a tower. What it really looks like itâs supposed to evoke is the tower of the House of M we saw in PoX #1. [Ed. note:And the tarot card, and the Tower of Nimrod the Lesser…]
Page 4:
CE: This takes place prior to Moira taking care of the âreduced to infancyâ Magneto, which makes me wonder how he knows her. Perhaps just by reputation, or this maybe DOES take place a few years post park bench.
RS: Iâm really struggling with the internal timeline here too. Is it possible that âYear Oneâ here could just refer to âYear Oneâ of Moira actually putting her plan into effect? Or âYear Oneâ of this alliance? HoX #2 referred to the recruitment of Magneto as Year 43, 26 years after she met Xavier. Proteus was born in Year 31, for additional context. [Ed. note:Only so much has been revealed, it is likely that there is more to the story]
Page 5:
I do. I decide.
Magneto
CE: Magneto is definitely not a moral relativism guy, which seems to work just fine for Moiraâs plans. This makes the entire arrangement seem extra sinister to me. [Ed. note:Not Sinister, though]. Itâs also a bit difficult for me to think that Magneto would just take off his helmet at this stage in the game. Perhaps the chasm hadnât widened enough yet.
RS: His morality here specifically seems to follow Nietzsche:
The noble type of man separates from himself the beings in whom the opposite of this exalted, proud disposition displays itself he despises them. […] The noble type of man regards himself as a determiner of values; he does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: What is injurious to me is injurious in itself; he knows that it is he himself only who confers honour on things; he is a creator of values.
Friedrich Nietzsche
from Helen Zimmernâs translation of Beyond Good and Evil
Page 6:
CE: The visions he sees here are likely from Moiraâs timelines but, we see some familiar stuff: a Sentinel killing Magneto, Magneto on trial (which happened in the 616 in Uncanny X-Men #200), Magneto in a tank staring at Nick Fury, and Magneto clashing with the demonic looking Shadow King.
RS: Moiraâs response to Magneto here contains an interesting qualification– âthat was as real as it getsâ (Emphasis added). Then Xavier refers not to the truth but âher truthâ (again, emphasis added).
Xavierâs articulation here of radical unity seems to suggest at first something rather simple– a rather big Mutant Team Up. By the end of this issue, weâll have seen the concept of radical unity taken to its horrifying, utmost extreme. In between those two points in time, weâve seen a number of events in HoXPoX that experiment with ideas of unity. In HoX #1, Xavier used telepathy to unite all mutants with language (and, as a result, culture) and used Krakoa to unite them politically. In PoX #1 we saw that Sinisterâs experiments with mutations were focused on unifying multiple powers into single entities as well as hiveminds. Far later in the timeline, we saw the apparent unification of mutant and machine (which, at least visually, begins in the Present Day of HoX #1). [Ed. note:Big Human Instrumentality Project energy]
Something to keep in mind going forward, HoXPoX is immediately following the Age of X-Man, [Ed. note:which no one read, which is a shame because it was a really interesting event] an event where Nate Grey teleported the vast majority of X-Characters into an alternate plane of existence, where he tried to create a utopia, founded on radical individuality. Nate Grey eliminated the concept of The Other, but in doing so also needed to eliminate the concepts of relationships or groups; the Nation of Krakoa has created, for humanity, the horrifyingly powerful, ultimate Other of a totally united and organized mutantkind. By the end of this issue, the individual will be subordinated to the collective to a degree that is extremely difficult for us individual minds to conceptualize.
Page 7:
CE: The difference between surviving and thriving seems to really be the difference that creates the nation of Krakoa. Seeing the partnership of Charles and Magneto early on makes me way more curious about every step of further continuity. Magnetoâs Claremont villainy, turning good, Mutant Genesis. Was it all part of the plan? We shall see.
RS: Heck, was the Magneto Schism recorded on the timeline part of the plan? [Ed. note:I have seen a lot of people talking about how maybe everything was a âworkâ, in wrestling terms. That all this was a planned thing. I hold that they used different means to get to the same end, but disagreed on the methods. They worked themselves into a shoot. All the fights were real, but there was a goal behind it. Also, I donât actually watch wrestling so donât tell me how I got all this wrong.]
