X Of Swords: Creation #1

The first big X-Men crossover of the Krakoa era starts her in X Of Swords: Creation, by writers Jonathan Hickman and Tini Howard, artist Pepe Larraz, colorist Marte Gracia, and letterer Clayton Cowles. This book plays with a lot of plot threads laid throughout X-Men and Excalibur, and it’s honestly a bit impenetrable.

This is usually the part where there would be a summary but even after reading this book, summarizing it is a bit difficult. There’s a lot going on- four beings who turn out to be Apocalypse’s children and his first Horsemen are conquering the kingdoms of Otherworld, Summoner returns from his mission to Otherworld with a wounded Banshee, Apocalypse takes a team of X-Men through the gate to Otherworld where they meet up with the First Horsemen and get betrayed. There’s also Opal Luna Saturnyne, the ruler of Otherworld, playing her games, Cable, Cyclops, and Jean Grey going to the Peak, the orbital station headquarters of S.W.O.R.D., and more.

So, let’s get this out of the way- beginning a 22-part sword and sorcery epic this soon into Dawn Of X is… mystifying. Dawn Of X has been building a lot of story arcs, telling sci-fi stories, or setting up the new status quo, fleshing things out. That’s not to say that the things in this issue has not been set up- the stuff with Apocalypse, the First Horsemen, Arakko and Krakao, and such has been built up since House Of X/Powers Of X and in X-Men and some of the Otherworld stuff has been referenced in Excalibur. Still, no one would have guessed this was where the first year of Dawn Of X would go. Is that a bad thing? No, but it’s also a non sequitur- it does not follow what Dawn Of X has been about.

So, is this a bad comic or is story a bad idea? No. This is a pretty good comic, and the yarn it’s telling feels intriguing.. It’s stuffed to the gills with content and set-up, making it a good thing it’s 68 pages long, but it’s just hard to describe what’s going on in any kind of concise manner. There’s a steep X-Men learning curve as well. Take Opal Luna Saturnyne. She’s the Omniversal Majestrix and was a big part of stories involving the original Excalibur and the Captain Britain Corps. Even if someone has been reading the current Excalibur, knowing who she is a hard thing. The same with some of the relationships between characters and so on. This is a good book, but it’s not for new readers.

Pepe Larraz does the art, and as usual, his art is pretty great. He’s working with his long time colorist Marte Gracia, and everything looks great. The page that shows the First Horsemen and their army shows off the power of that frightening force that has been sacking kingdom after kingdom of Otherworld. There’s a lot of great scenes throughout this book.

X Of Swords: Creation is a tough comic to recommend. It’s not a bad comic- it’s well made, the story works, the art is good. However, it’s still kind of a hard sell because this is the beginning of a 22-part storyline, and it doesn’t feel like there are 22 issues of story here. The set-up is good, but as with any huge event story, one has to judge the first issue on something besides how good the first part is and on what the story that comes after is going to be like. This event story is especially huge, with few other stories in recent memory being this big. As good as this issue is, what comes next is still a hard sell.

Grade: C+