SyFyWire: After fan-favorite X-Men writer Jonathan Hickman mutated the comic series into two killer tales, House of X and Powers of X, he kicked off a whole new world for the ever-growing band of mutantkind in the Marvel comic world. Now, with some new books - like Giant-Size X-Men - flowing from his pen after the Dawn of X broke, the author's X-focused panel at C2E2 2020 broke down the future of mutantkind - manifesting as the next step in Hickman's grand X-plan: X of Swords.
The panel - which also featured Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski, Senior Editor Jordan D. White, and other X-men creators like Gerry Duggan, Tini Howard, Benjamin Percy, Vita Ayala, and Leah Williams - touched on plenty of other X-stories and their gorgeous covers, but Swords was the big draw.
The crossover storyline, which will affect the entire X-Men line, follows in the wordplay (letterplay?) tradition of Hickman's previous series, with another meaning referring to the Ten of Swords tarot card that symbolizes a destructive situation pinning down the subject - something that could be quite potent for a team of mutant superheroes.
The 15-part crossover led by Head of X Jonathan Hickman will show how ten mutants become the heroes that must defend their home of Krakoa. Armed with swords from all over the Marvel universe - past and present - they fight, slice, and stab towards mutantkind's ultimate, mystical destiny as this series looks to inform the future of the X-Men line at large.
In X of Swords, mutanddom society will be threatened “by powerful forces from the unknown,” according to a Marvel press release, and “ten mutants will rise up to defend their home. Arming themselves with legendary blades, both new and familiar ones from Marvel history, mutantkind will finally meet its mystical destiny.” Hickman will writing the “tentpoles” of the series alongside Exalibur scribe Tini Howard. Excalibur being both the current X-Men line’s magic-focused book, and the name of a legendary sword.
“For so long, my life has been out of control. Chaos and serendipity, wrapped in insanity. I have suffered, I have lost. Not just my life, but my very soul, my self. But no more. Now I know who I am.” – Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Braddock, daughter of Otherworld, mutant, telepath, telekinetic, defender of the realm and, above all, X-Man.