Page 8:
CE: Title Page, as we know by now the Krakoan reads POWERS OF X.
We are Together Now, You and I.
RS: I struggled with this title, an exact match turned up exactly three wildly unlikely sources, but itâs such a simple phrase that searching for permutations would yield far too many results. So I called in my Tarot Guy Paul (who is not online, and who knows many wondrous things beyond Tarot), and he pretty instantly recognized Rumiâs poem âA Moment of Happiness.â [Ed. note:One of my favorite bands, mewithoutYou, has a heavy lyrical influence from Rumi] Now, like all the titles so far, this phrase is simple enough that itâs very possible no antecedent was intended– but also like all those titles, a huge connection immediately jumped out at me. Iâm just going to quote a few lines that, given the end of the issue, seem extremely, Significant:
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.
You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation, you and I. [Ed. note:In his poem A Great Wagon, Rumi writes âOut beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. Iâll meet you there.â which sure sounds like Magneto and Prof X to me.]
Page 9:
CE: We see the familiar honeycomb pattern of Solâs Hammer in the computer screen, which is now repurposed into the Mothermold. Iâm incredibly tickled by the concept of a Mastermold for Mastermolds. We have to go deeper.
RS: This page is the first time Iâve found Sentinels as a concept truly horrifying, for two reasons. First of all, the traditional Sentinel is just a bigger gun– and so they can be dealt with via very simple, human solutions. You just legislate them out of existence. You donât vote for the Sentinel Program. But once created, the Mothermold doesnât depend on humanity. Itâs humanityâs own hatred given independent form. Second of all, AI self-replication is a necessary cause for an apocalyptic grey goo scenario. [Ed. note:More on that in a minute]
Page 10:
CE: The catalyst for the Mothermold is a mutant âwhose reach exceeds his grasp.â This is not a phrase I would associate with any particular mutant but, the fact that Franklin Richards is the only mutant associated with humans currently gives me pause. [Ed. note:This could also refer to the catalyst for Orchis discussed in Hox #1]
Further down Magneto uses âOperation Paperclipâ as a verb. That was a very real program conducted by the postwar US to recruit Nazi scientists after World War II. [Ed. note:Which Hickman discussed in The Manhattan Projects] Considering HYDRAâs ties, this really isnât even a metaphor.
RS: One explanation of the Secret Empire controversy was a disconnect between how some members of Marvel Creative working on the story saw HYDRA– seemingly, primarily through the lens of Hickmanâs Secret Warriors retcons, which distance the organization from just being Nazis– and how many readers in 2017 saw HYDRA– seemingly, primarily through the lens of the MCU, which frames them as pretty much just Nazis. Hickman here seems to reinforcing the latter conception of the organization, seems to be emphasizing that, regardless of their backstory, HYDRA is and should be very much associated with Nazis.
Page 11:
CE: The mention of Nimrod is the first big bridge the X1 era and the X2 era. Granted, of course everyone in the room would know who Nimrod is due to time travel shenanigans. This calculation of a paradigm shift (previously used to talk about mutants) now talking about machines reminds me of the singularity.
The technological singularity refers to an undefined point in the future in which the rate of technological increase becomes uncontrollable, which would cause the aforementioned paradigm shift. The technological singularity is also talked about in the real world a lot in regards to nanotechnology. Also, this scene alludes to the dominance of machines later on in the issue.
RS: For more on Paradigm Shifts, how frightening they are, and how they mean a bit more than just âBig Changeâ (as the phrase is sometimes used colloquially), see the coiner of that term, Thomas Kuhnâs book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which argued that scientific progress is extremely chaotic. Think about the Copernican age; astronomers recording more and more data, even improving their modelsâ predictability by adding epicycles on epicycles, were never getting any closer to what weâd consider the Truth, and no amount of data, no amount of improvements on their models, could get them there. An account of the stars that approached the Truth would require the destruction of their most basic, foundational ideas about how reality itself functioned. [Ed. note: Or, if you donât want to read Kuhn, just keep reading HoXPoXToX as we demonstrate Kuhnâs theory every week, as no amount of data we provide manages to accurately account for what is Truly Happening in HoXPoX, as the series every week continue to shatter our assumptions and only make clear what weâve read once theyâve granted us a new paradigm with which we may examine prior issues.]
