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This article contains spoilers for X-Force #9 and Excalibur #9.
It’s official: Marvel’s X-Men timeline isn’t making any sense at all. Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men relaunch has turned the entire Marvel Universe upside-down. The entire mutant race has gathered on the living island of Krakoa, and they’re attempting to forge a new life – one of peace, rather than conflict.
Hickman’s relaunch has been running for over seven months now, but he’s taking a slow-burn approach. The narrative is building up quite slowly; plot threads involving the Children of the Vault and Mystique have only recently been picked up. But this week’s X-Men comics have hinted Hickman – and his fellow writers – are telling the story out of sequence.
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Tini Howard’s Excalibur has seen Apocalypse manipulate the mutant race into conquering the mystical dimension of Otherworld. Finally, in Excalibur #9 the ancient mutant finally reveals his goal. “Krakoa is only half of a whole,” he explains. “Forever longing. And I made it that way.” He’s recalling his first visit to Krakoa, glimpsed in Powers of X #4, when the island of Okkara became a gateway for a race of demonic invaders. Apocalypse used a mysterious weapon called the Twilight Sword to tear Okkara apart – into two parts, Krakoa and Arakko. Here’s the catch, though; back in November last year, Marvel published X-Men #2, in which Krakoa and Arakko were reunited. Clearly all of Excalibur – Betsy Braddock’s becoming Captain Britain, Jamie Braddock conquering Otherworld, and their latest quest to the Starlight Citadel – is actually setup for X-Men #2. The Hickman era is actually out of order.
Meanwhile, X-Force #9 makes the same point, albeit in a more subtle way. It sees X-Force return to the island of Terra Verde, which they visited in X-Force #6; that issue ended with Beast unwittingly creating a new race of bio-engineered Sentinel beings. However, according to Beast’s notes in X-Force #9, several months have passed between these two issues.
Jonathan Hickman is a gifted writer, and he has significant creative control over the entire X-Men franchise right now. As a result, it’s clear he’s made the creative choice to play around with the timeline. Readers should be very wary of assuming everything runs in strict chronological order; the story is far more intelligent than that. Meanwhile, the really interesting question is just how the X-books currently relate to the rest of the Marvel Universe; is it possible some of these issues – such as X-Men #1 and the unification of Krakoa and Arakko – are still in the “future?”
Excalibur #9 and X-Force #9 are now on sale now from Marvel Comics.
