House of X #5: Hickman gets right to the point here: resurrection.
The mutant with fire in his eyes that we saw in issue #1 was Scott, not Vulcan, as the mutants who sacrificed their lives at the Forge are now resurrected. How? Man, Hickman really sells you on the how. Happily, he uses characters that Bendis created as the answer, something I love when authors do. I was worried Hickman's reboot would gloss over some of the X-Men's recent past. It often happens with reboots: we focus on the old days and not the recent ones. Instead, Hickman really leans into Bendis' run, and I loved it.
First, Goldballs "seemingly benign and pointless power" is key to the whole process: they're not balls, but eggs. Then, we learn that Proteus has been freed to help: with his intervention, the eggs become viable. (I do hope Hickman at some point explains how Proteus become manageable because, man, I'd call that revelation a pretty significant change in the status quo.) Then, the DNA of a mutant is injected and Elixir uses his powers to kickstart cellular replication. Eva Bell then uses her powers to advance time to age the mutant to the correct age. Hope oversees the entire process, enabling everyone to operate at their peak and in unison. The end result? Resurrection. Charles then uses Cerebro to take a copy of their mind -- "the essence, the anima" -- and transfer it to the body. In one of the interstitial pages, we learn that Charles backs up the minds of every mutant mind. (The DNA comes from Sinister's files, natch.) Interestingly, it means all their wounds should be healed; in doing so, Hickman resolves the eye that Cyclops lost under Rosenberg's run, for example.
But. Hickman doesn't stop there. Magneto starts the issue by noting that humans created society when they moved form hunting-gathering to agriculture, deciding that they had ownership over fertile land. Here, Hickman expands on that premise as Storm serves as a high priestess of sorts at a ceremony before the assembled mutants of Krakoa. After the resurrected mutant answers a question that Storm asked him, Storm announces to the mutants that she knows him. Hickman is making it clear that the mutants are creating their own society, complete with a resurrection-based religion.
That said, he doesn't make it too easy, what the Five are doing. For example, Proteus burns out his host body at some point, meaning that they have to create a husk from Charles' genetic base each time that he needs a new one. At current levels, it will take 300 years to bring back everyone who died, notably the 16 million people who died on Genosha. It's possible that the Five might become more efficient, but Charles would also need to teach other telepaths to use Cerebro properly to match their pace.
Hickman also sets the stage for future stories -- and underlines the troubling ethical questions of what they're doing -- by noting that they haven't seen what happens when a mind is implanted in a different husk and that Charles will need to set up a team to ensure that mutants who suffer suspicious deaths are actually dead. I mean, how Charles is this entire endeavor? He used Sinister to steal everyone's DNA and he himself has been stealing their minds? I could see a scenario where a mutant is resurrected against his will, eventually leading a revolt against Charles.
The issue wraps up no less spectacularly than it starts. In fact, this issue is where Hickman really puts all his cards on the table. Emma uses her powers to convince the Russian ambassador to support recognizing Krakoa as a nation. Charles tells Emma that domination has a consequence for both sides of that equation. Just when you're ready to chortle with the irony of him lecturing anyone about domination, Charles thanks Emma for her service and seems ready to make her Secretary of State. Several nations refuse to acknowledge Krakoa, and we learn that Charles and Magneto deem them enemies of the state. Speaking of enemies, Charles and Magneto call all the X-Men's enemies "home," including Apocalypse, who accepts their offer by acknowledging their dominion. Sure, that's going to last.
All in all, it's now pretty clear where Hickman is going. Charles and Magneto have their relatively secure mutant state with an enviable amount of resources. I wonder how it'll all go wrong.
The Weatherman #4: Holy shit. Man, LeHeup really kicks it up a notch here.
First, he foreshadows Ian Black's return when Cross has Nathan practice firing a gun. After Nathan misses numerous times, he "freeballs" it, firing dramatically and randomly. It looks like he accidentally hit the target once, but when the Marshall takes a look at it later it turns out Nathan hit it in the same place all five times. Ruh-roh.
The team then makes its way to the arctic research station, called Syngen Station, where Nathan accidentally releases an experiment, separating him from Cross and Dr. Argus as they all flee the rampaging monster. When she and Dr. Argus arrive at Nyseth's office, Cross is surprised that Kestrel and her goons are there. (We later learn that they dug up Nyseth's corpse to gain access. Heh.) Nathan flees Kestrel's troops, stumbling across his memory drive. As the goons arrive, he disappears into the air vent and the goons take anything that looks important -- including Ian's memory drive -- with them. The ships depart with everyone but Nathan. Suddenly Ian Black emerges, noting that it's the first time that Nathan's been alone. At his urging, Nathan leaves behind his gun and walks towards the biophagus horde approaching him to give it "justice."
We then move to Skyborough, which we learn is where Kestrel and the survivors live. It's an invisible floating station above New York City originally created as a prison but then as public housing, "a floating favela of the poor and the powerless." Now, it's all that remains of the American people. Cross tells Kestrel that they're just searching for Black's memory to prevent what happened to them from happening to Mars. But, Kestrel points out the enormous furnaces the "Solar Council" has been dropping on Earth to elevate its temperature to the point where the virus will die -- they'll also kill the survivors, but Earth can be recolonized. Cross begs for her to help save billions of innocent people, and Kestrel pulls a knife on her, telling her that she'd slaughter them all with her bare hands if it saved just one of her people. Understandably, she says that they've suffered enough. Kestrel then informs Cross that she'll be on the surface transport the next day.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on Skyborough, someone recruits the kid from issue #1 whose father too his place for the Sword of God to help "end the tyranny of human life." Then, a shuttle from Syngen Station arrives, but it isn't cleared to land. It does so anyway, and the troops go to meet it. A trooper like them emerges -- and then detonates himself. It turns out he's a biophagus...and it's Nathan. Dun-dun-DUN!
Also Read: Guardians of the Galaxy #9
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