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CE: Scott Summers, everyone. This is pure distilled Slim.
RS: I also think that this is a powerful inversion of how someone who believes in Eternal Recursion (which we discussed in our coverage of House of X #2): âWhatever happens, must happenâ; that is, whatever will be done, needed to be done. Part of me is also taken a bit back by Scott here. So much of his arc over the past decade or more has concerned him stepping away from Xavier and becoming a leader in his own right– now heâs back to being the loyal soldier that does whatever is necessary for his leaderâs dream.
Page 13:
CE: Back to X2, right where we left off from Powers of X #1. We find out a little bit more about our mutant crew, specifically that Percival had the power to blackout, or presumably hide from the machines. Also, the mysterious speaker âThe Old Man,â references the Wolverine-esque figure in a way that makes me think he is a first generation Sinister mutant, which as you recall were basically direct clones of other mutants.
RS: At his first appearance we mentioned the Arthurian Percival and his connection to the Grail; Benito Cereno just wrote a wonderfully comprehensive introduction to that topic, if youâre interested in learning more.
Hmm, thatâs a weird way of phrasing things, in the third panel– the off-panel speaker might be referring to âWarâ the abstract concept, but it sounds like heâs referring to this Wolverine by name⌠almost like heâs the Horseman of War⌠waitaminute–
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CE: The Old Man is Apocalypse! [Ed. note:And he would have gotten away with it too, if it wasnât for those pesky kids ]I was pretty much completely swerved on this one, but itâs interesting to see the eternal mutant as the leader of the X-Men in the future. However, him being very willing to sacrifice everyone seems pretty in line with what we know of our pal En Sabah Nur.
RS: Though I do think this indicates a real shift in the way Apocalypse thinks. Itâs hard to smoothly sum up Apocalypseâs motivations over the decades, but in general we can say that heâs motivated by a radical belief, as we discussed last time, in the survival of the fittest– not that mutants are the fittest. If the machines were truly dominant, one might expect classic Apocalypse to back them, not remain with mutantkind till the bitter end. Now, if this timeline is the future of the 616, we would expect him to have changed, as, in the Age of X-Man, he learned the power of love.
Another interesting detail– we saw that Sarcophagus in HoX #2, in Moira IXâs lifetime, as well as on the cover of that issue.. Is that just background scenery, or does it contain the other living mutant on Asteroid M, the one unnamed in PoX #1?
CE: That being, perhaps, is Moira. This is the time Iâm going to bring up the big new theory Iâve seen: that the PoX timeline of X2 and X3 are in fact, Moira IXâs lifetime. With this issue, I think this theory is gaining quite a bit of clout and traction. Back in Powers of X #1, on Page 37 in fact, the code at the bottom refer to the MX Files (which I think we can safely say refers to Moira X, as I suspected back in that ToX).
However, it also states ML_09 along with APOC build. We suspected APOC referred to Apocalypse. After House of X #2âs Moira_L_TwoA code, which we assumed to refer to Moira Life 2, I think we can infer that this code could possibly refer to Moira Life IX. This would have incredible implications on the story, especially if Moira is the Eighth Mutant on Krakoa. Big thanks to @ISnowNothin on twitter for clueing me into this.
Page 15:
CE: We find out from Nimrod that what the X-Men stole was an indexing machine. Weâll find out more here later. The humans sassing him and then being immediately terrified definitely contradicts Nimrod stating that humans and machines were equals in the last issue. However, as he explains, Nimrod can lie all day.
RS: For me, this scene really confuses rather than clarifies that relationship between the factions. Forgetting yourself, muttering something snarky, then apologizing– this is the behavior of a subordinate to someone scary and powerful, but not someone worried that they might be murdered by the other person in the room. Humankind must be sufficiently subordinate to the machines that Nimrod can kill humans without thought, but not so far below that Nimrod makes this a habit.
