But if there is one character who is closest to being the main protagonist of the book, it would be Cyclops. In each of the six issues, the team roster changes, which allows Hickman to show a variety of character dynamics. Despite the heavy emphasis on sci-fi, Hickman never skimps on the family soap opera element that has defined the X-Men for years, even if Cyclops is the father of two time-travelling children. After saving the captured young mutants from the facility, the X-Men return home as the rest of the issue displays the domestic lives of the mutants through the lens of the Summers family. The first issue sets the tone for the rest of the volume by beginning with an action sequence in which the X-Men (Cyclops, Storm, Magneto and Polaris) infiltrate a facility belonging to Orchis, a human-led organization dedicated to a response to a “doomsday” scenario involving an extinction-level population of Homo superior. You would get a better appreciation of what Hickman is doing here if you have read House of X and Powers of X, which provide more insight into the world-building as well as the conflict between mutantdom and humanity, which is ultimately about survival. If you know anything about X-Men comics (or superhero comics in general), you know they are built on long-form storytelling, and so there are details here that require some pre-existing knowledge. In this relaunch that spawned six initial titles, Hickman writes the main X-Men title, with the eponymous team being seen as heroes who are assigned to ensure the safety and security of the first mutant society: the island-nation of Krakoa. Despite the number of relaunches that the X-Men have gone through in the last decade, the “Dawn of X” relaunch grabbed my attention, beginning with Jonathan Hickman writing the House of X/Powers of X crossover event that set up the new status quo for mutantdom. As much as I love the X-Men, I’ve often struggled to find a good starting point with the comics (with the exception of Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men, which I would recommend to anyone).

X men vol 1 hickman