CE: Boy does it seem like Machine-Human Ascendency is maybe not fully true though, eh?
Page 16:
RS: The obvious visual antecedent to a Dude Picking Up A Skull And Monologuing At It is Hamlet Act 5 Scene 1, âAlas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jestâ etc etc. But really this imageâs history is far broader, to all Arcadian art, memento mori, and so on.
CE: I enjoyed the phrasing that Truth tells us what the difference is between dark and light. It of course, was referring to Percivalâs blackout abilities but, it reminds of the Biblical first day of creation with the separation of the darkness from the light being an early act of truth. Anyway, Nimrods mean. [Ed. note:We love our problematic murder child]
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RS: The identity of the Tree Guy is revealed! Kind of! Itâs not Black Tom Cassidy as many suspected, but Doug Ramsey, the mutant known as Cypher??? At least, itâs Dougâs body, that seems to have been taken over by Krakoa.
CE: Doug seems to be able to easily form gestalts. A communication plus, I suppose.
RS: The problem Greenneto and Dougkoa discuss here, where the abundance of data makes it more rather than less difficult to find useful data– isnât a theoretical far future problem in a machine-state run by an AI– itâs a contemporary problem that any organization which touches Big Data– be it social media sites recording your every decision in order to pick a good ad which which to target you, or intelligence agencies spying on The Entire Internetâs Online Activity in order to find terrorists. And this problem even precedes the vast amounts of data provided by the internet; itâs caused problems for law enforcement for well over the past century.
RS: Two more minor notes: 1. that computer display is odd– itâs not showing us Krakoan. Is this the Machine Language? 2. This page contains the closest connection I can think of between Sir Percival and Percival the X-Man, [Ed. note:(RIP)]; Sir Percivalâs quest relied on his being able to ask the right questions at the right time, which very roughly parallels the X-Menâs need for the Index.
CE: Iâm with you on the machine language. Which is why they need the power of Cypher to talk to it.
Page 18:
RS: Confirmed that this is a Xorn! Unclear though if that means a pod person, a title, a clone, an Ultimate Universe doppelganger, a Magneto in disguise, etc etc.
RS: No Krakoan on this display either– instead codes that look a lot like the code weâve seen on infographic pages throughout these series.
CE: A quick reminder that SalCen refers to Salem Center, but in the far future refers to the Khennils where Cylobel was created. Seems they may have to go back.
Page 19:
RS: Apocalypseâs phrasing is interesting here– it implies he has knowledge of other timelines.
CE: This works with our Moira IX theory for certain. This may also be prior to the scene we saw in the last issue, where Apocalypse fights it out with Nimrod. Who knows though?
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RS: I was so excited to talk about the Celestial Spheres when I saw this symbol and the following page– but by the issueâs end, when we see the others, it looks far more likely that the design is supposed to be a riff on classical and quantum electron diagrams. Chris, could you give us an introduction to what those are?
CE: To be brief, atomic diagrams, in this case the Bohr-Rutherford diagrams, refer to atoms, showing their positively charged nucleus as one large circle, with electrons in orbitals around the central circle. The first orbital can hold 2, the second 8, the third 18…you can look this up if youâre interested. This diagram, however, would be nonsensical in terms of a Bohr-Rutherford, and instead just looks neat.
RS: âNimbusâ may make you think of Harry Potter or Dragon Ball– but the reference here may be, hilariously, to what is widely regarded as the worst Star Trek movie of all time, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, the only movie that has dared to ask the question, âWhat does God need with a starship?â That movie, concerned with godlike aliens beaconing to sci fi civilizations from the stars in order to escape their planetary confines, begins on the planet Nimbus III. Equally probable is that itâs a reference to the nimbus cloud in religious iconography; though ânimbusâ can be generally used to refer to any halo, itâs often applied to a glowing cloud [all hail?] which surrounds Jesusâ ascension.
Acts 1:9: âAnd when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sightâ (again, from the translation everyone knows, not any one that is actually decent). âAscensionâ is, weâll discover, the goal of the Librarian and lil Nimrod at this issueâs end.
RS: Also, for the record, this page confirms that not only was Zack right about Mars, but Chris, you and I were right about PLANET X: THE TENTH PLANET. Now if the World shows up, all Xavier Files-Adjace Conspiracy Theories will be proven accurate! [Ed. note:Every theory is right, every theory is wrong]
CE: We did it Rob.
CE: Anyway, this page refers to Nibiru, which is a fictional planet that was described by conspiracy theorists in the mid to late 90s, and also an ancient Akkadian term used to refer to the equinox, or a general âcrossing over.â Nibiru was said to be a celestial body that was destined to impact the Earth, which would obviously a bad time, but luckily for us was completely made up.. The Nibiru in our story though, sounds like a creative name for the possibly very real hypothesized Planet X, or now called Planet 9 [Ed. note:(RIP Pluto). ]This planet is hypothetical as of now, only as a possible reason to explain some odd gravity around some Kuiper Belt objects. However, if it exists it would be quite large, which would fit with this gas giant planet. Nibiru here would seem similar to Uranus and Neptune, which are referred to as ice giants due to their unique composition.
RS: Itâs interesting that Nimbus consumes specifically Titan, which is fairly important in the 616, as the home of Thanos. [Ed. note:It also ate Europa, a moon that served as a mutant refugee world in the 90s Guardians Of The Galaxy series]
CE: In case anyone is still concerned about this frozen gas giant theory, the ice giant planets that actually do exist do have iron and nickel cores, so this is still pretty in line. Weâll also get into this later, but the self-replicating machines consuming entire moons gives me the heebie-jeebies.
CE: Worldmind, in the Marvel Universe, usually refers to the Xandarian Worldmind used by the Nova Corps. It is a supercomputer that the Xandarians built over a million years, slowly amassing minds to add to its power. It gets used as a classification of Species Intelligence later.
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CE: Nimrodâs use of âuniversal predatorsâ definitely makes me think of Galactus, especially considering the capital âCâ Celestial resources mentioned. This is likely referring to the Celestials that seeded Earth so long ago, and left some odds and ends around. Galactus specifically acting as a predator to Celestials was a big part of the alternate universe Earth X story.
RS: See Avengers vol 8 #1-6 for the most recent details on the relationship between Celestials and the 616 Earth.
Page 22:
CE: The imagery here of dust reminds me of the hypothetical concept of gray goo, or death by nanoswarms. This is a scenario postulated by Eric Drexler in which nanomachines that self-replicate reproduce out of control and thus consume the entire Earth for resources, possibly even moving throughout the solar system and beyond. Itâs an absolutely terrifying scenario, which the Phalanx here definitely evoke. In case you would like to explore the consuming of moons and out of control nanomachines, both are referenced in the Revelation Space series by Alastair Reynolds. I have a small inkling that some of that inspired this issue.
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CE: Alright, we need to address the Phalanx, which as of this issue seem to have experienced a big retcon. Classically, the Phalanx are an offshoot of the Technarchy, which is a specific civilization that old friend Warlock comes from. The Technarchy are very individualistic and spread a techno-organic virus to eat, as they have to first transform biological matter into techno matter. However, Phalanx go through a life-cycle of infecting others, Borg style. Hardwired by the Technarchy, when they reach a critical mass they form a Babel Spire, which is a giant transmitter tower that informs the Technarchy of their presence.
The Technarchy abhors the presence of the Phalanx, and comes to wipe them. This was ALSO a retcon of the original appearance of the Phalanx in the Phalanx Covenant story but, now weâre in the weeds.
RS: I am extremely worried about what this retcon means for selfâs favorite New Mutant and very good robot boy.
Page 24:
WE-[PHALANX]-SAW-THE-WHISPERING-GODS-BEHIND-IT
Them [Phalanx]
RS: This exact phrasing stuck out to me for two reasons. First of all, HoXPoX has been concerned with godhood and mutants-as-gods since the first issue. Second of all, Marvelâs other ongoing story right now which leaps across massive gaps in time, including to the far future of the 616, is also concerned with godhood, as Jason Aaronâs Thor stars, well, Thor. I do wonder if this timeline is meant to coexist with that future 616 (or with Hickmanâs own future 616 glimpsed in his Avengers run), or if theyâll just be ignored. I do really hope, very much against all odds, that we see how the fairly hard scifi conception of AI societies established here interact with the Marvel worlds of literal gods and magic.
CE: I dig this Proxima Midnight style helmet. A familiar motif. [Ed. note:Kevin Feige is a coward for not putting this hat in the biggest movie of all time]
RS: So, the word Ascension is obviously laden with religious connotations. Itâs the word Christians use to refer to the scene quoted earlier, when Jesus, forty days after Easter, stops teleporting around his disciples to dare them to stick their fingers in his guts and instead flies on back up to heaven. A scene like this– an ascension of not One Dude but of trillions or more– matches certain Christian ideas about the apocalypse.
We talked about the Rapture before, in our coverage of House of X # 1. There we focused on the typical Fundamentalist Christian take, that the Rapture happens at the beginning of the Apocalypse, before the Great Tribulation, and we talked about how Xavierâs removal of all mutants from the human world to Krakoa paralleled that take. What we see here instead resembles the take of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and, I believe, many mainline Protestant Churches: that only at effectively the end of time, after all the horrors of the End Times, will the faithful ascend. Now, in our discussion of House of X #1, we also talked about how Xavier could resemble, instead of a Christ causing a Rapture, an anti-Christ. Here too the Fundamentalist might see something demonic; transhumanism is associated by many Fundamentalists with Satanism, and by some Fundamentalists, specifically, the kind who might go on to the Jim Baker Show to talk about Blood Moons, with the Anti-Christ.
Page 25:
CE: Itâs interesting to note that while âIntelligencesâ are often based on pre-existent beings, that further up the scale they tend not to be. This is somewhat contradicted by the already existing Worldmind from the Nova Corps, which is definitely based on pre-existent beings.
Page 26:
RS: âTechnarchâ/ âSrvs blindâ // âPhalanxâ/ ârules allâ is pretty self explanatory. âOriâ is Latin for âMouth.â
CE: The âKvchâ referred to here is a retcon of Kvch being the dead homeworld of the Technarchy. This is a really interesting retcon if youâve read above, as the Technarchy in the past seemed to be somewhat masters of the Phalanx, or at least the pest control for them. This now states that the Technarchy have no idea that others Technarchies exist and also do not know that they are subordinate to the Phalanx. This indicates, ultimately, that back in the Phalanx Covenant story, the techno-organic virus accidentally released would have called the Technarchy to remove the waste of 1990s human waste from the universe as opposed to the human race ascending. The human manufactured nature of the Phalanx in that story muddies this a bit.
RS: âBabel spireâ is interesting here, given the immediately preceding events of the issue. The story of the Tower of Babel can be found in Genesis 11; the people of Earth build a Tower to reach heaven and God, fearing that the people might become Like Unto God, creates diversity: He gives humankind multiple languages and as a result scatters them across the Earth into seperate cultures. The Babel Spire seems to do the opposite: it destroys mediocre civilizations, civilizations that arenât striving for great heights, by imposing the deadly uniformity.
Now, friend of the ToX Zach Rabiroff has picked up on some really interesting Babel Content in the preceding issues; see 52:00-52:52 and 1:01:03-1:02:42 of Fangirl, Zach and Krisis Judge Your Favorite Comic – Powers of X #1, and see this twitter thread. Zach notes that the biblical figure Nimrod is associated in extra-scriptural traditions with the Tower of Babel, and further examines how from the first issue, HoXPoX seems fairly concerned with the Babel story and related themes. I think this issue supports Zachâs read that Hickman is using these traditions of Nimrod as he develops the X-Men character Nimrod, not just because a âbabel spireâ is referenced in this comic, but because the creation of a technological wonder that brings about the attention of beings who are practical gods and the ascension of this civilization to a godlike state is accomplished specifically through Nimrod (the entire plan seems to be a joint effort between the Librarian and Nimrod the Lesser, and Nimbus travels to Nibiru in a Nimrod shell).
CE: Quick notes on the Kardashev Scale, this is a classic scale of a civilizationâs level of technological advance based on their energy utilization.
- Type I: A civilization that utilizes all the energy on its planet.
- Type II: A civilization that utilizes all of the energy in its solar system.
- Type III: A civilization that utilizes all of the energy in its galaxy.
RS: Looking at either the Hickman or the Kardashev scale for too long just makes me dizzy. I mean, the scale is just so huge, and we are so, so far from reaching even Type I (and while weâre talking about scale, I do find it hilarious that we got a second example of escalation-via-powers-of-ten this issue. Are we going to get a new one every time?)
Page 27:
CE: The Machine design being a hydrogen atom, the symbol of Watchmenâs Dr. Manhattan, as the lowest level of intelligence is an incredible dunk. [Ed. note:And now thanks to Doomsday Clock, a dunk on all of DC ]The rest of these donât represent any specific atomic diagrams but do look neat. The codes read planetary, galactic, universal which I suppose are scales. Universal would represent the not classical but sometimes mentioned Kardashev Type IV civilization, would could harness all energy in the universe.
Page 29:
RS: This quote is again strongly, strongly paraphrasing the Rumi poem linked earlier, but after the Borg Moment at the end of this issue, the idea of the poem, the âunselfingâ of two individuals to become an âusâ– is much, much creepier.
CE: Look, gray goo is the future.
Page 30:
Krakoan here reads: Next: This is what you do
CE: More hints of Apocalypse in the code.
Page 31:
Krakoan here reads: Then: Once More Unto The Breach
RS: This is of course a reference to Henry Vâs famous command in Henry V, Act III Scene 1. More importantly, itâs a line in the Mountain Goats song âPossum By Night.â
CE: I feel like this is where our big fight is coming.
Final Thoughts:
RS: This issue reminded me a lot of New X-Men, for better or worse. Morrison oftentimes wasnât interested in using the X-Men to explore the nature of oppression, to tell a story about a world that hates and fears these characters. That was there, of course– in the Genoshan genocide, in the mutant counter-culture– but it often took a back seat to what he really wanted to explore: the nature of evolution and progress. This issue is really exciting– it broadens what the X-Men can do massively. It puts the X-Story in dialogue with some of the classics of science fiction as well as the topics and types of stories at the bleeding edge of that genre today. But I really do worry that, like New X-Men, that expansion may come at the cost of the core concept of the X-Men. If the story is about the singularity, artificial intelligence, and the extreme extrapolation of transhumanism, Iâm not sure it can also still be a story about people who live in a world that hates and fears them. Still, I hope that worry is unfounded, and Iâm excited to see whatâs next.
CE: Rob I definitely see that critique as a valid one, and if this issue was by itself I would completely agree. I think the oppression and cultural angles of mutantkind are more purposefully being explored in House of X, while leaving Powers of X to discuss these notions of evolutionary change and posthumanism. This issue didnât blow my mind quite as hard as the last one but, it did make me really happy that a year ago I really dug into the concept of Phalanx. However, I think theyâre going to be quite a bit different here. Itâs also exciting to see the genre conventions that Hickman et al are inspired by in creating this issue, and the rest of this miniseries in general. I like comic creators who are inspired by a well-rounded variety of fictions and concepts. This isnât really using deep continuity in a confusing way but, applying outside motifs to concepts we already are familiar with in exciting ways. Anyway, we get the direct continuation of this issue next week, and Iâm ready to see it.
Chris Eddleman is a biologist and co-host of Chrises On Infinite Earths
Robert Secundas is a Private X-Investigator and amateur-angelologist-for-hire
Chris Eddleman is a biologist and co-host of Chrises On Infinite Earths.
Robert Secundus is an amateur-angelologist-for-hire.
